Family Information for Sunday, March 24th

Hello Friends and Families of Westside!

Happy spring – it looks like we’re in for some beautiful sunshine this week! And we have great spring activities in store for our WSUU children and youth.

·      See below for our plans for tomorrow and Easter Sunday the following week. K-2 families – if your child has an allergy to dogs, please let me know. We will have a short visit with a puppy tomorrow!

·      Tomorrow we will have a group of youth and mentors visiting our service from the University Unitarian Church.

·      In April we will have Children’s Chapels on the 14^th and 21^st (spring break weekends for Seattle Public Schools).

·      Our K-5 classes are starting a social action project with Heifer International, and our middle school class is developing their own social justice project.

·      In May I will work with all of our classes to grow our awareness of our partnership church in Transylvania, culminating in an exchange of videos between us. We are working with East Shore Unitarian for this.

·      June 2^nd is our last day of RE classes for this year, and June 9^th is RE Celebration Sunday – all of our children and youth will participate in this service. June 16^th is the first Sunday of our summer program.

·      Our youth have formed a new Youth Adult Committee (YAC), which will meet soon to continue to grow plans for upcoming projects and trips.

To talk with your child or youth about what they learned in RE, check out our blog at www.wsuureligiousexploration.blogspot.com.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1.    MIDDLE SCHOOL: Join us for a Fun Night social event next Friday, March 29^th, from 6:30-8:30pm in the social hall for pizza, games, and henna painting!

2.    STORY TELLING WORKSHOP INCLUDING YOUTH: Our Story Telling Workshop is tomorrow after the service from 12:30 to 2:30 in the Fireside Room. I have contacted those who said they were interested. All are still invited to join in! Lunch snacks will be served.

3.    EASTER SUNDAY: Next week, March 30th, we will have an installation ceremony followed by a Children's Chapel. I will lead children from pre-school to grade 8 through a brief worship in the social hall (and our high school youth may be helping), then we'll be preparing bags to deliver to the Nickelsville community. Younger children will hunt for Easter eggs in the social hall. Our 3rd to 8th graders will hunt for some eggs and also bags of toiletries in the parking lot outside. The toiletries will then go into the paper bags they decorated. I will be taking these to Nickelsville after the service. Children/families are welcome to come if this is something you'd like to add to your Easter day. The Nickelsville folks are happy to see children, and have a short tour they can offer if we'd like. Just let me know if you'd like to join me in making this delivery!

4.    CRAFTS AND COFFEE: Join us on Friday mornings in the church library (3^rd floor) from 10-12 to visit, enjoy your coffee, and help to create crafts to be used in the RE program. Babies and children are invited!  

5.     SOCIAL HOUR SNACKS: We want to ensure that there are healthy and inviting snacks on our social hour snack table for our kids. The social hour team will be including some bars, apple slices, and graham crackers each week. If you’re shopping and you see something that would be good to include on the snack table for our kids, please pick it up and drop it off in the kitchen. Just label it “for kids.” Thank you!

THIS WEEK:

Story Time: This week our children will share a story and snack together. Please let the teachers in the class know if your child has a food allergy. Story Time class will continue every Sunday, even when there is a Children’s Chapel or a multigenerational service.

Spirit Play: This week's story is called "Hey Little Ant", and it is based on our Seventh, Violet colored Promise: to value our home, Earth, that we share with all living things. With this story, our children will consider how we treat the living things around us, even those as small as ants.

Kindergarten through Second Grade: “Wonderful Welcome”:  This week’s lesson is about the gift of mutual caring in the connections we can make with animals. While the gift is reciprocal in many ways — including responsibility, affection, and loyalty — humans have the power to name and nurture it. By exploring and affirming mutually these relationships, this session affirms our seventh Principle, the interconnectedness of all life. Our K-2 class will have a special, furry dog visitor for this lesson (for a few minutes).

Heifer International: We are also introducing a social action project for our K-2 and 3-5 classes this week. We will be working toward a donation to Heifer International to buy an animal that will help sustain a family/community in another country.

Third through Fifth Grades: “Love Will Guide Us”:  This week the class will continue to explore our fourth Unitarian Universalist Source, “Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves." They will have some adventures in exploring the Bible, and they will examine mustard seeds and the story Jesus told in the book of Matthew about mustard seeds growing as love grows. 

See the note above about the Heifer project this class will begin!

Middle School:  This week, our middle school class will continue to shape their social justice project for the spring. We were going to vote on a project, but decided to develop consensus with the group. We may take a field trip between now and June, and we'll share this project with the congregation in our June 9th RE Sunday service.

High School: “Our Name is Earl”:  This week’s lesson, “Cost Dad the Election,” is about our relationships with our parents. As Unitarian Universalists, we must treat our parents with the same respect and kindness that we promise to give to every human being. Our Seven

Principles are a covenant of behavior that has no exceptions. Even though our relationships with our parents are often very emotional, we still have to treat them with dignity and respect and remember that they are learning as well. As we are on our paths to be adults, our parents are on a path to be parents. We must accept each other where we are and lovingly encourage each other to growth (Principle Three). In the episode, Earl's father doesn't seem to respect Earl as an individual or accept where he is on his path. Likewise, Earl doesn't necessarily accept where his father is on HIS path. At the end, however, they come to an understanding. Earl's father understands that Earl was trying to do the right thing and bails him out. Earl understands that bailing him out of jail is his father's way of recognizing his hard work on his list. While their relationship isn't perfect, they chose to accept one another and see the good that IS there.

Youth Group will meet in the Social Hall from 7:00pm to 8:30pm with Shelby and Joe. Hope to see everyone there!