Faith Curriculum Library: Tapestry of Faith: Sing to the Power: A Social Justice Program for Children Grades 4-5

Faith In Action: Reflecting on Our Earth Power

Activity time: 20 minutes

Materials for Activity

  • Newsprint, markers, and tape

Preparation for Activity

  • Post blank newsprint.

Description of Activity

This activity is designed to help the group process a Faith in Action activity begun in Session 1.

An important but often neglected part of any social justice activity is the opportunity to reflect on the experience.

Use the prompt questions provided below. Write the answers participants give, or invite a volunteer to serve as recorder.

  • What do you think worked best about this project? What was frustrating?
  • Who was the most memorable person you met?
  • Did your view of the world change in any way? What did you learn?
  • Did you feel your gifts were welcome? Were you able to welcome the gifts of others in your group? What about the gifts of the people you met?
  • What will you remember about this experience? How do you think your actions changed the world (even if in small ways)?
  • How did you draw on earth power (being grounded in who you are and where you come from, building connections, sharing your particular gifts and talents with others, paying attention to the different places and backgrounds other come from)?

Summarize the feedback (or, invite a parent volunteer to do so). Share the summary with the director of religious education, and use it to help plan future Faith in Action projects. You may wish to share with this information with the Social Action committee or other volunteers in the congregation as well.

Variation

To develop leadership skills, invite the children to help write a newsletter article about their experience. Be sure to get appropriate permissions to share the information and any pictures from the project on the congregation's website. You might also create a scrapbook of Faith in Action projects.

Including All Participants

To make sure children who process their thoughts more slowly are heard, invite everyone to reflect on a question in silence for a couple of minutes before asking for responses.