LOVE SURROUNDS US
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Children
SESSION 2: LOVE SURROUNDS US SHARING
BY LYNN KERR AND CHRISTY OLSON
© Copyright 2010 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 11/8/2014 5:20:32 AM PST.
This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith.
SESSION OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. — Maya Angelou, poet and author
In this session, children use positive words and actions as they learn and live our First Principle, affirming the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Participants will discover that these attitudes and actions are also taught in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.
The Principles and the Sermon on the Mount give us ways to be in relationship with one another and the world. Both documents pass on a guide for living that is important for each child to have as they grow.
GOALS
This session will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
SESSION-AT-A-GLANCE
Activity | Minutes |
Welcoming and Entering | 0 |
Opening | 10 |
Activity 1: Story — Jesus Teaches the Beatitudes | 15 |
Activity 2: Love Surrounds Us Circle Game | 15 |
Activity 3: Respectful Role Playing | 15 |
Faith in Action: Respectful Words and Hands Posters | 30 |
Closing | 5 |
Alternate Activity 1: Heart Ribbon Magnet | 15 |
Alternate Activity 2: All People Are Important | 10 |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
Most of us have been hurt by the words or actions of others. This can happen in any of our beloved communities. Close your eyes and breathe deeply. Focus on a time when you were hurt by another's words or actions. How had you felt about this person before the hurtful words or actions? How did you feel about the person after the hurt?
From there, consider: What does it take to transform your hurting heart? How can understanding others better help take us from hurt to acceptance? As you breathe, feel love surrounding you. Accept the healing power of breath.
SESSION PLAN
WELCOMING AND ENTERING
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Use this activity when children arrive individually—that is, straggle in—before the session begins. This activity emphasizes the color red and the first Principle and allows children to review the theme song.
Welcome each child as they enter. Invite them to take their ribbon stick from the container by the door and move to the large group area. Invite them to stand on a red circle and match the ribbon on their stick with the red circle. When the ribbon is matched, children may sit down with their sticks until all are ready for the Opening. Sing the theme song "Love Surrounds Me" to indicate it is time to begin the session.
Including All Participants
Give a ribbon stick to any new participant or visitor and write their name on it.
Provide wrist ribbons for children who are physically unable to wave a ribbon stick. Help attach wrist ribbons to wrists, legs, or fingers according to the mobility of the child.
OPENING (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Invite children to find their ribbon sticks and then come sit together.
Welcome the children. Have each child say their name and wave their ribbon stick above their head. Remind them that they will learn all the UU Principles and that each Principle will have a different color. Introduce red as the color that represents the first Principle. Have them say the first Principle together: "We believe each and every person is important."
Do the opening chant together:
Group chants "Love surrounds us everyday. The Principles show us the way."
Leader says "______ please, put your ribbons away." (Child named returns their ribbon stick.)
Guide children, as they are named, to return their ribbon stick to the container and then return to the circle. This is a way to acknowledge the presence of each participant. If the group is large, say only several names, then direct the others to put away their ribbon sticks all together.
When all ribbon sticks are returned to the container and the children are in the circle, light the chalice. Lead the group to say together:
Love surrounds the chalice and we are included by the light of the chalice.
Including All Participants
Help attach wrist ribbons (Session 1, Opening) to children's wrists, legs, or fingers, and later, help remove them, if any children are physically unable to use a ribbon stick.
ACTIVITY 1: STORY, JESUS TEACHES THE BEATITUDES (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
This story is based on the Sermon on the Mount, one of the most well known of Jesus' teachings. Show the Bible and explain that the children will hear one story from a whole book of stories.
Use Matthew 5:1-11 to show the participants how the scriptures are set up with verses and chapters. Say in your own words:
The Beatitudes are ways that Jesus taught people would be blessed. The First Principle explains that everyone has worth as human beings. How we treat each other is important. We are called on as Unitarian Universalists to treat each other with respect and kindness whenever we can.
Ask:
Pause after each question so participants have time to think and engage in discussion. Then, read the story. When you are done, process with these questions:
Say in your own words:
Jesus was saying everyone is blessed. Who knows what "blessed" means?
"Blessed" in our Unitarian Universalist faith is part of our first Principle: We believe each and every person is unique and valuable, no one more or less than anyone else. Since we are all unique and valuable, we are all blessed. We all deserve to be treated with respect. It's up to us to treat everyone as well as we can. Look around this group. Every single person is blessed.
It was important to Jesus to teach people how to act with each other. Why do you think people listened to Jesus? How do you think people felt after Jesus finished speaking on the mountain?
Jesus' teachings have been taught for more than two thousand years. Many people follow him because he taught love and kindness. Unitarian Universalists also learn from Jesus' teachings.
ACTIVITY 2: LOVE SURROUNDS US CIRCLE GAME (15 MINUTES)
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Kinesthetic engagement with the song helps children understand the theme.
Form a circle of children and co-leaders, holding hands. Gather the group in a circle. Say, in your own words.
Who remembers the song we sing in our opening time? Now we will sing "Love Surrounds Me" and do some fun actions as we sing. Then we will sit down and play a game using respectful and loving words. Please stand in a circle and join hands.
"Love Surrounds Me" Song with Actions Circle Game
Love surrounds us, this I know (circle left, walking)
For my spirit tells me so. (circle right, walking)
All of us to love belong. (walk in four steps)
Fill our hearts and make us strong. (walk out four steps, then drop hands)
Yes, love surrounds us, (individually, twirl around one way)
Yes, love surrounds us, (individually, twirl around the other way)
Yes, love surrounds us, (back to circle)
My spirit tells me so. (sit down)
"Love Surrounds Me" Circle Game
Choose a volunteer to begin. Say you will show them how to play the game. Then, stand up and tell one way love surrounds you each day (Say: Love surrounds me when I ________.) Now, walk toward the volunteer and say "______ (child's name), you are loved, too. Will you play the game?" Invite the child to stand and tell one way love surrounds them each day. Then guide the child to walk toward another participant and invite them to share by saying, "______(second child's name), you are loved, too. Will you play the game?" Direct the first and second child to exchange places. Prompt the second child to share one way that love surrounds them and then invite another to take their place in the circle and share. When everyone has shared and exchanged places, have everyone stand and sing the song with the actions again.
Processing questions for after the game:
Including All Participants
Adapt the movements to include children with mobility limitations. Use wrist ribbons (Opening) to allow a seated child to make movements.
ACTIVITY 3: RESPECTFUL ROLE PLAYING (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
This activity helps participants integrate ways to validate the first Principle by engaging them to act out events that could happen in their everyday lives.
Invite a volunteer to choose a card. Read the card aloud and invite the child to choose someone to help them act out the card. Be sure participants use respectful words when inviting someone to help them. After each role play, lead the group to process with the questions on that card.
Including All Participants
Some first graders read and would like the opportunity to read their own cards.
CLOSING (5 MINUTES)
Description of Activity
Invite everyone to gather in a circle and hold hands. Start by squeezing the hand to your right and saying: "Today I found love, today I gave love." Lead the group to move the hand squeeze around the circle until everyone has had a chance to say the words.
Then, invite the group to unclasp hands lead them to say the closing words in unison:
Be good to yourself.
Be excellent to others.
Do everything with love.
Including All Participants
If participants do not want to hold hands, invite them to just say the words to the person to their right. If needed, repeat the words aloud with each child.
FAITH IN ACTION: RESPECTFUL WORDS AND HANDS POSTERS (30 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Children design posters with positive themes and respectful words.
Distribute sheets of paper. If you have prepared the words on stickers, help participants stick the words across the bottom of the large papers. If the words are on card stock, help participants glue them on. Each participant can make several posters.
Read the words on the posters to participants. Talk with each participant about their ideas before they color.
After posters are illustrated, meet as a large group and process the activity using these questions:
When posters are finished, walk around the congregation or neighborhood and put up the posters. Find appropriate places to display them, such as community bulletin boards found in grocery stores and libraries.
Including All Participants
Adapt coloring tools to the age of the children. If the children are very young use large crayons. Older children can handle color pencils and markers.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
Children understand respect by feeling respected. Think through your time together. Were there times when respectful words or actions were not used? How can you help children understand respect better in future sessions?
TAKING IT HOME
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. — Maya Angelou, poet and author
IN TODAY'S SESSION... we learned how we use respectful words and actions in our relationships. Respectful words and actions illustrate the first UU Principle, "We believe each and every person is important." The children heard a story about Jesus teaching the Beatitudes and explored how those lessons affirm our UU beliefs. We played a circle game and role-played situations in our lives where respectful words and actions are needed.
EXPLORE THE TOPIC TOGETHER. Talk about... respectful words and actions and the first UU Principle at dinner, in the car or at bedtime.
EXTEND THE TOPIC TOGETHER. Try... making a stop sign together. Whenever someone feels disrespect, use the stop sign to stop the interaction so you can discuss feelings.
A Family Adventure. Take the family as a group to a soup kitchen or clothing closet. Work together to show respect to people you encounter with material needs greater than yours. Use smiles and respectful words to make each person feel important.
Family Discovery. Books to read:
A Family Ritual. Write each person's name on tongue depressors or wooden ice cream spoons. At a meal, invite each person to place their name in the middle of the table and name one way they were respected or one way they respected another.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: HEART RIBBON MAGNET (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
This activity connects the color red and the first Principle as children begin making a Heart Ribbon Magnet—a reminder of the UU Principles to take home at the close of the program. This activity reappears as an Alternate Activity, with different colors of ribbon, in the sessions that introduce the remaining six Principles.
Tell the children the red ribbon represents the first UU Principle "We believe each and every person is important." Tell them they will begin making a Heart Ribbon Magnet now that will, when completed, have a different color ribbon for each of the seven Principles. They will start their magnet with a red ribbon because they are talking about the first Principle today.
Invite participants to choose a felt square, a felt heart, and a length of red ribbon. Help them glue their square of felt to a magnet. Next, help them glue their heart shape to the square. Make sure they do not put glue behind the holes you have poked in the edges of the heart shape. Leave the edges loose so children can string ribbon through each of the holes.
Now show children how to fold the red ribbon in half, push the folded end into a hole on the side of the heart, and insert the two loose ends of ribbon through the loop formed by the folded end. Pull the ribbon through tightly.
Write children's names on the back of their Heart Ribbon Magnets and set aside the magnets and remaining colors of ribbon to continue this project in future sessions.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 2: ALL PEOPLE ARE SPECIAL (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Participants make a framed picture of a person they do not know to illustrate the first Principle concept that each and every person is special, whether or not we know them, and whoever they are.
Invite children to choose a picture and glue it to a piece of cardboard, then glue a border of tongue depressors around the picture. Make sure each participant glues one tongue depressor with words on their border.
Place a strip of adhesive magnetic tape on the cardboard back of each child's picture. Invite them to take their pictures home to display on the refrigerator.
As participants work, discuss that when we see a picture we really do not know anything about the person in it except their appearance. Their faces might show an emotion, but we do not have much other information. Ask these questions as they work and complete their project.
LOVE SURROUNDS US: SESSION 2:
STORY: JESUS TEACHES THE BEATITUDES
An adaptation of Matthew 5:1-11, Christian scripture.
Jesus was a teacher. He lived thousands of years ago, in the part of the world we now call the Middle East. Jesus taught people how to use words and actions in a loving manner.
There are many different ideas about God. Jesus' idea about God was that God is a kind father who wanted us to treat each other kindly and with love.
People loved to listen to Jesus. One day there were so many people waiting to be taught by Jesus, he had to climb way up a mountain. Sitting on the mountain, he could see far away. The people just kept coming. There were families with children and teenagers and elders. There were fishermen and farmers and shepherds. Some shepherds had their sheep and goats, stopping on their way home from grazing.
Jesus called his friends to come and sit by him on the mountain. Then all of a sudden it got quiet. People were ready to listen to Jesus. They watched him and listened to his words. Jesus taught all the people of all ages a lesson called the Beatitudes.
The Beatitudes teach us how to treat other people. The Beatitudes teach us how to act. Jesus knew our relationships with each other are the most important thing about life. Let's listen now to the words from Jesus, the teacher. Listen for what kinds of people he asks us to pay attention to:
LOVE SURROUNDS US: SESSION 2:
LEADER RESOURCE 1: RESPECTFUL ROLE PLAYING CARDS
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You are building with blocks. Someone comes over and wants to play. Show us what might happen. What are some respectful actions and words to use when sharing blocks?
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You are in the library. You want to read a book about airplanes. Someone is already reading the only book not checked out about airplanes. Show us what might happen. What are some respectful actions and words to use when in the library?
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You are coming to the door of a toy store. A mom with a stroller is trying to get through the door, too. Show us what might happen in the doorway. What are some respectful actions and words to use when going through a doorway?
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It is time for dinner and you are very hungry. You go to the kitchen and see that your Mom is rushing around to get dinner ready. You wish dinner was ready now. Show us what might happen in the kitchen. What are some respectful actions and when you are waiting for dinner and really hungry?
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Your next door neighbor is elderly. You are roller skating on the sidewalk. The neighbor's newspaper is sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. Show us what might happen. What are some respectful words and actions for living in community?
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A new child comes to your class at school. She wears different clothes and is shy. You notice she wears a head scarf. She doesn't talk loudly. Show us how this might look in your school room. What are some respectfully actions and words to welcome a new child to your class?
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You are at a birthday party. You really like the toy you brought for a present. When it's time for games, you decide to go play with the birthday boy's new presents. Show us what might happen. What are some respectful words and actions at a birthday party?
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You are eating out at a restaurant. There is a two-year-old at the booth next to you that keeps jumping up and looking at your food and making noise. Show us how this might look. What are some respectful words and actions in a restaurant?
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You are riding your bike or scooter around the block. The children and teachers of a local daycare are out taking a walk on the sidewalk. Show us how this might look. What are some respectful words or actions to use when you are sharing the sidewalk?
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It is a holiday and an adult brought you a present. You open it and you do not like the present. Show us what might happen. What are some respectful words or actions when you are accepting a gift?
FIND OUT MORE
The Beatitudes
The text of Matthew 5: 1-11 in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible reads:
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
'Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
'Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
'Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
'Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
'Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
'Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Read a Christian analysis of this biblical text (at bible.org/seriespage/beatitudes-matthew-51-12), "An Exposition of the Gospel of Matthew" by Allen Ross, on a Bible study website (at www.bible.org).