Who Are Our Partners in the Philippines?

 

Goal: To learn more about the history, customs, beliefs and practices of Unitarian Universalists in the Philippines.

 

Materials (downloading instructions):

  1. The Partnership Suitcas filled with materials for the lesson.
  2. Game boards and card sets: one for every 4-6 children you expect to attend the lesson.

Game Board PDF file 749KB

Game Flaps PDF file 717KB

Beliefs and Practices Graphic PDF file 816KB

Customs Graphic PDF file 209KB

Beliefs and Practices Cards MS Word file 47KB PDF file 71KB

Customs Cards MS Word file 50KB PDF file 81KB

  1. Playing pieces from commercial game boards: one for each player. (Monopoly is good since there so many different pieces.)
  2. Dice: 1 die for each game board.
  3. Map of the world. Pushpins and string or yarn.
  4. Homemade passports for each participant (made in Lesson #1)
  5. Page of stickers to put in passports (MS Word file 75KB PDF file 78KB). Date stamp (optional)
  6. Copies of the founder story (MS Word file 39KB PDF file 75KB) and the guided meditation (MS Word file 32KB PDF file 38KB) to read aloud.
  7. Snack from the Philippines: calamansi juice with fresh or dried mangos (a real delicacy in Negros). Calamansi is a small citrus fruit from the Philippines that is similar the key lime. To make a pitcher of juice, squeeze one cup of lime or calamansi juice into pitcher with 64 ounces of water, add 16 tablespoons of sugar and stir. Add ice and serve. Makes 8 servings. If you would like the real thing, you can order calamansi concentrate online or purchase from a Filipino grocery in your area.
  8. Copies of “Under One Sky” (MS Word file 30KB PDF file 60KB).

As an alternative to downloading all these materials individually, you can save time by downloading a compressed file containing all materials. To do this, your computer must be capable of handling files compressed using WinZip. You have the choice of:


Introduction: (15 minutes)

"This morning we are going to take a trip to visit Unitarian Universalists in the Philippines. The Philippines is a country made up of 7,107 islands in the South Pacific. People live on only a thousand of the islands, because more than 6,600 of them are no larger than one square mile! That’s about as far as from here to ___________. Most of the UUs in the Philippines live on the island of Negros, though some are also on Cebu. Let’s find Negros on our world map.” [Put a push pin on the island. Tie one end of a piece of string or yarn to the pushpin marking Negros and the other end to one marking your town.] “Right now in the Philippines it is _____ o'clock on _____day.” [Look this up on the internet, or have a child look it up before this class and report what they found out.]

 

“Now that we know where we are going, we will all need passports.”  [Take the passports out of an old suitcase, and show them the Philippines “sticker” that they will receive when they return from their trip.  Ask: “What should be done with the passports?” [Ans: Keep in a clean pocket or give to you --their trip leader--until they're ready to return.]

 

“This morning we are visiting a religious education class and the children are hearing a story they love to hear over and over. It’s the story of the founder of Unitarian Universalism in the Philippines: Toribio Quimada. His daughter, Rebecca Quimada Sienes is the president of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines today. What clue does that give you about how long UUism has been in the Philippines?

 

After hear the story, we’ll play a board game that tells us more and helps us think about how Philippine and North American Unitarian Universalists are alike and how we are different.”

 

In the Philippines the children sometimes have snacks--just like we do. A drink called calamansi juice is popular. We’ll eat our Philippine snack (dried or fresh mangos and calamansi juice) while we hear the story that begins our religious education class in the Philippines.”

 

Story (take out of suitcase) Read aloud. (5 minutes)

 

Game: (take out of suitcase) Partners! in Philippines (20-30 minutes)

Set up:

  1. Place the game boards on tables or the floor. Divide the participants into groups of 4-6 players. If you have a wide age range of participants, be sure to play the game with mixed ages so the older ones can help the younger.
  2. Note: the Customs cards and Beliefs and Pracitices cards are numbered and should be stacked in order in their own pile, face-down with the #1 card on top.

Object of the Game: To move along the path from Start to Finish.

Rules:

  1. Establish who will start by a roll of the die—high number goes first. Moving in clockwise direction, each player rolls the die and moves ahead the number of spaces shown on the die.
  2. Players lift the flap of the square they land on and read the words under it. Follow directions, ie: Move ahead, move back, pick a Customs Card, or pick a Beliefs and Practices Card. Read or answer the question on the card.
  3. The next player goes after all cards are read and questions answered.
  4. Stop the game 20 minutes before the end of the session.


Meditation (10 minutes) 

Before we leave the Philippines we’re going to use our imaginations as we listen to one more story. Make yourself comfortable on the floor. Spread out so you can lie down. Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Feel your body relax into the floor. Take another deep breath. As I read, imagine that you are in the Philippine islands

 

[Read the Philippines Guided Imagery Story.]

 

Conclusion (10 minutes)

Hand out passports and pass out stickers. “This is the Philippines national flag.” [Pass around a small role of scotch tape or a glue stick so participants can paste the sticker on to the Philippines page.]

 

Sing “Under One Sky.”  Then excuse the students one by one by stamping (or writing and initialing) today's date into their passports on the Philippines page.  Tell them next Sunday there will be a trip to __________ and show them that page in their passports.  Welcome them back to __________[their home country] and put all their passports back in the suitcase. Hand out fact sheet from the game for each child to take home, along with the website address from which they could download the game to make and play at home with their families.