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LeeAnn
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| Posted: April 25 2009 at 5:57pm | IP Logged
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I'm looking for ideas or experiences teaching multiple grades in a parish Religious Education/CCD program. Our parish buildings are temporary, quite small and there is one large room and one small room available for use. Currently we have weekly classes on Wed. for the first communion kids and on Sundays for the preschool-kindergarten kids in the small room. The large room is our parish hall/kitchen/overflow seating for Mass.
All the other kids (grades 1, 3, 4 & 5) have only had a home-study option this year which almost none of the families have followed through with.
We are a growing parish but don't currently have the budget to build classrooms so we are looking at having to teach everybody in a multi-age format. This year, we did have K4J Club once a month on Sundays which averaged about 40 kids. However, it's not a curriculum that teaches catechism or can be used every week.
I am wondering if the New St. Joseph Catechism booklets could be used as a basis for this multi-age class? The first communion kids would still meet separately. We possibly could supplement this with our own craft and game ideas and maybe something about each Sunday's Gospel? It would be nice to have a music component too.
I am wondering if there was some way in the past or in countries with very limited resources that teaching a large age range of children simultaneously was easily achieved.
It would be possible to break into small groups at separate tables, but the room would be fairly noisy. When we were in the stage of renting a local junior high cafeteria and classrooms for Mass, we had about 95 kids enrolled in the program (a third of which were first communicants). We've had about 2/3 of that participating in K4J, first communion and the prek-k class this year.
Another option might be to rent public school classrooms during a weeknight but we'd rather avoid the expense. Figuring out a way to do it in one (or two) rooms on a Sunday is the focus right now.
Anyhow, all ideas are welcome!
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my four children are 17, 15, 11 & 8 - all now attend public school - we read many 4Real recommended books at home
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LeeAnn
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| Posted: April 28 2009 at 12:29am | IP Logged
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Have I stumped the forum?  Goodness!
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my four children are 17, 15, 11 & 8 - all now attend public school - we read many 4Real recommended books at home
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Barbara C.
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| Posted: April 28 2009 at 3:25pm | IP Logged
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I just saw this thread this morning, so I will try to offer up some ideas. Keep in mind that I am very new to the area of RE/CCD classes, as in just talked with the DRE of our parish yesterday about starting my daughter next year.
The first thing that caught my attention about your description is the necessity of a pre-k class. My understanding is that RE classes are supposed to make up for kids that don't go to Catholic school. It seems like it would be much more important for the 3-5 graders to have RE class than pre-k/kindergarten.
My second thought is that if you feel the pre-k/kindergarten necessary that you could probably combine certain grades (prek-1, 2-3, 4-5) to make things easier and offer three days a week. Then you could split between the two rooms as needed. And does your RE not deal with grades 6-8 or above? I don't think First Communicants necessarily need their own private class for a whole year..maybe just a few extra classes.
Staggering could be another option--do fewer weeks and rotate grade levels, do fewer classes on lower grades or non-sacramental years.
As for programs to use, I had the opportunity to compare the Faith and Life textbooks for grades 1 and 2 yesterday and they are almost exactly the same, except for the last few chapters. It seems like those two grades would be easy to combine.
I have no experience with Catechesis of the Good Shepard, but I think it is Montessori-based. I think mixed age groups is supposed to be a perk of Montessori.
The things I would consider before combining age levels too much is wide variety of reading/writing abilities which often don't level out until about fourth grade as well as age-appropriate content. Our DRE was talking yesterday about how they really watch things that might be scary to little ones, but the older kids might not have a problem with scarier images and ideas.
Do not in any way consider me an expert. I certainly do not. Just thought I would throw out some ideas to get your mental juices flowing. Sometimes hearing someone else's bad ideas is just what you need to come up with a good one.
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Mom to "spirited" dd(9), "spunky" dd (6), "sincere" dd (3), "sweet" dd (2), and baby girl #5 born 8/1/12!!
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Jody
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| Posted: April 29 2009 at 2:36pm | IP Logged
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I'm just seeing this thread now.
I think Barbara had a good idea to combine grades, and breaking into small groups at separate tables would be good. If that is too noisy or too tightly packed you're best bet might be to have different days for the different classes. Mon/pre-K, Tues/1-2, Wed/3-4, Thurs/5-6.
If you're interested in catholic montessori activities that will supplement your existing curriculum and can be used in small groups by multi-ages here is my link.
Blessings, Jody
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LeeAnn
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| Posted: June 04 2009 at 11:54pm | IP Logged
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So here is the plan for the coming year:
We found another room for classes in the adjoining trailer building that is used for Outreach, giving us three classrooms total.
Our priest came up with the idea of offering two time slots, 9 and 11:30 am on Sundays, to reduce the class sizes.
The first Sunday of the month, there will always be no classes. This gives the 10:30 am Mass crowd the use of the parish hall once a month for coffee/donuts and fellowship.
The kids will be combined into three classes thus: Preschool-Kindergarten, Grades 1-2, Grades 3-4-5.
The two time slots will offer identical classes--but families have to commit to one time or the other. No class hopping please.
If that Gr 3-4-5 class gets really big I suppose we might drop one of the PreK-K clases to accomodate them.
Now, the fun stuff, the curriculum. :)
For PreK-K we will continue using Image of God, but we're going to skip the workbooks and give each child their own board book Bible from Catholic Book Publishing Co. instead.
Fore Gr 1-2 I would like to alternate using Image of God one year and Faith and Life the next year--using the Grade 2 text for everyone. This covers the material needed for Sacrament prep while also allowing for some variation for kids who are in the class for two years.
Three to four Saturdays in the spring before First Penance and First Communion, the 2nd grade kids will use the "God's Gift" Penance and Eucharist texts from Loyola in its bilingual edition to cover the "formal" Sacrament Prep material. (This is the only text mandated by our priest so far--because it's bilingual.)
For Gr 3-4-5 I have this RADICAL idea. I want to use the Baltimore Catechism as a three year course of study as the meat of the class. My only issue is probably getting the catechism questions translated into Spanish for the parents. Then each grade would break into small groups studying a separate text--I particularly like Inos Biffi's "Illustrated Catechism" for the 5th graders. I am thinking "The Story of Jesus" for the 3rd graders and something like "A Picture Book of Saints" for 4th. Add in some Sunday Gospel worksheets from Catholic Mom and maybe a liturgical project or two and I think we have a class. :)
What do you think? Would you sign your child up for these classes? As homeschoolers, would it complement what you are doing at home?
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my four children are 17, 15, 11 & 8 - all now attend public school - we read many 4Real recommended books at home
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CatholicMommy
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| Posted: June 05 2009 at 8:22pm | IP Logged
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Somewhere, someone has a jeopardy-style game for the Baltimore Catechism.... that could be an interesting addition for the older kids.
I like the ideas for the other grades though.
(I'm all over CGS, but there are so many materials and such that it doesn't sound feasible for your situation).
:)
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Topic: Teaching RE/CCD to multiple grades
