Each program year, we have an overriding theme for GIFT. The themes are on a 4-year rotation, since any given child is in GIFT for no more than 4 years (grades 1-4). This year's theme is "Our Faith Story." While each parent/child session will have its own topic, this theme will weave through them all in how we approach activities and crafts. For example...
Progressive Craft: "My Faith Story" Book
I started doing a progressive craft about 3 years ago. The children begin the project at our first session, and then add to it at subsequent sessions throughout the year. I have gotten great feedback from the parents about kids looking forward to adding on to their craft each month, and it also makes a great hands-on review tool.
This year we're making a book that literally shows kids how they fit into the Catholic faith. We will begin at our first session by taking photos of all of the children and printing them on heavy paper in wallet size. Kids will make a book using foam covers. I purchased the foam sheets pre-cut to 4x6 size at the dollar store; I think there were 32 per pack. On the front cover, kids will use a 1/2-inch circular shape punch (available at craft stores) to cut a round window. Inside of the back cover, they will glue their photo so it shows through the window. (using craft glue dots, possibly the best invention ever!) They will also color the first page of the booklet, which is a collage of important people from history with a window space to punch out. This way, the child's photo shows up in the center of the collage. The page reads: "The church has a long history, and I am part of it!" At each future session, kids will add another window page to the book that fits with that month's lesson.
Bible Stories
With so much Catholic Tradition, ritual, and theology to teach, we sometimes fail to focus on the Bible stories we think everyone already knows. But in fact, many kids may not be as familiar with Moses, Noah, and Joseph's colorful coat as we may assume. This theme will allow us to spend some time with these important stories. We will also have some fun with the parables of Jesus.
Other Stories
There are some wonderful fables and storybooks out there that teach Christian values. One oldie-but-goodie that we'll be talking about this year is "Stone Soup." I also found a story online about a cricket who is afraid to share imperfect music - we'll be using that story in the spring when we talk about sharing our gifts.
Kids' Ideas
At our first session, I will ask kids to brainstorm different ways we tell stories, such as movies, poems, music, puppets, etc...and we will incorporate some of those things into the rest of our year.
A Note to My GIFT Parents:
Chances are your children have been asked by their teachers to "read every day." Why not choose some books that teach Bible stories, Christian values, lives of the Saints, etc? Some of these you will find at the county libraries, but you can also find a nice assortment at our parish library. Yes, we have a parish library! Stop in when the office is open (you may want to call ahead to make sure nobody is holding a meeting in there), or check it out next time you're here for Mass or programs (like GIFT). If you need help finding something or ideas for good secular-but-spiritual stories, give me a call or drop me an email at desire.sobiech@risensavior.org.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Will Kids Really Do "Church Homework"?
Home-based faith formation is based on the church teaching that "parents are, in fact, the first and foremost educators of their children..." (Vatican II: Declaration on Christian Education). Or, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it, "Family catechesis precedes, accompanies, and enriches other forms of instruction in the faith." Sounds impressive. But beyond the fru-fru language, common sense and our own childhood memories inform us that our parents and our home life - what we heard, how we were disciplined, and how we lived day to day - had much more to do with who we became than any CCD class we ever took. How exactly to incorporate this truth into programming can take many forms. Here's how we're doing it at our parish:
Grades 1-4 do the G.I.F.T. program (the one I coordinate). They get a book and a schedule of lessons to complete at home. They also come with parents once each month to a "class" taught by me. We do activities, discussions, and arts and crafts. We have fun, but this post is about what they're doing at home, so we'll get to that other stuff later.
Grades 5-8 do a more "traditional" program of classrooms led by volunteer catechists. This caters to their more social nature at this age. But they don't meet every week. This is mostly due to space issues: we can't have them all here at once! But the coordinator of those programs has taken those weeks off from coming to the church to continue cultivating faith at home (translation: she gives homework).
But do they actually DO the homework?
Actually, many of them do. The keys to this, I believe, are moderation, bribery, and consistency.
Moderation: In my first year as the GIFT coordinator, I felt as though it was my job to get those kids through that whole book in the 7-8 months that I had with them. My homework schedule was long, complicated, and involved at least 2 chapters per week. I had my own second grade daughter in the program at the time, and even we had given it up by month three. I learned quickly that if you give families too much to do, they won't do any of it at all. I now try to keep it down to 1 chapter per week. If they're preparing for Sacraments as well (also family-based), we incorporate much of the homework for that prep into the GIFT homework plan rather than piling it on here and there.
Bribery: Yes, I cop to it and I am not ashamed. It works. Our kids use materials from RCL's Faith First program. One nice feature of this program is the website, where kids can play games and access chapter reviews. Our reward system (the nicer word for bribery) is based on those online reviews. As GIFT kids do the chapters in their books, they follow up with the online review. For every review completed, they get a raffle ticket at the next at-church session. I have some small prize to offer, usually around $5 in value, and I pull a name at the end of the session. We also have a "Treat Tray" filled with little goodies around 10 cents in value; any child who completes all of their homework in a given month gets to choose 1 treat. The parents are in charge of keeping their kids honest. The 5-8 grade system is similar, except the parents aren't there. Those students are required to use the built-in feature from the website to email their review results to the coordinator, who then makes sure they get their tickets. They also sometimes have written work to show for tickets. Rather than having a prize at each class session, they have 2 big "Game Show" nights. Kids can add tickets to the mix by answering game-show style questions about what they've been learning, and then there is a drawing for multiple "fabulous prizes." Of course, the kids who have done their homework all along are the ones most likely to answer the questions correctly!
Consistency: This element needs to be covered by the parents. Having a consistent time and/or place to do the homework makes a big difference. Last year I I had one child in each program: my first-grade boy in GIFT and my 5th-grade girl in 5th grade. We declared Wednesdays "God and Pizza" nights. Sometimes the "God" part was actually attending their programs at the church. When their were no programs, we did church homework. And we ate pizza. Every Wednesday. Now that's a plan we all embraced! And we got our homework all done, every month, with no last-minute cramming.
Of course, there will always be families that blow off the homework. These are probably the same families that would blow off a number of classes if we had them every week. But as a certain Fr. Tom once said to me, "We don't count the empty pews. We focus on the ones who show up."
Amen!
Grades 1-4 do the G.I.F.T. program (the one I coordinate). They get a book and a schedule of lessons to complete at home. They also come with parents once each month to a "class" taught by me. We do activities, discussions, and arts and crafts. We have fun, but this post is about what they're doing at home, so we'll get to that other stuff later.
Grades 5-8 do a more "traditional" program of classrooms led by volunteer catechists. This caters to their more social nature at this age. But they don't meet every week. This is mostly due to space issues: we can't have them all here at once! But the coordinator of those programs has taken those weeks off from coming to the church to continue cultivating faith at home (translation: she gives homework).
But do they actually DO the homework?
Actually, many of them do. The keys to this, I believe, are moderation, bribery, and consistency.
Moderation: In my first year as the GIFT coordinator, I felt as though it was my job to get those kids through that whole book in the 7-8 months that I had with them. My homework schedule was long, complicated, and involved at least 2 chapters per week. I had my own second grade daughter in the program at the time, and even we had given it up by month three. I learned quickly that if you give families too much to do, they won't do any of it at all. I now try to keep it down to 1 chapter per week. If they're preparing for Sacraments as well (also family-based), we incorporate much of the homework for that prep into the GIFT homework plan rather than piling it on here and there.
Bribery: Yes, I cop to it and I am not ashamed. It works. Our kids use materials from RCL's Faith First program. One nice feature of this program is the website, where kids can play games and access chapter reviews. Our reward system (the nicer word for bribery) is based on those online reviews. As GIFT kids do the chapters in their books, they follow up with the online review. For every review completed, they get a raffle ticket at the next at-church session. I have some small prize to offer, usually around $5 in value, and I pull a name at the end of the session. We also have a "Treat Tray" filled with little goodies around 10 cents in value; any child who completes all of their homework in a given month gets to choose 1 treat. The parents are in charge of keeping their kids honest. The 5-8 grade system is similar, except the parents aren't there. Those students are required to use the built-in feature from the website to email their review results to the coordinator, who then makes sure they get their tickets. They also sometimes have written work to show for tickets. Rather than having a prize at each class session, they have 2 big "Game Show" nights. Kids can add tickets to the mix by answering game-show style questions about what they've been learning, and then there is a drawing for multiple "fabulous prizes." Of course, the kids who have done their homework all along are the ones most likely to answer the questions correctly!
Consistency: This element needs to be covered by the parents. Having a consistent time and/or place to do the homework makes a big difference. Last year I I had one child in each program: my first-grade boy in GIFT and my 5th-grade girl in 5th grade. We declared Wednesdays "God and Pizza" nights. Sometimes the "God" part was actually attending their programs at the church. When their were no programs, we did church homework. And we ate pizza. Every Wednesday. Now that's a plan we all embraced! And we got our homework all done, every month, with no last-minute cramming.
Of course, there will always be families that blow off the homework. These are probably the same families that would blow off a number of classes if we had them every week. But as a certain Fr. Tom once said to me, "We don't count the empty pews. We focus on the ones who show up."
Amen!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)