We know that more and more of our UU congregations are facing challenges of shrinking RE attendance, reduced RE staffing and overstretched lay and professional RE leaders.
We don't want RE leaders to face these challenges alone!
So we've added three strategic enhancements to our elementary curriculum packets:
- Small Size Alternatives & Adaptations: Session activities such as games, creative projects, story time and meditations will now include offerings designed for groups with only 3-6 kids in attendance, alongside our existing activities designed for groups with 7 or more.
- More Leader Notes: Recognizing that many of your RE programs are lay-led or working with reduced professional support, we will add more leaders notes and teacher direction to the curriculum. This way teachers and group leaders will have guidance and support built into the packets.
- More Focused Curation: We will selectively narrow the recommended activities to avoid overwhelming volunteers with too many options. Our goal is to make the packets have more of a "plug-and-play" quality.
From our beginning, the aim of Soul Matters has been to not just provide curriculum but also be good partners. For us that means paying close attention to the ever-evolving challenges you face. When Covid hit, the main challenge was moving programming online, and so we shifted to a multi-platform approach with our packets. Now it's clear that overstretched leaders and reduced attendance is impacting so many of us. We hope these three new strategic enhancements will help!