Need idea for Sunday school this week

[leonie]

I’m covering God as a Creator in my 3rd grade class. We are going to talk about Creation, Adam and Eve, the world before the fall. I’m going to read Angel in the Womb and discuss how parents are co-creator with God.

I want to emphasize how perfectly balanced and wonderful creation was before the fall. I want them to have an impression of how greatly original sin upset the natural order when we discuss the fall in two weeks.

Next week, we will discuss the creation of the angels. We’ll talk about the nature of angels, guardian angels, read stories about angels. It will fit nicely because the feast of the Archangels is the Saturday before.

But, I’m having trouble coming up with a game/activity for my class this Sunday. I want them to get up and move around during the activity. I think sitting for a hour is too long for this age.

I’m really blanking out. Any ideas? My dd suggested something involving creating things out of playdough. I’d rather stay away from food. A lot of kids go to Mass directly from class and you never know about allergies…

 

[CarolSue]

Hi Leonie,

I use “Catholic Quiz Cards” as an activity with my classes of all ages. They get divided into teams, and need to answer the questions from today’s lesson (which tells me if I reached them!) as well as reviewing what they should have learned to date. You can create the questions yourself. I keep a running total for teams, and periodically, they get “prizes” for placement. (Holy cards (which I print out as well as buy). I use a Nerf mini-basketball that can clip onto anything (or use a waste basket on a desk for the basket), and they get to shoot every time they have a correct answer. It actually encourages them to answer, gives them some activity, and gets them to work in teams. In a 1 hour class, I allow them 10 minutes for the activity. It works great!

You can also have them make up bookmarks with a scene from Creation on it, and inscribed with a quote from Genesis.

Good luck with your class!

 

[kage_ar]

Have the kids each do a scene from Creation on a paper plate. Save them til next week.

When next week comes, illustrate how the fall damaged the perfect creation by having them cut the plates into pieces.

If you save each of the torn plates in an indivitual bag with the student’s name.

Later, you can have them tape/glue the pieces together again (like a puzzle ) as another object lesson…

That - or do something with quizzing/learning the days of creation - what happened on the first day, the 5th, etc.

 

[leonie]

Have the kids each do a scene from Creation on a paper plate. Save them til next week.

When next week comes, illustrate how the fall damaged the perfect creation by having them cut the plates into pieces.

If you save each of the torn plates in an indivitual bag with the student’s name.

Later, you can have them tape/glue the pieces together again (like a puzzle ) as another object lesson…

That - or do something with quizzing/learning the days of creation - what happened on the first day, the 5th, etc.

oooh, I like it!

 

[leonie]

I ended up using both Carol and Kage’s ideas and adding one of my own.

I played a review game at the beginning of class. I was very sad to find the kids hadn’t really retained much. Or did they not get it in the first place? I wonder if my expectations are too high for this age group. And, of course, they are just getting this for one hour one day a week. I’ve decided to kick up my prayers for them. And to send more info home in hopes their parents will review with them. I also want to try to get more resources home for the parents. Any, I modified Carol’s idea. I put them in two lines and had them hit my hand to see how could answer first.

then we read the creation story from a Catholic Bible picture book. The kids colored a picture of the garden of Eden while I read. I also read Angels in the Water. We did a Bible shout–where they read a Bible verse, shouting several words in the passage. I collected the picture–we will tear them up when we talk about original sin.

We then talked about Grace. I had them do three skits on Grace. The skits were silly but emphasized that Grace is a free gift of the divine life that we receive through the sacraments. The kids really enjoyed it. So, we’re going to do them again next week for another class.

Then we played Simon Peter says–I talked about the Pope a little first and the first pope especially. I was surprised that only one child had heard of the pope–not B16, but that we have a pope. We talked about obedience to the papacy. Then we played the game.

I’m putting a lot of time and energy into the class. The lack of recall is disturbing to me. But, it’s early in the year. I think I will have to dedicate half the class time to review every week. I hate to do that when we have so much to cover. But, there’s not point in teaching the faith in a superficial way.

It was a very good class. Thanks for your help.