Unitarian Universalist Church of Studio City
« Religious Exploration

Children & Teens

All ages are present for the first part of each Sunday service. Following the children's message, the youth go to Religious Exploration classes to explore faith themes, world religions, and Unitarian Universalist beliefs.

Nursery

While all voices are welcome in the Sanctuary, a self-service nursery with an audio speaker of the Sunday service is provided for the family's comfort. To make the room more comfortable, we have provided a stocked diaper-changing station, two reclining armchairs, toys and books. There is a lovely four wall mural that is a true delight!

Toddler Room

Bonnie Burroughs, Maggie MacMillan, and Rob Meurer

The most important goal in the Toddler Room is for your children to experience our church as a safe place for them to be, in the care of adults they can trust. Separating from their parents is a major developmental undertaking for children at this age, when security and trust are paramount.

Our Toddler Room provides a welcoming environment for your children to explore with or without parental company under the care of an experienced adult to oversee and facilitate this pivotal transition time. The Nursery in the next room provides a space for parents to listen to the service while maintaining their availability to their youngsters.

Rainbow Room Ages 3-5

Karen and Lori Renee

We are many, we are one. Our preschool curriculum celebrates the theme of diversity and interdependency with an anti-bias and multicultural emphasis. This UU program offers children the grounding of a religious community and its traditions through a wide range of activities.

With creative movement, cooperative games, songs, art projects, and discussions, we aim to:

  • Help children identify with their peers and religious community
  • Promote their acceptance of one another and their individuality
  • Encourage the freedom to discover
  • Nurture spiritual and ethical growth

The candle lighting ritual is our special caring time and we value each child's participation.

World Room Kindergarten-2nd grades

Sylvia Nichols

Experiences with the Web of Life is our year-long curriculum, which engages children with the UU principle
“respect for the independent web of life.”

Through nature hikes, arts and crafts, stories, discussions, experiments, music, creative role-playing, we will discover and reinforce how:

  1. People, plants and animals share in the rhythms of our universe;
  2. We are interconnected with plants and animals in the food chain;
  3. All living things grow and change through their life cycles;
  4. We need to protect our environment;
  5. We fit into the web of life;
  6. The awe-inspiring miracles of nature nurture our spiritual life.

Our church bells and chalice-candle ritual is the time we share our personal concerns and joys.

“To be religious today is to act on behalf of our planet.”
- Author unknown

Big Room 3rd-5th grades

Andrea Brooks-Kinder

With lots of hands on, interactive projects, our main curriculum, A Toolbox of Faith invites us to reflect upon the values of our Unitarian Universalist faith. Qualities such as integrity, courage, and love are tools we can use in living our lives and building our own faith.

We will, however, begin the year with the life-changing journey of 12 year old Gaylen in the novel, A Search for Delicious. We'll consider for ourselves what sort of path we might choose.

The Turning Tides 6th-8th grades

Wendy Hawker, Jeanne McConnell

This year we will be working from a wonderful curriculum called "Compass Points". Our classroom will become a compass and our kids will begin and end each Sunday session by taking a (literal) stand on important moral, ethical, and religious issues.

Our goals are to:

  • sort out their feelings about themselves and their world as they do the difficult work of starting to create their adult selves
  • discover what they believe about life's big questions - the nature of humanity and the divine, beliefs about death and faith.
  • think independently, assume responsibility, make decisions, explore values and adopt the practice of radical hospitality
  • acquire enough background in UU history, polity and theology that they can know and express what UU stands for
  • share the above with the adult congregation, which often knows even less about UU than do children in the RE programs
  • understand that religious liberty is a hard-won legacy that continues to need protection
  • gain a working knowledge of how to play the soprano ukulele (!) and to have a blast learning.

UUniteens 9th-12th grades

Erica and Clay Steakley 

This year we will explore the basics of Humanism and its applications to daily life, using the book "The Humanist Approach to Happiness" by Jennifer Hancock as a guide. We'll talk about the importance of ethics, compassion, and responsibility, as well as the necessity of respect both for ourselves and for others. Topics covered include relationships, handling peer pressure, addiction, and the important reminder that happiness and pleasure are not always the same thing.

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