Tonight’s the night! I begin teaching 6th graders (Old Testament)! I’ve put together a little video that shows you some of my catechist preparations not only for tonight but for the year…I hope you find it helpful. In the video, I mention or show a number of resources. Here are links to all of them: My Session Outline – Session One 9/10/12 My Schedule for the Year PROCLAIMING THE WORD Bookmark in Word Prayer Intentions […]
This year I am going to make a concerted effort to have a Scripture reading proclaimed from the Bible by one of the students during every class. I plan to have the Bible enthroned in the middle of the Prayer Center as always and, when it comes time to hear a Scripture passage, one of the young people will get up, bow before the Bible, and proclaim the reading from the Bible (I will have […]
Tonight, I got to take a peek at the room that I will be teaching in this year…it’s the school library! I’m so excited because the focus of 6th grade is the Old Testament and one of the images that I love to use to teach about the Bible is “God’s Library!” Also the room is carpeted which will be very conducive to guided reflections. I’ll have 14 students and I plan to move some […]
This summer, many of you took advantage of an online retreat titled, “Preparing for a Year of Faith” that I offered here on my blog. Over the course of a month, we reflected on and shared insights about the 4 pillars of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Now, you can access the entire retreat in one place! Just click on the Year of Faith banner below: In the future, this will be availabe under […]
As I prepare for my first religious education class (September 10), I’ve put together a couple of simple but helpful resources that I’m happy to share with catechists. The first is a Homework Notification Sheet. I’ve never had a whole lot of luck assigning homework in religious education and having kids complete it but part of it may be the fact that my assignments are probably never seen by parents. I thought it would be […]
It’s time to kick-off the catechetical year! Tomorrow evening, Tuesday, August 28, 2012, I’ll be hosting a free Webinar – Teaching During a Year of Faith – to explore how we can more effectively proclaim Jesus Christ to those we are called to teach this year. Be sure to click that link above to find a Note-Taking Sheet in PDF form that you can download for the Webinar! This evening, I’ll be attending the start-of-the-year catechist […]
As you may know, this past year, I ran a feature here on my blog called Catechists in Action consisting of videos of various catechists “doing their thing” so that we could watch like a fly on the wall. Now, we’ve put together a 4-minute compilation of all 8 catechists we visited so that you can see in a nutshell what the ministry of catechesis is all about. I encourage you to share this video […]
One of the stories in Catholic news recently is the issue of some dioceses requiring catechists and religion teachers to take an oath of fidelity. In particular, the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, has been in the news after some teachers and catechists quit rather than submit to taking the required oath of fidelity. The oath, which is to be signed and publicly administered on Catechetical Sunday, basically asks catechists to state that they, “with firm faith, belive […]
OK, friends, another colleague of ours has sent out a plea for help! This one comes from a catechetical leader named Steve. Please offer your advice, thoughts, comments, and questions in the box below under Leave a Reply and thanks in advance for so generously sharing your wisdom. Joe, Last year I had several problems with some middle school kids who were unable to change behavior on their own. In several instances I had a parent […]
I have an exciting new page to share with you titled Becoming a Catechist which consists of numerous links to posts, videos, articles, and other resources from my blog that can help someone to discern if they wish to accept the call to serve as a catechist. The page includes my popular Top Ten Reasons to Become a Catechist, stories from current catechists about their calling and dedication to this ministry, videos from my Catechists […]
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