Our year of faith formation has ended at my parish. It is both a happy and sad time for me as a catechist. I’m thrilled to see my class of third graders move on, but I’m also sad to see them go after our year together. Our DRE asks us catechists at the end of each year to commit to teaching again the following fall and allows us first choice on the grade level. Before […]
Jesus calls each of us to spread the Good News. One way we can do this as Catholic Christians is to show God’s love to those we encounter no matter if they are friend, family, or stranger. This concept can be tough for many adults to live out. How do we teach the children in our faith formation classes to show God’s love to all those we encounter? I recently wrestled with this concept in […]
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”—these are words we use every time we pray the Sign of the Cross. Even young children know them. The prayer expresses the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, that God reveals himself in Three Persons: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is difficult for anyone to understand, especially young children. St. Patrick famously explained the Trinity by relating God in Three […]
Did you ever have one of those days where teaching religious education made you smile? Today was one of those days. After weeks of difficult and sometimes rowdy classes, we spent this class reviewing the material before the end of the year. Because I like games and like to teach with games, I decided to make our review into a game. I kept it simple. The children chose teams, and I asked each team a […]
It’s spring! We all look forward to this glorious time of year, especially after a long, dreary winter. But spring also makes it difficult for children to fight the wiggles and sit still during religious education class. They would much rather run and play and enjoy the sunshine like the rest of us. Rather than fight to make my wiggly third graders sit still on one particularly pretty spring day, I decided to take them outside […]
When planning my weekly faith formation lessons, I tend to look for certain types of activities that I’m comfortable teaching. In addition to the textbook, I usually include worksheets (crossword puzzles, word searches, etc.), classroom games, and journal writing. Every once in a while we will do a craft or physical activity, but with a group of almost two dozen kids, this can quickly turn into chaos. We’ve spent the last few weeks learning about […]
Children typically really enjoy Lent. It is a season of the Church when they can set practical goals to give up, give away, and pray more. But sometimes we forget to teach our kids the “why” of Lent. What is it that we are trying to achieve with our Lenten observations? What is the goal of Lent? When I explain Lent to children, I always explain that we are preparing our hearts to meet the […]
Do you remember learning how to locate passages in the Bible? Those of us who teach religious education to children realize that we have to teach this every year. We must create opportunities in class for kids to find Scripture verses on their own. One day when I realized we would have a short class, I decided to use the opportunity to reinforce how to find chapter and verse in the Bible. But I wanted […]
In a recent class, I asked who had made their First Reconciliation. All my third-grade students raised their hands. But when I asked how many have celebrated Reconciliation since then, the majority of their hands went down. Even though these children are only one year removed from preparing for their First Reconciliation, they still need to learn about Reconciliation and God’s forgiveness. How do we turn a first-time experience into a life-long practice? I decided to […]
It has happened to all of us who teach. We have a class session that spins out of control. I just had an hour with my third grade faith formation class that left me exhausted. I can blame our crazy, out-of-control class on several things—the weather, time of year, tired of sitting still, a boring lesson, and everything else under the sun. But why was it so unmanageable? What was it that made me want […]
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