Children’s Religious Education Category

The Empty Pot

The Empty Pot

Honesty and integrity can often require real courage of us! In this classic Chinese children's story, we learn once again that "Honesty is the best policy." Ping was a young schoolboy who loved to grow flowers. He embraced the Emperor's challenge to grow the best...

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Say Something

Say Something

Say Something takes us on the short but significant journey from being a silent bystander to an engaged community member with small, simple acts of inclusion like acknowledging a new student in a class or sitting next to someone on the bus. Bullying and teasing can be...

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Four Feet, Two Sandals

Four Feet, Two Sandals

This is a tender inspiring story of resilience, friendship, creative problem-solving, and peacemaking set in a refugee camp in Pakistan. After weeks of privation and the arduous journey walking out of Afghanistan to escape the fighting, great excitement fills the camp...

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Quaker Affirmations

Quaker Affirmations

Celebrating What’s Already True About Your Children The Quaker emphasis on Truth creates a wonderful jumping off point for conversations with children about special capacities they have (spiritual gifts) and ways those gifts help them to engage with others in ways...

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I Think, I Am! Teaching Kids the Power of Affirmations

I Think, I Am! Teaching Kids the Power of Affirmations

I Think, I Am! can be a bridge for children from hearing about their gifts to embracing those words and incorporating them into their understanding of themselves. Being able to acknowledge our gifts is a crucial step on the Quaker faith formation journey. "Your...

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Jack’s Talent

Jack’s Talent

"You must be good at something," said Miss Lucinda. "Everyone has a special talent." On the first day of school, Miss Lucinda asks the students to share their special talents. Francesca is a star soccer player, Matthew can catch huge fish with his grandpa, and Candace...

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Teaching the Language of Children’s Spirituality

Teaching the Language of Children’s Spirituality

We as human beings need stories. It's this primal part of who we are as a human race — from the very beginning. That's how we have always made meaning. Telling stories, over and over again. Caryl Cresswell, a recorded minister in Sierra Cascades Yearly Meeting, a...

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Weaving Quaker Activists Into First Day Schools

Weaving Quaker Activists Into First Day Schools

Make your Quaker Religious Education come alive! Weave Quaker Activists into your lesson plans bringing a fresh, contemporary voice of lived Quakerism to your Friends Meeting or Church. Use digital technology to invite the world into your classroom in the person of a...

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Bayard Rustin: Troublemaker for Justice

Bayard Rustin: Troublemaker for Justice

A biography for younger readers about one of the most influential activists of our time, who was an early advocate for African Americans and for gay rights. Bayard Rustin was a major figure in the Civil Rights movement. He was arrested on a bus 13 years before Rosa...

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QREC Suggested Religious Education Web Resources

QREC Suggested Religious Education Web Resources

A rich collection of useful websites with curricula and learning materials from many different yearly meetings, Quaker organizations and other educational organizations for teaching all ages. Please use the comment section below to suggest other websites that should...

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Northern Yearly Meeting Children and Youth Policy Manual

Northern Yearly Meeting Children and Youth Policy Manual

Policies and procedures for facilitating programming for children and youth in Northern Yearly Meeting.  The manual includes: NYM Children & Youth Committee member role description, Personnel policies for youth serving employees, Responsibilities for reporting...

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Conversation Circle (Sep 2020) — Child Safety

Conversation Circle (Sep 2020) — Child Safety

How are we caring for children in our Meetings? We have been given a sacred trust, as Quaker religious educators who work with children and youth, to nurture the spiritual growth of young Friends in a loving and safe community. This conversation will explore child...

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Letter Acknowledging Grief

Letter Acknowledging Grief

September 2020 Dear Friends, This is an open letter to Friends engaged in youth ministry. We offer it to the First Day program teachers, the summer camp counselors, the religious education committee members, the volunteer adult presences, the childcare providers . . ....

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My Mandala: What is Your Spiritual Journey?

My Mandala: What is Your Spiritual Journey?

This experiential curriculum uses mandalas to help children learn about their past and current connection to the Divine and to their faith community. Can be taught in one or more lessons.  From the author… "In 2017, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Annual Sessions...

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Guidelines for Virtual Meetings, Northern Yearly Meeting

Guidelines for Virtual Meetings, Northern Yearly Meeting

The Northern Yearly Meeting (NYM — located in the upper midwest USA) Children and Youth Committee has considered best practices and recommendations related to virtual meetings involving youth. The Covid-19 pandemic has led to widespread use of virtual technologies for...

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Planning Calendar for First Day School 2020/2021

Planning Calendar for First Day School 2020/2021

Building a curriculum plan or “road map” of topics and lessons for the year ahead allows you to gather inspiration, season ideas, seek out adults to teach, and present First Day plans to families. Connecting the themes of lessons from one week to the next gives your...

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The Gardener

The Gardener

Lydia Grace Finch brings a suitcase full of seeds to the big gray city, where she goes to stay with her Uncle Jim, a cantankerous baker. There she initiates a gradual transformation, bit by bit brightening the shop and bringing smiles to customers' faces with the...

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Family Worship Pamphlet

Family Worship Pamphlet

What a challenge our form of worship is for children! Even if you just consider the visuals — "still forms on every side" — it looks like a room full of adults either falling asleep or being punished with a time out. How can we help our children feel the depth, the...

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An Introduction

The Quaker Religious Education Collaborative (QREC) is an international, cross-branch, grassroots network of Friends sharing a stewardship for lifelong Quaker faith formation through religious education. We formed in April 2014 and now serve more than 300 Friends in our network. We actively engage and support each other across languages and continents. We gather for regional and annual conferences and offer monthly Conversation Circles via an online conferencing platform. 

Steering Circle

We share leadership as part of our collaborative mission, making decisions using the Quaker ‘sense of the meeting’ process, sitting in expectant, worshipful waiting for the emergence of shared truth. Read more…

Working Circles

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Our work  takes place in ‘circles’ or small groups of Friends who labor on a common task, usually meeting by video conference due to the geographic diversity of the membership. Read more…

The Resource Library

Finders Guide, a sampling of the collection

The QREC Resource Library is a place to share lessons and other educational information in support of our work as Quaker religious educators. This library is a forum for curricula, articles, videos and other educational materials on Quaker themes. You will also find principles, policies and procedures to strengthen operation of your child, youth and adult religious education programs.

Children’s Education

Adult Education

Family

African Quaker Library

Youth Education

Small Meetings

Young Adult Friends

Biblioteca QREC

Events

Find renewal, companionship, and help for nitty gritty issues in Quaker religious education, all the while opening spaces for Spirit to work and listening together for God’s way forward.

QREC holds an annual conference and retreat. In addition we hold online Conversation Circles and post other religious education events as we learn about them.

Conversation Circles

Online conferences for Quaker religious educators to share about their work. Conversations are scheduled for two sessions per topic to encourage international participation.  Join the conversation…

Other Events

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Religious education events of interest to Quakers from all parts of the world. Please let us know about upcoming online or in-person events happening in your area. See the list of upcoming events…

Love at the Heart

Spiritual Practices

Discernment

Active Caring

Quaker Family Culture

Finding the Light

Faith at Home

Home is the heart of faith formation for all families. This is especially true for Friends. As an experiential religion, Quakerism is best learned through living in loving community. Indeed, the vast majority of faith formation for our young Friends happens at home in the busy swirl of daily life.

Become a Member

Submit Resources

Get Announcements

Donate

Attend an Event

Contact Us

Get Involved

QREC depends on all of us sharing our gifts and skills as religious educators. Here are some of the ways you can get involved…