Thank you so much to the many of you who have donated items for our bags for people experiencing homelessness. Your donation will help us with our ethical action this Sunday, when we will spend our time putting together bags. In addition to the items donated, each bag will receive information about services in Fairfax and Loudoun Counties as well as a note from our ethical kids. 

I'm looking forward to spending time with the kids to put these together on Sunday. We'll also do our own preview of the 12/17 Music Platform with our own playlist for our ethical action. If you are planning to attend and your child has any songs that they especially like, please let me know and I'll be sure to include it! 

Last Sunday, we welcomed some new friends to class and I'm looking forward to everyone coming together on the 19th for Stone Salad! 

In November, we're focusing on gratitude. In December, we'll be focusing our classes on giving. Last Sunday, the 6+ kids talked about what helps them feel safe and comfortable. Through that conversation, we planned an ethical action, which those of you in attendance received some notecards about. I'm here with more details! 

During Stone Salad, the kids will be collecting items to create toiletry bags for people experiencing homelessness. You can help out by donating or purchasing items from our Amazon Wishlist. (Note that if you'd prefer to use another retailer but purchase a similar item in a similar quantity, please let me know so that I can ensure that wishlist reflects what we have collected.)

For our first class in December, we will create toiletry bags. These will be available for members to keep in their car and hand out any extras will be donated to Cornerstones. 

While the AEU hosts its All-Society Platform on Sunday, you can find me and Joey at the Cascades Farmer's Market! We'll be hosting an art table again for their Halloween event. If you're interested, come out and join us! 

Thank you to those of you who took some time on Sunday to participate in the vote set up by the kids! Our October topic was a lot of fun and a great way to remind everyone that we have state & local elections going on right now in Virginia! 

This Sunday, I'll be at a local market hosting a coloring table for kids with voting-themed coloring pages. I encourage you all to take some time for ethical action yourselves. One way to spend your morning is to contact five people and make sure they have a plan to vote. You can share early voting information for Fairfax County and Loudoun County. Want to do more? There are plenty of opportunities to help in a way that speaks to you, like handing out sample ballots of door-to-door canvassing. 

This update isn't just for our Ethical Kids! Hopefully many of you will join us Sunday for Melissa's platform and our kid-led election following the platform! Last class, the kids talked about elections, helped put together a plan for an election on Sunday, and even made a special ballot box for us to use. 

Our candidates? What treat I should bring to our 11/5 platform. Joey is advocating for chocolate pie, while Lily is promising an assortment of cake pops. It's up to you, the voters, to decide what happens next. Either way, I know what I'm doing on November 4 (and I'm accepting gluten-free and vegan recipes for both candidates if you have them!) 

This Sunday we'll start our next topic: Voting and Advocacy! With state & local elections coming up, it's a great time to talk about why voting matters and how we can advocate for ourselves and others. 

We'll meet at Green Hedges and start off in the main room with the platform. I'm reading the book this week, and right after that we'll move to the classroom. Parents are welcome to join in, or stay and listen to the platform. 

This week, the students will be working on a campaign of their own -- to decide what snack I bring to our next class (on 10/15)! They'll practice their influencing skills by making signs and, at Josie's request, speeches. 

I can't wait for Sunday! I'm so excited to see where the kids take this activity. 

Our September classes on Interconnected Life have been a lot of fun! It's been wonderful to see the kids apply what they know about nature and communities to reflect on questions about how we rely on each other. 

This Sunday, we planned to take a walk to cap off our conversation. Unfortunately, it looks like it will either be very rainy or very muddy on Sunday. Instead, let's take a well-deserved week off before we start our new topic in October -- voting and activism! 

It was so great to get the chance to meet some new families last Sunday! We spent our time together getting to know each other, doing some art, and talking about how living things are all connected to each other. We also set some norms for our class. I shared the goals of our space and encouraged them to always feel empowered to let me know what would be more fun or interesting for the group. We also started making our class playlist, which has some bangers so far. 

This Sunday, we're going to meet at Green Hedges to continue on the theme of interconnectedness and take advantage of what looks like incredible weather! We'll start out in our classroom to share our joys and concerns and align on our goals for the day. Then we'll go outside to the playground and make some notes about plants and animals that we see. We'll take our notes back inside (or to the picnic tables) and talk about the different items we saw, what they need to thrive and what relies on them.

This will prepare us for next Sunday, when we spend NoVES's virtual Sunday on a nature walk! 

I can't wait to see you all on Sunday! We're going to start off our year by talking about how we are all interconnected. After the children's story during platform, we'll move back to our classroom. After talking about the story and what it meant to us, we'll transition Into our topic for the month. 

Our class on Sunday will be a mixture of group discussion and arts and crafts. While the kids are working on their art, we'll have some music playing, so please send me one or two of your kid's favorite songs so I can add them to our playlist! 

For those in the platform, be sure to stick around to see what our Ethical Kids made this week! 

Our September Ethical Education programming starts next Sunday! This month, we will focus on the relationships between plants, animals, and humans. We will also talk about relationships in communities to set us up for our October topic -- voting! 

I'm looking forward to this programming, and I'm especially looking forward to meeting some new people and inviting them into our program. We've set ourselves up this year for maximum flexibility and I can't wait to start testing and learning with our families!