V. IDEAS FOR BUILDING COMMUNITY IN YOUR MEETING

KEY: Asterisks indicate the appropriate age levels for each section: * A single asterisk indicates that the idea is especially appropriate for children. ** A double asterisk indicates it is appropriate for both children and teenagers. *** A triple asterisk indicates that the idea is best suited for teenagers. **** Four asterisks indicate it is ideal for all-ages.

* ALPHABETICAL AFFIRMATIONS: List the alphabet vertically on a long sheet of paper. As a class, generate positive adjectives beginning with each letter. For example, "amazing" and "attractive" for "A," "beautiful" and "bold" for "B," and "caring" and "challenging" for "C." Then ask each child which words described him or her. Each child makes a pendant out of yarn and paper. Write the words on the pendant with the child's name. (Anna Rain)

* BIRTHDAY BOOK: Children make a monthly calendar listing the birthdays of class members. Make photocopies. Give each child a copy and have each color his or her copy. Children can give their copy to their parents as a present. Keep extra copies to give to new children who come to class and record the birthdays of the newcomers.

**** BOARD GAMES AT YOUR MEETING HOUSE: A First Day School class invites meeting members and attenders to join them at a board game night at the meetinghouse.

**** CAMPING TRIPS: The girls and women of the meeting and the boys and men of the meeting take separate camping trips.

*** CAREERS: Invite members of your meeting to talk with your class about their careers. Include a project. If, for example, a member of your meeting is a mapmaker, ask him/her to help the children make a map of the Holy Land or George Fox country. If you have a member who is a carpenter, perhaps he/she could help your class build a model of the temple in Jerusalem.

*** COMMUNITY: WHAT IS IT? Bring in newspaper articles with the word, "community" highlighted. Divide children into groups, each with different articles. Each group will define "community" and share their definition with the entire group.

Discussion questions:

• What makes community work?
• What can we do to make our community work better?

** FEARS IN A HAT: Each person writes on a piece of paper a fear he or she has about being in this group and puts the paper in a hat. Each person draws out a piece of paper and reads the fear aloud.

** FOLDING NEWSLETTERS: Children meet once a month to fold the meeting's newsletter and make pizza or ice cream sundaes.

** GAMES WITHOUT LOSERS: For any game in which players are "out," have two games going on simultaneously. When children are "out" of one game, they join the other.

** KNITTING: Teach your class to knit. Sit and talk while you knit. (Mary Lou Leonard, Langley Hill Monthly Meeting)

** LEARNING BY TEACHING: Have your class prepare a First Day School lesson to teach to a younger class.

** MAKE-YOUR-OWN BOARD GAME: Bring to class a variety of items from home, such as cardboard, string, toothpicks, marbles, and so forth. Have children create a board game out of these materials. Consider using Biblical or Quaker themes for the game, such as "George Fox Goes to Meeting." Then play the game.

* MAKE SILOHETTES: Make silhouettes of children's heads. As a group, come up with affirmations for each silhouette and write them on the silhouette.

** MAKING SOFT TOYS FOR THE BABIES IN MEETING: Have children make soft toys for the younger children. Those not given away could go into a basket to be kept by the door of the meetingroom for children who need to fidget quietly during meeting.

* ME-MOBILES: Cut out or make pictures of things you like-clouds, flowers, and so forth. Paste them on construction paper. Create a mobile from string and coat hangers. Attach the pictures.

*** MENTORS: Assign teenagers an adult mentor in your meeting. Match interests. For example, the clerk of monthly meeting could mentor the clerk of Junior Monthly Meeting. (See "Junior Monthly Meeting" above.)

** MEETING FOR WORSHIP IN A FRIEND'S HOME: Take your class for worship during First Day School to a nearby Friend's home or have meeting for worship in the home of an elderly, Friend who cannot attend meeting.

** OVERNIGHT IN A QUAKER GRAVE YARD: Have an overnight in a Quaker graveyard. Tell scary stories.

*** ROMANTIC NIGHT OUT: Teenagers prepare a candlelight dinner for their parents or guardians. Provide childcare.

**** SPECIAL FRIENDS: Both adults and children in the meeting sign up. Adults are assigned a name of one of the children. For two weeks, the adult sends the child anonymous messages, postcards, and inexpensive or handmade gifts. At the end of the two weeks, the children host a breakfast before Meeting for Worship, at which time they find out who their special friend is. The special friends have breakfast together and then sit together in Meeting for Worship.

*** TRAIN RIDE TO BOSTON: Take the train to Boston on First Day. Attend Cambridge Meeting. After meeting, walk the Freedom Trail that starts at the Boston Commons-the Park Street T Station. If ambitious, walk to the waterfront, visit Faneuil Hall, go to the North End to see Old North Church. Another option is to go to the Copley Plaza at the Copley T Station and see Trinity Church and the Public Library. Or go to the top of the Hancock Building, which has an entrance fee.

*** TRAIN RIDE TO NEW YORK CITY: Take the train to New York City on First Day. Attend Fifteenth Street or Morningside Meeting. After meeting, visit Saint John of the Divine Cathedral and the United Nations. Take a ferry to the Statue of Liberty.

*** TRAIN RIDE TO WASHINGTON, D.C.: Take the train to Washington, D.C. on First Day. Take the metro to Friends Meeting of Washington (on the Red Line at the Dupont Circle metro stop). After meeting, visit the National Cathedral (on the Red Line near Tenley metro stop and see the George Fox stained-glass window), museums, and monuments.

*** TRAVELING TEENS FIRST DAY SCHOOL: Arrange with other quarterly or regional or monthly meetings in your area to have teenagers visit each month. The visiting teens attend First Day School with the junior and senior high host classes, and Meeting for Worship with the children, youth, and adults of the meeting. On the First Days when the Traveling First Day School visits your meeting, your junior and senior high classes will be unusually large. On the First Days when Traveling First Day School visits other meetings, your teachers will have a day off. If nonparticipating teens attend your meeting on the day that your teens are visiting another meeting, those nonparticipating teens may attend Meeting for Worship.

One planning meeting a year with adults from the participating meetings should be enough to organize the Traveling Teens First Day School. Notify newsletter editors of the participating monthly meetings. Send all youth one mailing with the dates, times, and directions to the participating meetings. It is possible that mailing labels for teens in the participating monthly meetings may be obtained from your yearly meeting office. Each participating meeting appoints a driver. The driver can meet the youth at their meetinghouse and return them there afterwards. The driver or another adult would need to wait at the meetinghouse until all of the children have a ride home.

** USED BOOK SALE: Children or youth organize a used-book sale from books donated by members and attenders of their monthly meeting.

**** YARN TOSS GETTING-ACQUAINTED GAME: Have Friends form a circle. Holding the end of the string of a ball of yarn, toss or roll the ball to someone in the circle. That person puts his or her foot on the string and tosses or rolls it to someone else in the circle. The yard goes from one person to another, making a criss-cross pattern on the floor. Initially, each person says his or her name before throwing the ball. After a while, have the person throwing the ball say the name of the person he or she will throw the ball to next. For more color, try tying different colors together to form the ball. (Brian Gamble)

 

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