Passover Explorations
Looking through photos, I found several of my family celebrating Passover with friends who are Jewish. They would…
MorePosts tagged: Stories
Kids’ Imaginations
When my children were young, we played all kinds of imaginative games. Sometimes we took our cues from stories we had…
MoreHelping Kids Understand Symbols
Symbols are all around us, but sometimes they can be hard to understand. We need to know something about their cultural…
MoreWhen Kids See Life as a Quest
My son jumped excitedly from foot to foot as he waited impatiently for the clock to strike midnight. Our local…
MoreLiving Black History Projects
It’s Black History Month once again in the U.S., when teachers and group leaders plan lessons celebrating African…
MoreWinter Solstice Stories
For the Northern Hemisphere, winter officially begins on December 21st with the marking of the winter solstice. It’s…
MoreHanukkah Story Activities
Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, is an eight day celebration that recalls how a small band of ancient Jews…
MoreMaking Religious Meaning with Journey to Bethlehem
During the month of December, many Christian families retell the biblical Christmas story as part of their holiday…
MoreEl Día de Los Muertos
Hobgoblins, witches, and ghosts are staples of Halloween, celebrated with glee by children throughout North America.…
MoreMaking Belonging a Priority
Three weeks after my middle child started third grade, she was so anxious and upset that she couldn’t concentrate on…
MoreSeeing Differences through Eyes that Speak to the Stars
Children are often curious about differences. They wonder why someone has red hair instead of brown like them, or…
MoreDreaming with Dreamers
Dreamers, by Yuyi Morales, follows a mother and her young child as they immigrate to the United States and begin to…
MoreCelebrating Juneteenth with Young Children
The United States’ newest federal holiday, Juneteenth celebrates the emancipation of African Americans from slavery.…
MoreExploring Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
The new Spider-Man movie, Across the Spider-Verse, is visually stunning, with different graphics for each universe. The…
MoreSharing the ‘Hard Parts’ of the Christian Easter Story
As I was recounting the events of the Christian Holy Week with a group of children, Jess* waved her hand wildly in the…
MoreExploring A Million Views
My daughter loves creating videos. Lego movies inspire stop-action Lego shorts. Super Bowl halftime shows prompt…
MoreBoosting Resilience with a ‘Helping Hand’
My kindergartener woke in the middle of the night sobbing. We had just learned earlier that her friend’s mom had been…
MoreAvatar Spirituality
Avatar: The Way of Water continues the story of Jake, Neytiri, and their children. For many years, they have lived…
MoreEncouraging Empathy When It’s Hard
Holiday shows play on our sense of connection to beloved characters. Kids who have been left out or bullied know how…
MoreCelebrating Native American Heritage
When I was growing up, November was a month filled with images of ‘pilgrims’ and ‘Indians’ sharing a…
MoreGetting to Know Children Better
When marketers want to learn about people, they collect data about them. They then use that information to improve how…
MoreCreating A Culture Of Caring
In 3rd and 4th grade, I participated in an afterschool Kids Club organized by a neighborhood grandmother. I would walk…
MorePreparing Preschoolers for Spiritual Learning
Working with preschoolers can be a blast! Many are full of curiosity about everything and eager to explore. Even the…
MoreGay Pride Spirituality
It’s Gay Pride Month, and families of all sorts are celebrating diversity. Colorful rainbow flags attract…
MoreImaginative Play & Spirituality
“Do you have a minute?” asked my daughter’s preschool teacher. “Of course,” I replied, “Is something…
MoreTaking Flight with The Year We Learned to Fly
Cultural and spiritual heritages are often passed on to new generations through stories and teachings by elders.…
MoreEmoji Spirituality
Kids love emojis. As fun visual substitutes for words, they help children share how they’re feeling and communicate…
MoreSharing Personal Spiritual Practices
Children’s group leaders often wonder how much to share about their personal lives with young people. We…
MoreCelebrating Black History Year-Round
With the calendar shift from February to March, we’ve gone from remembering Black history to lifting up women and…
MoreUsing Story Circles to Build Empathy
Sorting through a box of old school papers, I found a story one of my children wrote in 2nd grade. Her teacher had…
MoreSpiritual Storytelling with The Last Cuentista
For a book lover like me, one bedtime story often turned into two or three as I tucked my young children in. But I…
MoreWelcoming Afghan Refugees
Many of the refugees airlifted to the U.S. out of Afghanistan last month are currently housed at Fort Lee in Virginia,…
MoreReflecting on Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
During quarantine, my family watched all of the Marvel movies in chronological order. It was one of the few series…
MoreCritical Race Theory
When the University of North Carolina declined to tenure Nikole Hannah-Jones after recruiting her for a chair in…
MoreTelling Personal Stories
Hearing others’ stories and telling one’s own is a powerful way for children to connect spiritually. Personal…
MoreLetting Go of the ‘Main Point’
It’s often the first thing a teacher or group facilitator looks for in a lesson plan: a line near the top that…
MoreSpiritual Mirrors, Windows & Doors
“But mom,” my eldest complained, “why do I have to go to church school? They never talk about anything…
MoreUsing Landscape Images in Spiritual Reflection
My youngest child loves Van Gogh’s Starry Night. In fifth grade, he picked out a t-shirt that had Albert Einstein’s…
MoreUsing Virtual Rooms to Strengthen Community
Over the past year, teachers, therapists, librarians, and others have created virtual rooms with bitmoji to engage…
MoreSpiritual Story Books
My children love to read. From a young age, they knew that I would rarely deny their request to buy a book that caught…
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