The Greatest Show on Earth

Today's theme was the circus!  We dressed up in costumes,

tried magic tricks and juggling,

and enjoyed face painting and making balloon animals!

Our guest, P.T. Barnum, grew up in a church where he heard stories about an angry God who wanted to punish people.  At 15, he and his family began attending a Universalist Church.  The God he learned about there forgave rather than punished, and thought that all people deserved to be happy and be valued.  Barnum liked those ideas and became a Universalist for the rest of his life.   He tried to bring excitement and joy to other's lives, and worked to make the world a fairer place.

Love Is Something If You Give it Away

Malvina Reynolds was a Unitarian Universalist singer and songwriter.  Once of her best known songs is "Magic Penny":

Love is something if you give it away,
Give it away, give it away.
Love is something if you give it away,
You end up having more.

We talked about the lyrics of the song magic penny, and watched videos of Malvina performing some of her other songs.   We also made stepping stones as a gift to our church, to be sold at the church auction in October.  

Sophia Fahs

Our guest today was Sophia Lyon Fahs.  As a teacher, writer, editor, and advocate, Sophia Lyon Fahs (1876-1978) helped to revolutionize American children's religious education—and played a major role in what is often called the "Unitarian renaissance" of the 1940s.  She believed children had the capacity to ask big religious questions, and to begin to understand big religious concepts.  Largely because of her influence, Unitarian religious education moved from a model of memorizing religious doctrine, to exploring religious questions together.  Sophia recognized the power of children's creativity, and used their own curiosity as much as possible in designing religious education experiences for children.

Our children explored their creativity today by creating a fort and other objects from cardboard.  On their own the came up with the list of rules posted on the fort.  I think Sophia would be proud!

Creating Space

Our Lighthouse building has undergone some major rennovations over the past month, with more to come!  Our front doors now have windows, to be more inviting as you approach the building (and to cut down on the possibility of smashing an unseen child as you are exiting!)

Rotted foundation under the nursery floor was replaced . . . 

. . . . and a new Dutch Door added

During construction our new front doors were unusable

because the entire front deck was removed to access the foundation!

Each classroom now has a window in the door.

Our new front doors

and our finished nursery!

Lewis Latimer's Bright Idea

You've probably heard of Thomas Edison, the man who invented the lightbulb? People wanted that kind of magic in their own homes. They wanted to be able to flip a switch and have light, just like that! But, there was one problem. Thomas Edison's lightbulb used carbon thread for a filament—that little curly line inside the lightbulb—and the carbon thread lasted only about forty hours before it burned out. Once the filament burned out, the lightbulb would never work again. People would have to buy a new lightbulb. Nobody wanted to buy new lightbulbs all the time. They were expensive. So people gave up on the idea of having electric lightbulbs in their homes, and kept on using candles an kerosene lamps.

But I didn't give up on the idea of electric lightbulbs. I was sure there was a way to make it work. I decided I would find a way to make a longer-lasting light, a light that people could afford to buy for their homes.

I knew it wouldn't be easy.  I'd only been to a few years of elementary school before I had to get a job to help support my family, when I was only ten. Life was hard for my family. 

I figured out that whatever I wanted to learn, I could find out from books or by teaching myself what I wanted to know. I worked in a patent office, a company that helps inventors. The company I worked for drew the pictures for the patents. I helped Alexander Graham Bell draw diagrams of the telephone and get the patent on that. I liked to do experiments, and I had also invented some things myself. Even though I didn't have a college degree or a high school education, I was a scientist and an inventor and an engineer.

So I decided I could figure out how to make a longer lasting lightbulb. And I did it! I designed a carbon filament that was baked in a special way and so lasted for a long, long time, hundreds of hours. I received a patent for my carbon filament, which means the United States government recognized that I was the inventor, the very first person to create that carbon filament.

Electricity wasn't the only type of light I helped to create. I loved leaning new things and teaching others. I believed in sharing the light of truth. I helped people who were hungry or were poor, just like my family had been. I knew that helping others was another way of sharing light.

In one of my poems I wrote:

To love while we live

And give aid to each other

Is the sunshine of life

That turns night into day.

In 1908 I helped to start a Unitarian church in New York. People still go to that church, over a hundred years later. That Unitarian Universalist church—just like this Unitarian Universalist church—gives a long and lasting light. I knew of Unitarians all my life. My parents had been helped by Unitarians, and the Unitarian beliefs in the importance of character, the toleration of different views, and the enthusiastic approach to learning matched my own views well. My wife and children and I were all active Unitarians.

I'm proud of the things I created that made a difference in the world. I wonder what you might create that will also help to make a difference?

(Adapted from A Lamp in Every Corner by Janeen K Grohsmeyer).

Norbert Capek: The Man Who Loved Beauty

The children's class enjoyed a visit from Norbert Capek, the creator of the flower communion.  

We made musical instruments from recycled materials.  Norbert Capek had a large, musical family.  They had enough musicians to make their own family orchestra.

We made tissue paper flowers and celebrated our own flower communion.

Norbert described the first flower communion, held at his church in Prague, "We put a big table in the middle of the worship space, and on it a large vase. The vase represented the Unitarian church, which helps everyone in the congregation share the beauties in life. Each person had been told to bring a flower along that Sunday, and each put his or her flower in the vase. In my sermon, I talked about how each and every flower was different and important, just like every person in my congregation. And yet they all belonged together in one community, as sisters and brothers. In this Unitarian community, when they gave their best that was in them for the good of everyone, they were able to do together what no one person can do alone."

Who Is A Super Hero?

This summer we will be learning about some Unitarian Universalist super heroes. We are calling them heroes because they tried to live their lives so that their abilities and talents became “super powers”, and they tried to use these powers to make the world a better place.

Are people heroes because they're strong? Or fast? Or famous? What heroes can you think of who have done something that helped others?

Children were asked to think of something heroic they have done or might like to do, or of something heroic they have seen someone else do in real life. Maybe someone has saved a bird’s nest from a cat, or helped get first aid for someone who fell off their bike, or cleaned up a spill so people wouldn’t slip and fall. Maybe someone ate lunch with a new child at school.   

Children developed their own super hero costumes, and wrote and drew about their own super hero powers.  If they were a super hero, what powers would he or she have? What sort of costume would reflect these powers?  Look at the fantastic personas we developed!

Even our youngest children can be super heroes!

Super teachers!