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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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Finding the Light Within Us: Queries for Quaker Families

Finding the Light Within Us: Queries for Quaker Families

Vocations and Gifts Parents: Is your work compatible with your values? Is the life of the business/institution for which you work broadly in line with the Quaker values of peace, justice, equality, simplicity, integrity, and community? Do you listen inwardly for new...

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Eighth Day of Creation: Discovering Your Gifts and Using Them

Eighth Day of Creation: Discovering Your Gifts and Using Them

Our spiritual gifts and our special talents exist at the vital intersection of daily life and divine Love. A key element of our spiritual journeys is coming to appreciate our gifts and to understand that they are given to us for the benefit and building up of our...

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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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Books for these trying times with COVID-19

Books for these trying times with COVID-19

A listing of nine books with brief synopses 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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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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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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Flowers for Sarajevo

Flowers for Sarajevo

Lesson plan for the home with a book, music and activities: Young Drasko is happy working with his father in the Sarajevo market. Then war encroaches. Drasko must run the family flower stand alone. One morning, the bakery is bombed and twenty-two people are killed....

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Home Religious Education Guide – Sharing Our Gifts

Home Religious Education Guide – Sharing Our Gifts

Activities to Pair with Books and Music HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE  Please use these ideas in ways that work best for your children.  The Concepts listed and Bible Readings are for grown-up background material to support you.  Reading aloud the book together, or watching...

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Good People Everywhere

Good People Everywhere

Lesson plan for the home with a book, video and music. Good People Everywhere is a soothing story to help children become mindful of the beautiful, caring people in their world. Each page delightfully unfolds with vibrant, engaging illustrations and endearing stories...

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A is for All the Things You Are

A is for All the Things You Are

A lesson plan for the home with a book, music and activities: A Is for All the Things You Are: A Joyful ABC Book is an alphabet board book developed by the National Museum of African American History and Culture that celebrates what makes us unique as individuals and...

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Centering Tools: Mandalas

Centering Tools: Mandalas

"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...

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Crossing the Threshold: Preparing to Welcome Families

Crossing the Threshold: Preparing to Welcome Families

"How do meeting communities prepare and engage in active invitation to families and children? When a family walks through the door of a meeting, there are three sets of needs we should be prepared to support: the spiritual formation of their children, the spiritual...

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Quaker Parenting Initiative

Quaker Parenting Initiative

The Quaker Parenting Initiative seeks to nurture parents on their spiritual journey as they strive to integrate principles of human development with their Quaker faith while living with and guiding their children. This website offers a rich array of resources for...

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