Tapestry of Faith: Love Connects Us: A Program on Living in Unitarian Universalist Covenant for Grades 4-5

Alternate Activity 2: Sharing Joys and Concerns

Activity time: 10 minutes

Materials for Activity

  • Ball of yarn
  • Optional: Scissors, including left-handed scissors

Description of Activity

In addition to building community through sharing information about important events in participants' lives, this version of sharing joys and concerns uses a ritual activity based on the metaphor of knots, allowing children to experience being literally "tied together."

Gather participants in a seated circle. Say:

We are all tied together by the bonds of community. What affects any one of us affects us all. We take time now to share our greatest joys and deepest concerns, events that have happened since last time we met which we hold in our hearts.

Invite a volunteer to go first, and give them the ball of yarn. Ask them to share their joy or concern and then, holding the end of the yarn, throw the ball of yarn to another child in the circle. This child may either share a joy or concern or choose to pass, but in either case they keep hold of the strand of yarn as they throw the ball of yarn to another participant. Continue until everyone has had a chance to share or pass, and the whole group is connected by a web of yarn.

At the end of the sharing you may invite participants to take turns winding the yarn back onto the ball. Or, pass around scissors and invite the children to cut a short piece of the yarn and tie it around their wrist as a sign of the covenant of caring which the group shares.