This Sunday in Religious Educati

Notebooks and pencils in hand, we took a lengthy hike in the woods, making lists of what we observed. We found flowers and slugs, pine needles and spiders. The longer we hiked, the more we saw. At the top of the hill, we found: coyote tracks near some fur and bone from the squirrel it ate; tracks and droppings of deer and fawn; and turkey prints with scat (in which we discovered raspberry seeds and a dung beetle).

Returning to the Unity Church building, we had a long talk about food webs. One camper said, "Everything eats something!" and another said "Everything eventually eats the sun!"

Inspired by Joseph Cornell's "Flow Learning" approach in Sharing Nature with Children, our Day Camp Nature activities are intended to awaken the children's enthusiasm for nature, focus their attention, provide them with direct experiences, and invite them to share their inspirations.

It's respect for the interconnected web of existence all day long, interspersed with drawing food webs in sidewalk chalk, connecting with our holy intentions on the labyrinth, and squirting each other with a garden hose. These 12 children amaze and inspire me constantly with their inquisitiveness and communication, knowledge and energy, compassion and wonder. It's a joy and a privilege to take extended time with them to delve into these experiences deeply and fully.

Thanks to the UUCGT RE Committee and our scholarship donors for helping make our inaugural Day Camp so successful!

Karen McCarthy
dre@uucgt.org
947-3117

Welcome to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Grand Traverse