Youth Education & Curriculum
Our church school reflects an emphasis on values. We offer a three-year rotation theme for the entire church school:

1) UU Identity & Values
2) Judeo-Christian Heritage
3) World Religions
Each class explores the theme with curriculum at their own age level. Our classes also take part in social justice projects.

In addition to their regular R.E., we offer Our Whole Lives (OWL), a sexuality education program, and
Coming of Age for members of the Junior (7th & 8th grades) and Senior (9th-12th grades) youth groups on an every other year basis.

The end result is that our young people graduate from our program with a good understanding of our own UU beliefs as well as the beliefs of other religions.

 As Gaia Brown states in her pamphlet UU Religious Education and Your Child, "Parents seeking a religious education program are often looking for a community of shared values in which to raise their children. These values are the most
important things we teach, but we also give children building blocks with which to form their own beliefs."

We like to think our program here exemplifies this. 

Our 2009-10 Curriculum
Pre-K & Grade School

R.E. classes go from 10:30 to 11:45am each Sunday morning.
One of the Six Sources from which we UUs draw our inspiration is “Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves.” Our overall theme this year is our Judeo-Christian heritage. It’s important that our UU kids become familiar with the Bible stories that are such an integral part of both our culture and our literary heritage. Classes from Kindergarten on up will study the stories and people of both the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the Christian Bible (New Testament).

Nursery (Infants-2 yrs)
The goal of this youngest group is to make sure they are comfortable and happy on a Sunday morning, and to know that Sunday school is a good place to be. There are to be two adults present in the Nursery during RE time to ensure the safety of the children. Two adults can accept a maximum of eight children into the nursery. In the event that there are more than eight children, a parent or additional volunteer will be asked to assist.

Three & Four Year Olds:
Chalice Children: We Are Many, We Are One This pre-school program has stories, games, and projects that encourage young children to learn how to play and work cooperatively, express their feelings about themselves and others, see congregations as places for making and caring about friends, appreciate how we are all alike yet different, view nature as a source of gifts that needs our care, and celebrate the different religionsand cultures of the world.

Kindergarten & First Grade:
Meet Jesus and Super Heroes: Bible People
Meet Jesus tells the stories of the life of Jesus and his lessons about love, kindness, peace, and tolerance. Meet Jesus is intended for ages four to eight and is respectful of the range of beliefs about Jesus.

The goals of the Super Heroes: Bible People curriculum are:
• To introduce children to the stories of people from the Bible who have acted with courage and wisdom in their attempts to lead their lives fully and make the world a better place for others
• To show how the lives of these people confirm the principles which we, as Unitarian Universalists, strive to promote

•To encourage the children to lead their own lives fully and to use their own positive "super powers" as they interact with the world around them, and as they do so, to grow both spiritually and ethically.

Second & Third Grades:
Super Heroes: Bible People
See above description.

Fourth & Fifth Grades:
Bibleodeon
Bibleodeon is an experiential program introducing young Unitarian Universalists to the stories of the Hebrew & Christian Bibles. The goals of this curriculum include the following: that the children should be familiar with and interested in a range of well-known Bible stories, know how to find their way around the Bible, have a basic understanding of the Bible’s history and power, understand the importance of the Bible to millions of people, and recognize the relevance of Bible stories to contemporary life.

SECOND SUNDAYS
We will continue the tradition of our “Second Sundays,” where a multi-age group of children engages in a special activity.

Justice Sundays, led by Anne Hibbert.
Children from Kindergarten through Junior Youth will work on various social justice projects—either as two separate groups (younger and older), or as one group with older kids helping the younger ones. The projects will either be within the church or for the larger community.

Chalice Lighters, led by Darlene Digati & Rosalind Sulaiman.
This is a self-discovery and religious identity program for UU youth open to interested children in the 4th grade and up. Each participant will gain a thorough understanding of the seven principles by doing exercises and activities at home with a parent and then meeting to exchange opinions once a month as a group on Sunday morning. The Chalice Lighter program will culminate in a special recognition Sunday in the spring.

You can see UUCA activities listed
in our monthly events calendar.