April

“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.”- John C Maxwell

The theme for the month of April is 'becoming'. Over the past year, we have been forced to reimagine our present, and our future. Over this month, we're exploring how we become who we need to be for ourselves and our families. Join us as we imagine our future, as a family and a faith community!

Questions

1. Why is it hard to let go of some things?

2. What would you want to let in?

Activity: Wheel of Kindness

One of the sources of our UU faith is “Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves.” UUs have long welcomed this as a call to kindness. This is another way to honor Easter. Yes, Easter is about the miracle of Jesus overcoming death and coming back to life. But we also honor Jesus’ life by remembering the many ways he offered kindness and love to those who society treated as unwanted and unlovable. In this spirit, dive into the Wheel of Kindness game below and do the actions. Go to the website: https://wheelofnames.com/pkv-v72, and spin the wheel! Take turns, with each person completing the action they spun. What would you want to add or change to the wheel?

UU of The Week: Cecelia Payne-Gaposchkin

Questions

1.How have you become different than when you started this crazy time last year?

2.What new things have entered your life? A new pet? A new family member? Regular family time on Zoom?

Activity: Picture Timeline

As a family, collect the past few years school or family photos. Arrange them in chronological order. How has your family physically changed? What's stayed the same? Now, think about like and interests(toys, tv shows, food, etc.). What's different? Are there some things you still like? Now, everyone get a piece of paper, and draw a picture of yourself in 5 years. Around the picture, list new things you think you'll like in the future, or things you'll be. Make sure to date the drawing, and put it in your families photo storage. When you go through the box again in the future, you might be amazed at what you find!

UU of The Week: Margot Adler

Questions

1. Why do we need to take care of the earth? Which of our principles tells us that's important?

2. What can your family commit to do to reduce your carbon footprint?

Activity: Recycled Paper Seed Balls

Materials Needed:

• Old paper (worksheets, newspaper, junk mail etc.)

• Seeds

• Bucket or plastic bin for soaking paper

• Blender or food processor

• A few bowls or containers

• Strainer or colander

1. Gather up paper you want to reuse to make your seed balls. You can use things like old newspaper, old worksheets from school, junk mail, paper towels, etc.

2. Tear up your paper into small pieces and place them into a large bin, the smaller the pieces, the better. (This is a great activity for an entire class to do together.) You can also use a paper shredder if you have one rather than tearing the paper. My kids went absolutely nuts over the paper shredder. It was like the most exciting thing they had seen in their life. And they loved finding bits of their old worksheets in the paper we shredded. “Look! There’s part of my math sheet!” If your kids are ever bored, introduce them to the paper shredder. (Monitoring them closely of course.) It can provides hours of fun.

3. After you’ve placed all your torn paper into a large bin, fill it with water to soak. We put just enough water in to cover all the paper and mixed it around with our hands. We let it soak overnight so it would blend more easily and quickly, but this length of time isn’t necessary. Even just letting it soak as you rip paper would work.

4. Place the torn paper in a blender. Be sure to use an old, cheap or used blender, as blending lots of paper can take its toll on your machine. Don’t fill your blender all the way to the top with paper. The paper is sure to clump and get stuck and cause all kinds of blender craziness. We filled ours about 1/3 of the way full. That seemed to be the magic number for us. Then fill the blender with water. We liked having the water rise about 1-2 inches above the paper. (You’ll have to play around with your ratio of paper to water.)

5. Blend until you have mushy pulp, somewhat like the consistency of oatmeal. We found the more it was blended, the better it held together.

6. Place a colander inside a bowl. Pour your pulp mixture into the colander to drain some of the water. Continue with steps 4-5 until you have blended all your soaked paper. Now you have a giant batch of mushy, wet pulp sitting in a colander! Slosh it around in the colander with your hand, getting out the extra water.

7. Pour the contents from the colander into a separate bowl. Don’t squeeze all the water out. You’ll want it to be wetter than you think. It helps to keep it from falling apart when making your shapes.

8. Now it’s time to add your seeds. You can add any seeds you’d like. We chose seeds that were native to our area. Pour the seeds into your pulp. Knead and mix them into the pulp with your hands.

9. If you’re just making seed balls (or pancakes) rather than shapes, grab a small handful of the mixture, squeeze out as much water as you can, and roll it into a firm ball. (Making balls or pancakes is much easier for younger children.) Squish it like a pancake. (It’ll dry faster.) Place if on a drying rack or stack of newspaper to dry. If you’ll be making your seed balls into shapes, place some of the mixture into cookie cutters. Press the pulp firmly and use paper towels to remove any excess water. (Be sure to save the paper towels for your next batch of seed balls!) Carefully remove them from the cookie cutters and place them on a drying rack or stack of newspaper to dry. If any part breaks off, you can mold it back in place kind of like play dough.

10. After your seed balls or seed shapes are dry, they’re ready to be planted or given as a gift to a loved one. These burlap gift bags would be perfect to hold your seed balls!

UU of The Week: Pete Seeger

Questions

1.What can you imagine will happen in the future?

2. How will we become a place where every new friend has something a little like you and something else not quite like you at all.

UU of The Week: Ray Bradbury