Getting Ready for Moses!

teaching sixth grade

This coming Monday, my sixth-grade religious education class will move forward in our Old Testament exploration to encounter da man: Moses! The story of the Exodus/Passover event is the centerpiece of the Old Testament and Moses is the “standard of excellence” when it comes to OT characters!

With that in mind, we are going to begin by showing a good chunk (50 minutes) of The Prince of Egypt, beginning with the scene where Moses encounters the burning bush leading up to the end of the film. While no Hollywood version of biblical stories is perfect, this one is pretty good. In fact, I put together an outline of specifically where the film veers from Scripture so that as we process the story, we can point out the differences. I also put together a video discussion guide. Students are to have this in front of them as they view the video so that they are actively engaged and learning, not just being entertained:

The goal in showing this is to present the story in all its drama in a format that speaks to kids before we turn to the Bible to explore the story and its ramifications for our faith. Understanding the Exodus is key to understanding our Baptism, while understanding the Passover is key to our understanding of the Eucharist. Important stuff!

About Joe Paprocki 2742 Articles
Joe Paprocki, DMin, is National Consultant for Faith Formation at Loyola Press, where, in addition to his traveling/speaking responsibilities, he works on the development team for faith formation curriculum resources including Finding God: Our Response to God’s Gifts and God’s Gift: Reconciliation and Eucharist. Joe has more than 35 years of experience in ministry and has presented keynotes, presentations, and workshops in more than 100 dioceses in North America. Joe is a frequent presenter at national conferences including the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress, the Mid-Atlantic Congress, and the National Conference for Catechetical Leadership. He is the author of numerous books, including the best seller The Catechist’s Toolbox, A Church on the Move, Under the Influence of Jesus, and Called to Be Catholic—a bilingual, foundational supplemental program that helps young people know their faith and grow in their relationship with God. Joe is also the series editor for the Effective Catechetical Leader and blogs about his experiences in faith formation at www.catechistsjourney.com.

4 Comments

  1. Love the movie idea we did this too! We even popped some popcorn and had some lemonade!
    my kids loved this and what a great learning tool we read all of Exodus and we are going to work on some of the plagues by painting them I would love to have each child paint or draw a plague and display it in the gathering space at church. Joe check out the guy ? the Romin catholic (there is a guy on EWTN and he took a journey to where the burning bush was and I guess there is rock in that region that has trees engraved in the rock were like the leaves of the burning bush only known to be found in this region in the world. My kids loved this too !
    again ewtn has a video you can purchase and it is quite a journey. (like watching the history channel) great learning tool.
    Exodus is sooo exciting thank you for sharing.

      • HI Joe,
        The worksheets for moses and the prince of egypt were great! the kids loved them and I did too! opened doors for great learning and great discussion.
        quick question do you have any worksheets for another movie
        Joseph King of dreams by Disney.?
        thank you again,
        Grace

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