LOVE SURROUNDS US
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Children
SESSION 6: ACCEPTANCE
BY LYNN KERR AND CHRISTY OLSON
© Copyright 2010 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 11/8/2014 5:28:59 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 accept the universe! — Margaret Fuller
The session focuses on the third Principle, "Everyone is accepted with love and compassion in our congregation." One of the unique characteristics of Unitarian Universalism is the diversity of beliefs within our congregations. We strive to make everyone feel welcome and accepted regardless of their beliefs. The children will learn and demonstrate acceptance and compassion to everyone through story, art, games, and meditation.
GOALS
This session will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
SESSION-AT-A-GLANCE
Activity | Minutes |
Welcoming and Entering | 0 |
Opening | 10 |
Activity 1: Story — Odd Velvet | 15 |
Activity 2: Celebrating Differences | 10 |
Activity 3: Song — I'm Unique and Unrepeatable | 10 |
Activity 4: Loving Kindness Walking Meditation | 10 |
Faith in Action: Hygiene Project | |
Closing | 5 |
Alternate Activity 1: Congregation Tour | 15 |
Alternate Activity 2: Welcome to Our Congregation | 15 |
Alternate Activity 3: Heart Ribbon Magnet | 5 |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
We are all unique. As adults, it is often an advantage to stand out because of our differences in abilities or skills. As a leader, you will demonstrate to participants that we should all be proud of ourselves and be accepting of others.
Relax into a comfortable position and close your eyes. Think about what makes you unique as an adult. What made you unique as a child? Are you or were you proud of those differences? Why or why not?
Now reflect on the children in this group and how they may see their differences. Consider how they show acceptance of one another. How can you as a leader help make this session a positive experience for the participants? Celebrate the differences in the group and take these positive thoughts into the session.
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. It emphasizes the third Principle.
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 each child to sit at a work table and draw something that makes them special.
Including All Participants
Give a ribbon stick to any new child 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.
Provide a space at a work table for any child who is unable to sit at a chair. Offer to help a child make a drawing, if needed.
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.
Optional: Lead the group to sing the song "Love Surrounds Me."
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. Tell them yellow represents the third Principle. Have them find the yellow ribbon and say the Principle together: "In our congregations, we accept all people and we learn together."
Ask participants if anyone can remember the first Principle (Each and every person is important). Ask if they remember what color we assigned to the first Principle (red). Ask if they remember the second Principle (We believe all people should be treated fairly) and its color (orange).
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 and 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, ODD VELVET (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Participants learn what it means to accept others. The story is about a girl who seems to be different and her classmates begin to tease her. By the end of the story, her classmates become her friends as they realize her differences make her all the more interesting.
Gather participants so that they can see and hear you tell the story. If you will not show pictures in a book, you might invite them to close their eyes, if they like.
Read or tell the story. Then, ask everyone to slowly open their eyes.
Process with questions such as:
ACTIVITY 2: CELEBRATING DIFFERENCES (10 MINUTES)
Description of Activity
This activity helps participants celebrate their uniqueness. Gather everyone in a seated circle, on chairs or the floor. Tell the group you will play a memory game. Ask participants to close their eyes and think about what makes them special or perhaps different than others. Suggest it could be something they enjoy, like soccer; something they can do, such as speak another language, or something they are, such as the only child in their family. Allow participants a minute or two to think in silence then ask them to slowly open their eyes.
Going around the circle, ask the first child what makes them special. Ask them to say, "I am special because_______," and then complete the sentence. Then, invite the next participant in the circle to repeat exactly what the last person said and then add what makes them special (for example, "Katie is special because she can ride a scooter and I am special because...). Go around the whole circle with each participant repeating what previous participants said and adding their own words to the end of the statement.
The last participant in the circle will have to repeat everyone's statements. Suggest the children help one another remember all the words as the list gets longer and more difficult to remember.
If time allows, choose another question to ask and go around the circle the opposite way. You might ask "What is the oddest animal you have ever seen?" or "What makes your home special?"
Ask the group if they were surprised by anything that was shared? How does it feel to talk about being special? Is it hard? Is it easy? End by acknowledging there are many wonderful things that make the people in the group special.
Including All Participants
Be sure to assist participants who have trouble remembering what the other participants said before them. Allow participants to pass if they can't think of something at their turn; then, go back to them later. If they are unable to think of something, ask participants questions to prompt them to find something special about themselves.
ACTIVITY 3: SONG, I'M UNIQUE AND UNREPEATABLE (10 MINUTES)
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
This song reminds us we are all unique.
Ask participants to stand and tell them you are going to teach them a song about being special. It is called "I'm Unique and Unrepeatable." Ask participants if they know the song "Ten Little Children" (one little, two little, three little children... ). Sing a portion of the song to remind them what the tune sounds like. Tell participants that the music is the same in this new song, but they will use new words.
Sing through the song once for them. Then invite participants to join you. Call out the first word of each verse to help them remember the song (e.g. "I'm," "You're," "We're").
Verse 1
I'm unique and unrepeatable, I'm unique and unrepeatable, I'm unique and unrepeatable, I'm glad to be me!
Verse 2
You're unique and unrepeatable, You're unique and unrepeatable, You're unique and unrepeatable, I'm glad that you're you!
Verse 3
We're unique and unrepeatable; we're unique and unrepeatable,
We're unique and unrepeatable, we're glad to be us!
Note: This song was introduced by Jan Evans-Tiller in the curriculum We Believe, 2nd ed. (Unitarian Universalist Association, 1998).
Including All Participants
If any children cannot stand and sing, include them in the circle in a wheelchair or a chair.
ACTIVITY 4: LOVING KINDNESS WALKING MEDITATION (10 MINUTES)
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Participants learn a simple loving kindness walking meditation in the Buddhist tradition. Explain that meditation is a way of focusing thoughts to achieve calm and has been a spiritual practice in many religions for thousands of years. Explain, in your own, child-friendly words:
Although most people associate mediation with Buddhism, where it is an integral spiritual practice, people of any religion can practice meditation. Some people sit to meditate and some people walk.
Tell participants they will be walking in this session. They will do a meditation to send loving kindness to the world and to individuals.
Ask participants to line up with an arm's length between them. Have a co-leader take the last place in line. Tell the children to notice their starting spot.
Lead the meditation, with these words or your own:
Don't close your eyes because we will be walking.
Take a deep breath and slowly exhale.
Now breathe normally.
Notice the air coming out of your nose.
Focus the mind on normal breathing.
Feel your feet pressed into the ground.
Try to gently push away other thoughts.
Allow the body to relax. Try not to be stiff.
Breathe slowly for one minute.
Now begin to think about acceptance and kindness.
Is there someone you need to be kinder to? Begin to repeat that person's name in your head.
Begin walking slowly and continue throughout the rest of the meditation.
Continue to focus on that person.
Stop speaking for one minute, but continue walking.
Now begin to think about a group of people that need kindness and acceptance. Perhaps it is your family, maybe it is children you know without parents, or maybe it is people who are homeless. Think about the groups of people who need loving kindness sent to them.
Stop speaking for one minute, but continue to lead the group in walking.
Now begin to think about our world. Think about things in this world that could be better if there was more love and kindness. Think about specific places in the world that need more love. It might be rainforests, animals, warring countries, your school, your home.
Stop speaking for one minute, but continue to lead the group in walking.
Now let us send love out to the world and ourselves with every breath. Repeat the word "love" in your mind as your exhale. Continue to walk in silence, and return to your starting spot.
When the mediation is complete, ask participants how it felt to send love to people they know and people they don't know. Ask participants how they feel in their bodies right now. Do they feel calm and relaxed? Did they like the quiet time?
Including All Participants
Choose a walking area that can accommodate wheelchairs or other movement assistance devices.
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: HYGIENE PROJECT
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
When a person is unable to take care of their basic hygiene needs, it can be very difficult to feel welcome and accepted wherever you go. Imagine going to a new congregation or a job interview if you had no way to bathe for a week. Providing hygiene items restores dignity to recipients and allows them to care for themselves.
Explain to participants that some people receive government assistance to purchase food because they do not have enough money of their own. Explain that these people are not allowed to purchase basic hygiene items with their food stamps. For instance, diapers, toothpaste, toothbrushes, and soap have to be purchased with their own money or need to come from donations. Ask participants to make posters asking for hygiene items and post them in the congregation with your chosen deadline for donations. Posters can show pictures of items needed such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, diapers, and toilet paper.
After the deadline, participants sort and count the donated items and bag them for transportation. Tell participants about the agency they will donate to.
Be sure to print a thank you in an order of service or a monthly newsletter thanking everyone for their donations and indicating how much was collected. A leader or a group of people should deliver the items to the chosen charity.
Including All Participants
Participants need not go out and purchase items. Remind them that sample sizes from hotels can be donated. Participants may also solicit friends and neighbors to contribute items. Consider brainstorming about places that might donate items, such as a dentist's office, rather than asking families who are themselves unable to purchase items.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
Think about the participants who participated in the session today. What did they learn? Did they understand what it means to be accepting? Were participants able to effectively participate in the meditation? Would you conduct the meditation differently if you did it again? Reflect on your effectiveness in presenting this session.
TAKING IT HOME
I accept the universe! — Margaret Fuller
IN TODAY'S SESSION... the group learned the third Principle concept of acceptance of everyone in our congregations. They heard a story, "Odd Velvet," about a girl who is a bit different than everyone else but eventually is accepted and loved. We talked about our own differences and why they make us special and unique. Participants also learned a loving kindness walking mediation that gave them an opportunity to send thoughts of love to people all over the world and they sang a fun, new song about being unique. This session demonstrated how everyone is accepted in our congregations regardless of who they are or where they come from and modeled how we celebrate the differences each person brings.
EXPLORE THE TOPIC TOGETHER. Talk about... your family. What makes your family unique? What are you especially proud of? Think about every individual in the family (even pets) and have everyone tell one thing that is special about that person or animal.
EXTEND THE TOPIC TOGETHER. Try...
A Family Adventure. Has your family ever gone to an unfamiliar place? Have you moved, or have the children started attending a new school? Talk about that experience and how it felt? Did you feel accepted? What would have made you feel more accepted in your new surroundings? Consider ways to intentionally welcome new neighbors or new children at school. What can each family member do to make the newcomers feel welcome? Each time someone new moves in nearby or starts school with your children, you might make it your practice to send a card, make a cake, or offer to take new neighbors on a tour of your favorite spots in town.
Family Discovery. There are numerous books and websites about mediation and yoga. The Fit Sugar website (at www.fitsugar.com/219736) shows some simple yoga poses and has great pictures of animals doing the poses.
A Family Game. Give everyone a pencil and four pieces of paper no larger than 4x5 inches. Make sure all the paper is the same color. Ask every family member to write four things they like about themselves, one per piece of paper. Don't put your name on it! Fold each piece of paper into quarters and put in the center of the table or in a bowl or basket. (If any family members are unable to write, ask one person in the family to assist them, without telling the others what they write for the person.) One at a time, each family member chooses a piece of paper and reads it aloud or has someone else read it aloud for them. Now the whole family guesses who the note is about. Take turns until every paper has been read.
A Family Ritual. Explore loving kindness meditation together. Set aside five to ten minutes, at the same time each week, for your entire family to meditate on sending love to each family member, a group of people, or just out into the world. You can do a walking meditation or simply sit in a group. This could be a nice ritual before bed; mediation calms our minds and relaxes the body, which can help us sleep.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: CONGREGATION TOUR (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Description of Activity
This activity encourages participants to think about how it may feel to be new to the congregation and to brainstorm how to make a new person feel accepted there.
Explain that the group will walk around the inside (and, if applicable, the outside) of the congregation. Ask participants to look around and pretend they are visiting the congregation for the first time. What would make them feel welcome? Ask the participants what would make new children feel welcome—not only visiting adults. Prompt:
Observe if the congregation is accessible to those with mobility limitations. List the ideas participants think of to make people feel more welcome at the congregation. You might share your list with the membership committee; perhaps it has ideas they could use.
Including All Participants
Choose a walking area that can accommodate wheelchairs or other equipment.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 2: WELCOME TO OUR CONGREGATION (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
This activity allows participants an opportunity to personally welcome children to their congregation by making welcoming posters to hang in the meeting area.
Indicate where you have posted the word "Welcome" and invite participants to write "welcome" somewhere on their poster. Tell them they may decorate the rest with pictures that show the kind of fun you have together. They may draw things that represent your activities such as children holding hands, arts and crafts, or musical notes.
When children are done, hang posters in and/or around the rooms, depending on congregation policies. Invite participants to look at one another's posters and think about how they would feel if they were new to the congregation and saw these posters. Process with these questions:
Remind the group that it is part of our faith to greet people we do not know and welcome them into the congregation.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 3: HEART RIBBON MAGNET (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
This activity connects the color yellow and the third Principle as participants work on their Heart Ribbon Magnets—a reminder of the UU Principles they may take home at the close of the program.
Tell them the yellow ribbon represents the third UU Principle, "In our congregations, we accept all people and we learn together." Demonstrate how to fold a length of yellow ribbon in half, push the folded end into the hole on the side of the heart next to the orange ribbon, and insert the two loose ends of yellow ribbon through the loop formed by the folded end. Pull the yellow ribbon through tightly.
Help any new children or visitors begin a Heart Ribbon Magnet, following instructions in Session 2, Alternate Activity 1, and add red, orange, and yellow ribbons.
Set aside the magnets and remaining colors of ribbon for future sessions.
Including All Participants
Partner very young children with an older child who can help them.
LOVE SURROUNDS US: SESSION 6:
STORY: ODD VELVET
Odd Velvet by Mary E. Whitcomb, illustrated by Tara Calahan King (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1998). Permission pending.
On the first day of school, Velvet's classmates brought their teacher cinnamon tea, lace handkerchiefs, and heart shaped boxes of potpourri. Velvet handed her teacher an egg carton filled with seven rocks, her favorite red shoelaces. And half a sparrow's egg. Velvet was odd.
At lunchtime, Velvet not only carried a used brown paper bag, but inside of it were things like carrots and a butter sandwich. And she ate them. At recess, a few of the girls noticed that Velvet was not wearing a new dress even though it was the beginning of the school year. "Where did she come from?" they wondered out loud.
All of this strangeness did not stop after the first day of school. In fact, it got worse. Velvet brought a milkweed pod for show and tell. Luckily, three of the other girls brought a talking doll, a wetting doll, and a crying doll, and saved the day.
Velvet's nose was freckled, she had a pack of only eight crayons, and her sweater once belonged to her older sister. Nothing was right about Odd Velvet. Although everyone was polite to her, no one was silly enough to pick Velvet for partner play or to walk home with her after school.
No one wanted to be different the way Velvet was different.
On the day of the school field trip, the children were laughing and calling each other by their nicknames. Someone called out... "What's your nickname Velvet?"
It got quiet as Velvet looked around. "I don't have one," she said. "But my father told me that, on the day I was born, the sun was just rising over the mountains, and outside it looked as though the world had been covered with a blanket of smooth, soft, lavender velvet." A few of the boys let out a giggle, but mostly the bus fell quiet. For a moment everyone was thinking of how beautiful that morning must have been, the day Velvet was born.
The following week a school drawing contest was announced. There was no question who the winner would be. Sarah Garvey had the best markers, the biggest paint set, and more colored pencils than anyone else in the class. When the day arrived to announce the winner, the children let Sarah sit right up front. No one was more surprised than she was when the teacher called out Velvet's name.
Velvet had drawn an apple. "It's just a piece of fruit," Sarah protested. Everyone stared at the picture. "It looks so real I would like to eat it," someone said. "It seems like you could pick it up," another child added. Sure enough, with just her eight crayons, Velvet had drawn the most beautiful apple the children had ever seen.
Little by little, the things that Velvet said, and the things that Velvet did began to make sense. The teacher had Velvet speak for two whole days about her rock collection. She even had ashes from a real volcano.
Still, on the day that she handed out invitations to her birthday party, the whispering began. "I bet her house is old and dark," Sarah said. The thought of going to Velvet's house made everyone feel a little uneasy. Velvet lived in a tiny house at the end of a long road. There was no jungle gym or tether ball. Just a swing hanging from a big, old tree.
At the door, Velvet's mom and dad politely asked the children in. There were no birthday magicians or wizards. Not even a clown. But they got to turn Velvet's room into a castle. The royal subjects painted their faces and put glitter in their hair. They jumped high off the bed into a blue blanket moat.
Velvet's sister made each of them golden crowns with colored jewels. They took turns wearing Velvet's royal cloak (which used to be a bed cover). They played cards and shot marbles. Velvet even showed them how to draw beautiful apples.
On the last day of school, Velvet's classmates brought their teacher handfuls of flowers, cards that they had made, and an impressive collection of nice looking rocks. Velvet was different. But maybe she wasn't so odd after all.
FIND OUT MORE
Meditation
Venerable Thubten Chodron's website (at www.thubtenchodron.org/Meditation/) offers a variety of resources for meditation including guided meditations on kindness, gratitude, and love which conclude:
...let's dedicate all the positive energy and potential that we've accumulated through our meditation, and let's imagine sending that out, dedicating it to the welfare of each and every living being, ourselves and all others.
On Congregations Becoming More Welcoming
The Unitarian Universalist Association's Leaders Library offers a variety of resources online, including the Interconnections articles "How You Welcome Visitors Makes A Big Difference" (at www.uua.org/leaders/leaderslibrary/leaderslibrary/interconnections/56267.shtml) (April 15, 2004) and "How Welcoming Do Your Visitors Think You Are?" (at www.uua.org/leaders/leaderslibrary/leaderslibrary/interconnections/45500.shtml) (September 15, 2007).
Buddhism and Unitarian Universalism
Read a UU World article about Buddhism and Unitarian Universalism (at www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/23667.shtml).