Exploring Identity & Community with Moana 2
Moana spends her days exploring the ocean, searching for other islanders. The ancestors have said that her people will…
MorePosts tagged: Connection
Being a Good Neighbor
“Hey, mom, should I do the porch next door too?” asked my eldest. We were shoveling snow around our house after…
MoreChildren’s Concerns about Climate Change
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that Earth’s temperature has risen just over a…
MoreBuilding Connections through Magical Gifts
As children head back to school, anxieties about relationships rise. Some wonder whether friends from last year will…
MoreConnecting with A River of Dust
Scientists who study the environment made an amazing discovery in the 1960s: the health of the Amazon forests depend in…
MoreLooking Beneath with Kids
Everyone - young or old - have bad days. Days when it’s hard to get out of bed. Days when we don’t feel like…
MoreCommunity-Building with Our Pool
Growing up in Oklahoma and Texas, summers were hot. My siblings and I loved nothing more than to head to our local…
MoreHow Nature Journals Increase Kids’ Well-Being
Last week, I saw a young child watching a bumble bee move from flower to flower on a large bush. “Shhh,” she told…
MoreKids, Eco-Anxiety & Gardens
Heat domes that elevate temperatures to unsafe levels and spark wildfires. Fierce hurricanes and tropical storms that…
MoreExploring Personal Connections with Despicable Me 4
My family went on vacation with friends a few years ago. It was fun but also complicated to figure out how to live…
MoreEncouraging Future-Mindedness
“I’m going to be a programmer when I grow up,” said my 10-year-old daughter. She had just checked out several…
MorePathways to Wonder & Awe
The first time I saw flying fish, I was overcome with amazement. They looked like silvery stars twinkling in the waves…
MoreHow Music Helps Kids Connect with Others
We are a music-loving family. All three children eagerly participated in recorder lessons in elementary school and one…
MoreLearning about Self & Others with The Garfield Movie
We often wonder what pets are thinking and feeling, especially when they do something that seems odd or silly. A cat…
MoreImagining Wellbeing with IF
Studies show that around 65% of children develop imaginary friends (IFs) before they are seven. These sometimes quite…
MoreEveryday Rituals
When we think of rituals, we often recall major life or religious events like weddings, funerals, baptisms, bar…
MoreChildren’s Resistance to Spirituality
Children, like adults, vary in their attraction to spirituality. Some revel in many different kinds of experiences,…
MoreKids, Ramadan & Food Insecurity
As the war between Israel and Palestine continues, many Palestinian parents struggle to feed their families. Violence…
MoreHelping Kids Understand Symbols
Symbols are all around us, but sometimes they can be hard to understand. We need to know something about their cultural…
MoreMore Gratitude, Please
My mother firmly believed that children should write thank you notes for any gifts we received. If we didn’t get them…
MoreThe Science of Gratitude
“Tank you” said my daughter’s two year old friend as I passed out cookies to everyone in our neighborhood…
MoreSanta Spirituality
For many families, Christmas is - in whole or in part - a cultural rather than a religious holiday. And at the center…
MoreHoliday ‘Marker Talks’
Many of the children I teach come from households that celebrate multiple religious and cultural holidays. Others have…
MorePracticing Thanks-Giving
“Let’s go around the room and say something we’re thankful for,” says the teacher. “I’m thankful for apple…
MoreMaking Belonging a Priority
Three weeks after my middle child started third grade, she was so anxious and upset that she couldn’t concentrate on…
MoreExploring Teamwork with Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie
Preparing for a family get-together, I gave each child a different job. My youngest collected cups and my third…
MoreResisting Bias with Brian the Brave
Children begin learning about differences at a young age. Figuring out how to categorize things is one of the ways they…
MoreHow Curiosity Enhances Relationships
My daughter and her best friend met in 2nd grade. Their first weeks together were spent asking each other questions:…
MoreCommunity-Building
School buses are back on the streets and pumpkin spice lattes have returned to coffee shops. Children’s backpacks are…
MoreCounting Kindness with Kids
Countless families and children become refugees when extreme poverty or violence force them to leave their homes. The…
MoreExploring Every Little Kindness with Kids
Sometimes a story doesn’t need words to be powerful. That’s the case with Marta Bartolj’s Every Little Kindness,…
MoreMovement Meditation: Connection
Movements can be powerful teachers. Our bodies remember and repeat motions associated with specific practices, such as…
MoreExploring the Goodness of Most People
Stranger danger lessons, active shooter drills - these experiences can teach children that others are to be feared.…
MoreConnecting with Nature through My Friend Earth
Learning about the seasons of the year is a common focus in many preschool and elementary programs. My Friend Earth,…
MoreGoing on a Rainforest Adventure with Forest
Brendan Kearney’s Forest is part of a series that chronicles the adventures of fisher Finn and his dog, Skip. In this…
MoreExploring Bad Days with Everything Will Be OK
Some days are just yucky. Things happen that children can’t control and don’t like. They might be little things,…
MoreConnecting with Nature through Apple and Magnolia
One summer, my kids and I planted a small garden. While our cucumbers and zucchini did well, our tomato plants…
MoreFamily Hygge
It’s snowing outside, and all anyone wants to do is bundle up in a blanket, sip hot chocolate, and read. Maybe…
MoreExploring People Are Wild with Children
“Do they bite?” asked Marcus* when we spotted a family of mule deer during a camping trip. Our group was excited…
MoreCelebrating Kwanzaa with Children
Seven candles stand tall in a kinara, ready for lighting. Their number and colors (red, black, and green) suggest this…
MoreEncouraging Empathy When It’s Hard
Holiday shows play on our sense of connection to beloved characters. Kids who have been left out or bullied know how…
MoreCelebrating Native American Heritage
When I was growing up, November was a month filled with images of ‘pilgrims’ and ‘Indians’ sharing a…
MoreEncouraging Authenticity
Authenticity is trending as a value. Parents and children want to speak their truth and advocate for what they believe…
MoreChildren, Community Science & Climate Change
Earlier this month, the Pacific Ocean made news because it is shrinking faster than scientists expected. One reason…
MorePreparing Preschoolers for Spiritual Learning
Working with preschoolers can be a blast! Many are full of curiosity about everything and eager to explore. Even the…
MoreEmoji Spirituality
Kids love emojis. As fun visual substitutes for words, they help children share how they’re feeling and communicate…
MoreSharing Personal Spiritual Practices
Children’s group leaders often wonder how much to share about their personal lives with young people. We…
MoreCelebrating Black History Year-Round
With the calendar shift from February to March, we’ve gone from remembering Black history to lifting up women and…
MoreSpiritual Storytelling with The Last Cuentista
For a book lover like me, one bedtime story often turned into two or three as I tucked my young children in. But I…
MoreReading The Proudest Blue
Wearing hijab is a spiritual statement for Muslim girls and women. It is a sign of faith and a practice of…
MoreAvoiding Seductive Details
Drawing children into learning activities can sometimes feel like Sisyphus rolling an immense boulder uphill. Just when…
MoreDeveloping Spiritual Persistence
I am often so excited when I begin a new spiritual practice, I expect to see immediate benefits. In my enthusiasm, I…
MoreChapter Books about Refugees & Asylum Seekers
Older children often wonder about the reasons refugees and asylum seekers have left their homelands. They are able to…
MorePicture Books about Refugees
With stories about refugees and immigrants frequently in the news, children are certain to wonder about why they’ve…
MoreWelcoming Afghan Refugees
Many of the refugees airlifted to the U.S. out of Afghanistan last month are currently housed at Fort Lee in Virginia,…
MoreStrengthening Connections
“I forgot my mask” yelled my daughter as she ran home from the bus stop, then back out again, mask in hand. Going…
MoreBack to the ‘Kinda’ Familiar
As a new school year begins, many organizations are planning to welcome children back to in-person programs. But…
MoreTalking with Kids Under 10
Talking with children seems simple enough, but effective communication is actually more complicated than we think. Our…
MoreTelling Personal Stories
Hearing others’ stories and telling one’s own is a powerful way for children to connect spiritually. Personal…
MoreSpiritual Connectedness
One of my favorite preschool parenting moments was watching my children chase fireflies around our backyard on a summer…
MoreLetting Go of the ‘Main Point’
It’s often the first thing a teacher or group facilitator looks for in a lesson plan: a line near the top that…
MoreCollective Spiritual Conversations
Often our interactions with children center around questions like “What did you learn? Or “How did that happen?”…
MoreInfant Stress & Spirituality
Throughout the pandemic, news reports and magazine articles have encouraged us to think deeply about developing mental…
MoreManaging Big Emotions with Mindfulness
When my children were little and dealing with sibling arguments, I taught them a quick mindfulness practice to help…
MoreUsing Virtual Rooms to Strengthen Community
Over the past year, teachers, therapists, librarians, and others have created virtual rooms with bitmoji to engage…
MoreSpiritually Rich Virtual Interactions
As we slowly move back to regular in-person contact, part of a new normal will likely include virtual presence for many…
MoreUnbundled Spirituality
Once upon a time, families turned almost exclusively to religious congregations to meet their spiritual needs. They…
MoreYoung Children and Connectedness
The other day, my tween son and I were talking and laughing as we sorted through piles of nursery artwork I have stored…
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