Religious Education Staff:  The 4-6 year olds are taught by Alida Davis; 7-9 year olds by Julie Pawelek Jacobs;  and 10-14 year olds by Sarah Cannon. 

Youth:  This year the RE Committee is working on developing a youth group for teens, ages 14-17.  Parents with youths ages 13-17 who would be interested in attending UU Utica youth events this year should email Sarah Cannon at saillenotsallie@gmail.com so that she can compile an email  list to keep them informed of upcoming activity dates.  Ideas and volunteers are both warmly   welcomed!

       Elizabeth Gates, Chair                                                                Sarah Cannon
       Deborah Wilson-Allam                                                                        Alida Davis
       Rev. Lucy Ijams                                                                                           Julie Pawelek Jacobs
                               
WE NEED VOLUNTEERS!  We are in dire need of volunteers in all of our RE Classes.  Volunteer Sign-up sheets are on the classroom doors. Please sign up as you are able!
- Elizabeth Gates

Kids’ Change Jar:  Each Sunday, the children are given the opportunity to contribute change to a big mason jar when they come forward during the service.  These monies are donated to
charities of the children’s choice.

Food Bank:  Thank you for continuing to support our  “ Philosophy for Kids” service project; by doing so you are teaching our youth how important it is to help others in need.  The Community Food Bank is very grateful for your donations.  Thanks for your support.

Borrow Bags

We now have "borrow bags" available for parents with small children who may yet be uncomfortable with the nursery. The bags consist of "quiet toys and books" allowing children to join their parents in the sanctuary for the service. Speakers are also set up in the parlor in case you need to leave the room. This way you won't miss the service.  Ask an usher for a "borrow bag".  We have a policy of requiring parents to pick up their children from the RE classroom after the service. No child will be permitted to leave at the end of class without a parent.  Please stop by the RE rooms by 11:45 to get your students.
We appreciate your cooperation with this policy.
 

About our Program

Policy & Procedures for Religious Education Classes and Activities

• There will be 2 adults present at all times with children in classes.
• Background checks for staff and volunteers required; paid for and arranged by RE Committee.
• Nursery will open before service and nursery children are to be released ONLY to parents.
• Spirit Play participants will come to service with parents.  After “Story for All Ages” children will follow leaders to the Spirit Play room.  Parents will pick up their own children after classes end.
• We Care children ages 10-14 will go directly to the parlor at 10:30 a.m. and will be released after service.
• Each child may contribute to an offering during the “Story for All Ages” or in “We Care”.

What is SpiritPlay?
SpiritPlay is a new Unitarian Universalist model of religious education, developed by Nita Penfold, D.Min, Rev. Ralph Roberts, and Beverly Leute Bruce. Dr. Penfold will be coming in May to our congregation in Utica to train religious educators and teachers in our St. Lawrence District in this exciting model!
SpiritPlay is a Unitarian Universalist model of religious education that teaches through wondering, stories, art; it is based on Montessouri methods.

The program:
  encourages independent thinking through wondering questions;
  gives children real choices within the structure of the classroom;
  creates communities of children in mixed-age classrooms;
  develops an underlying sense of the wonder and mystery of life; and
  supports congregational polity through the choices in lessons;

Volunteers who have taught and used the SpiritPlay model report that their own spiritual lives were greatly enriched and enhanced. SpiritPlay integrates easily with regular worship and with social justice, unifying the three core aspects of congregational life: worship, religious education, and faith in action.
SpiritPlay’s stories engage eight areas:
1. Promise stories
2. Sources and Traditions stories
3. Stories of Mystery
4. Beginnings and Endings
5. Sacred Places
6. Spiritual Practices
7. Liturgical (Worship) Practices
8. Unitarian Universalist History
This program tends to engage children where they are and helps them live into their own answers to the abiding questions. The environment, the multisensory approach, the wondering questions, the learning centers, the stories, and the community of children and teachers (and parents) are absolutely appropriate for Unitarian Universalist children and Religious Education Programs. The model engages multiple learning styles and challenges; helps children learn to make meaning of mysteries they encounter; and presents the core stories of our particular faith and theology, inviting children into becoming Unitarian Universalists. It is a model of religious education that engages children from pre-K through grade 4.
 
 

Development of an Identificatlon with the Unitarian Universalist denomination and an understanding of the UU Principles & Purposes, listed below.

Assist our children in exploring the world's religions.

Enhance the children's involvement with each other and the congregation.

Provide a safe place to promote the use of natural curiosity.

Adults:  We believe in the inherent dignity and worth of every person.

Children: We believe that each and every person is important.
 

Adults: We believe in justice, equity and compassion in human relations.

Children: We believe that all people should be treated fairly.
 

Adults: We believe in acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.

Children: We believe that our Churches are places where all people are accepted, and where we keep on learning together.
 

Adults: We believe in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.

Children: We believe that each person must be free to search for what is right and true in life.
 

Adults: We believe in the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.

Children: We believe that everyone should have a vote about the things that concern them.
 

Adults: We believe in the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.

Children: We believe in working for a peaceful, fair and free world.
 

Adults: We believe in respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Children: We believe in caring for our planet Earth.

Some beliefs are like walled gardens. They encourage exclusiveness,
and the feeling of being especially privileged.
Other beliefs are expansive, and lead the way into wider and deeper sympathies.

Some beliefs are like shadows, darkening children's days with fears of unknown calamities.
Other beliefs are like sunshine, blessing children with the warmth of happiness.

Some beliefs are divisive separating the saved from the unsaved, friends from enemies.
Other beliefs are bonds in a universal brotherhood where sincere differences beautify the pattern.

Some beliefs are like blinders, shutting off the power to choose
one's own direction.
Other beliefs are like gateways, opening up wide vistas for exploration.

Some beliefs weaken a child's selfhood. They blight the
growth of resourcefulness.
Other beliefs nurture self-confidence and enrich the
feeling of personal worth.

Some beliefs are rigid, like the body of death,
impotent in a changing world.
Other beliefs are pliable, like the young sapling,
ever growing wIth the upward thrust of lIte.

- - -from Today's Children and Yesterday's Heritage by Sophia Fahs

We are still collecting donations to the Heifer International project. We are asking each child to do a job at home that will earn a dollar, and in turn contribute the dollar to this worthy cause. Our goal is $20 with which we will “purchase” a flock of chicks. These chicks will be sent to a needy family in Afghanistan. You don’t have to be a child in the RE program to contribute. If you would like to donate to this project contact an RE committee member or one of the RE teachers.

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When we adults think of children, there is a simple truth which we ignore; childhood is not preparation for life, childhood is life. A child isn’t getting ready to live, a child is living.
         - John A. Taylor