Vision for Conservative Early Childhood Programs: A Journey Guide

• Celebrate and acknowledge life-cycle events – birth, brit (ritual circumcision),
baby-naming, bar or bat mitzvah, weddings, funerals.
• Do mitzvot – call a school friend who is sick, visit seniors in retirement homes to
celebrate Jewish holidays with them. Give tzedakah – visit food pantries. Take
care of the earth – plant trees. Be connected to the community. Keep the
connection to God – we are doing what God asks of us. How does it make you
feel when you do these things? How does it make the recipients feel?
• Shirley Newman teaches about “discovering God’s secrets” (Wachs, 1998). She
suggests having children collect leaves that at first glance seem to be exactly the
same. As the children examine the leaves, they will discover that no leaf is
identical to any other leaf. Then show the children a sheet of postage stamps or a
stack of matching postcards. When they look closely, the children will discover
that these human-made things all are identical. The children have just discovered
one of God’s secrets – a special ability unique to God. When people make things
with machines, they all come out the same. When God makes things in nature, not
one is the same. The question then becomes, “Why did God do that?”
• When children ask where God is, or how we know God exists if we can’t see
God, take a glass of water and some sugar. Let the children taste the plain water.
Put the sugar in the water and let the children stir it until all the sugar dissolves
and they can no longer see it, and then let them taste the sugar water. Can they tell
that the sugar is in the water, even though they can’t see it? It is just the same with
God. We can find evidence of God in the world even if we can’t see God.
The easiest, and also the hardest, way to help children explore their questions about God
is to make God-talk a regular, normal part of the
classroom. Rabbi Gordis tells us that God-talk is not
teaching our children anything factual. “Rather, Godtalk
is about making our children comfortable with the
word ‘God’ as a part of their regular vocabulary.” If
teachers refer to God in a comfortable, regular manner
– “Let’s thank God before we eat our snack.” “Why do
you think God made the animals talk differently than
we do?” “Did God build this table? How did God help
build this table?” – then the children will know then
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that it is safe for them to talk about God and to explore their own understandings of God.
God and Spirituality Concepts
A child’s relationship to God will change drastically with age. Although most children do
not start asking questions about God until they are around 4, there are many ways to
infuse the classroom with God concepts from the earliest age. Following is a list of
appropriate God-concepts for every age. Each age group is built on the previous one. For
each age group there is a list of concepts the teacher should understand in order to create
an atmosphere in which children can build connections to God and their own spiritual
selves. There also is a list of concepts about God that children of that age understand.
Vision for Conservative Early Childhood Programs: A Journey Guide
USCJ Department of Education
Maxine Handelman
Handelman@uscj.org
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