Resources Category

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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Walking in the World as a Friend

Walking in the World as a Friend

"What do we do that makes us Quakers?" Follow how essential Quaker practices weave together the individual, Quaker community and Spirit, creating a unique, vital and transformative dynamic. The 15 short, free videos are great discussion starters. You can purchase...

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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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Video Conferencing with Under 18’s, Britain Yearly Meeting

Video Conferencing with Under 18’s, Britain Yearly Meeting

There are times that you may want to consider virtual meetings with your children's or teenage meeting, with your youth group or as an all age meeting. This policy from Britain Yearly Meeting offers advice on safe online meetings. Download the guidelines Video...

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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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Passages: A Guide to Developing a Coming-of-Age Program

Passages: A Guide to Developing a Coming-of-Age Program

Many faiths mark the transition of young people to teenage/adult status with a special process: learning, performance or ceremony. Quakers do not have a particular tradition for doing this. Some Friends have felt a yearning to honor this transition within their...

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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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Parable of the Talents, Friends Squash Project

Parable of the Talents, Friends Squash Project

This article is a modern enactment of the parable of the talents, and speaks to what can be done together with the right leading. I am trying to remember the Hubbard squash seeds. Did they arrive in my childhood, sixty years ago?  I am not sure. I surely remember...

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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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Books for Families in these Trying Times of Covid-19

Books for Families in these Trying Times of Covid-19

Below is a thumbnail description of books that we think have a message for children in these trying times. Many of the stories are about children overcoming challenges. We hope the books  encourage you  to think about other things, and appreciate the beauty around us....

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Books and Music to Celebrate Earth Day

Books and Music to Celebrate Earth Day

Below is a list of some of our favorite books that are associated with Earth Day. Some books tell about people and the work that they’ve done to help the Earth. Other books share stories to appreciate our beautiful Earth. Each entry has been chosen because it has a...

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The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Lesson plan for the home with a book and activities. When fourteen-year-old William Kamkwamba's Malawi village was hit by a drought, everyone's crops began to fail. Without enough money for food, let alone school, William spent his days in the library — and figured...

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Mumbet’s Declaration of Independence

Mumbet’s Declaration of Independence

Lesson plan for the home with a book, music and activities — "All men are born free and equal." Everybody knows about the Founding Fathers and the Declaration of Independence in 1776. But the founders weren't the only ones who believed that everyone had a right to...

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Lucky Beans

Lucky Beans

Lesson plan for the home with a book and activities. 1930's Great Depression is the setting of a boy's ingenuity in helping his family. Like so many people during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Marshall Loman's dad has lost his job. There's little money, but there...

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What Do You Do with an Idea?

What Do You Do with an Idea?

Lesson plan for the home with a book, music and activities. What do you do with an idea? Especially an idea that's different, or daring, or a little wild? This is the story of one brilliant idea and the child who helps to bring it into the world. As the child's...

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Teaching Worship to Young Children

Teaching Worship to Young Children

Here are several links to resources you can use to teach children about Quaker worship. Centering Tools:Mandalas: Quaker Meeting and Me: This engaging little booklet helps children find their way into Quaker meeting for worship. With rich, calming colors, the...

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Baseball Saved Us

Baseball Saved Us

Lesson plan for the home with a book, video and activities. The Japanese American concentration camp experience during World War II After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Shorty and his family, along with thousands of other Japanese Americans, have been forced to...

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Quiet

Quiet

Lesson plan for the home with book, videos and activities. The author reminds us that mindfulness‚ "being quiet, still, and present with one another" is a very special thing. Everything is in such a hurry, busy as busy can be. The birds are flying so fast, the...

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