Comments About "Special Times" (for a description about this curriculum, click here)

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What we liked about the curriculum:
 It fit well with a Judeo-Christian Heritages "pillar", one of
four themes that we would like our children to have knowledge of.
What we didn't like about the curriculum:
 Our program needed more lesson plans, to complete an entire year.
We also noticed that it had more Jewish than Christian lessons, so
I wrote lessons on "Communion", "Baptism", "Mary", "St. Patricks Day",
as well as some generic "Special Times" of "Weddings", and "Memorial services".

Recommendations for other users:
 Submitted on behalf of Gaia Brown, Deerfield, IL (GaiaBrown@aol.com)

Last year we added the earth-based holidays to "Special Times" (Jewish & Christian holidays) and called the class "Circles and Seasons." Since the original curriculum only had 20+ holidays-and we didn't do some of these
lessons which are almost identical to ones our kids get the following year in Holidays and Holy Days-it worked well to have the additions.

Recommendations for other users:
 Imbolc - Celtic/Pagan Holiday

If you want to add pagan holidays to the "Special Times"
curriculum, conside Imbolc. I'll send a report after I
conduct the class next week. The holiday is half-way between
the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, and refers to spring
being "in the belly" of Mother Earth, waiting to be born.
It's the holiday that Groundhog Day is a corruption of. The
Catholic Church renamed this holiday Candlemas.

For more information, see:

* the CUUPS site at http://www.cuups.org (the Covenant of UU
Pagans)
* the book "Celebrating the Great Mother: a Handbook of
Earth-Honoring Activities for Parents and Children," by
Cait Johnson and Maura Shaw, Destiny Books, ISBN 0-89281-550-7,
list price for the paperback is $16.95 (this has lots of
pagan celebrations, and would be good for any RE program to
own).

Recommendations for other users:
 Ramadan -- Muslim Holiday -- January

We wanted to add non-Christian and non-Jewish holidays,
so this is the one we selected for Islam. Ramadan is a
monthly-long holiday that celebrates the month during which
Allah (God) revealed the Quran (Koran, the Muslim holy book).

After our opening circle, I read the kids a terrific book
called "Ramadan," by Suhaib Hamid Ghazi, published by Holiday
House, ISBN 0-8234-1254-5 (the hardback edition lists for
$15.95). It's a terrific introduction to Islam and Ramadan
for kids.

The kids were intrigued with the idea that you can't eat
during the day -- not just from sunrise to sunset, but when
it's at all light. We joked that we were going to skip snack
and almost had a revolution.

For a project, we talked about how Islamic law forbids
pictures of people or God. The decor in mosques is abstract
art and beautiful calligraphy. We had zillions of little
colored squares (made by slicing up the leftover paper strips
from making mats for Kwazaa) and having them make mosaics.
You need lots of glue-sticks for this activity.

Another option might have been to get a copy of the Arabic
alphabet and fool around with writing kids' names phonetically
in that alphabet, and then decorating them.

Recommendations for other users:
 We didn't bother getting stickers. The kids
love to draw so much that we end every session
with paper and markers.

A great source for clip art, if you *do* want to
make stickers, it http://www.arktoday.com . You have to
register and pay $20 a year, but your church office might be
willing to register for all church-related projects. Art Today
has an incredible collection of art -- almost a million
images.

What we liked about the curriculum:
 This is a wonderful curriculum with lots of good ideas and a fun focus for children of this age.
What we didn't like about the curriculum:
 That is it hard for teachers to find all the stickers that relate to all those different topics and
I wish there were more lessons.
Recommendations for other users:
 I used mailing labels to make the stickers myself. I put three different clip art (we have lots of clip art at church) pictures on each label. Then I cut the strips out and put them all in a book. When teachers need stickers of trees, they just look through the book and get what they need. It was much easier than finding stickers all over town.

What we liked about the curriculum:
 There were no Hindu holidays, so we decided to add one: Diwali (or Divali).
It's the Hindu New Year, and it takes place in October. People light little
oil lamps, clean the house, and honor the goddess Laksmi, goddess of beauty,
wealth, and plenty. I found a picture of Laksmi on the Web and printed it,
and made a "puja" (little shrine). We talked about Hinduism and read a book
and Diwali. If we had had time, we would have made little clay pots to use
as oil lamps. We tried decoring the floor in elaborate patterns with flour and
stencils, but it was too hard for the kids to hold the stencils still.
Recommendations for other users:
 Here are Web pages about Diwali:

http://www.eecs.uic.edu/~areshamw/html/diwali.html
http://www.cascade.net/laksmi.html
http://www.visittnt.com/Arts_Entertainment/events/divali/Divali.htm

What we liked about the curriculum:
 Simchat Torah: This holiday is too dry and obscure for a whole session.
I decided to broaden the topic to talk about holy books in general and how
important they are in religion. I read the part of "What Is God" (a great little book)
about holy books. Then I handed each kid a little blank book (stapled) and
suggested that they write or draw ideas about what they'd put in their own
holy book.

What we didn't like about the curriculum:
 Too dry
Recommendations for other users:
 "What Is God" (small paperback with nice pictures)

What we liked about the curriculum:
 Simchat Torah: This is a pretty obscure holiday (celebrating
the Torah and rolling the scroll back to start reading it again
for another year). I felt that I needed to broaden the scope of
the lesson, so I talked about holy books in general. I read most of
"What Is God" -- esp. the part about how religions are based on great
teachers and most religions have a holy book (or more than one).
I brought in some holdy books -- a Bible, Book of Mormon,
Bhagavat Gita, Tao Te Ching, etc.

I made little blank paper books (center stapled) and gave
them out to the kids, saying that they could think about
what they'd want to put in their own holy books. Kids did a
bunch of drawing and writing in their books.

What we didn't like about the curriculum:
 Too obscure and dry a holiday!
Recommendations for other users:
 "What Is God" -- this is a great book to use in this course!
It's a cheap paperback and I think you can get it from http://www.amazon.com.

What we liked about the curriculum:
 I like the specific ideas for stories and activities. It's easy
to lead a class following the ideas in the curriculum.
What we didn't like about the curriculum:
 I don't like the limitation to Christian and Jewish holidays.
We miss out on a lot of really important holidays, like
Ramadan and Winter Solstice, and spend too much time on
holidays that no one has ever heard of and that it's hard
to get kids excited about, like Simchat Torah.


Recommendations for other users:
 I've been adding sessions about Diwali (Hindu New Year),
Imbolc/Candlemas (pagan holiday on Feb 1st), Kwanzaa
(African-American holiday Dec 26-31), and Ramadan (Muslim).
I'll try to post information about them.

What we liked about the curriculum:
 About to start eaching it next week, with 4 teachers.

( September 24, 1998)