Stories from the Field Archives - Page 22 of 61

Breakout for religion class - student working on lock

Breakout Puzzles for the Religion Classroom

It’s getting to the end of the school year and the weather is beautiful. The students are restless, but I still have lessons to cover and I need to find a way to keep my students engaged. I decided that it was time to mix things up a bit and try something different: Breakout! Breakout is a game in which students have to solve puzzles and use the solutions to those puzzles to unlock a box […]

The Greatest Commandment in Action

Lisa Jones

The Greatest Commandment sounds straightforward: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:34‒40). This sounds simple and easy for kids to understand, right? Yes and no. When I read the Greatest Commandment to my class, they all nodded and said yes, […]

RCIA pew - Image by John Ragai under CC BY 2.0

Three Tips for Working with the RCIA

Heather Felton

Every DRE has his or her own approach to ministry. In my parish, our faith formation philosophy is to meet people where they are. I know it’s a pretty simple idea, but when we think about the variety of people from so many different backgrounds who come together in the Church, it is important to remember that the same approach won’t work for everyone. This attitude can prove to be especially important when working with […]

Changing It Up with a Craft

Lisa Jones

It was the week when all the students in Texas had to take standardized tests. Even on a good day, my third-grade faith formation class is a squirmy bunch. After being at elementary school all day, doing nothing but taking standardized tests, I knew they would be extra squirmy. I needed to do something different to keep their attention this time. I wasn’t going to follow my regular class plan, so I needed a hands-on […]

Adult Faith Formation: Don’t Go It Alone!

Joe Paprocki

One of the traps we often fall into when approaching adult faith formation opportunities is thinking that we have to do it on our own, in isolation from other neighboring parishes. In reality, just the opposite is what is needed: collaboration! Today, when parishes are dealing with limited resources, it may not be practical for every parish to have a full-blown adult faith formation program. Instead, parishes can collaborate on certain aspects of the adult […]

Mass recessional - Kasey Hund Photography

Four Tips for Making Connections Between the Mass and Class Discussions

Denise Gorss

One of the boys in my group asked, “Do you go to church?” We were discussing the Mass, and he seemed genuinely surprised when I told him that, yes, I do go to church for weekly Mass. He admits he only goes to church occasionally, and he, like many kids in our programs, is more the norm than the exception. I don’t have the secret formula for how we change this trend and encourage those […]

Hidden Gems the Holy Spirit Hides

Lisa Brown

When I think about how I teach my class, I tend to highlight those lesson plans that were spectacular or sessions when I left feeling confident that that my students truly understood the lesson. I tend to forget—or ignore—those times when I felt “off,” when I didn’t prepare as much as I would have liked, or when I lacked confidence in my own understanding of the material. However, I have found that those classes are […]

Dear Pope Francis in the Classroom

Lisa Jones

As we were finishing up faith formation class the other day, I showed my class a new book: Dear Pope Francis. It is a hardcover, colorful book of letters and drawings from children around the world to Pope Francis. The best part of the book is that Pope Francis answered each of the letters. His answers are not one- or two-line answers, but thoughtful, multi-paragraph answers that an elementary-age student can understand. I fell in […]

Empowering Young People to Become Women and Men for Others

Joe Paprocki

Here’s a great idea that Fr. Tom Sweetser, SJ, recently passed along in his newsletter from the Parish Evaluation Project (reprinted with permission). The St. Francis Xavier Elementary School in Phoenix, AZ has as its mission and purpose, “Empowering students to become men and women for others through faith, service, and justice.” One concrete way of carrying out this mission is a creative project for the 7th and 8th grade students called The Arrupe Project. It was […]

Priests Who Visit the Classroom

Barb Gilman

Twice a month, my students look forward to a visit from our associate pastor, Father Vincent. I am so glad my school makes it a priority to have a priestly presence in our halls. In my 12 years of teaching, three different priests have taken the time to visit my classes. Their 20-minute visits offer my students three benefits: the priests bring their unique perspectives, they are very good with show and tell, and they […]