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...
Topic: Online Quaker Religious Education: What have we learned so far in our roles as pastors and educators? Welcome and Introductions Centering Silence The COVI-19 pandemic has been a time of struggle and heartbreak, hitting some parts of the society and the world...
"It all starts with stopping," says author Beth Collea, as she describes how the practice of coloring mandalas helps young children settle. Links are provided to websites with free, printable mandalas from the simple to the intricate. This tool is useful for family...
Anxiety about the state of the world is common among young Friends. From the widely acclaimed Powell House Youth Program, this experiential retreat curriculum provides a safe place to voice the fear that burdens so many who seek to live with awareness and...
Cultures all over the world celebrate festivals of Light, often in December. This story, told in the Faith & Play style. uses symbols of Light in a simple, profound way to introduce these festivals in Quaker religious education.
From the child's point of view, living in a small Meeting can be very rich. The segregation between children and adults that is the norm for popular culture and many large Meetings is impossible here. It is like living in a small town, or a large family where everyone...
We use this settling routine from Ann Arbor (MI) Friends Meeting with all our kids, sometimes omitting a line or two. It's important to have chairs an appropriate height for all children so their toes can touch the floor. Sitting on the floor with knees bent and feet...
This is an idea packet assembled for families and small meetings who seek to educate children in Quaker faith and practice. Originally published in 1986, this is a treasure trove, worthy of adaptation and revision given that most Quaker meetings still face these...
This is a growing list of resources for exploring racism and racial justice with young Friends. The document begins with queries to frame the task. The list includes websites, blogs, online articles, curricula and children's literature. Queries: How do we...
"A core aspect of most Religious Education (RE) curriculums involves finding out about faith communities and religious buildings. As a result, local schools often want to visit Quaker meeting houses to find out about our worship, our history and our way of life, as...
Developed for Friends General Conference (FGC) Gathering, this 20 minute video training, quiz and set of queries serves as a brief introduction to procedures for protecting children from abuse or neglect while participating in an FGC program. The website includes...
Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) has relaunched the World Quaker Day Website to celebrate the 5th annual day of international Quaker celebration. We have updated the look and feel of the site and added more resources to help Friends plan their...
Part one of the booklet contains the classic Quaker stories of George Fox, Elizabeth Fry, Stephen Grellet, William Pickett, Mary Fisher and John Woolman. Part two has stories of the experience of meeting for worship. The third part consists of two biblical...
This curriculum explains processes of making decisions in Quaker meeting. In three lessons, students learn about meeting for business, clearness committees, and threshing sessions are described along with age-appropriate activties to increase understanding. For...
This curriculum helps children walk gently over God's Earth through interactive and fun activities. Young Friends experience the Earth as our home, see how we share our home with God's creatures, and learn how we can behave in caring ways for our world. Quaker...
A story about the power of God's love Each spring, as Easter approaches, we see new life all around us. This story of the symbolic transformation from winter to spring, is adapted for Friends from the Godly Play® story The Mystery of Easter* and work by the Faith...
"A curriculum envisioned, created, and developed as a way to guide and educate young Friends in their Quaker faith, similar to Confirmation Classes or Bar/Bat Mitzvah studies found in other faiths. For any Quaker Meeting or Church, the program is designed for middle...
From the Godly Play Foundation: "Children have an innate sense of the presence of God. The Godly Play approach helps them to explore their faith through story, to gain religious language and to enhance their spiritual experience though wonder and play. Based on...
Eleven lessons on Old Testament men and women, including Jacob, Joseph and his brothers, Moses, Joshua, Ruth, David and Goliath, Amos, and Jonah. The introduction includes a general approach to teaching the Old Testament stories. Designed for unprogrammed Friends....
Nine lessons on the early Life of Jesus: The Gifts of the Magi, Jesus as a Boy, The Baptism of Jesus, Jesus in the Wilderness, The Calling and Mission of the Disciples, and The Parables of the Mustard Seed. There is an introductory chapter on "How to Teach Children...
This packet includes seven idea sheets which supplement and complete the materials in Teaching Children About Jesus, Part I. This second set of Seeds includes material on the miracles, Palm Sunday, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Road to Emmaus, and Pentecost...
What do you think is most important for a new teacher to know? This query was given to gifted and seasoned First Day School teachers in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Their responses were remarkably similar. They range from the practical (Make sure you have all of your...
FAITH & PLAY™ is a Montessori-inspired curriculum to help children find words and images for expressing the experiences of holy mystery and wonder. Play is children's practice, hence the name Faith & Play, deriving from Faith and Practice. Faith & Play...
A core Quaker curriculum for young children, Sparkling Still provides everything you need to create lessons for children ages 3 to 8 and build a classroom community. Topics include sense of self, family and community, the natural world, the Bible and Quakerism,...
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.
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…
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 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.
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.
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…
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…
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.
QREC depends on all of us sharing our gifts and skills as religious educators. Here are some of the ways you can get involved…
