Sunday, January 27, 2019 Age 8 / 3 rd Grade 3 rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Gospel Reading: Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21 Provided for you (see below) Class Folder Pink Emergency Folder Pflaum Pamphlet for Jan. 27, Feb. 3 Bag of bingo chips LITURGICAL YEAR / FEAST DAYS CATHOLIC TRADITION Weekly readings and discussion: http://www.loyolapress.com/sundayconnection.htm FEAST DAYS & CELEBRATIONS January 28 St. Thomas Aquinas January 31 St. John Bosco February 2 Presentation of the Lord February 5 St. Agatha Learn more about the Saints: http://www.americancatholic.org/features/saints/b yname.asp Session Notes: Below are the session plans for today. A printed version will be provided for you in your catechist mailbox.
Suggested Timeline for January 27, 2019 9:00am to 9:10am 10:45am 10:55am Welcome & Gathering Activity Cover Page Welcome the children as they come in and take attendance. Pass out the Understanding the Liturgy of the Word worksheet for them to work on during the first 10 minutes. o They will probably be done with this rather quickly, so if that s the case you can distribute the Pflaums and one bingo chip per Pflaum in order that the children can do the cover activity titled, Being Good News. 9:10am - 9:25am 10:55am 11:10am Share Experiences Gather the children around the prayer table. After praying the Sign of the Cross, pray, Dear God, thank you for sending Jesus to bring us your Good News. Help us listen to what Jesus teaches us today and share that Good News with others. Amen. Close prayer with the Sign of the Cross. Distribute the Pflaums as the children take their seats and have them open to page 2. Ask: Who here has a nickname? o Give the children time to say their nicknames if they have any. Say: We re going to read a story about a woman whose nickname was Birdie. o Invite volunteers to take turns reading. Discuss the Know questions. Ask: Do you think Birdie waited until she was an adult to be good news? Have the children stand and line up shoulder to shoulder facing you. Refer to page TG3-10 of the teaching guide for an activity called Have You Ever? At the end, ask: What were all these examples of? (Being good news) 9:25am - 9:40am Discover Gospel and Doctrine 11:10am 11:25am Have the children sit back down and refer to the Sunday Gospel on page 3. Read the title, Jesus Brings Good News, aloud. Ask for three readers, one for the part of Narrator, one for Synagogue Official, and one for Jesus. Discuss the Know questions. Invite someone to read the section titled, Jesus Is Good News at the bottom of the page. o Ask: How does Jesus share good news? How is Jesus good news? Have the children find the word anointed in the Gospel reading, then have the first one to find that word read the sentence that the word is in. Distribute the What the Church Believes and Teaches handbooks and have the children turn to page 51 and find the word anointing. o Read the definition aloud to the class. Ask: Who here has been anointed? (All the baptized raise their hands) Say: Jesus was anointed for a special mission: to share good news and to be good news. When we were baptized, we were anointed to share and be good news also. But this doesn t have to be scary because Jesus gave us good news first in order to help us give good news like him. Let s turn to page 32 in the handbook to read that good news.
o Invite different volunteers to read each bullet point. 9:40am 9:55am 11:25am 11:40pm Live the Gospel Ask: How do we learn about the good news every Sunday at Mass? (readings from the Bible) Have a volunteer read the Catholic Faith Word on page 3 of the Pflaum. Say: In Sunday s Gospel, we can see how our Liturgy of the Word at Mass developed from the Jewish Sabbath service. Jesus was asked to read from the collection of scrolls, which is what we call the Old Testament today. After he finished reading, he spoke to the people in the synagogue about what he had just read. In our Liturgy of the Word at Mass, we also hear people read the Bible, and then the priest or deacon explains what was read to us. Have the children turn to page 4 of the Pflaum, then read the directions under We Explore the Liturgy of the Word. o Explain that the first reading usually comes from the Old Testament, and the second reading usually usually comes from one of Paul s letters. Give the children no more than 5 minutes to match the part of the Liturgy of the Word with the words that go with that part of the Mass. Go over the correct matches together as a class. 9:55am 10:10am 11:40am 11:55pm Gym Take the children to the gym for a game. The children will play knee tag. The game will have a few different rounds, each with slightly different rules. o Round 1: Everyone finds a partner. A teacher or teen may have to step in for everyone to have a partner. Each person will stand in place covering their knees with their hands. When the game starts, each person will be trying to tag their partner s knee(s) while standing in place. When the knees are covered by one s hands, the knees are protected, but once the hands are taken off (i.e. in order to make a tag), they are unprotected. After about 30 seconds, the children will find new partners and play again. This may happen a few times. o Round 2: The children find new partners again. This time they are allowed to move in order to avoid getting their knee tagged or in order to get into better position to tag their partner s knee. They may play a few 30-second rounds like this with different partners. The boundaries will be one half of the basketball court. o Round 3: Now that they can move around, there are no partners. Anyone s knee can be tagged by anyone! o Round 4: A facilitator will yell, Hands up! or Hands down! When Hands up is called, nobody is allowed to cover their knees. When Hands down is called, players may resume guarding their knees, but may still try to tag others knees as in round 3. For the final couple of minutes, the facilitator will give the following lesson: o Ask: Was there any real winner or loser to this game? (No) o Say: Every time you went to tag someone else, it left you vulnerable didn t it? You all tagged other people, but you all got tagged as well. This is exactly how it is when we are mean to or judge other people. The knees in this game represent our weaknesses and failures. We cover them up like Adam and Eve covered their selves when they realized they were naked. But when we go to belittle or judge someone else because
of their weaknesses, we open ourselves up to be judged as well, and we never really win. Matthew 7 asks us how we can point out the speck in our brother s eye when there is a log in our own eye. Some of you tried taking our hands off your knees in order to bait your opponent. The devil tries to bait you into belittling and judging others as well! However, in your classes you re learning about being good news to the vulnerable. As long as you are good news, that is how you will be judged, and Jesus will be very pleased with you! 10:10am 10:15am 11:55am 12:00pm Closing Prayer Close class by gathering again around the prayer table to pray the Sign of the Cross, Glory Be, and the Our Father (every week)