Except for an excessive number of requests to go the the bathroom, last night’s class was extremely successful! 🙂 Although I had informed the kids on the first class that they needed to go to the bathroom before coming to class, last night at least 5 kids asked to go at separate times! It breaks up the momentum and takes my aide out of the classroom. Other than that, however, the class was extremely successful. […]
In my ongoing efforts to teach according to a principle set forth by St. Ignatius of Loyola—”When teaching, enter through their door, but be sure to leave through your door”—I have found a couple of cute video clips that fourth graders should be able to relate to as a way of introducing the concept of trust and how God can be trusted because he kept his promise of salvation. The first is the Geico insurance […]
For today’s class, we will be focusing on how we can trust in God, who is our “Rock” (drawing from Psalm 144:1). To reinforce the idea, I’m giving each of the students a rock with the words “Blessed be the LORD, my rock” Ps 144:1 Where did I get these from? It so happens that I live near some railroad tracks, so I went over there and picked out a number of gray rocks with […]
New York is indeed beautiful in Autumn! I spent the last couple of days in the Dutchess/Ulster County area and the fall colors are already showing in such splendor, especially along the Taconic State Parkway. I did two Being, Knowing, and Doing professional development workshops for catechetical leaders in the region and had a very nice time visiting with these hard-working and dedicated folks. So here’s a SHOUT OUT to all the folks I met […]
Here’s what I’m planning right now for my class this coming Monday, September 27, 2010. Theme: God’s Plan of Salvation Big Idea: God, our Rock, can be trusted because he kept his promise. Although God gave us the wonderful gift of Creation, we sinned against him and one another. The story of Adam and Eve describes how this happened. Despite our sin, God promised to save us from sin and he kept his promise by sending […]
From time to time, you may notice that I mention playing a recording of a Church hymn. Over the years, I have built my own little library of CDs (now, of course, we can do so on our iPods, etc.) of sacred hymns to use both for my own enjoyment/inspiration and for use in catechetical settings. Recently, I just added a couple of CDs of traditional Catholic hymns to balance out my collection which is […]
If you know anything about football, you know that sometimes, after a play is designed in the huddle and the team lines up to snap the ball, the quarterback may see something he didn’t expect and doesn’t like. At that point, he calls an audible…he changes the play on the fly. This is something that can only be done if the team has prepared well and knows what the alternative plays are. In religious education, […]
My lesson tonight includes the concept of God as king and of how we pray for the coming of the Kingdom. In American society, we sometimes have trouble teaching about the concept of the Kingdom of God – afterall, we won our independence from the “tyranny” of the King of England. Our present day understanding of a king is someone who is rich, powerful, self-centered,tyrannical, and arrogant. (In fact, once, on the Feast of Christ the […]
I had the enjoyable privilege of celebrating Catechetical “Sunday” in Mobile, Alabama, today as guest speaker at their archdiocesan Catechist Celebration Day! As always, the Southern hospitality was extraordinary and I enjoyed meeting so many wonderful catechists, catechetical leaders, and youth ministers, not to mention the great folks from the archdiocesan office of Religious Education and Archbishop Rodi, who celebrated Mass with us and had lunch with a Q & A session with the DREs, […]
Here’s what I’m planning for this coming Monday’s session: Theme (from textbook) – God is Our Father Big Idea: We can trust God our Father to protect us The session focuses on how Jesus taught us to call God our Father and how we pray for the coming of the Kingdom. A king is someone who leads and protects his people. We can trust God to lead and protect us from sin. God arms us […]
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