I was very pleased with my first session of 6th grade religious education last evening! 🙂 Here’s a rundown of highlights and lowlights: Since I teach in the later session and someone is in the room before me, I don’t have much time to set up (15 mins…if I’m lucky) so it is a real whirlwind trying to get things ready. I have this notion that the kids will walk into this very serene and prayerful […]
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 […]
Thanks to the folks who shared some excellent advice for catechists of primary age children last week! This week, we turn our attention to those who teach children in grades 4, 5, and 6 – the intermediate grades. What works? What doesn’t work? What approaches are most effective? What skills, techniques, and strategies are needed? Allow me to begin since I taught 4th graders last year! My advice? Don’t “baby” this age group. They have […]
One thing I did this year on the last day of class (something I had never done before) was to invite my 4th graders to consider becoming a catechist some day! I told them that I thoroughly enjoyed my time working with them and that I’m pretty sure it showed. I said that being a catechist is a wonderful way to practice your faith and to bring others closer to God and that I encourage […]
Monday evening was my last class of the year with my 4th graders. I’m gonna miss these little guys…they were a very sweet class and we had a good experience together. We began with a closing Mass in church and, for the second year in a row, the organist chose to sing “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad” as the responsorial and for the 2nd year in […]
Yesterday was my last teaching class for this year! Next week, we’ll have a closing Mass and then a little time left in class for a small celebration and farewells. I was pleased as punch, then, to have had a wonderful class last night! Here’s the scoop. Seven of my students still needed to complete their final assessment so I had them go over to an empty classroom with my aide Daneen where they completed […]
On Monday, I gave my 4th graders an end-of-the-year assessment. Unfortunately, I did not leave enough time for all of them to finish so I will allow some time this coming Monday for the rest of the group to complete the exam. I have no doubt that part of the reason that we had such a robust conversation about the 1o Commandments last Monday was because the kids knew that the more they talked, the […]
Last evening’s class was a lot of fun and very productive. I told the kids that they were going to take a “final exam” and, of course, they all freaked out. I then proceeded to calm their fears and tell them that we were going to review first and that the test was just a way to see what “stuck” and what we might need to cover on our last class. I then did the […]
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