March 15, 2015 — The Passion and Death of Jesus

I am tech’ed out, so no jekyll and reveal.js slide show presentations. Providentially, this week features one of my favorite class lessons, where we'll perform the Stations of the Cross. From my class notes; "This session is prayer centered," which is good, since my sixth graders are becoming seemingly more restless as the year progresses. We will do a quick review of the Passion, next the Stations of the Cross and close with an open prayer, calling on students to share what they experienced as we did the Stations.

March 01, 2015 — Jesus, Our Friend

This week's class is on "Jesus — our friend" The referenced catechism sections are 787 - 796, titled; "The Church is communion with Jesus" which is easier for me to wrap my head around. I thought "the Church as the Bride of Christ" might help me find a video — but, sadly, youtube continues (as I've said before) to be a cesspool of anti-Catholic bigotry and stultifying ignorance. It seems the bigots use what little intellect they have to game the SEO for videos. Well, Holy Papa — it's Pope Francis to the rescue, again: Pope Francis explains why the Church is the Body of Christ before a truly lower-case "c" catholic assembly.

Anyhow, I'll be focusing on how this connects to all of us, our relationships with each other, and how we're called to serve each other as Christ serves us.

Jesus Heals

This has been my hardest week, emotionally and spiritually, as it relates to classroom prep, so please excuse my sparse notes. I do consider the subject matter, and my difficulties, a providential occurrence.

I found this interesting Archdiocese of Milwaukee video on healing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYyST8yRb00

February 8th; 2015: Jesus Teaches

This week focuses on the teachings of Jesus, especially through His use of parables. We'll also focus on three parables, "Parable of the Weeds," "Parable of the unforgiving servant," and "Parable of the talents." I'm skeptical regarding the opening popcorn routine and lyric-writing exercises. However, I know the kids enjoy such interactive challenges — and I like how the salty popcorn is the perfect setup for the discussion. The kids are eager to be center-stage; "Can I volunteer?!" is a frequent question at the beginning of class. Granted, singing in front of class will be as front and center as it gets.

I'll have plain popcorn as the class comes in and then replace it with richly flavored popcorn. The material suggests the kids won't like plain — we'll see. Salt alone doesn't stick to popcorn so I'll have buttered and salted. For the song, the material suggests Creed's "Higher." I have never heard of the song — not that that means anything. However, the song is 15 years old, older than the students. My son has never heard it. I wanted to download more contemporary music, but — well, there's no way to stream at class. I have these songs for inspiration: "No Greater Love" by Fr. Rob Galea and an instrumental version of "I Will Choose Christ" by Tom Booth.

Finally, I found a very relevant homily by Pope Francis on the matter, found here. A great way to end the class. I still love using reveal.js for my class.

Sunday, January 25: Prayer

An oversight in our class itinerary left an unassigned topic for January 25th's class topic. So, I'm choosing the chapter (Chapter 40) on Prayer from the St. Mary's Press Catholic Connections Handbook conveniently online at Google Books.

While our office doesn't have the teacher's materials for this topic, thanks to Google, we have them here.

Prepping the St. Mary's Press Jeopardy-style game is a bit of bear. All the page references are incorrect, and some of the questions are missing in the book. Without the time-expensive correction to the game board, the kids become disappointed with the game — and rightfully so. Without correction, this is like a shell-game, rather than a learning game.

Three questions while waiting:

1. Identify all the places where you can pray to God
2. Identify all the times when you can pray to God
3. Identify all the ways you can pray to God

It may be advanced, but I like this Fr Dubay video on St. Teresa of Ávila and "interior castles"

Full screen presentation of class slides are here: http://kyleskrinak.github.io/catechism/15-01-25/# Please wait for the slides to load, below.

Jan 11, 2015: Who are you, and who is Jesus?

Christ Pantocrator

Reference for this weeks class: 

• https://books.google.com/books?id=Urf7Kv-ZHH8C&pg=PA33#v=onepage&q&f=false

Goals for today's class:

• Lead the child to a richer understanding of who he or she is and in relation to each other.
• Take that experience to begin to understand who Jesus Christ is
• Discuss that Jesus is both true God and true Man.
• Divine revelation: Holy Scripture, Tradition and Magisterium 

Today's lesson preparation does leave me wondering — in discussing how Jesus is both truly God and man, the provided text suggests that He had "hurt feelings." This strikes me as odd. Hurt, as in wounded pride? Isn't pride a cardinal sin?

Full screen presentation of class slides are here: http://kyleskrinak.github.io/catechism/15-01-11/#/ Please wait for the slides to load, below.

The Gospels

The focus of today's class — the Gospels:

• Explore "perspective sharing" by developing student's ability to see and understand other points of view
• Emphasize the variation of detail and emphasis in the four Gospels, while recalling God ensures sacred truth of the text through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit
• Immerse themselves in the richness of the Gospel accounts of the Last Supper and learn more about who Jesus is

My slides for today's class:

• http://kyleskrinak.github.io/catechism/15-01-04/#/

Notes:

• NO Game Show Catechism today. I'm simply not in the mood. Besides we have a lot of ground to cover today.
• I'm looking forward to today's discussion. Sixth graders tend to want a too-simple explanation or understanding of an event. This will be a chance to get them to consider alternative viewpoints.
• My son and myself will be "acting" for the "Movies Review" portion. Having my son act out may bring the class out of control, since it's already crammed in that classroom — but, then, the chaos will add a layer of complexity to the student's later noting their recollection of the event.

References:

• http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/is-everything-in-the-bible-true