LOVE CONNECTS US
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Children
SESSION 6: THE MORE WE GET TOGETHER
BY MICHELLE RICHARDS AND LYNN UNGAR
© Copyright 2010 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 11/7/2014 7:57:24 PM PST.
This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith.
SESSION OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
The central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds that bind each to all. — Mark Morrison-Reed
Unitarian Universalist congregations are called to be of service to the world. At the same time, the vitality of each congregation depends on individual members' service to their own community. This session recognizes people who support their community with volunteer service. An adaptation of the Aesop's fable about the grasshopper and the ant helps children reflect on how members come together in service to their community. Children conduct a virtual treasure hunt to identify members whose service supports their congregation. They make woven bookmarks to give, in thanks, to congregational volunteers.
GOALS
This session will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
SESSION-AT-A-GLANCE
Activity | Minutes |
Welcoming and Entering | 0 |
Opening | 10 |
Activity 1: Story — The Ant and the Grasshopper | 10 |
Activity 2: Virtual Treasure Hunt for Congregational Volunteers | 10 |
Activity 3: Make Straw Loom Bookmarks | 25 |
Faith in Action: Volunteer in Service to the Congregation | |
Closing | 5 |
Alternate Activity 1: Make Beaded Bookmarks | 15 |
Alternate Activity 2: Learn the Song "From You I Receive" | 10 |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
Find a place where you can be quiet with your thoughts. Close your eyes and breathe deeply for about five minutes, perhaps repeating a word or phrase to separate yourself from the activities of the day. When you feel settled and relaxed, consider:
By leading this session as a volunteer, you provide a role model for participants and exemplify the session's purpose.
SESSION PLAN
WELCOMING AND ENTERING
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
As participants arrive, invite them to use the cookie cutters or templates to trace heart shapes onto the card stock. Encourage them to cut out the heart shapes, punch a hole in the top of the heart, and pass a piece of yarn through the hole to create a heart-shaped ornament. Tell the children that later they will hang the ornaments on the group wall hanging they created in Session 1.
Including All Participants
If some participants have difficulty with small motor control and cannot effectively manipulate scissors, encourage them to choose card stock colors for others to cut into heart shapes, or invite them to hold templates in place for another child to trace.
OPENING (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Love is the spirit of this church,
and service its law.
This is our great covenant:
To dwell together in peace,
To seek the truth in love,
And to help one another. — James Vila Blake
Description of Activity
The Opening brings participants together for a chalice-lighting ritual which honors the coming together of this community in the spirit of love, and reintroduces the Blake covenant.
Invite a participant to light the chalice. Lead the group to read aloud the Blake covenant. Say something like:
The covenant we said together says service is the law of this congregation. What does "service" mean?
Allow some responses. Then say:
If service means helping, how can that be a law?
Allow responses, if there are some. Then say:
Let's think about what would happen if, in our congregation, no one followed the law of service. What kinds of things would not get done?
Take a moment and think of ways our congregation depends on people acting in service of our community. Perhaps you can think of ways you or someone in your family has given service to help or support our congregation. What service have you done or could someone do?
Pause a moment. Then, ask a volunteer to select a heart shape, tell an example of an action to serve the congregational community, and briefly write or draw their idea on the heart. Or, model this yourself.
Invite participants to share verbally, one at a time. Also, invite anyone who would like to write on an ornament to do so, whether they choose to share verbally or not.
When all who wish to write on a heart shape have done so, ask participants to attach their heart ornaments to the Rainbow Wall Hanging. Show them how to tie the yarn which is looped through the ornament onto the wall hanging.
If your chalice contains an actual candle flame, re-gather the group around the chalice and blow it out together.
Including All Participants
Invite participants who may be unable to write on a heart shape to share verbally while you or another participant serves as "scribe." If you know some participants may be reluctant to share in a group, let them know as they enter the room that later they will be invited to share about ways we act in service to our congregational community. This may help them prepare an idea before the sharing time; however, do not put any participant on the spot to share in the group.
ACTIVITY 1: STORY — THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Read or tell the story to the group.
After the story, invite the group to be silent for a moment to think about the story.
Begin a discussion by asking the children to recap the story in their own words. What they recall indicates what they found most meaningful or memorable.
Lead a discussion using these questions:
ACTIVITY 2: VIRTUAL TREASURE HUNT FOR CONGREGATIONAL VOLUNTEERS (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
This activity provides a treasure hunt for valuable people, rather than valuable items.
If religious education time runs concurrently with a worship service or other, adult programming, lead participants in a "virtual" hunt for the names of people who volunteer, rather than tracking down the people themselves. However—if you have the opportunity to do so without disrupting worship or meetings—you might lead the children to ask actual people the questions and collect names of congregational volunteers that way.
Say, in your own words:
In the story about Grasshopper and the Ants, the insect community needed the efforts of all its members in order for all to eat. Similarly, our congregation needs the efforts of many different people to sustain everything we do with and for one another. Let's see how much we know about who these people are and what they do to help us all.
If you are forming small groups, distribute the questions from Leader Resource 1, the member directories and other information you have gathered, and pens/pencils. Invite the groups to compete to see which can complete the treasure hunt first.
If the group will work together, post the sheets of newsprint with the questions. Lead everyone to pool their knowledge of the congregation to fill in the volunteers' names on each sheet. Let the group drive the process, even if it means you do not share all you know about congregational volunteers.
When the treasure hunt seems complete, ask the children whether it was easy or difficult. How well do the children feel they know the adult members of the congregation? You may also wish to have the children guess how many different volunteer jobs there are in your congregation on any given year. See if they can think of more volunteer jobs that somehow get done but are not on the list of questions you prepared. Discuss:
Including All Participants
A child who is new to the congregation should work with others who are more likely to come up with answers to the questions. The child could look for names in a member directory or write down the names as other children identify volunteers.
ACTIVITY 3: MAKE STRAW LOOM BOOKMARKS (25 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Participants weave bookmarks to give to congregation members identified in Activity 2, Virtual Treasure Hunt for Congregational Volunteers. Weaving and giving the bookmarks not only honors volunteers who sustain the community, it also embodies the "tied together" theme of the program and, if an adult guest can come receive the gift, gives the children an opportunity to connect with adult members of the congregation.
As participants work, engage them in choosing congregational volunteers to thank with a bookmark. Call their attention to the results of the Activity 2 "treasure hunt;" encourage them to choose someone outside their own family. Ask children the reasons for their choices. Help them prepare what to say when they give a volunteer the gift. You might suggest words such as, "Thank you for your service which helps tie our community together." If adult volunteers are present to receive the bookmark gifts, these words spoken by one of the participants may be enough for a simple, symbolic presentation from the group.
Invite one or more volunteers to make a bookmark for the Rainbow Wall Hanging. Invite them to tie a bookmark to the wall hanging now or during the Closing.
If no adults can join you to accept participants' gifts, tell the group your plan for presenting the gifts at another time. If you will give bookmarks to adults on behalf of the group, be sure to report back to the children after you have made the presentation. If children will give bookmarks to recipients on their own, make a note to ask them at a future meeting about their interaction with the adult volunteer(s).
Including All Participants
A leader should pair up with any child who lacks the manual dexterity to weave a bookmark on their own.
CLOSING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Say in your own words:
The session is almost over and we will now work together as a community to clean the meeting space.
Ask everyone to first clean up their own area and the materials they were using, and then to clean another area or help someone else. No one should sit in the circle until the meeting space is clean.
Then, gather the group in the circle. If you have not yet done so, invite one or more volunteers to attach bookmarks to the group's wall hanging. When all have returned to the circle, ask participants to cross their arms in front of their body and then take the hands of the people on either side of them. Say "We are tied together by the spirit of service when we ... " and ask anyone who wishes to fill in a word or phrase. When everyone who wishes to share has done so, open the circle by having everyone, while still holding hands, turn to their right, so that everyone is facing out, and no longer has their arms crossed in front of their body. (Be mindful of participants' physical mobility; use this closing activity only if you are sure all children can comfortably participate. As an alternative, simply invite the entire group to hold hands.)
Distribute copies of Taking It Home that you have prepared. Thank and dismiss participants.
FAITH IN ACTION: VOLUNTEER IN SERVICE TO THE CONGREGATION
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
An opportunity to serve empowers children as participants in a community covenant and demonstrates that every person, whatever their age, can contribute. Children can volunteer in many ways, such as:
The children will find their service most meaningful if they do a job which really needs to be done.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
Reflect on and discuss with your co-leader(s):
Approach your religious educator for guidance, as needed.
TAKING IT HOME
The central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds that bind each to all. — Mark Morrison-Reed
IN TODAY'S SESSION... we explored what service means in the context of our congregation. We heard an adaptation of Aesop's fable about the ants and the grasshopper, and how, in the end, the grasshopper who had chosen not to work for the community was able to serve in his own special way. In a "treasure hunt" we identified people in our congregation who serve our community in various capacities. We made woven bookmarks to give to some of these people as "thank you" gifts.
EXPLORE THE TOPIC TOGETHER. Tell your child(ren) about ways you volunteer on behalf of your congregation and why you have chosen the particular tasks you have taken on. What do you get out of volunteering? How does serving your community make you feel? Why does it matter that you do it?
A Family Adventure. Volunteer, as a family, to serve your congregation. Can you make music for a worship service? Serve as greeters for worship? Bring snacks to share for a social hour? Tidy or restock the religious education program's supply closet? Together, choose a task you would feel good about volunteering to do. Seek out the person responsible for that aspect of congregational life and arrange the service opportunity. Afterward, discuss how the experience made you feel. Perhaps you will decide as a family to volunteer again.
A Family Game. The children had a treasure hunt to discover the names of the people who perform various volunteer services for the congregation. As a family, see how many congregational tasks you can think of and for which you can identify who does them. Write them down so you can see how many jobs there are and how well you know the membership of your congregation and the services various people do. You may wish to do this game in competition with another family which has a child in this group.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: MAKE BEADED BOOKMARKS (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Beaded bookmarks make excellent gifts to give congregational volunteers, and the children will be able to make them more quickly and easily than the straw loom bookmarks (Activity 3). If each child wants to give several gifts, the beaded bookmarks may be a better choice.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 2: LEARN THE SONG "FROM YOU I RECEIVE" (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
The song "From You I Receive, To You I Give" is a beautiful articulation of how we serve one another in community. Teach the song line by line. Then, lead the children to sing it several times through. To lead this song as a round, have the second group enter when the first group completes the line "From you I receive... "
LOVE CONNECTS US: SESSION 6:
STORY: THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER
Adapted from an Aesop's fable.
One summer's day, a Grasshopper was hopping about in a field, chirping and singing to his heart's content. Hard-Working Ant passed by, struggling with the weight of a kernel of corn she was taking to the nest. "Why not come and sing with me?" said Grasshopper. "You are working much too hard."
"I am helping to store food for the winter," said Hard-Working Ant. "You should be doing this too, since there won't be anything to eat once it gets cold and the snow falls."
"Why worry about winter?" said Grasshopper. "There is plenty of food around here!" Hard-Working Ant shook her head and continued on her way carrying the heavy kernel of corn.
Day after day, Hard-Working Ant trudged back and forth from the cornfield to the ant nest, struggling to carry kernel after kernel to store for the winter.
Day after day, Grasshopper danced merrily across the fields, teasing Hard-Working Ant.
"Forget about work! Listen up! Enjoy the summer!" Grasshopper sang.
When the cold winds of winter began to blow and the puffy flakes of snow began to fall, food did indeed become very scarce. Grasshopper soon found himself hungry and cold. But the ants were toasty warm, sharing all the food they had collected during the summer.
Poor Grasshopper came one day to the door of the ants' house, shivering so badly he could hardly knock. Welcoming Ant answered the door and looked at poor, hungry Grasshopper. "Please," Grasshopper begged. "It is so cold out here and I am starving. There is no food anymore."
Welcoming Ant stepped aside to let Grasshopper in, but another ant stepped forward. It was Hard-Working Ant who had watched Grasshopper sing and dance all summer while she worked hard to gather food. "Don't let him in," Hard-Working Ant protested. "He wasted his summer singing and dancing while we worked hard to store our food. He does not deserve to reap the benefits of our hard work."
Welcoming Ant, the one who had been about to let Grasshopper in, shook his head. "That may be so," said Welcoming Ant. "But we cannot allow him to starve. He is a creature like us. Just because he made a foolish choice, it does not mean we can condemn him to death." Welcoming Ant waved one of his six arms and invited Grasshopper inside.
Grasshopper eagerly walked into the ants' house and sat right down at the table filled with food. He stuffed himself until he was full, while Hard-Working Ant stared resentfully at him. Then Grasshopper pushed himself away from the table and began to sing. It was a catchy tune, a happy one and soon all the ants found themselves laughing and dancing, even Hard-Working Ant.
And all through that cold, long winter, the ants shared with Grasshopper their food, and Grasshopper shared with them his songs and his joy. They all had a wonderful time together—even Hard-Working Ant. She had to admit the winter time was more pleasant with Grasshopper and his songs around.
LOVE CONNECTS US: SESSION 6:
LEADER RESOURCE 1: VOLUNTEER TREASURE HUNT
Who in this congregation...
Plays music for services or sings in the choir?
Makes coffee, tea, or snacks?
Teaches religious education?
Greets people as they come in?
Helps plan special events?
Serves on the board of trustees/board of directors?
Helps new people learn about the congregation?
Helps maintain or improve the building?
Helps maintain or improve the grounds?
Helps plan or lead teenagers' meetings and events?
Helps clean up after coffee hour?
Helps clean up after special events?
Pays the congregation's bills/writes checks?
Works on social justice projects?
Helps lead worship services?
Brings food to potlucks?
Helps people who need transportation to get to and from the congregation?
Makes sure the congregation has flowers/decorations for worship/special events?
Visits people who are sick or in the hospital?
LOVE CONNECTS US: SESSION 6:
LEADER RESOURCE 2: STRAW LOOM BOOKMARK INSTRUCTIONS
1. A two- to six-straw "loom" will work best. Decide how many straws to use; the more straws, the wider a bookmark you will weave.
2. Cut as many pieces of yarn as you have straws, each piece about five inches longer than the straws.
3. Thread a needle with a piece of yarn, draw the yarn through a straw, and lay down the straw with yarn showing at both ends. Repeat, to draw a piece of yarn through each straw.
4. Tie the tops of all the yarn pieces together in a single knot, without letting the straws slip off the yarn. Lay the straws on the table, side by side, and push all the straws up until they touch the knot.
5. Tear off a length of masking tape and tape the straws together. Tape across all the straws, just below the knot, and then wrap the tape around the back side, too, to hold the row of straws flat.
6. Cut a piece of yarn about six feet long. Tie one end of the yarn to a straw on the end of the row of straws, just below the tape. Weave the yarn across the straws—over one straw and under the next. When you reach the last straw, wrap the yarn around it and go back in the other direction.
7. Keep weaving until the whole length of the straws is wrapped in yarn. If you wish to change colors, cut the yarn, leaving a tail to tie to a new piece of yarn in your next color.
8. When you finish weaving, tie the yarn to one of the end straws and trim it.
9. Take off the masking tape. Hold the knot at the top of the weaving with one hand, and use your other hand to slide the straws out of the weaving, one by one.
10. Push the weaving up to the knot. Then, tie the ends of loose yarn together at the bottom of the weaving, with an overhand knot.
11. If you like, tie beads onto the yarn that remains at the bottom of the weaving before trimming the loose yarn.
LOVE CONNECTS US: SESSION 6:
LEADER RESOURCE 3: BEADED BOOKMARKS
FIND OUT MORE
Read the original Aesop's fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper (at www.pagebypagebooks.com/Aesop/Aesops_Fables/The_Ant_and_the_Grasshopper_p1.html).
Use the UUA's online Leader's Library (at www.uua.org/leaders/leaderslibrary/index.php) to find articles on a wide variety of topics related to congregational service.
Learn more about soda straw loom weaving (at www.kid-at-art.com/htdoc/lesson9.html).