Tapestry of Faith: Creating Home: A Program on Developing a Sense of Home Grounded in Faith for Grades K-1

Activity 3: This House

Part of Creating Home

Activity time: 5 minutes

Materials for Activity

  • A copy of Leader Resource 2, This House
    • A copy of the Unitarian Universalist hymnbook, Singing the Living Tradition

    Preparation for Activity

    • Review Leader Resource 2, This House so you can comfortably teach the children their part and smoothly read aloud your own.

    Description of Activity

    Feeling comfortable in worship is greatly helped by knowing the parts of the service and being able participate. For young children, this means learning some words by rote so they may join in. In this activity, children memorize Reading 433 in Singing the Living Tradition:

    How rare it is, how lovely, this fellowship of those who meet together.

    The children will practice saying this line as a response to lines from Reading 444.

    Gather the children in a circle and teach them their response line by rote, one phrase at a time. Then, invite the children to say the line in response to each sentence you read from Reading 444, as scripted in Leader Resource 2, This House.

    You may wish to incorporate this responsive reading into your Opening for future Creating Home sessions. And, look for additional opportunities to have the children say their line again. You may wish to send Leader Resource 2, This House, home for families to use together. You might ask your congregation's worship planners to use this responsive reading, so children can participate in the response.