Visitors - For Families and Youth
Families and youth are important to our congregational life. We maintain an active religious education program to support them. We seek to teach our children to be critical spiritual thinkers who search out their own beliefs with the guidance of their parents, religious education teachers and the congregation's membership and staff. We strive to make our children feel welcome in both the religious education as well as the larger congregational community.
Our children and youth begin each Sunday in the Sanctuary with their parents.
This helps the children to become comfortable with the worship life of the
congregation. It also affirms that that are truly part of the life of the
Society.
Children spend about 45 minutes with their teachers each Sunday using a curriculum to explore religious issues and working on interactive projects, crafts, games or discussion. Each class has a three-member teacher team that they are with throughout the year.
The Society rotates curricula styles and content from year to year with a focus on religious traditions. We have a three-year cycle that rotates from Unitarian Universalism to Jewish and Christian heritage and Bible Study to World Religions. This gives our students a well-rounded picture of religious traditions from around the globe, which in turn helps them to formulate their own beliefs.
This year the focus in our classrooms is Unitarian Universalism and the curricula in each class reflects this.
Nursery (0-4 Age Range)
Each week our Nursery is headed up by a paid Nursery specialist as we as a volunteer.
4-7 Age Range
Our 4-7 class is using two curriculum each of which deal with Unitarian Universalist values. The first is "Around the Church, Around the Year" which helps children understand the faith and practices which shape our Unitarian Universalist community. The second is "Dr. Seuss and Unitarian Universalists" which relates Dr. Seuss books to our Principles and Purposes.
7-11 Age Range
This class is using a curriculum called "Travel in Time" which focuses on Unitarian Universalist history. The students build a time machine together, which they then use to "travel" through time to learn about the events and people that shaped both our society and our religion.
Coming of Age (12-14 Age Range)
The Coming of Age program is a celebration of the transition from childhood to youth as well as an acknowledgement of the privileges and responsibilities that go along with it.
Our program is tailored to the youth in the class but, for the most part, it is based on the "Coming of Age: Deepening Ties Within Your Congregation" curriculum. Throughout the year youth are encouraged to push their boundaries and to think about how they feel about a host of issues ranging from hypotheticals to current events. This helps the youth to formulate their own views of faith, service and spirituality.
In addition to our classes for children and youth we support families by offering, each autumn and spring, a five-to-six week Unitarian Universalist Parenting Group led by Rev. Colin and Sara Bossen. We also have a family games night the fourth Friday of each month and occasionally offer other religious education and congregational events of interest to families.
If you have any questions about our religious education program please contact our Director of Religious Education Nathan Staples at 216.932.1898 or nathanstaples@gmail.com. You can also visit our Religious Education pages for more information.