If you are new to this, I recommend Journey of Faith from Liguori, which comes as sets of “handouts”, there is a teacher’s guide and it has the benefit of having an organized, ordered presentation of doctrine, plus “handouts” for the rites, what happens in Lent, getting ready for Easter, Mystagogy etc. Does your parish differentiate between children older than the normal age for 1st communion, but who have already been baptized and have had no previous Rel.Ed, --and true RCIA, that is, children who have never been baptized. That will also influence how you structure the process. The benefit of this program is that it helps you insure you “cover everything”.
The parents and sponsors should be attending the same type of prep your diocese requires for parents of infants presented for baptism, and older children presented for Confirmation and First Communion, plus a session on RCIA itself and what is involved.
get the ritual book and read carefully the section on Children’s Catechumenate (best term to use if we want to be precise). If you have a chance to attend a workshop from Association for Catechumenal Ministry, do so, it is the gold standard, but more widely available is a Beginnings workship from the N. American Forum. You need to know the structure of the periods and the rites which punctuate them, and how to guide the children during each stage.
after you have been around the block through a couple of liturgical cycles you can look into other resources. In my experience (9 years with children’s sacramental) at least here, the books I would like to use Faith and Life are too advanced for the reading level and for older children new to RE. A good “catch-up” for older baptized children coming for 1st Communion is Our Catholic Faith from Sadlier, which will require the catechist to have enough background to “fill in the blanks” as it is not real heavyweight, but we use it because it is easier to use for the majority of our kids. We have also used JOF for this group, especially for classes where different people are teaching different segments.
PM me for specific questions
If you use JOF or any other RCIA resource that relies on “handouts” issue each participant a 3 ring binder, or at least a folder, to keep track of these things. JOF includes a journaling feature, and they should be kept together to get full benefit.
with any of a number of resources, Liguori has one, on Breaking Open the Word with children, you are good to go.
the RCIA is liturgy, which is why the “book” is a liturgical resource. The preparation and conversion experience of the individual is a process. The published resources and aids packaged by a specific publisher is a program. IMO.
