Sunday May 12, 2019
In the Children's Chapel we introduced the theme of Curiosity and went several directions with it. The kids knew a lot about curiosity. We talked about wondering how to do something that you've never tried before. They knew about asking someone who does know a lot about whatever you're curious about. That picking good questions to ask is an important part of curiosity.
In general, curiosity is a really good thing that helps us learn. Sometimes we have to be careful about what we say or do to act on that curiosity.
We read the book Don't Touch My Hair by Sharee Miller. The kids were captivated as the main character explains how she loves her fluffy, big, curly hair but so does everyone else. People are always commenting on it and always touching it--usually without asking first. We talked about if you're curious about someone, get their permission before just touching. This applies to hair, skin, clothing, wheelchairs, babies, etc. Continue the conversation at home:
- Have you ever had something that everyone is curious about and wants to touch? How did it feel? How did you respond?
- Can you think of a time you were so overcome with curiosity you touched someone or something without asking first? What might you say if you had a do-over?
Since it was also Mother's Day, we followed up with some ways to celebrate our own mother or some mothers who we care about even if they are not our mothers. We were making gift certificates and curious to brainstorm what things we might be able to do for our mothers / parents / friends to make their day special. Ideas included: just helping out more, cuddling them during a thunderstorm, making them a cup of tea or coffee, helping make everyone's beds around the house, making them breakfast, helping to clean the house.
During the 9am Spiritual Exploration time, we brainstormed hand motions to go with a song for next Sunday's worship which celebrates Lifespan Spiritual Exploration. The song is "From You I Receive." If your child was there at 9am, ask them if they remember the hand motions and you can learn it early. Music here.
During the 11am Spiritual Exploration time, we had enough extra volunteers that we added a choice option of going outside to pick-up litter--thinking of Mother's Day on a big scale of caring for Mother Earth. Our tie into Curiosity was, how many cigarette butts might we find. What would you guess? We were about 10 of us going out for 20 minutes, just around the church yard, and the library yard across the street. Our guesses were between 25 and 59 or so. Scroll down to find out the total!
That's right, we found approximately 232 cigarette butts during our brief time outside. Thank you to the amazing litter picker-uppers and the mathematics team work to figure out the answer to our question. Our estimate was far too low. It led us to ask other questions, like "Why do people who smoke throw out the butts?" "What are they made out of?" "Could more places put out large cans like we do at the church, to concentrate where the butts get dumped?" 
An example of some of the Mothers Day appreciation that some kids chose to focus on. (We did have copies with blank gender pronouns, for mothers who may use other pronouns besides she/her/hers.).
