New City Catechism Creativity

Last spring, in one of the meetings that I have periodically with the pastors, I volunteered myself to teach a Catechism class every other Wednesday night.

Why?

1.  Our Associate Pastor hosts the largest community group at the church every Wednesday.  There are over 20 children, and childcare has been a headache.  I’m a huge fan of our hardworking, fun, and wise Associate Pastor and his amazing wife, so I want to help when I can.
2. The Senior Pastor gave me a new Sunday School curriculum to look at, called The New City Catechism.  I liked it, but I didn’t see where it would fit on a Sunday morning.
3.  I often get an itch to go back to the classroom full time.

We did a “pilot” lesson in the spring.  It was pretty terrible.  The kids were used to having no structure, and all of a sudden Miss Ursula came along and ruined that.  I even had to kick a kid out of the room and give him a stern talking to.  But was I going to let a bunch of kids ruin our plans?  No.

Fast forward to the fall.  I came prepared with a better game plan.  I had a behavior chart in place, with a treat for them if they obeyed.  I’m not usually in favor of giving treats for behavior, but let’s face it.  It’s Wednesday night.  And kids need to have memories of a happy time at church.

With my new system in place, every night of Catechism has been awesome.  We even painted and hot glued a nativity set for their families.  I hate doing crafts, but this was so much fun!  4 year olds were hot gluing!  It was amazingly terrific!

If you are not familiar with what Catechism is, it’s a way of remembering truths about God, using a “Question and Answer” method.  It’s really great, especially for kids.

Since it’s every other week, with 2 weeks of Christmas craft and 3 more weeks of Christmas break, we needed a review day.  I thought about how I was going to accomplish a review day in a fun way, and when I arrived at church that morning, the creative juices started flowing.

The first game was a Jeopardy-style Flyswatter game.  Two kids faced off, with flyswatters.  I gave the answer, and they had to swat the question.  It was not as easy as they thought it would be!

Then, I broke the kids up into groups and they completed the rest of the games in a rotation.  The kids lined up, oldest to youngest.  I put the oldest with the youngest and one in the middle to form a group of 3.

Question 1:  What is our only hope in life and death?  Answer:  That we are not our own but belong to God

All of my games are simple.  The post-its were scrambled and then they had to put it back together in order.  Of course I awarded points!

Question 2:  Who is God?  Answer:  God is the creator of everyone and everything.

 

Cup stacking and shooting them down.  Everyone’s favorite.

Question 3:  How many persons are there in God?  Answer:  There are three persons in one God:  the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  

Question 4:  How and why did God create us?  Answer:  God created us male and female in his own image to glorify him.

Question 5:  What else did God create?  Answer:  God created all things and all his creation was very good.

I’m a sucker for a clothesline.  They’re so cute!

Question 6:  How can we glorify God?  By loving him and by obeying his commands and law.  

I don’t have a picture for this one because we played Sparkle.  (Or would have played, if we had enough time!)

So there you have it, a bunch of happy kids and a happy teacher memorizing truths about God in a fun way.  I love teaching, and it’s even better when it’s creative.