Sunday October 14th was our sixth session together. This week we covered the "We Care" mini-topic and the review of Unit 1 "We Gather as Believers". In preparing for the session, I wanted to focus on phrases and images we have already used in our sessions together. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion and craft activity. There is no activities worksheet for this week.
Packing Light: (The whole session was "light" - so just check out the end-of-unit review sheets from the Blest Are We workbook!
When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we recognized all the children who had perfect attendance in October. Almost every 2nd grader won! We learned that Pragmatic Tiger wouldn't join us today, we decided we would miss him.
Hmmm... so I don't know whether it was Religious Ed (our fancy jack-o-lantern who will be given away as a prize next week), but there was a lot of interest in Halloween this week. I don't like being the bearer of bad news. "Sorry, guys, we're not going to be reviewing Halloween this week! I understand you want some Halloween candy, but we just have to focus on a little something else for a little while today." Whew! This much excitement this early for Halloween, we're going to be in for it at Christmas!
By way of distraction I just started right in.
"OK, what are you guys going to teach me today?"
"No way!" "You have got to be kidding me!"
"No, really. Can you believe we have finished our first whole unit together?! So today we are going to review it. I can't remember anything, so you have to teach me what we've learned. Who will be the teacher today instead of me?"
(lots of volunteers)
"OK, Fair Cheetah is going to be the teacher today. Please give her respect and answer her questions."
So Fair Cheetah led us through what have we learned. We remembered that we wrote some stuff down in our journals, and we could look at it for some clues. Here is what we came up with:
1. We learned we are community.
2. We learned we belong with baptism.
3. We learned about reconciliation.
4. We learned about praying.
5. We learned about role models.
I was impressed.
"Who might be some role models for us? I forgot."
"Saints!" ("And your mom" added Rocking Horse).
"Remind me again about some symbols for Baptism?"
"Water!" "You have to wear white!" "That oil stuff!"
Awesome.
"And by the way, what color was the priest wearing today?"
"Green!"
"And did we sing the Gloria or just say it?"
"Sing!" "Say it!"
"Today we just said it. Let's keep an eye on that one. And how about Holy, Holy, Holy?"
"Sing!"
And so, on to the activity. I asked for help in completing some booklets on what we learned. The booklets had some coloring options and some stickers to apply. They were received with a resounding "these are so cool!". (Truth be told, the booklets were an almost overwhelming singular inspiration this week - usually I am blessed with multiple ideas to pick from - and they took much longer to prep than expected and so this response from the children really boosted my morale - not to mention my ego~).
Each child had their favorite page of the booklet:
Rocking Horse and Effusive Jaguar with Baptism and Belong
Earnest Eagle and Sweet Pea Elephant with Community
Courtly Polar Bear and Fair Cheetah with Thanks and Praise
Rocking Horse told me I was too crazy with my camera, but I was allowed to take a picture of some of their booklet cover designs anyway (who can resist such creative bling?):
In addition to the workbook pages for the Unit Review, I handed out the Family Time pages for Unit 2, Chapter 5, which we will be starting next session.
Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...
- If you just have a bit of time, go for any of the online or printable activities for the chapter if you missed them the first time - they can be found at Blest Are We
- If you have two-bits of time, check out the check out the saints coloring activities at Coloring Saints
- For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan from Unit 1, Chapter 4 there are many coloring pages of Psalms
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