|
Our Children and Youth Religious Education Programs Nursery Care: infants to
age three - We offer nursery care at
the 9:15 a.m. and the 11:00 a.m. Sunday morning services. Sunday services are broadcast to the
nursery if you wish to stay with your child to ease his/her adjustment. Parents who use the nursery are asked to
volunteer to substitute or assist in the nursery once or twice a year. In addition, any necessary supplies or
special needs that your child requires should be brought to the attention of
the childcare worker on duty. Please
fill out a registration form for your child the first time he or she
visits. Each child must be signed in
and out of the nursery. Safety
guidelines are clearly posted in the nursery for your information. Preschool: ages
three to five - The curriculum these children use gives
them a firm grounding in why they and their families come to a Unitarian
Universalist congregation. Our goal is
to help the children develop a sense of belonging to a community and an
understanding of what a religious community can do. Through stories, crafts and playtime in a
preschool-like format they also learn self identity in addition to being a
part of a UU community. Parents will
be asked to serve as helpers in this class a few times a year. Children must be three years old, but may
join the class at any time during their third year. Preschool children will also spend a short
amount of time at most of our intergenerational services. Older Children and Youth - Religious Education for
children and youth meets on Sunday mornings.
Children in Grades K-3 begin their Sunday mornings with a children’s
worship at a Community Gathering or will join the adults for the first part,
or all, of our intergenerational services.
Grades 4 and 5 meet with the K-3 grades on the first Sunday of each
month and on their own for worship the rest of the time. Grades 6-12 begin each Sunday with their
designated classes and on occasion, also join our intergenerational
services. Often, individual children
and youth as well as their families are encouraged to be a part of our
intergenerational services and, at times, entire classes may participate in a
special presentation.
Because we expect parents to be actively involved with their
children’s religious education, we ask parents to spend time with your child
in their RE class and to assist our classroom teachers a few times a
year. We also strongly urge you to
attend parents’ meetings, scheduled about twice a year. a href="cyre04.html">See the RE calendar here. Registration forms for
religious education classes may be downloaded here. Forms will also be available on the first
day of services in September and throughout the month. After September, all new visitors are
required to complete a Visitor’s Card for their child. After your child/youth has attended the RE
Program three times, you will be asked if you would like to register your
child/youth. There is no charge for
religious education classes, but we do expect parents to volunteer some time
to help with the program and to
consider the costs and value of the program when deciding upon an
appropriate level of financial commitment to the Society. If you have any questions or concerns at
any time, please contact The Rev. Tracy Sprowls Jenks, Religious Education
Minister, at 201-444-6225 x13 or by email at usr.dre@verizon.net. |
|||||||||||||
|
Our
Curriculum Preschool
(ages 3-5): Celebrating Me and My World begins by celebrating the wondrous qualities of the children themselves
and expands outward to the things and people around them. This program provides preschoolers with
experiences and opportunities to grow in their sense of trust and caring and
to develop their self-identity and their sense of connectedness with all of
life. Kindergarten and 1st Grade: A Discovering Year seeks
to nurture children’s spiritual and religious growth through carefully
sequenced connections to their ever widening environment. It offers many opportunities for discovery
and celebration as children explore themselves and others, their families and
their religious organization, the wonders of nature, and religious and
cultural days – all through a variety of hands-on activities, stories, games
and songs. We will focus on four of
our UU principles: each person is special and important; we should treat each
other fairly and kindly; we should accept each other and learn together; and
we should take care of our earth, the home we share with all living things. 2nd and 3rd
Grade: Free to Believe was
designed to nurture the emotional, social, and spiritual life of children.
Utilizing our seven principles as starting points, this curriculum offers a
wide variety of hands-on activities, stories, games, songs, and discussions
as the children explore values, beliefs and what it means to be Unitarian
Universalist. The children will also consider some “big questions” through
the perspective of our Unitarian Universalist sources – Is There a God?
What Are Different Images of God?
Why Do People and Animals Die?
Where Do People and Animals Go When They Die? How Did Life Begin? 4th and 5th
Grade: Bibleodeon – derived
from television’s Nickelodeon – will introduce the youth to stories of the
Hebrew and Christian Bibles. Some of
the goals of this curriculum are for the youth to have a basic understanding
of the Bible’s history and power, to recognize the relevance of Bible stories
to contemporary life, and to have an expanded sense of spiritual feeling and
practices. Each child will be given a
Bible which they will use all year. 6th Grade
Transitions Class:
This class offers a bridge between our children’s program and our
youth programming. This year, our
sixth graders will be using a curriculum, Neighboring Faiths, through
which they will learn about other traditions and religions. Each lesson offers a learning experience
and a chance to visit different houses of worship. The curriculum, Traditions with a Wink, will also
be used to further their understanding of their own UU faith tradition. Junior
Seminar (Grades 7 and 8): Compass Points is a two-year curriculum that helps our
juniors explore their lives, their beliefs, their UU faith and their
relationships with others and the world.
It is an excellent curriculum to prepare them for doing the Coming of
Age program in 9th grade. One goal of
the Junior Seminar is to begin to connect the youth with the greater UU
movement. To this end, a District
Junior High Retreat occurs in September and all juniors are encouraged to
attend. This year there is also a trip
to Overlook Farm (A Heifer International Project) sometime in the late spring. Our Whole
Lives (OWL): Our
Whole Lives helps participants make informed and responsible decisions about
their sexual health and behavior.
Grounded in a holistic view of sexuality, OWL provides not only facts
about anatomy and human development, but helps participants to clarify their
values, build interpersonal skills, and understand the spiritual, emotional,
and social aspects of sexuality. This
class is available for 8th grade youth or older teens with permission from
the REM. Parent Orientation is
scheduled for December 9. Classes
begin the second week of January 1 and run through the end of May. Coming-of-Age: This special class begins in early
September and runs through early March.
It is open to all youth in the 9th grade. Through a process of discussion,
reflection, and interaction with adult mentors, the youth reaffirm their
commitment to UU principles and have the opportunity to articulate their own
personal credo statement in the Affirmation Sunday service held March 9. Senior
Youth Group (Grades 9-12): This group will be experimenting this
year! On Sunday mornings we will meet
at 11:00 for a curriculum to be determined by the youth and their parents in
early September. In addition, the
youth group will meet on an evening to be determined with the youth groups
from Paramus and Inglewood. The
evening youth group will have check-in and an activity. A youth can attend the morning session or
the evening session of youth group or both.
The morning sessions will be run by teachers and the evening by our Youth Minister,
Phread Ayres. The Senior Youth Group
also attends youth conferences at other UU congregations to strengthen their
connection to the wider UU community. Social Action We believe Social Action is a
fundamental aspect of Unitarian Universalism.
Our principles as well as our values lead us to realize a connection
with other beings and the Earth and this connection calls us to action. Social Action is addressed
in some way in each of the curriculum we use at USR. In addition, we have set aside certain
Sundays to specifically address a particular issue. In October, we will again participate in
the Crop Walk. In November, we will
begin the Guest at Your Table project that runs through January. We will also continue to build on our
relationship with the people of Guatemala where we are building schools through the funds
of the Sienna Project. In the winter, we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.,
joining with CAMP to honor his special day with music and multicultural
activities. This year we have two 3-week
Social Action units which take place in the fall on November 4, 11, and 18
and in the spring on May 18, 25, and June 1.
The focus of these sessions will be announced later. Grades 7-12: Junior Seminar (Grades 7 & 8) and the
Senior Youth Group (Grades 9-12) will be selecting and participating in their
own social action causes. In the past,
these have included Heifer International, the Center for Food Action, and
Children’s Aid and Family Services. |
||||||||||||||
|
The Unitarian Society of Ridgewood, NJ |
|
|||||
