Curricula and Programming
Here are just some of the programs and curricula I created or brought to UUI during the time I served there.
Children and Youth
UU Trading Card Game
A game for 4th and 5th graders to play each week where they could collect cards of different famous Unitarians, Universalists, and Unitarian Universalists, with prizes at the end of the game.
Holy Week Through a UU Lens
A telling of the story of Christian Holy week with illustrations created in legos. One of the goals is to introduce common sayings in the English language, such as “doubting Thomas”, “Judas” and “cross to bear”.
Minecraft
We created a UU world in Minecraft where we could discuss ethical questions, build UU churches, create covenant, and explore some of life’s big questions.
Passports
Passports is a curriculum that is based on a different theme each week, such as love, welcoming, friendship, journeys, gratitude, etc. The theme is explored through stations for art, story, song, movement, and activity. Children have a passport they can stamp at each station, and they can choose to participate in one station or all stations. It’s a radically welcoming experience that’s not at all like school.
Death and the Afterlife for Elementary Children
This is a curriculum about afterlife beliefs of ancient civilizations, several modern faith traditions, and including what Unitarian Universalists believe. We explore what participants believe right now, recognizing that our beliefs can change over our lifespan. We conclude the experience with a tour of a local funeral home (sans embalming area) with the grownups of our family joining us.
Summer Peace Camp
This is a one-week Unitarian Universalist camp for kids! We’ve done different themes such as outer space and science. We include small group meeting time, crafts, outdoor time, games, chapel, singing, free play time, peaceful practices workshops, etc.
You are UU! Curriculum
For this curriculum we learned about a new UU principle for eight weeks. Each week we lit the chalice, learned about a “UU hero of the week” related to the principle, sang a UU hymn such as Spirit of Life, listened to a wisdom story that went along with the principle, and played UU trivia for prizes.
Youth
Coming of Age
OWL
Youth Overnights
Youth CONs
Environmental Petition
Our Environmental Sustainability Committee was looking for signatures on a Sierra Club petition for air quality so we created a field trip to a local park where the youth canvassed for signatures. We then went to a movie theater to watch a movie they chose as a group.
Summer Peace Camp
Each year during Peace Camp our Junior and Senior High Youth are camp counselors. We also work into the schedule time for them to have their own camp experience. This way they have the opportunity for leadership and to work with the younger children and they also have time to build their own community.
Online Chopped Challenge
A version of the tv game show Chopped was brought to the youth group during Covid and it was really fun! I provided each youth with a bag of groceries. Each bag contained the same ingredients. We all met on zoom and everyone was given a category (dessert) and a time limit. Then they and their family created their Chopped Challenge entry with whatever ingredients they had where they were cooking and the challenge was to incorporate everything from the bag of groceries I supplied. Then we all tasted our creations and voted. This is one of the areas where being very plugged in to the online DRE community is so helpful! Another DRE shared a way of judging this that was really wonderful and worked well.
Virtual Youth Group
During COVID we ran a virtual youth group where we would meet every Sunday afternoon to play games and touch base.
Youth Family Dinner
I found a great way to kick off the new church year was to have a youth dinner where we invited their families to join us. This way we can give the grownups and the youth an overview of what is possible for the coming year, talk about making a commitment to community, and get everyone on the same page. We all meet as a group, then during part of the evening, youth play games with youth facilitators and I meet with parents.
Adult
“Coming of Age” for Adults
Inspired by the awesome youth "Coming of Age" program at UUI, but designed for adults, this was a fun, engaging, and challenging 4 session journey of self-reflection and discovery to help participants get more in touch with who they are and what they’re about. The program was led by the minister and me. Each session began with a shared meal and included activities intended to appeal to a variety of learning styles.
“The Body is Not An Apology” by Sonya Renee Taylor Book Discussion Group
Second Sunday Program
Each Second Sunday of the month after the service we had a shared multi-generational meal in the Social Hall followed by a variety of activities for all ages. I designed this program and ran it for several years. The goals were to provide opportunities to build community, provide multi-generational time together, nurture our families, and offer faith development programming at a time when many people are already at church.