Celebrating bodies and relationships: Our Whole Lives K-1 second edition expands inclusion and accessibility

An updated resource is available to begin the lifelong process of education around identity, relationships, safety, and health.

Our Whole Lives: Sexuality Education for Grades K-1, UCC Edition is newly available from United Church of Christ Resources. Its language, activities, and resources – designed for children ages five through seven – have been updated in this second edition.

The new eight-workshop curriculum addresses gender identity and roles, sexual orientation, race, and ability in more expansive ways, as well as including updates around family diversity and greater awareness of being trauma informed. It offers new activities, songs, movement breaks, and facilitator tips for broader accessibility. It also has a fresh face, featuring new illustrations and book recommendations with children and families of diverse races, cultures, and orientations.

The Rev. Amy Johnson, UCC minister for Sexuality Education and Justice, is excited to make this resource available for use.

“The Bible stories are beautifully and age-appropriately told by Rev. Dr. Laurel Koepf, and the illustrations Wriply Bennett did for us de-center whiteness and are beautiful,” she said.

The OWL K-1 program seeks to create a comprehensive, progressive, and developmentally appropriate curriculum with values reflecting the justice-oriented traditions of the UCC and Unitarian Universalist traditions.

“As always, my hope is that we provide a sacred and celebratory frame for bodies and relationships, teaching children to delight in their bodies, have agency and boundaries around their bodies, and be curious and welcoming about people and families that may look different from them or how their families are configured. In short, to celebrate the beauty and diversity of the Body of Christ,” Johnson said.

Bringing it all together

This edition also comes in a new, user-friendly format. While the previous version included both a secular element and a supplemental Sexuality and Our Faith resource, the second edition has a complete UCC version that combines the secular and faith elements together into one manual. It now comes as a paper packet with 3-hole-punches, designed to put in a binder so that smaller segments of it can easily be updated and distributed by OWL leaders as needed.

Creating a new edition of the curriculum included a robust process, where the authors updated and wrote new material that was sent to critical readers with a racial justice, ability justice, and gender justice lens, and then it went through field testing in congregations.

“We always encourage the use of the most up-to-date materials, so that people are assured the information they are sharing is up-to-date in terms of medical accuracy, as well as common language used,” Johnson said.

To help with updating to the new edition, the UCC offers a 20% discount for those replacing their old curriculum, and for those ordering the new curriculum to attend an OWL training. People can receive the discount code by sending an email to Johnson and including either a picture of their old curriculum, or the date and place of the training they are taking, as well as the name of their UCC church.

A list of Upcoming OWL facilitator trainings, with both in-person and online opportunities, are listed here.

Find the new Our Whole Lives: Sexuality Education for Grades K-1, UCC Edition here.

---

Content on ucc.org is copyrighted by the National Setting of the United Church of Christ and may be only shared according to the guidelines outlined here.