Alas, the catechetical year with my 6th graders ended with more of a whimper than a bang last evening! Suffice it to say that their eagerness to be done with Monday night religious education sessions outweighed any anguish they were feeling about not seeing Mr. Paprocki any more! 🙂 Part of the problem stemmed from the usual shenanigans that one encounters when supervising a large group of pre-adolescents attending Mass on a Monday evening after […]
Tonight is the last session that I will be teaching for my 6th graders this year (next week is our closing Mass). I’ll reflect soon on what this experience has been like for me (in brief, it’s been wonderful!) but for now I’d just like to offer a glimpse of what I’ll be doing tonight. Preliminaries (15 mins) Gather, attendance, misc. – young people write prayer intentions Opening prayer ritual/procession Engage (10 mins) I plan […]
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has provided some resources for prayer during this time of papal transition. In particular, here is a Prayer for Pope Benedict XVI as he approaches his retirement and here is a Prayer for the Election of a New Pope. Likewise, here is a bulletin insert on How a New Pope is Chosen. All 3 of these resources are available in Spanish and are available for purchase in quantities. […]
Last evening was my first opportunity to be with my 6th graders in the wake of the tragic massacre in Newtown, CT. I came prepared to spend some quality time touching on the subject with them and praying about it. Here is what happened: As I was setting up for class, one young lady arrived early as usual to help me distribute materials. She said, without provocation, “Well, I’m very upset.” I asked her about […]
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 […]
Monday’s session turned out very well! I have to say that I had a very laid-back and informal attitude going into this session and my overall goal was to keep it simple which I did. As a result, I actually finished everything I planned to do (for once!) Here’s a summary: Approaching the session, I continued to “downsize” my approach because of the fire drill which would take up time. I decided to set up […]
Knowing that we have a fire drill scheduled for Monday evening, I need to keep my lesson plan simple! The fire drill will probably eat up 10 minutes of the schedule which, if you do the math, is nearly 15% of a 75 minute class! With that in mind, I have a simple plan for this lesson which is to tie up some loose ends from the Learning Stations we did a few weeks ago. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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