Comments on: Summer Intensive R.E.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:28:14 +0000

Christina, it sounds like your parish has a pretty solid approach to the school year/summer intensive model. How wonderful that the children are retaining knowledge of their faith from year to year. Thanks for sharing.

By: Christina

Christina — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:37:34 +0000

My church uses both types of programs (school year and summer intensive) and my children participate in the summer program. I love it! They are learning so much more about their faith than I did at their age. We have three cycles that the children go through twice (once in grades 4-6 and then the second in grades 7-9). I teach the program as well (grade 7)and I’m always impressed at how much the children remember from year to year!

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:03:55 +0000

Thanks, Amy. I wonder if the ACRE scores are better because there is more continuity (sessions every day instead of once a week) and the kids retain more over a 3-week period rather than 8 months. Interesting.

By: Amy

Amy — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:29:27 +0000

There are a few parishes around us that have this sort of a summer intensive program and it is very popular. The DREs that run these programs say that the kids who are in it do better on the NCEA ACRE than the kids enrolled in traditional programs. Some adapt the texts that they use in the traditional programs and others develop their own programs based on the diocesan curricula centered around a theme like the Beatitudes. I’d love to do soemthing like this, but we don’t have the facilities to support it over the summer.

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:41:21 +0000

Thanks, Katie. Please DO recommend some titles for us.

By: Katie

Katie — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:58:20 +0000

This model is used at a lot of parishes that espouse the Whole Community Catechesis Model. It’s focus on the summer intensive is so that during the school year (when most families have a stable routine, as compared to summer) the religious education piece is done intergenerationally with a focus on the family and such. It doesn’t preclude activities for individual age groups, but suggests that these are in the larger context of the family gathering. There are a ton of great books out there on this!