How do you mark or celebrate the beginning of the catechetical year?

Parent orientation session with a prayer service? Parish-wide liturgy?

Share your wisdom.

This'll be my 6th year of teaching 6th graders. My advice for "opening night": start the year off with a BANG! Don't read from the book! Ask a question a minute! Get 'em excited, laughing, participating, thinking! Make 'em wanna come next week! My first class is Sept. 9, I'm ALREADY FIRED UP!

There are a couple of things that we do.

One Catechetical Sunday we do a "progressive blessing" (modified from the Book of Blessings) during each of the Masses. We first ask students to stand for a blessing, then we ask parents to stand (while the students are still standing) for a blessing, then we ask our catechetical staff (which we broadly define: parish staff, catechists, teachers, RCIA team members, all those who prepare others for the Sacraments, etc.) to stand, and finally we ask everyone else to stand, so that by the end everyone in church is standing. My hope is that this reinforces the idea that faith formation is a life-long process, and that everyone, by their word and action, catechizes others through the example they give.


For the first night of RE, everyone gathers in the church. We have a prayer service, a welcome from the Pastor, and then students and catechists go to the classroom for a "getting to know you" session. I meet with the parents to talk about our hopes and dreams for the year, how the parents are the primary catechists, ways that we all work together, etc. After this parents go over to join their children for an open house. We conclude with a social put on by one of our parish circles.

Wow....I bet the catechists find all that encouraging and energizing.

We begin our year with family gatherings for our 1-6 and parent student gatherings for the Jr. high students.
The Family gathering for 1-6 this year will focus on Prayer. After gathering for an opening prayer and a brief presentation making God the center of our lives. Families will get to choose from 7 different mini-workshops.(20 minutes each) the workshops will be repeated 2 times so they will get more than one experience. Each workshop will offer a different way for families to experience prayer that they could hopefully then take home with them for future use. Our workshops are
A. Prayers to know by Heart ~ Make Prayer Dice wooden blocks on which families will modpodge prayers we should know by heart and be instructed to take them home and roll them daily to reinforce basic prayers
B. Kenetic Prayer ~ ACTS ball, ( a beach ball I put each of the ACTS parts of prayer on a different color. Familes will toss the ball amongst themselves and share a brief prayer for each type of prayer as a group, count your blessings jump rope each person will be asked to skip rope and mention a blessing for each time they jump.
C. Tell Me a Story ~ Stories as an invitation to prayer one story will be the Rainbow Fish
D. Guided Meditation ~ We use Finding God so this will be parent's chance to experience what the kids will do in class.
E. Our Images of God ~ Prayer & Art ~ Families will be given art supplies and asked to think about how they imagine God if they were to see him face to face and creat an art work to reflect their image. ( a variety of art supplies will be on hand to choose from)
F. Finding God in Nature ~ Families will take a nature walk to our Labarynth and be asked to pick up items enroute which remind them of God's presence in nature and then someone will guide them in sharing and prayer when they reach the center of the Labarynth.
G. God in my Life ~ Name Poems. For each letter in a person's name they will find one way begining with that letter to thank God for his presence in their lives.

For Jr. High we do an evening for parents and their children where we will they will get to preview the theme for the year. (we rotate between church and the person of Jesus.) This year as we focus on Jesus we they will do an images of Jesus Picture Walk were they will see about 20 different images of Jesus from different cultures and be asked to choose the one that speaks to them most clearly of who Jesus is. They then have to share with the group why they choose the picture they did. ( Interestingsly in the past the majority of kids have choosen a modern picture of the sacred heart) We will watch the Tom Groome video of Jesus' life and kids and parents will be asked to share their favorite scripture story about Jesus. They will play scripture family feud ( see Games that Teach Serious Stuff St. Mary's Press) with categories like Jesu's I Am Statements, Women Jesus Knew etc. Finally we will close with the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus.

The purpose of both gatherings is to engage families in their children's religious ed and get parents excited so when kids have a good experience in class the enthusism is greeded well at home and can spread.

Our parish utilizes Generational Faith Formation. We start the session with a meal and ice breaker activities, introduction of the Theme. We meet for one 3 hour session a month-- with 4 sessions to choose from-- to meet the various schedules in families. This year's theme is the "Creed". After the meal, we separate for approx 1hour 15 mins., into grade appropriate lessons on the theme (ie. PreK-K. 1/2 grade, 3/4 grades, 5/6 grades, 7/8 grade, high school, adult formations) then we come together for the last 1/2 hour, 45 mins for a closing activity to tie in all the lessons. It is a wonderful way to engage the entire community of faith and to show that we belive that Faith formation is a life-long process. Not just for the "kids". This year we are also trying the Finding God series, and I am very excited to start. Our first session is Sunday 13 Sept.

Jill, how did your first session go?