On The Water - Casting Our Nets Into The New Testament

Sunday January 27th was our sixteenth session together. This week was part 2 of our two-part lesson that spans Unit 3, Chapter 9 and Unit 3, Chapter 10. In preparing for the session, I established the focus for this second lesson continuing the discussion of the Bible as a collection of books that are the Word of God, and then walking through the New Testament. 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 crossword, word search, and coloring activity.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we learned that Pragmatic Tiger and Fair Cheetah would not be with us again today, we again said a special prayer for their intentions.

Like last week, we gathered together in a circle on the floor and started off by discussing our regular Mass observations. Earnest Eagle was the first in the circle, rarin' to go! We were again surprised that we sang the "old" version of the Gloria, but we decided that was ok because at least we were singing. Since today was the "family" Mass, we noticed that the readings were done by children.

Remember what we talked about last week? Do you know what we are going to talk about this week?

"Last week was Old Testament so I'm guessing this week will be New Testament" (said Rocking Horse)

You got it! And just like the Old Testament, the New Testament is really a lot of books all together in one.

"Of course, we figured that out!" (said Effusive Jaguar)

But before we get into it too much, let's take a quick look how the readings at Mass match up. Remember last week we noticed that there were 4 readings, and 2 were from the Old Testament and 2 were from the New Testament? Did that happen the same way this week?

(looking at the readings in a Missalette I brought, they agreed it did happen that way again.)

During the Liturgy of the Word, we hear all these readings so we can learn and understand the Scriptures. The Old Testament looks forward to Jesus, the Gospels tell us about Jesus, and the Acts and Letters help us understand and learn about Jesus and how to live.

As this week's readings were a little tough to show how the readings are usually all related, we backed up a couple of Sundays and looked at the Baptism of Jesus. Those readings are very easy to demonstrate the relationship!

• First, Isaiah tells us "Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased" (Is 42:1).

• Then we have Psalm 29 with "The voice of the Lord is over the waters" (Ps 29:3).

• Then we have Peter describing John the Baptist's preaching and anointing of Jesus (Acts 10:34-38).

• And finally, John baptizing Jesus, with the voice from the heavens proclaiming again, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." (Mt 3:17)

OK, they were done with that lecturing type stuff. So then I handed out the workbooks, and like last week we went through the pages, talking about the section of the Bible, and trying to figure out if we knew the Bible stories represented by the pictures in that section. The children knew so many of the stories - often in such detail - we often caught ourselves with three different children telling stories (the same or different!) at once! Courtly Polar Bear didn't want to fill in the blanks in her workbook, because she didn't know the stories and wanted to listen to the other children tell them. Once the other children realized this, they immediately made sure to point out to her which picture they were describing, and to give more details in the story. It was absolutely amazing to see them really want to share the stories with her. Even Earnest Eagle, who usually likes to stay quiet during our time together, jumped in to tell a story on two separate occasions (and not because I asked him to do it!).

We were so involved in the stories we didn't even get to cover the New Testament Letters and Catholic Letters books... but the children noticed that these sections were made as coloring activities and they said they were sure they would want to color them at home. I told them they could look at their Bibles and ask their parents if they had any questions!

Next week the whole group will be together for burning the palms to prepare the ashes for Ash Wednesday. It will be tough, but I will try to get us started on the next lesson, Unit 3, Chapter 11, "We Act on God's Word".

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

• If you just have a bit of time, definitely go for this conversion of Saul online jigsaw puzzle activity


• If you have two-bits of time, check out other New Testament online activities at Calvary Chapel.


• For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan there are many activities for Bible stories.

Travel To Ancient Lands - Learning About The Old Testament

Sunday January 20 was our fifteenth session together. This week was part 1 of a two-part lesson that spans Unit 3, Chapter 9 and Unit 3, Chapter 10. The two chapters together teach us about the Bible and its role in the Liturgy of the Word during Mass. In preparing for the session, I established the focus for this first lesson as the Bible as a collection of books that are the Word of God, and then walking through the Old Testament. 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 secret code activity, crossword, word shapes, and word search activity.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we learned that Pragmatic Tiger and Fair Cheetah would not be with us today as they had a family emergency. When we got to our room we said a special prayer for their intentions, and Sweet Pea Elephant lead us with the Prayer to My Guardian Angel.

After the prayers, we sat on the floor together and started off by our regular review of Mass activities. We talked a bit about why Father is now wearing Green, how we sang the "old" version of the Gloria, and just said the Holy, Holy, Holy instead of singing it.

I asked whether anyone knew what part was called "Liturgy of the Word"... no takers. I explained that this is when we hear the readings from the Bible. Effusive Jaguar happily reminded us that this is when her grandma went up and read. Exactly! Her grandma read the first reading, then the choir mistress went up for the Psalm, and then another parishioner for the 2nd reading, and then Father for the Gospel. So, 4 readings in all. I showed them how the first 2 were from the Old Testament and the second 2 were from the New Testament.

Tell me some things you know about the Bible?

"It is a big book" (said Courtly Polar Bear)... "it has 2 parts, Old Testament and New Testament. Jesus is in the new part." (said Rocking Horse).

Oh, I think you know more than that! (and I dumped out a whole tote bag full of bible story books onto the floor). Did you know it is really a whole bunch of books put together?

(lots of wows!)

Can you imagine having to carry around all those books when you get your Bible?!

(a general sense of 'oh my gosh!')

It's definitely much easier to have them all together as one. (and then I pulled out 5 or 6 Catholic Bibles, all different looking - some with leather covers, some with gilded pages, some with pictures, some large, some small) Look at all these Bibles... they all look different but they all contain the same "Bible", the same books, the same stories.

(a general sense of appreciation as they touched the Bibles and looked at them)

(getting back to the stack of story books...)Did you know that there are lots of authors who wrote those books, but they are all the Word of God? That's right, God inspired them to write.

And you know what else? I bet you know a lot of stories from those books! Today we're going to focus on the Old Testament. The Old Testament has 46 books in it! They are separated into 4 main parts, which we will look at together soon, but first, I know you want to have a look and see some of the stories and books!

And we dug through the pile, with the children happily (and proudly) shouting out when they found stories they knew: Samson and Deliliah, David and Goliath, Adam & Eve, Jonah, Noah's Ark, Queen Esther, and so on. We took turns telling the parts of stories we could remember, and sometimes peeked into the books to remember the rest.

At this point I handed out the activity books, so that we could discuss the pictures and the stories they represented together as we looked through the books. We had fun trying to match the story names with the pictures with the correct section of the Old Testament.

Next week we will be continuing this two-part lesson, so I did not hand out the workbook pages yet. I did send home the Good News pages for the upcoming weeks. You can enjoy following the mass with them through the rest of January.

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

• If you just have a bit of time, definitely go for one of the online jigsaw puzzles at Word of Truth
• If you have two-bits of time, check out the Bible Story activities on Calvary Chapel
• For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan

Waiting At The Station

Sunday January 13th was our fourteenth session together.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we learned that only Effusive Jaguar and Sweet Pea Elephant were going to be attending today. So I decided not to proceed with our planned lesson until we had more of the children in attendance.

Instead, the three of us colored pictures and had a lively discussion. We of course talked about all the things we usually talk about Mass (what color was Father wearing, did we sing the Gloria, etc). Turns out, we all have the same favorite version of the Gloria, and it was the one we sang this morning during Mass. So we sat and hummed and the girls decided to color pictures of their pets. We talked about how much they love them (even when they are a 'handful' or snap at them). We talked about how it's the same as how much our parents love us and that Jesus loves us too, even when WE are a 'handful'!

Hopefully next week we will be able to begin our travels through Unit 3, "We Celebrate The Word of God."

Stories Around The Campfire - A Midyear Review

Happy New Year everyone! Hope there are still a few of you out there and that you feel fresh and renewed after a lovely break!

Sunday January 6th was our thirteenth session together. Can you believe we are half-way through already?! This week we used the session as a midyear review of what we have learned. In preparing for the session, I created an activity and coloring book where I re-used as many phrases and pictures as I could from our previous sessions, and created activities similar, but not identical to, activities we have completed in those sessions. I did this only partially to be lazy ~ really! The real goal was to provide reinforcers for the lessons we have already covered. In this way, each lesson's theme (pictures, phrases) will have been presented to the children 3 times (the original lesson, the unit review, and the midyear review).

Packing Light: You can find the activity book here. It has coloring, word searches, mazes, stickers, and other pencil puzzles. (It is a large file and may take a minute or two to open.)

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we learned that Pragmatic Tiger and Fair Cheetah would not be joining us this time. But we had some good news: Courtly Polar Bear, Effusive Jaguar, and Rocking Horse all received "perfect attendance" awards for December! Way to go!

Once we were in our room, we talked about whether we had fun over Christmas and what our favorite gifts were. We also discovered that some of us were able to stay up late on New Year's Eve and even made it to the new year! Wow!

The children settled in surprisingly quickly given the long break, and it wasn't long before they were clamoring for some coloring to do... what a coincidence since what I had with me was... coloring! But first, we talked about how we were half-way done with our learning already! And so, today we were going to review everything we have talked about so far.

I distributed the review books and sticker packs, and together we looked over each page and remembered what we talked about. We tried to find the right sticker to go with each page, and took turns reading from the stickers. The children did a great job with it, and really seemed to recall the key messages (or at least the activities we did) for each lesson:

From Unit 1, We Gather As Believers, we have

Our Church Welcomes Us - we remembered that we are a community and we come together to celebrate. Rocking Horse said she remembered making the church doors and the Welcome inside.

We Belong to The Church - we remembered that we have Baptism to show we are members. We talked about the 4 symbols used during Baptism: water, oil, white clothes, and candles. Sweet Pea Elephant remembered them all!

Our Church Shows Us How To Live - we remembered that we have holy people like priests and deacons to give us examples, and Saints as role models. The children definitely remembered tracing their footsteps!

We Praise And Thank God - we remembered how we can pray by saying our prayers or by singing. Earnest Eagle remembered the story about King David and how he was so strong and won lots of battles and sang lots of prayers.

From Unit 2, We Ask God's Forgiveness, we have

We Can Choose What Is Good - we remembered that we make choices, and that God wants us to make good choices. Effusive Jaguar remembered that this is when we talked about Max and we were all Wild Things!!

We Celebrate God's Forgiveness - we remembered the ways we can ask for and seek forgiveness. Everyone remembered the 4given card game!

We Think About Our Choices - we remembered the rules are called "commandments". We reviewed them together. Courtly Polar Bear remembered "that game" we played with them (fortune teller/cootie catcher).

We Say We Are Sorry - we remembered that Reconciliation is a way to say we are sorry. Rocking Horse remembered being in the puppet show!

Then, we had a review of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The children remembered the little room and we read through the prayers and activities that happen when we participate in the sacrament.


After we finished reviewing the lessons, the children each chose which lesson they liked the best (or all of them), and wrote about it in their journals.

Then at last, we had one more segment to review: I reminded them that there were other things we have been learning too, about Mass:

We learned to notice what color the priest is wearing, and know that something special happens when he wears a different color. (And there was great discussion over why the priest was wearing white with red today and not just all red or all white!)

We learned to participate in the Penitential Rite, and notice that sometimes it is short like an answer and sometimes it is like a long prayer. (And there was indecision about how we did it today, but I reminded them that today we said the 'long' version)

We learned to participate in saying the Gloria, and notice that sometimes it we say it and sometimes we sing it. (And we just said it today, and Effusive Jaguar noted that we always just say it when Fr. C says the Mass. She likes the version we sing at Christmas and she and the others started to sing it! Wonderful!).

We learned to participate with the Holy, Holy, Holy, and notice that sometimes we say it and sometimes we sing it (today we not only sang it, but we are still using 'that new way' that we started using).

We learned to participate in the Our Father, and notice that sometimes we say it and sometimes we sing it (again today, we apparently just said it because that's the way Fr. C likes it ~ I reminded them that it is not just what the priest likes but also whether the community likes it and what is happening in the Mass and so forth).

The children finished up the session coloring (finally!) and working the puzzles. It was wonderful to see the children today and they were all in such good spirits. Next week we will be starting Unit 3, which focuses on the Bible as the word of God, the Liturgy of the Word section of Mass, works of service, and Prayer of the Faithful section of Mass.

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

• follow any of the links above to find the activities and worksheets for the original lessons!