The ten commandments are such an important topic in Catholic religious education curricula. They have a place in almost every year’s course. This Ten Commandments activity asks students to creatively interpret and understand these great laws. An important disclaimer: the risk of using this activity is that students lose an appreciation for the Scriptures as…
Activities
Catholic Easter Activities
Easter is such an a great time of year to share activities and worksheets that illustrate the important teachers about Christ’s resurrection and our redemption from sin and death. Explore the following Easter activities for kids as a part of your Easter lesson plans this year. Don’t miss the link to download a collection of…
Catholic Schools Week 2012 Ideas and Activities
The 2012 Catholic Schools Week theme is “Faith. Academics. Service.” I’m happy to welcome another excellent collection of ideas and activities from two master teachers and employees of the Alliance for Catholic Education, Jennifer Dees and Meghann (Robinson) Kirzeder. They have come up with some amazing ideas that should be useful for an entire school,…
Using Printables to Create a Personalized Advent Calendar
One of the most popular activities in religious education classrooms during the season of Advent is updating and using Advent calendars to prepare for Christmas. Advent calendars come in many different variations. Like the Jesse Tree, Advent calendars can become daily opportunities to focus each day on the preparation for Advent. The Advent calendars are…
St. Cecilia, Patron Saint of Music, Activities and Prayers
The feast day of St. Cecilia, patron saint of music falls perfectly right around Thanksgiving on November 22. The days around Thanksgiving can be either stressful with exams or laid back with movies and break.
How to Hold a Class Debate that Gets Kids Excited
One of the best ways to encourage critical thinking is to provide students with the opportunity to have a debate in class. Not all students necessarily know how to hold a class debate so they may need some in-class debate formats to follow along with some time to prepare for the debate. Consider using the…
Using Facebook Questions to Teach Religion
More and more teachers are integrating social media into education. I’m glad to see teachers taking small steps in this direction. One natural tool to do this is Facebook’s Questions function. First, let me admit that when I was a teacher I was very wary of Facebook. I was very afraid of my students finding…
New Resources to Teach the Changes to the Catholic Mass
I am excited to release The Religion Teacher’s New Roman Missal Student Activity Pack! If you are looking for resources to teach young people about the changes to the Catholic Mass, you will appreciate the worksheets, lesson plans, PowerPoints in The Religion Teacher’s New Roman Missal Student Activity Pack. The Religion Teacher’s New Roman Missal…
Catholic Saints Birthday Project
Have you ever wondered which saints’ feast day is on your birthday? I bet your students haven’t taken the time to do the research. Give them the opportunity to find out as a Catholic saints birthday project. This could be a fun end-of-the-year project or a great way to start off the school year. One…
Rite of Confirmation Lesson Plan
According to the National Directory for Catechesis, there are two approaches to teaching ritual: the inductive method and the deductive method (NDC, 29). I wrote about these two approaches in a general way in a recent article published in the National Catholic Educational Association’s journal, Momemtum (February/March 2011, pp. 22-23). In the lesson plan below,…
