Of Colts and Giraffes

Sunday March 16th was our twenty-third session together. As it was Palm Sunday, the Mass ran longer than usual so the group was delayed in getting together. After a snack and a prayer, the group participated as a whole in a special activity. We talked a bit about Palm Sunday and then we learned how to make a cross from the palm fronds.

We also learned that we have a new student joining us, so since we only had about 15 minutes together by the time we arrived in our room, we spent the time getting to know each other and making him feel welcome. We all introduced ourselves and identified our animals. He chose giraffe as his animal.

Welcome, Ingenious Giraffe!

Stuck In A Holding Pattern

Sunday March 9th was our twenty-second session together.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we learned that only Fair Cheetah, Pragmatic Tiger, 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. We're getting to the really important lessons about the Eucharist now, so I'd rather risk having to have a make-up session, than to have more than half the class miss one of these important topics!

Instead, the four of us reviewed our last lesson, and we remembered

Jesus really is the Son of God

Jesus really did come down to Earth as a man

Jesus really did die for us

Jesus really did rise from the dead

Jesus really will come again

And I tossed in ~ briefly, as a prelude to topics to come ~ that

Jesus really is present in the Eucharist

We decided that some of these are hard to understand and picture in our minds, but that they are part of our Catholic faith so we are going to keep trying.

There happened to be some shamrocks hanging as decorations in the room, so the children asked if they could draw some of their own. So while they colored pictures we continued to have a lively discussion. We talked about how St. Patrick used the shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity: just as the shamrock has 3 separate leaves, but is still 1 plant, so we have Father, Son, Holy Spirit - 3 persons but 1 God.

Hopefully next week we will be able to begin our travels through Unit 4, Chapter 14, "We Receive the Gift of Jesus".

Nature Trail - Jesus' Sacrifice Give Us New Life

Sunday March 2nd was our twenty-first session together. This week we covered Unit 4, Chapter 13 "Jesus Saves Us From Sin". In preparing for the session, I established the focus as our mystery of faith: Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. 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, coloring, word search, and dot-to-dot activity.

We only met briefly with the whole group for a prayer, then we were off to our room. We learned that Fair Cheetah and Rocking Horse would be late, but it was the first time we have all been together in many weeks!

We had our usual conversation about what was going on at Mass this weekend. We talked about how Father is still wearing purple and how the Alleluia and Gloria are still locked up and can't come out. We talked about the Bible readings, how the Gospel was soooo long this week but we liked the story of how the blind man could see!

We continued by remembering what we have been discussing: that we Listen to God's Word, We Act on God's Word, and We Pray for Others. We talked about how in the Old Testament, God promised to send us a Savior, and in the New Testament we see that He did: He sent Jesus, His son. That is why we say Jesus is "the Word made flesh". Jesus came to save us. He died for us and then rose from the dead. We talked about how this is a very important part of our faith... in fact, so important that we say it every time we go to Mass. I took out a copy of the missalette and we read the parts together:

...We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered, died, and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in fulfillment of the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end. ...

We talked about things Jesus did to show us how to "Act on God's Word" and "Pray for Others". We decided he definitely helped serve other people, especially when he was curing people, like he did with the blind man in the Gospel.

We talked about how sometimes it is not easy to "Act on God's Word". Sometimes it is hard to serve others. Sometimes we have to give things up if we help others, and we don't always like to do it. Pragmatic Tiger told how one time he gave up watching his favorite show so that he could help his sister get ready for a special activity. Effusive Jaguar told how she is giving up attitude for Lent, and it is hard work. We talked about what it means to give up something so that we can help someone else, that we call this a 'sacrifice'.

I asked - what did Jesus give up? what sacrifice did he make? The children knew - "his life!".

How hard is that? Can you imagine that? We don't even like to give up a TV show, and Jesus gave up his life! It is truly a great mystery of our faith:

Christ has died,
Christ has risen,
Christ will come again.

We discussed that because Jesus gave up his life, we now have "new life", a "new life" where we can have hope and to be with God... and we often see signs of "new life" at Easter... signs like new flowers and baby birds. Working with this theme, we then did our activity, which was to color a flower that would "pop up" like a bloom when you open the card. The children colored them so amazingly beautiful! And then they did a terrific job following instructions to cut them out and attach them to the card...



























Next time we will cover Unit 4, Chapter 14, "We Receive the Gift of Jesus".


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 reading and puzzle activities on Jesus is the Way activity


• For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan there are many coloring pages and pencil puzzles