3rd Grade Religious Ed: Pentecost Party

 The last class was on Pentecost, and we had a party!

I had set up these paper helicopters with the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.  You fold down the "wings" and toss it in the air and it comes fluttering down.

I made them in flame colors with enough for each kid to do several.  The gift is written in silver, and a simple explanation is written in pen.

• Wisdom: Seeing things as God sees them.
• Knowledge: Knowing your faith.
• Understanding: Knowing what to do.
• Counsel: Helping others to choose the right thing.
• Piety: Loving God.
• Fortitude: Courage to do what is right.
• Awe: Being amazed at what God is doing.

 I brought back the fishing game with each fish being something I wanted them to remember from  this year's class.

We did the saint matching game, and the "Find the Treasure" card games.

And, of course, we had to bring back the St. George and the Dragon air cannon game!

I think we also did the Resist the Temptation board game.

And we had snacks!  What a great year, and a great group of kids!

3rd Grade Religious Ed: Confession and the Mass

 This covers two classes for which I have lost my notes!

The first was the first Sunday of May, so we had a May crowning and sang Immaculate Mary.  Ever since we looked up the Mass in Japanese (when Mxyl was going to Japan) and discovered Japanese Catholics singing Immaculate Mary, I have felt this is the song every Catholic should know!

We also said a decade of the Rosary with the kids putting a flower in for each prayer.  I love that idea of the Rosary as making a bouquet for Mary!


In the last class we had discussed sins, temptations, accidents and mistakes, so this week we  went into Confession.  I found a lovely craft about the treasures of Confession from Catholic Icing which I modified to make faster and easier.

I brought a bunch of little treasure chests ($1.50 each),  jewel stickers, markers, and a print out of the list of "treasures" from Catholic Icing, cut into strips.

I had the kids color the treasure chests with the markers while I discussed the "how to" part of Confession.  I think I had Klenda help me act out a good Confession.

Then we reviewed each "treasure."  I handed them out one at a time and let the kids decorate the strips with the jewels.

They decorated the strips and then packed each one into the chest before we went on to the next.

This went really well, and the kids loved the little treasure chests! 

The following week was Mother's Day and the Ascencion.  We talked a lot about gifts, the gifts we give our moms because we love them, and our moms being reminded of us by our gifts.

Then we talked about the Mass being God's gift to us, particularly Jesus' gift of Himself, and our gift of self when we participate in the Mass.

We did this little coloring sheet and stapled glittery gold lace ribbon to show the graces (God's life) flowing to us from the Mass.

While they were coloring, I read the book,  The Weight of a Mass.

When they were done with that, we made gifts for their moms.

We did tissue paper flowers, and made bath salts, both of which the kids really liked, but the bath salts were the best!

I took a large container of epsom salts, some wide mouth canning jars, and my collection of essential oils.  I let the kids smell each oil, and allowed them to add 3 drops of two fragrances (plus some coloring) to a cup of epsom salts. 

This way each child made a special fragrance and color that was specific for their Mom, and, by limiting it to a combination of two, every batch came out smelling wonderful!

Next time I would take a selection instead of the whole collection, though.  There were really too

Klenda and Oob each made one for me!

many for the kids to smell before their noses wore out!

I also have to say, watching the moms pick up the kids after class, they loved the bath salts, particularly that the child had designed a unique fragrance for them!

There is a core lesson there about God's unique love for each of us, and our gift of self to Him, and to each other.

3rd Grade Religious Ed: The Good Shepherd

This past weekend was Good Shepherd Sunday, and the theme was "God Blesses Contrite Hearts." Perfect!

We started out acting out the parable of the Good Shepherd with all the kids looking for our hidden sheep.

We talked about how Jesus himself was the Good Shepherd, looking for people who needed forgiveness.

If you read the Gospels, Jesus forgives a lot of people! 

We talked about three examples: Peter, the woman at Simon's house (washed Jesus' feet with her tears), and Zaccheus.  What did they all have in common?  Contrition- being sorry for what they had done wrong!

What about us? Do we do things that are wrong? Those are sins, but what is a sin? For something to be a sin, it has to have three things:

1. It has to be wrong (if it wasn't wrong, nothing bad happened)
2. You have to know it's wrong (if you didn't know, then it's a mistake)
3. You have to do it on purpose (otherwise it's an accident)

And, of course, if you want to do something wrong, but you don't do it, that's just a temptation!

We went through a lot of examples with the kids telling me if the scenarios were sins, accidents, mistakes, or temptations.

We played this board game!

Then we worked on how to do an examination of conscience.  Did you do anything wrong? Did you not do something you should have? How have you loved God and others?

 
I encouraged the kids to make a nightly Examen  where they look at what they did wrong, and ask forgiveness, but also look at good things they did (what did you do that made God smile?), and bring that as a gift to the Lord.

We did a little art project, a coloring page of the Good shepherd where we clued bits of cotton to the lamb.

And we finished up with a "Find the Lost Sheep" card game where they were looking for the card with the sheep.

3rd Grade Religous Ed: Holy Week and Easter

 For Holy Week, we started off reviewing how Lent had been going  for them and looking at the seeds they had planted weeks ago when we did the parable of the mustard seed. 
 
Actually, I had been bringing the plants in each week that I was
here, but this was the first time the plants were actually flowering!  I had them take them home.

Then we did the Jesse Box for Palm Sunday , Good Friday,and Easter Sunday. Kerygma fest!

 Really wonderful!

We also did the Holy Week eggs.

The kids took turns opening the eggs.  There are a lot of different versions out there, but here's mine:

1. Palm leaf (paper) for Palm Sunday.

2. 40 cents in silver coins (Judas's betrayal).
3. Eucharist (pin) Last Supper.
4. Thorn (rose twig) Crown of Thorns.
5. Whip (thread) Scourging.
6. Cross (wood) Carrying the Cross
7. Nails (square cut nails) Crucifixion
8. INRI (paper) Jesus Christ King of the Jews
9. Dice and sponge (dice beads, piece of sponge) dicing for Jesus' clothes, offering him vinegar
10. Spear (toothpick and paint) Spear
11. Rock (rock!) stone sealing the tomb
12.Empty () the tomb was empty!

No class on Easter,  on Divine Mercy Sunday I was out of town, but the next week we talked about Easter! And had testing for half the class!

This time we did Easter eggs, which were based on the Way of Light (which is an Easter practice based on the Way of the Cross).

Again, there are many ways to do this and my selection was based mainly on what I had available. :)

1. Candy (candy!) Sweet surprise of Jesus being raised
2. Tears (tear shaped gems) Mary Magdalene's tears upon not finding Jesus' body.
3. Light (LED) Jesus enlightening the disciples on the way to Emmaus.
4. Host (paper host which opens to a picture of Jesus) They recognized him in the breaking of the bread.
5. Saints (saint medals) The risen Jesus was seen by the apostles and the "saints."
6. Stole (purple ribbon) Jesus gives the power to absolve sins.
7. Hand (glove) Thomas wants to see the holes in Jesus' hands and feet!
8. Fish (pipe cleaner fish - I started out with a real dried fish, but I tried it on Choclo and he was amused but declared it the most shocking thing he had ever found in an Easter egg, so I went with the pipe cleaner) The catch of fish where Jesus cooks the apostles breakfast.
9. Rock (rock!) Jesus founds his church on Peter

10. World (bouncy ball) Jesus tells them to tell the Gospel to the whole world and baptise them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
11. Cloud (cotton ball) Jesus ascends on a cloud
12. Holy Spirit (picture) Jesus sends the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

We didn't have a lot of time left, but we talked about the Holy Spirit and the Trinity.  I am fond of an explanation I got from St. Patrick's Summer. 

We are each one what and one who.  What I am is a woman, who I am is Mrs. Pavlat. Some things are whats, but not whos (like a chair- we can pretend the chair is a who, but really, we know it's a what, not a who. 

Jesus and the Trinity are hard to understand because they aren't like anything else we ever run into.  Jesus, like us, is one who (He's Jesus) but, unlike us, he's two whats (God and man).  No one else is like that.  The Trinity is even harder for us to grasp because it is three whos (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) but only one what (God).

From there we talked about the Father and the Holy Spirit sending Jesus into the world (kerygma alert!), and Jesus and the Father sending the Holy Spirit to give us this new life!

We acted out the apostles before the Holy Spirit (running away and denying Jesus) and after the Holy Spirit (telling everyone about Jesus even when it cost them their lives!).

We also looked at how to recognize the Holy Spirit in their own lives. 

• Have you ever thought about doing something bad, but then didn't do it? That's the Holy Spirit helping you resist temptation!

• Have you ever suddenly thought of something nice you could do for someone?  That's the Holy Spirit, too!

• Have you ever suddenly understood something about God, like realizing it's really Jesus in Holy Communion?  That's the Holy Spirit enlightening your mind!

• Have you ever seen a really beautiful  sunset and thought, "Wow, God is amazing?" That's also the Holy Spirit!

And then we ran out of time! :)

3rd Grade Religious Ed:Spiritual Works of Mercy

Class 18 was a continuation of the Works of Mercy, but this time with the Spiritual Works.  I was absent for this class, but I planned it and the Emperor did it for me. But we're short on photos. :)

We started with a discussion of the Divine Mercy Image and the Year of Mercy.

The image shows Jesus pouring his mercy on us: the red rays symbolize his sacrifice, the blood He shed for us, and the blue rays symbolize the healing waters of baptism and grace.

This all ties back in to the kerygma!  Jesus died and rose and invites us into his new life!

Because we had done the Holy Door craft last time, we had a short video of Pope Francis opening the Holy Door in Rome.  We also had a 60 second Lego explanation of the Year of Mercy. Pretty fun!

The book theme this week was "Jesus Gives Us the Holy Spirit, " so we talked about the Holy Spirit
and the Trinity.  I'm always surprised at how few kids seem to understand that the Holy Spirit is God.

After Jesus was raised he took his glorified body back to heaven, but He promised to send us a helper: the Holy Spirit. How does He help us?  He helps us to be who God created us to be, to be holy! He speaks in our hearts and helps us act in ways that show God's love.

We call some of those ways of showing God's love the Works of Mercy.  Last time we had looked at the some of the ways we show God's love using our bodies (the Corporal Works), but we can also show God's love using our hearts (the Spiritual Works).

For the Spiritual Works, we colored and made these mini books by Look to Him and be Radiant.

Then we had the kids come up with and act out scenarios for each Spiritual Work. I had a nice list, also from Look to Him and be Radiant, in case we couldn't come up with anything.

I have to admit that I completely underestimated the time this would take, and we didn't get through all the works, but they did get to take home their mini books and the list.

Class 19 Was "We are Part of the Kingdom."  I had planned to connect the Gospel (the Prodigal Son) to the theme of mercy, specifically asking who showed mercy in that parable, have we been shown mercy in our lives, and how do we show mercy.  That would bring us back to the Works of Mercy, and I thought we could finish up the Spiritual Works.

We also were going to talk about the Communion of Saints with a special focus on Our Lady of Guadalupe... and this was where I got pneumonia, so I wasn't actually at this class either. :(

3rd Grade Religious Ed: Corporal Works of Mercy

 The Gospel this week was the Transfiguration, so we spent a little time talking about that as a manifestation of the Trinity (another Epiphany!), and relating it to the kerygma (Jesus showing he is God, talking about how he will save us, and giving us a peek at the life he is calling us to).

We looked at our seeds/plants and talked about the Kingdom of God (that new life from the kerygma!)growing in us.

We also talked about the kingship of Jesus and acted out the parable of the sheep and the goats. That's the one where Jesus gives us what Mother Teresa called "The Gospel on 5 Fingers." Whatever you did to the least of these, You. Did. It. To. Me.

Now, the examples Jesus gave in the parable are what we call the Corporal Works of Mercy, and this is the Year of Mercy.  The possibilities are endless!

We started with a great game that I picked up from my home  schooling friend, Judy.

The object is to perform each work of mercy.  Judy had a lot of older kids play it as a relay race, I just had them go around and do each station, and they loved it!



The stations went like this:
Shelter the Homeless: build a house from blocks
Clothe the naked: dress the doll,
Comfort the sick: stick a bandage on the sheep
Visit the Imprisoned: visit poor locked up Klenda
Feed the Hungry: stack  cans (for a soup kitchen)
Give Drink to the Thirsty: pour a cup of water
Bury the Dead: bury a Lego minifigure

At the end I explained to them that doing the works of mercy changes our hearts to be more like Jesus', and I gave them little candy hearts. I also gave them a handout with practical ideas for kids and families to do the Works of Mercy.

 We went on to talk about the Holy Doors and the Year of Mercy.

We looked at this picture of the Holy Door of St. Peter's,and then we did this amazing Holy Door craft from Look to Him and Be Radiant.

She has a whole page of awesome ideas for the Year of Mercy with a slew of excellent (free!) printables. Seriously, she's like my favorite Pinterest page all by herself!

 We printed off he Holy Door printables (all found with instructions here). We looked at how her pictures and the bronzes on the actual door lined up,and I quickly went overall the stories (many of which we had covered this year).


They colored the inside page with multicolored streaks of chalk pastel and the door page with bronzy colored pastels. 

They blended them with their fingers (don't forget the wet wipes!), then Klenda and I snipped open the doors and stapled the door page to the inside page.

They looked fantastic!  I also let the kids write Holy Door across the top, and Year of Mercy across the bottom with silver and gold markers.
 

I had just enough time  to finish up with the story of pretzels and have a quick snack!

We mostly think of pretzels upside down.  That's the "pretzel shape." right?

Nope.  Pretzels are shaped like arms folded in prayer.




Back in the day, the Church's Lenten fast was quite strict: no meat for 40 days, no eggs, no cheese, no butter... wait, what did they eat then? Bread!  You could have bread. And Jesus told us to be the salt of the earth.

That's what pretzels are: bread and salt,  shaped like prayer!  The first Lenten super food, straight from medieval German monks to you! Enjoy!

3rd Grade Religious Ed: Kerygma

 Class 15 was supposed to be "Jesus Suffered and Died for Us," and Class 16 was supposed to be "Jesus Rises From the Dead."

Well, Class 15 got snowed out, and Class 16 was right before Lent, so I combined the two and went with "Kerygma!"

I put the word in a little treasure chest and told them I had a real treasure inside.  This was the treasure from the Treasure in a Field parable!

They made some guesses, and then I showed them the word.

The kerygma is the basic proclamation of the faith (which we acted out with our Easter cave):

1. The world is messed up because of sin- our turning away from God.
2. God sent his Son, Jesus to save us.
3. Jesus suffered and died to make a way for us to come back to God.
4. Jesus rose from the dead and calls us into His new life!

Really, everything else in the Faith is an unfolding of this basic nugget of truth.  Look at the Eucharist: it's a condensed version of the kerygma! It's Jesus coming to us in our sinfulness, offering his Body and Blood, making a way for us to be with Him, and for Him to give us His new life.

We also talked about Lent and Easter, the Church's annual 90 day kerygma fest.

Lent is a time to make space in our lives to pay more attention to our walk with Jesus.  We are walking with him during His time in the desert, praying, fasting, and giving.

I gave them a mini poster to color (we have a giant version at home).

The main idea is to color in a footprint each day, starting at the lower left cross, but they can also draw flowers around the footprints to represent the acts of love they've done that day. It's like a Lent calendar.

The cross itself is the symbol for Ash Wednesday (the first footprint is Thursday), and each Sunday is a picture relating to that Gospel (no footprints on Sundays).

Lent means spring: time to grow! So we checked the seeds we had planted to represent the Kingdom of God with the Mustard Seed parable. 

I think they might be blooming and ready to go home at Easter!

I had planned to do Follow the Leader as the game, but I ran out of time. 

We got a late start because I had car issues. My husband took the class while waiting for me, and he did the Gospel and a visit to the church to pray and see the new statues- which took the half hour I needed to get there!

3rd Grade Religious Ed: Wedding at Cana

 Almost caught up!  Last week's gospel was The Wedding at Cana.

Perfect!  We're talking about Jesus bringing the Kingdom!

We started with the Second Luminous Mystery (The Wedding at Can), using this Rosary aid I had made a while back.  It's a different picture and scripture verse for each prayer in the decade.

 We also acted out the story using my (newly acquired) Jesse Box.  This was pretty neat.

The box gives you backgrounds, props and character "cones" which you fit around wooden cores to make them more stable.

The kids really liked this, although I need to find a way for each child to do one character.
 This worked out well as a continuation of the theme that Jesus is showing the Kingdom through his miracles!

I looped back around to parables using the Pearl of Great Price and the Mustard Seed.

For the pearl, I showed them oyster shells and explained how pearls were made and why they were so precious.

I also brought in a few fake pearls and one real (cultured) pearl, and had them try to find the real one. They were able to pick it out!

I asked them if they had any favorite toy that was worth the rest of their toys put together, and told them that when we really find Jesus, He becomes the most important thing to us!

For the Mustard Seed, I brought in a variety of seeds including mustard seeds and we talked about how large each plant would get.

We talked about faith, and the Kingdom growing within us, growing large enough to shelter others.

We also decorated some paper cups and planted marigold seeds.


And we talked about the miracles of healing, especially Jesus raising the dead.  Jesus is showing the Kingdom of God is about him coming to heal us on many levels!

We acted out the healing of the daughter of Jairus, which is always great for kids both because Jesus is raising a child, and because he throws out the noisy people, telling them the girl is sleeping.

For our game we played Wake Up, Go To Sleep.  The game is just the leader (Waker) saying "Go to sleep!" (everyone lies down and starts snoring) and "Wake up!"(everyone gets up looking surprised). I was a little worried it would be too young for them, but they loved it, especially since I was one of the ones sleeping and waking!

That's it for Religious Ed for a while: I'm caught up with what we've done, I can't imagine we'll have it this weekend if we really get 20-30" of snow, and the following weekend is a skip weekend.  By the time the kids see their seeds, they will have really grown!

3rd Grade Religious Ed: Baptism of the Lord

Class 13 fell on the Baptism of the Lord, so we talked a lot about baptism.

We started out talking about John the Baptist,and his baptism of repentance.  I mentioned that John baptized people, that's why they called him John the Baptist.  One smart child then asked, "But why was he called John?"

Because that's what the angel said to name him.


They're mouths dropped open!  They had never heard that story!

 So I told them the whole story (which knocked off the lesson timing, but it's better to answer an actual question than follow my plan- you never know what the Holy Spirit is doing).

We talked about Jesus coming to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire - that was the baptism they got!  How it washes away sins and makes them a child of God.

And we talked about Jesus' baptism.  No sins, already God's son.  Why was He getting baptized again?  He was identifying Himself with us so that he could take on the guilt of our sins and pay for them on the cross.

Also, it was another epiphany, a revelation of the Trinity!

We took a little field trip to the parish baptismal font, but not before I taught them how to baptize! I think that's why the doll looks a little traumatized, it had just been "baptized" 8 times!

In an emergency, anyone can baptize- even an atheist can perform a baptism as long as they follow the Trinitarian formula and intend to actually baptize the person.  You wouldn't think it would come up often, but in that one room with 8 people, 2 of us (Oob and I) had been emergency baptized by our mothers, and I knew of at least two more!

We talked briefly about Jesus' time in the desert (laying groundwork for Lent),and how he showed the Kingdom of God by showing his power over the devil.

Then we talked about how he showed the Kingdom of God by showing his power over nature.  We acted out the story of the loaves and fishes (using crackers and swedish fish as props- boy, was that a hit!), and Jesus walking on water.

We also talked a little about Jesus revealing the Kingdom through parables, although we were running out of time, so I just did the Treasure in the Field.

The kids loved the story, and I had a quick game called Treasure Hunt.

I just put stickers on index cards, but I'm sure there's a more elegant way to do this.  I had stickers of random things kids like: cookies, a ball, a dog, a snowman, macaroni and cheese (no, I don't know how I ended up with a sticker of that), and Jesus.

I put all the cards face down and the kids took turns picking cards.  This worked really well because all the images were things they liked, but things they wouldn't give everything they had to get (except Jesus!).

Since it was the very last day of the Christmas season, I gave out candy canes when they found Jesus (I let everyone play until they won).