RE Curriculum
Year 4
4: First quarter, October through December
Age range: 8-11, centered on approximately age 9
Topic: Unitarian Universalist Identity
10 sessions in the topic area; one seasonal session, one session on
Christmas, and one week off.
Sessions in the topic area:
We Believe (complete session plans and workbook designed for
families and tiny church schools), seven sessions:
- 15: Everyone is special
- 16: Caring for all
- 17: Weaving our lives together
- 18: Freedom to learn
- 19: Global village
- 20: Working it out
- 21: The web of humankind
Three sessions based on UU Kids Book. Use the stories below
with the basic session plan from CLF Religious
Education in the Home.
- Charles Dickens
- Charles Latimer
- Julia Ward Howe
Seasonal session:
Choose one holiday from CLF's Cycle of Seasons that has special
meaning to your family, and celebrate it together as a family
OR
Celebrate the solstice using a celebration from Starhawk's Circle
Round.
Christmas session:
Celebrate Christmas together as a family. See
Quest REsources for Living, 1999. The focus is on trees.
Copy is at the end of Year 4 Plan.
One week off.
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4: Second quarter, January through March
Age range: 8-11, centered on approximately age 9
Topic: Our Jewish and Christian heritage
10 sessions in the topic area; one seasonal session, one session on
Easter, and one week off.
Sessions in the topic area:
Ten sessions from Timeless Themes: Stories from the Hebrew and Christian
Bibles for Grades 3 and 4: We recommend that you use the sessions
generally in the order they are presented in Timeless Themes.
However, depending on when Easter falls in the year you use Timeless
Themes, you may want to use the session on Jesus' execution so to
coincide with Easter.
An alternative for the sessions on Hebrew scriptures is to start with
"Adam and Eve," and then do the four sessions on Moses (nos.
11 - 14). This involves spending four weeks working on a large mural
of the life of Moses -- great for families who like arts and crafts
projects.
Hebrew scriptures:
- "Adam and Eve"
- "Noah"
- "The Tower of Babel"
- "Jacob and Esau"
- "Job"
Christian scriptures:
- "John the Baptist"
- "Jesus and the Temple"
- "Jesus and the Law"
- "The Teachings of Jesus"
- "The Crucifixion."
Seasonal session:
Choose one holiday from CLF's Cycle of Seasons that has special
meaning to your family, and celebrate it together as a family
OR
Celebrate the equinox using a celebration from Starhawk's Circle
Round.
Easter session: Celebrate Easter with your family.
One week off.
______________________________________
4: Third quarter, April through June
Age range: 8-11, centered on approximately age 9
Topic: Wisdom from the world's religions
10 sessions in the topic area; plus one seasonal session, and two weeks
off.
Sessions in the topic area:
Ten sessions based on stories from indigenous peoples from around the
world, stories found in Old Tales for a New Day, using the basic
session plan.
Three stories from Oceania:
- "The
Half-boy of Borneo" (Borneo)
- "Voices of the Great Spirit" (central Australia)
- "The Boy Who Found His Father" (Maori, New Zealand)
Seven Native American stories:
- "The Healing Waters" (Iroquois)
- "Niyak and the Eagle" (Inuit)
- "Night and Day and the Seasons" (western mountains of
Canada)
- "Man Is Punished by the Animals" (Cherokee)
- "The Two Sisters" (Capilanos)
- "When First Man and First Woman Quarreled" (Navajo)
- "The Maize Spirit" (Chippewa)
If none of these stories comes from an indigenous people in your part
of the world, you might wish to substitute one or more stories from
local indigenous peoples for a story or stories above.
Seasonal session:
Choose one holiday from CLF's Cycle of Seasons that has special
meaning to your family, and celebrate it together as a family
OR
Celebrate the solstice using a celebration from Starhawk's Circle
Round.
Two weeks off.
______________________________________
4: Fourth quarter, July through September
Age range: 8-11, centered on approx. age 9
Topic: Social justice
9 sessions in the topic area; one seasonal session, two weeks off, and
one annual session of evaluation (and assessment) in mid-September.
Sessions in the topic area:
The following sessions from Timeless Themes: Stories from the Hebrew
and Christian Bibles for Grades 3 and 4, can be easily adapted to
include a social justice component or project:
- "The Good Samaritan" (doing good to others in day-to-day
life)
- "Healing Power" (a visit to a nursing home)
- "Mary and Martha" (bring a meal to a shut-in)
- "The Religion of Ruth" (bring muffins to a neighbor)
- "Flight to Egypt" (meeting and supporting refugees in
your community).
We suggest that you present the Bible story one week, carry out the
social justice or community service project during the week, and then
on the next Sunday review the story, and compare it to your project.
Thus each session will cover two weeks.
Seasonal session:
Choose one holiday from CLF's Cycle of Seasons that has special
meaning to your family, and celebrate it together as a family
OR
Celebrate the equinox using a celebration from Starhawk's Circle
Round.
Evaluation session:
Remembering -- Brainstorm list of memorable Sunday school sessions
from the past year.
Evaluating: From the children's point of view, what were the best sessions?
Revisiting the covenant: Review Sunday school covenant you created.
Does it need to be revised? When done, sign it again for this year.
See the Introduction for more on assessment
and evaluation sessions.
Two weeks off.
______________________________________
REsources for
Living
Betsy Hill Williams, Religious Education Director, CLF
It's the night before Christmas. Two children plus their parents, all
bundled up against the biting cold, drive past the brightly lit store
windows and straggling shoppers to the place where they spend every
Christmas Eve. Their faces shine, the excitement is contagious. They
carry a box, a lantern, and a blanket, and we aren't quite sure what
they're up to.
So begins the engaging Chinaberry book review of a new children's book
by Eve Bunting, Night Tree. It turns out the family is headed deep into
the woods to greet an old friend: an evergreen tree that has been "their"
tree every Christmas Eve "forever and ever."Out of the box
they take popcorn chains, apples, and oranges strung on strings, and
sunflower seeds pressed with suet and honey—all for hanging on
the tree. And there are breadcrumbs and pieces of apple to scatter under
the tree for the creatures that don't climb or fly. After they decorate
the tree, they all settle on the blanket to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate
and sing a few bars of their favorite Christmas carols.
Without even looking at the pictures, I knew I wanted to do this. I
love the tradition of bringing greens indoors each year, but I do cringe
as I watch 18-wheel flatbed trucks stacked with hundreds of twine-wrapped
evergreens zoom down the highway. And in response to such apparent excess,
my family has had its' share of "Christmas trees" from the
backyard: thin and scraggly and taking the shape of a Christmas tree
only loosly, if at all. I'm definitely buying this book. And this year,
I'm going to suggest that our family add this wonderful idea to our
Christmas tree tradition.
Notice I use the word "add." Because I know that bringing
in the green will always be a part of my Christmas, as it has been at
the heart of winter celebrations for thousands of years. And the Christmas
tree tradition has a unique place in Unitarian Universalist history
as well.
According to Edna Barth (Holly, Reindeer, and Colored Lights: The Story
of Christmas Symbols), the first record of a Christmas tree is in a
German book dated 1604. Origins of the practice, however, date much
further back. In the winter solstice celebration known as Saturnalia,
Romans decorated trees and placed an image of the sun god at the tip.
Druid priests in the Celtic region that is now England and France, decorated
oak trees with gilded apples and lighted candles to honor the sun god
and the god of fruit.
With Christianity came new symbolic interpretations of the Christmas
tree. One legend tells of a missionary in Germany who, in trying to
convert the pagans of the area, cut down the oak under which they were
worshipping. In its place, a small fir tree miraculously appeared. The
missionary told
those gathered that the fir tree was the tree of Christ, a symbol of
goodness and love that should be taken into their homes. Another legend
involves Martin Luther, the 16th century German Protestant leader. One
Christmas Eve, inspired by the beauty of the tall firs against the starry
night sky, he cut a tree down and took it home to his family. There
he decorated it with lights to symbolize the stars in the heavens above
Bethlehem.
By the 18th century, the tradition of bringing a tree indoors and decorating
it with candles and ornaments was widespread throughout Germany, the
Netherlands and Scandinavia. German soldiers, fighting for the British
against the American Colonists during the Revolutionary War, set up
Christmas trees to remind them of home. But it did not become a popular
tradition in America until much later. Many of the early colonies outlawed
the celebration of Christmas, because the Puritans considered it nothing
but a rowdy, pagan celebration with no biblical sanction. With the influx
of Europeans after the war, many different Christmas customs came to
America, including the German Christmas tree and Kris Kringle. So popular
were these customs and traditions, that soon all states made Christmas
a legal holiday.
One of the people credited with introducing the Christmas tree in America
was Dr. Charles Follen. A German-born professor at Harvard University,
Follen wanted his young son and family to experience the magic of the
glowing Christmas trees of his childhood. One year he surprised them
with a fully decorated and lighted tree. The Follen family invited neighbors
to gather round their indoor tree. One of the guests wrote about the
event in a local magazine, and a New England tradition was born. Charles
Follen later became a Unitarian minister. The Follen Community Church
in Lexington, Massachusetts, known to some as "The Christmas Tree
Church," is named after its first minister, Charles Follen.
So as the days get short and the holiday season approaches, gather
your family and explore the woods or parks near you. Find a tree to
adopt as your every-year-evergreen Christmas tree. On Christmas Eve,
or perhaps on the winter solstice, decorate your tree with edible gifts
for all the wild animals. Make this an annual event and as you return
to your tree year after year, your family, like the little boy in Night
Tree, will notice changes and growth—in the tree and in themselves.
 RE
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Last updated September 24, 2008
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