Youth Curriculum, 11-19-23
Announcements:
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Curriculum Overview
Youth practice eating mindfully, describing the sensation of mindfully eating one piece of fruit with eyes closed. Youth take turns leading their favorite Pebble Meditation from last week and play a Marble Roll Game, practicing deep listening, loving speech, and cooperation.
2023 Theme: Living Out Loud!
November Monthly Theme: Finding the Sacred and the Divine in Everything
Week 3 Value: Profoundly Divine
Affirmation: I can practice everyday actions as a meditation
Spiritual Lesson: Profoundly Divine
Food is the gift of the whole universe: the earth, the sky, the rain, and the sun. We want to eat in a way that nurtures our compassion and protects other species and the environment …in order to be healthy and happy and to love each other as a family. -from Planting Seeds
Active Listening: Book/Music/Video
Video: Simple Mindfulness – Mindful Eating, Mindful Eating – How to Eat, The Five Contemplations Before Eating – Thich Nhat Hanh
Book: Planting Seeds by Thick Nhat Hanh
Music: Listen, Listen – Breathing In/Out – Kindness – Contemplations at Mealtime – Planting Seeds
Creative Expression – Eating Meditation
We will invite the children to eat a raisin and help them see its interbeing nature –it is made of rain, clouds, sunshine, and the people who picked it. We will do a guided meditation while we eat the raisin and then discuss our own interbeing nature by discovering what we are made of. Youth finish their pebble meditation bags from last week and take turns leading their favorite pebble meditation with the sound of the bell.
Connecting/Spiritual Practice: Practicing Loving Kindness
We will invite the children to choose from different types of fruit and eat the fruit blindfolded. They will be asked to name the fruit and discuss how it is different from eating with their eyes open. We will play a game of Marble Roll, where we will try to keep a marble rolling through a paper roll each child will have until they can complete the circle without dropping the marble. We will discuss what worked and what didn’t. We will practice deep listening, loving speech, kindness, care, and cooperation.