Learn about using arts in Quaker Religious Education (RE) practices and programming in this presentation by Laura MacNorlin from the 2023 QREC Annual Conference.
Children’s Religious Education Category
Summary: Radical Acceptance of Children & Youth in Quaker Meetings
This conversation explored how to help meetings fully include all children in the Meeting community, especially those whose interest, behavior, energy level, or identity, make adults Friends feel uncomfortable.
Seeking Wonder and Light in the Christmas Season
In the season of Christmas and festivals of light, we consider how to celebrate in the manner of Friends: How do we approach this season as Friends? What can we share with Quaker religious education colleagues from our experience? What can we share with families in...
Do Our Children Know Enough About Quakerism to Play Quaker? Dover Meeting Dollhouse
Children learn through play. They play school, they play house, they even play COVID, giving everyone shots. Do our children know enough about being Quaker to play Quaker? Children are fully spiritual beings. Meeting life needs to be as open and comprehensible to them...
Quaker Time Machine: An intergenerational exploration of historical Friends
Friends, young and old, play through Quaker history in this hands-on exploration of historical Friends from George Fox to present-day Friends in your monthly meeting. Adult volunteers prepare for the class by studying a historical Friend to prepare for role-playing in...
Rules of Thumb for Community Safety
Friends Meetings, like all faith communities, are at risk of sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults. This one page explanation of the risk is a good conversation starter for Friends meetings seeking to create or strengthen safety policies. Rules of Thumb for...
Fill This Day With Love — Coloring Page
Use this coloring page when the world seems to need brightening. Author and illustrator, Anne Nydam (Wellesley Meeting, NEYM), invites you to send colored pages for posting in her on-line gallery: Nydam Prints, Black and White Download the image Fill This Day with...
I am a Quaker
Aconcise exploration of Quaker faith and practice for young children. Without preaching or proselytizing, children who are believers talk about their religion, as they have learned it from -- or practice it with -- their families. Religions of the World books (Rosen...
Becoming Me: A story of creation
Have you ever imagined how you came to be? Do you stop and wonder what your place is in creation? Becoming Me presents a way of looking at life and the meaning of our existence, based on timeless spiritual insights. The simple words and radiant illustrations touch...
We Are the Water Protectors
Inspired by the many Indigenous-led movements across North America, We Are Water Protectors issues an urgent rallying cry to safeguard the Earth's water from harm and corruption--a bold and lyrical picture book written by Carole Lindstrom and vibrantly illustrated by...
DK Illustrated Family Bible
This superbly illustrated Bible interprets the text of all the most important stories in the Old and New Testaments, making it an essential Bible reader for the whole family. The DK Illustrated Family Bible uses original texts selected from the New International...
Sometimes People March
Simple, direct statements are paired with watercolor illustrations to highlight some of the rallying causes for organized marches throughout the history of the United States. The text and art begin with two marches that will reemerge as metaphor later in the book: a...
Refuge: The Timeless Story of Christmas
The Christmas story and what follows: the fleeing of Jesus, Mary and Joseph from Herod's soldiers to Egypt. An immigration story, this book has timeless crossover appeal and a message that couldn't be more relevant today as so many leave their homeland for fear of...
A New Alphabet for Humanity
Alphabet Words to Inspire Compassion, Kindness and Positivity This book features 26 empowering alphabet words to activate the potential of our children and create a bright future for humanity. A New Alphabet for Humanity teaches children the power of positive words so...
Peace Begins with You
Peace Begins with You frames peace as real and possible and peacemaking as right and actionable in our daily lives and on the world stage. It establishes universal human needs, the inevitability of conflict, and the possibility that resolutions to disagreements may...
The Best Gift of All
The power of a simple visit rings loud and clear in this story. It's a sweet primer in pastoral care for children. First, Mole has an awareness of missing his friend, Rabbit. He begins to take action and burrow a tunnel toward her home. Squirrel and Hedgehog are...
The Kindness Quilt
Kindness naturally and joyfully multiplies when we focus on opportunities to be helpful, courteous, generous, and encouraging! The Kindness Quilt is an invitation to illustrate our own acts of kindness and pull them all together in a lovely festive quilt. In the...
How Maps Change Things
A Conversation about the Maps We Choose and the World We Want I'd love to see this book in every Quaker home and Friends meeting/church library. It's a surprisingly short and utterly engaging journey from world maps to questions of social justice and it's worth it...
The Day You Begin
Everyone has times when they don't feel they belong, when they feel, and often are, outside the circle looking in. Maybe it is the way we look, or speak, or the food in our lunch bag that leaves us feeling like the outsider. Woodson warmly encourages us to dare to...
Enemy Pie
This delicious story proves that the best way to defeat an enemy is by making him your friend! A perfect summer is ruined when Jeremy Ross moves into town. He laughs when you strike out at baseball and is playing with your best friend. But Dad has some real wisdom...
The Invisible Boy
It's easy to be lost and overlooked in a noisy world of boisterous classmates. Brian lives on the margins in the lunch room, the playground, and even in class. That is until, Justin moves to town. Brian steps out of his comfort zone just a bit and finds a new friend...
Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch
Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch celebrates how love can change lives and how our community can bring that love into action. Mr. Hatch's quiet, lonely world is delightfully turned upside down when the postman delivers a Valentine's Day box of chocolates from a secret...
Nurturing the Spirituality of Children
Children’s spirituality is something we still have much to learn about, is so important, and is something that can change the world. Caryl Cresswell, a recorded minister in Sierra Cascades Yearly Meeting, a member of West Hills Friends Meeting in Portland, Oregon, and...
Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins
When four courageous black teens sat down at a lunch counter in the segregated South of 1960, the reverberations were felt both far beyond and close to home. This insightful story offers a child's-eye view of this seminal event in the American Civil Rights Movement....