Our goals are that the children should
- memorize the Catechism
- understand the meaning of what they are learning, which is based on Scripture
- exhibit long-term recall of what they learn
Basic Plan for Lesson Time
- Opening Prayer
- Review previous week’s question and reward correct memorization
- New Question and Answer
- Memorize – explain and define terms
- Discussion
- Scripture Support
- Supplemental Questions
- Leaflet – use back for coloring if needed
- Song(s). For Judy Rogers’s CD “Why can’t I see God”, see here.
- Activity (optional)
- Check memorization
- Closing Prayer
Teaching Approach
The Teaching Notes are tailored to suit the age and understanding of students.
For younger children, who are not able to read and write, concentrate on oral repetition, listening to the Bible readings and learning the songs, then drawing and coloring. Also, answers are not always written on the leaflets. Parents can use the questions to review the lesson with their children as they work on the memorization during the week.
Those who can read and write, are encouraged to take turns reading the Bible passages and to copy answers into the leaflet spaces – based on the class discussion. A memorization tool that works well for older children is “Invisible Reading” – a few words are erased from the answer but it is read as if they were still there. This is repeated until finally they are still ‘reading’ the answer when no words can be seen.
The review section usually requires cutting and gluing. Do the cutting ahead for the children who are unlikely to manage this themselves!
Sometimes there is more than one worksheet for a lesson. The first may be a base page onto which something is drawn, glued, written etc. The second worksheet will contain extra information/symbols/answers and so on.