Creating a sense of ritual can also have a calming effect and help you manage discipline. We need to honor children's sense of play, but we also need to create basic discipline. Discipline need not mean the old hierarchical model of the oppressive teacher, but discipline does require a supportive...

Music for worship in the classroom setting can take a variety of directions. You can honor the traditional adult way of worshiping, with preludes, hymns, offertories, and postludes, or you can take many new directions. Whatever you do, give worship a sense of ritual. As you light the chalice, for...

Find a Way In October, I introduced the idea of http://blueboat.blogs.uua.org/youth/multiple-pathways-what-does-that-me… pathways, and the need for there to be a variety of ways, beyond and in addition to the youth group model, for youth to be involved in their congregations. This month, I'm...

Use GLSEN Materials in your Congregation Do you recognize the name GLSEN? If you don't you will want to now about the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. GLSEN is a national organization whose mission is to ensure safe schools for all students, regardless of sexual orientation or gender...

(The following is a repost of an article Leigh Friedman – a member of the General Assembly Right Relationship Team at GA '11 – for Cooking Together, the UU crowd-source blog on immigration justice for General Assembly 2012 in Phoenix Arizona.) Flexibility, Spiritual Energy, and Wearing Lots of...

www.stophate.org.CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION INFORMATION Early Bird Registration Is $395.00 Due At Time Of Registration. Regular registration rate is $495.00...

In this article that originally appeared in Cooking Together, the UUA Justice GA blog, Deborah Holder argues that by shifting our paradigm from one of retributive justice we unlock great potential for effecting change amongst ourselves – for example by creating inter-generational response to...

Blog of Rights" has created a video explaining how students can start a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) at school, "Start A GSA Today," to combat young people from being harassed because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students — and...

Share Best Practices with Youth Ministry Professionals! Share what works (and what doesn't work so well) with people just like you: youth ministry professionals who are committed to creating environments that empower youth to explore and grow....

A Bid for Building Campus Ministry by Beth Walden When I asked Jim Kalinowski, the president of the UU Church of Greensboro (UUCG), if I could add campus ministry to my professional portfolio, his response was, “That is the kind of outreach we should be doing as a community. We need to build and...

© 2009 Within Tapestry of Faith, the role of music is to make our lives and our children’s lives more vibrant and connected to each other and to the universe. We do not need to be trained musicians to make our music come alive. Whether we are experienced singers or shower singers, we can make...

It is my hope as a religious educator that you have found this essay and the activities useful for your religious exploration classes. May you envision many more ways to help our children nurture their spiritual being and to support their work in becoming whole and holy in transforming the world.

Lengths of light fabric such as netting or chiffon, or old scarves, long lengths of ribbon Odds and ends of other fabrics and ties that can be improvised into costumes Percussive instruments such as hand drum with mallet, large cymbal, jingle bells, wooden tone bar, scratcher with stick, finger...

Pass around an ordinary object such as a pencil or pen; have each child imagine it is something else and show us without words what it has become. Have the class stand in a circle. Move across the circle with emotion such as joy or anger, give emotion to another person....

Children can move to music in any way they wish; first as individuals, then with a partner, then in threes, fours, and finally as group Move using scarves or netting or other material as extension of your body. Move to express a poem or saying Body prayer can be used in the opening or closing...

Use movement and sound to say your name. The group repeats after you, then the next person follows suit. This activity can be done either seated in a circle or standing. Have children move to drumming. Hit the drum once to stop, and call out an emotion: joy, anger, sorrow, peaceful....

Although we use our bodies in all of the visual arts and writing activities, drama, movement, and dance are all about embodying our spirit and creativity. Younger children are eager to move, but most youth lose this sense of bodily expression in our intellectual Western culture. Unless they...

With drama or movement: Have the children act out stories they have created, or use movement to express the feelings in writing. Children can pair off and respond to each others' work. With art: Create small books of poems or stories with paintings or drawings....