Stories from the Field Archives - Page 23 of 61

Priests Who Visit the Classroom

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 […]

Hallelujah and Peace to Celebrate Easter Season

Denise Gorss

Because our faith formation program takes time off for Holy Week and Easter Week, the Second Week of Easter is the first time we meet after the Church has celebrated the Resurrection and the Alleluia has returned to Mass. I like to make a point of that for the young people in my group and start sessions after Easter by playing a recording of Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus.” It grabs the attention of the young people […]

Celebrating (Not-so) Small Successes in Adult Faith Formation

Joe Paprocki

Numerous books and websites dealing with successful leadership strategies identify the importance of celebrating small successes (or “wins” or “victories”). Here is one such example: Brenda Bence: The Top 10 Reasons Why Leaders Should Celebrate Wins. This is precisely the reason why we are hosting a celebration tonight at Christ the King Parish: to celebrate the success of our Lenten small faith groups! Now that we are in the Easter season—a time of celebration—we are hosting […]

Will God Wipe Us Out?

Lisa Jones

In my third-grade faith formation class, the story of Noah’s Ark came up while we were discussing another topic. One of the girls asked, “If God punished the whole world with a flood and wiped everyone out because of sin, could he wipe us all out as well? We are all sinners.” My immediate thought was, “Wow, what an incredible question!” I loved that she remembered a previous lesson when we had talked about how […]

The Challenges of Teaching Holy Week

Lisa Brown

Teaching Holy Week to second graders is a bit like herding cats: daunting, if not impossible, without the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I’ve made many mistakes when teaching Holy Week. In the past, I’ve attempted to cram the principles of the Triduum and Easter on the last Sunday of class before Easter break (which happens to be Palm Sunday). I did this because I wanted to make sure I had enough time to prepare […]

Preparing for Holy Week in Junior High

Denise Gorss

In our last session before Holy Week, I like to walk through the Passion story with my group. Last year I tried starting with Joe Paprocki’s Bible story treasure hunt. I hid pictures of symbols related to the events of the Passion around the room and gave the young people a few minutes to find them all. They found most without trouble, and I gave hints to help them find the more well-hidden ones. It […]

A Simple Way to Choose Volunteer Readers

Lisa Jones

My third-grade class likes to read aloud during our faith formation classes. Fortunately, I have no shortage of volunteers: they all want to take turns reading. While this is a good problem for a teacher to have, it’s not without its drawbacks. I struggle with how to be fair in calling on students to read aloud. Whenever I ask for a volunteer to read, they all squirm and jump around, calling out, “Me! Me! Pick […]

Miracle Workshop: Talking about the Miracles of Jesus

Denise Gorss

I knew we had a lot of ground to cover when I asked for examples of miracles Jesus performed and one of the students said, “When he gave fish to two guys.” That didn’t sound too miraculous, so I asked the boy if he thought that sounded impressive, and he admitted it didn’t. One of his classmates helped by offering that he thought there were 2,000 people fed with fish—getting closer to the famous miracle […]

An Update on Small Faith Groups at Christ the King Parish

Joe Paprocki

I can happily report that our venture into creating small faith-sharing groups during Lent at Christ the King Parish in Chicago has been successful; thanks be to God! Seven groups met for the first four weeks of Lent to reflect on the upcoming Sunday Gospel readings using materials that I provided through my blog. Each group averaged between 10 and 15 participants and met in homes or in the rectory on different days and times, […]

Taking to Heart the Apostles’ Creed

Barb Gilman

Each year, the Archdiocese of Omaha requires all third-grade Catholic-school teachers to teach the Apostles’ Creed. Teaching young children to memorize a prayer involves some traditional and non-traditional methods. I am always looking for new methods to help my students since every class is different. What worked with one class may not work with another. I dedicate two weeks to teaching my class the Creed before giving them a test. During the first week, I […]