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Books

Check Out a New Online Course on Bible Basics!

I was honored to write a new course for the University of Dayton Virtual Learning Community for Faith Formation (VLCFF). It is called Bible Basics and the required text for the course is my book, The Bible Blueprint: A Catholic’s Guide to Understanding and Embracing God’s Word. Thanks to Richard Drabick, the Assistant Director of the Institute for Pastoral Initiatives for inviting me to write the course and to Sr. Angela Ann Zukowski, MHSH, the Director […]

teaching sixth grade
Intermediate Grades

Getting Ready for Moses!

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 […]

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Intermediate Grades

October 29 Session Summary – Part III: Getting Down to Business

Here’s the third installment of a summary of this past Monday’s session on Abraham and God’s plan for salvation. About a half-hour into the session, after prayer and reviewing the previous session (and a ton of Q & A!), I then arranged the kids in pairs and assigned them a passage about Abraham that they were to read in their Bibles and report on (using this worksheet). As I suspected, they were loathe to move […]

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Intermediate Grades

October 29 Session Summary – Part II: God Reveals His Plan of Salvation

Here’s the next installment of a summary of this past Monday’s session on Abraham and God’s plan for salvation. After we finished reviewing the stories from the previous week and answering gobs of questions, we then talked about how all of these stories describe how God created us to live with him but then human kind sinned and distanced ourselves from God. I said that, “Today, we’re going to see how God revealed a plan […]

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Approaches/Techniques

October 29th Session Summary – Part 1: Questions, Questions, Questions!

Since I have lots to share about my session last evening, I decided to break it up into smaller, bite-size pieces for you this week. Here’s the first installment.  Last evening’s session was characterized by questions, questions, questions! It seems that you can’t talk about creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac without a million questions! That’s good, of course, however, as I’ve mentioned before on this blog, catechists have […]

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Intermediate Grades

Abraham: Get With the Plan!

Here is my lesson for this coming Monday, October 29, 2012. The session focuses on Abraham! BIG IDEA: God is setting things right and we need to “get with the plan.” Abraham shows us how. Preliminaries (15 mins) welcome and introductions kids write their prayer intentions opening procession to set up prayer center opening prayer Engage (10 mins) Bring in a “home plate” (from baseball…I have a rubber one) to show the young people and […]

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Intermediate Grades

They Left Singing!

What a delightful evening last night with my 6th graders! I had an ambitious plan and I am happy to report that it came off without a hitch. When it was all over, some of them even left singing How Great Thou Art! More about that in a second. Here’s the summary: Since I was relying on a number of video segments, I needed to get there early to set up my laptop and projector. That’s […]

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Intermediate Grades

Entering the Stories of Genesis (Creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel)

For Monday evening’s session, we will begin exploring the stories of Genesis, beginning with Creation, Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel. I’m going hi-tech for this session, showing a number of brief video clips from YouTube. Here’s the plan. BIG IDEA: God creates something from nothing and sin has consequences. Preliminaries (15 mins) Students enter and write down prayer intentions Procession to set up prayer center Opening Prayer ritual Engage (10 mins) Show video […]

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Intermediate Grades

The Bible Tells Our Story

Here is the outline for my session on Monday, October 1, 2012: Big Idea: The Bible Tells Our Story Action Plan Preliminaries: (15 mins) Instrumental music in background (CD/player) Prayer intention slips and pens at places Prayer center objects on side table Hold bowl of holy water at the door Greet students at door with holy water – bless selves Students are seated and write out prayer intentions Take attendance Do Prayer Center Procession Opening […]

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Intermediate Grades

Answer Keys for Bible Learning Stations Fill-in Sheets

Here are the Answer Keys for the Student Fill-in Sheets that we used for the Bible Learning Stations. While all the “answers” are on the learning stations, it’s nice for the catechist to have them at his/her fingertips when reviewing! Bible Learning Stations fill in sheets – Bible Basics – Answer Key Bible Learning Stations fill in sheets – Old Testament – Answer Key Bible Learning Stations fill in sheets – New Testament – Answer […]