Role Models - Picking Up Tracks

Sunday September 30th was our fourth session together. This week we covered Unit 1, Chapter 3 "Our Church Shows Us How To Live". In preparing for the session, I established the focus as being ways our Church shows us how to be good and holy members our our church community. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion, the activities worksheet, and craft activity.

Packing Light: If you just want the activity sheet for this session, you can find it here. It has a matching activity (they will need their books or another Saints resource), maze, and word search activity.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we learned that we are being joined by a new animal. We wanted to make sure to make him feel welcome in our community, so when we settled in our room, we introduced ourselves, asked him what animal he would like to chose (he chose eagle!), and then we reviewed what we have been learning together. Pragmatic Tiger reminded us what is a community, and Courtly Polar Bear filled us in on what types of communities we might belong to. Fair Cheetah read to us from her journal entry last week to recall that in Baptism we belong to our Church community. We discussed briefly that in Baptism God calls us by name to be holy and good members of His community. We remembered that the Holy Spirit comes and, as Effusive Jaguar reminded us “we get rid of that original sin thing.” (She couldn’t have stated it better had I paid her to be my shill!) I used that conversation to ask if anyone knew what Sacrament the Church has to “get rid of” other sins that we might have after Baptism. We were stumped. So I started to write RECONCILIATION on the board, and then they remembered that was the big word we didn’t know anything about from our first day! I said “exactly!” And let them know we will be learning more about that very soon.

Distributing the worksheets, I asked if anyone knew what “role model” means. We needed some prompting. So I asked “Some of you told me you are on a team. Who shows you how to be a good member of a team?” Effusive Jaguar piped up immediately: “the coach! And we know this because we are on a team!”.

“So then, who shows us how to be a good student at school?” Earnest Eagle said it was his teacher.

“And what about at home? Who helps you know how to be a good family member and not pull your sisters’ hair?” A flurry of answers: My Mom! My Dad! Grandma! My Parents!

Alrighty then, so who helps us know how to be good citizens in our Church community? Rocking Horse said “Priests and those kids in white who go up there with them!”

We talked about how Jesus gave us lots of instructions of good and holy actions. Fair Cheetah read our first Scripture reading (Mark 10:17-22), and then we reviewed the commandments He listed.

We also talked about how Saint Paul also taught people how to follow Jesus. Effusive Jaguar read our second Scripture reading (Ephesians 5 1-2).

We’re on a roll… so I keep it going: “Who knows what a saint is?” In more of a question than an answer, Sweet Pea Elephant says “A really holy person?” So we have a discussion about how saints are holy, that they tried very hard to be like God and follow Jesus’ instructions. We talked about how the saints are good examples for us.

Still groovin’, I ask, “Does anyone know what it means to say ‘follow in his footsteps’?” OK, stop the bus. This one has everyone stumped, what in the world am I talking about?! No fainting this time, but lots of drama. So I explain how the saints tried to do as Jesus did, and we call that “following in His footsteps”. Rolling out the tracing paper, I say, “and we’re going to draw our footsteps of good and holy actions too!”. So one by one they took turns standing on the paper while one of the other children traced their footsteps. While their feet were being traced, we thought of 2 good and holy actions. Then, those who wanted to could embellish their footprints with markers, etc.

Here is what we came up with:

Rocking Horse:

• Honor your father and mother
• Tell the truth

Fair Cheetah:

• Help my sister
• Share my toys with my sister

Effusive Jaguar:

Say prayers every night

Help my mom with the dishwasher

Courtly Polar Bear:

• Help my brother with his homework
• Help my brother with his laundry

Sweet Pea Elephant:

• Help my little sister get dressed for bed
• Help my mom bake

Pragmatic Tiger:

• Help mom clean the toilet
• Go to church

Earnest Eagle:

• Help mom with clothes
• Help dad with yardwork

We decided that pulling sister’s hair was not good and holy (Fair Cheetah was particularly relieved about this), nor was telling lies or cheating.

The children knew I still had a hands-on activity and were chomping at the bit to get them! We were running out of time, as we had a special Parish event and we were trying to get out early. But I squeezed in just a quick hike over to the church and handed out the activity. We saw how the pictures on the holy cards were pictures of the stained glass windows in the church! I explained how we have these 10 special saints on our windows in the church, and we have a holy card for each one. On the back of the card is when we celebrate the saint and now we can think of these saints and how good examples they are every Sunday when we come to church and see the beautiful windows. This activity was a hundred-miles-a-minute so I might have pushed it too far and the children might not have gotten a lot out of it. We are so blessed to have such wonderful stained glass windows with the four Gospel evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), Saints Peter and Paul, and four of the Doctors of the Church (Jerome, Gregory, Augustine, Ambrose). With such beauty before us as a constant reminder of their wonderful examples, I just couldn’t let the opportunity pass without trying!

I sent home the Family Time pages for Unit 1, Chapter 4, which we will be discussing next session.

I also handed out all the pages from all the chapters we have covered from our Blest Are We workbook, now that we have the books for everyone we can use them more during class too.

I realize these blog entries might be a little long for many people’s tastes… but the children are so clever and their insights so precious. I am just so pleased they are all engaged and participating in the discussion, I just have to share it all!

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

• If you just have a bit of time, definitely go for the online activity for this chapter at Blest Are We
• If you have two-bits of time, check out the saints coloring activities at Coloring Saints
• For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan