{"id":2200,"date":"2023-11-19T22:47:52","date_gmt":"2023-11-19T22:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ffmquakers.org\/?p=2200"},"modified":"2023-11-19T22:51:12","modified_gmt":"2023-11-19T22:51:12","slug":"2200","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ffmquakers.org\/index.php\/2023\/11\/19\/2200\/","title":{"rendered":"Children&#8217;s Program December 2023 &#8211; January 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Our weekly children&#8217;s program continues with a combination of singing, stories, activities, and joining the adults for the end of Quaker worship.&nbsp; We usually spend some time playing outside on the swings or inside on our climbing structure.&nbsp; Families are welcome to check out books on our themes from our extensive children&#8217;s library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In November, our children learned about quilts, and how they have been used to record family history and to make maps for the Underground Railroad, among other things.&nbsp; Melissa Foster helped us paint quilt squares about trees that she will sew into a small quilt to hang on our wall.&nbsp; Then we celebrated Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, and sang the &#8220;George Fox&#8221; song about how Quakers also talk about a &#8220;light&#8221; being in every person.&nbsp; We made mandala-like patterns called &#8220;rangali&#8221; with colored powders, lit traditional clay lanterns called &#8220;diyas&#8221;, played Indian drums called &#8220;tablas&#8221;, and ate traditional Diwali sweets!&nbsp; We used the rangali to make thank you cards for adults who have helped us this fall, and a card for a member who is sick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In December, we will prepare our song and story contributions to the meeting&#8217;s annual Christmas Program, including leading the adults in a version of &#8220;The Twelve Days of Christmas&#8221; with funny motions.&nbsp; We may have time to learn about Hanukkah.&nbsp; We will give the children&#8217;s program a vacation on December 24 and 31.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In January, we will return to our &#8220;Trees&#8221; theme, maybe read about Martin Luther King, do some cooking, continue our full moon celebrations, and maybe learn about how to be with people who have disabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some of our children enjoy attending New England Yearly Meeting Quaker weekend retreats for young people; one young person from our meeting is now serving as a &#8220;junior staffer&#8221;, and one older adult is a regular &#8220;staffer&#8221;.&nbsp; &nbsp; To see upcoming New England Yearly Meeting retreats for elementary, junior high, and high school young people, look at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/neym.org\/attend-event\/youth-retreats-programs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/neym.org\/attend-event\/youth-retreats-programs<\/a>&nbsp;(click on &#8220;search for retreats on our Events Calendar&#8221; to see retreats for 2024.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Check out Friends Camp in China, Maine, which many of our children have loved attending and staffing.&nbsp; Registrations fill up quickly, so look at the Friends Camp website at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/r20.rs6.net\/tn.jsp?f=001JYwy36_1dyKZEkGr0AsNOhb23kRp19N75doJjHaFTcPXv_rKBLsKyPItMN5LniLI4kfe-8RNTnsU55AUr7qLRSqL0bXAtgu5bWzKJggQwEhtJVnGsxzGVk7lsMMN-W-XF1jkyDzrbvt2DeJUapQKbg==&amp;c=pTHZ4iYGC470caNGWSYQIxUXXpBDzb0s4UkAsUXFEU53k8y2VfrLtg==&amp;ch=EpxQN_9vtF2r9rMTUiIfkw_Bi6awxxhJdZVAXHebSrR-cDS1oknJew==\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">www.friendscamp.org<\/a>&nbsp;soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Tanglewood Marionettes, a professional troupe operated by friends of Framingham Friends Meeting, will be giving free performances at the Acton Recreation Center during February, March, and April.&nbsp; The performances are terrific, and children are invited to come and see the marionettes and how they operate up close at the end of the show.&nbsp;&nbsp; While the shows are free, you do need to register in advance at&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/actonrec.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">http:\/\/actonrec.com<\/a>.&nbsp; Look at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/tanglewoodmarionettes.com\/shows\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/tanglewoodmarionettes.com\/shows<\/a>&nbsp;for a description of the shows, brief videos, and recommended age ranges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you would like to be added to our weekly email reminder about what we plan to do during the next few weeks, let Anne Anderson&nbsp;know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/ffmquakers.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/20221218_113829-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2203\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ffmquakers.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/20221218_113829-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ffmquakers.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/20221218_113829-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/ffmquakers.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/20221218_113829-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/ffmquakers.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/20221218_113829-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/ffmquakers.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/20221218_113829-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our weekly children&#8217;s program continues with a combination of singing, stories, activities, and joining the adults for the end of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-day-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ffmquakers.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ffmquakers.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ffmquakers.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffmquakers.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffmquakers.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2200"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ffmquakers.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2205,"href":"https:\/\/ffmquakers.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200\/revisions\/2205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ffmquakers.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffmquakers.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ffmquakers.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}