Songs of Catholicism for Kids

The Dogma Dogs
http://cdbaby.com/cd/dogmadogs

The Dogma Dogs is the creation of Amy Lewkowicz, who holds masters degrees in both theology and liturgical music. The write up on the cdbaby.com Web site states that her music is "just plain fun." I most definitely agree, but it is also good "theology" in small bites for children.

Amy has kindly sent me sample lyrics to two of her songs from the CD Songs of Catholicism for Kids. Here are sample lyrics from the song she has simply called "Lent":

From Ash Wednesday til Evening Mass
on Holy Thursday, use a magnifying glass
Inspect your life: do you see some sin?
Well, let the alms and the penance begin!

Lent, Lent, time to repent
Because it's Lent, Lent
Our wills, they get bent
By what we've done and failed to do
But ask for mercy: He'll give it to you.

Other sample lyrics, from "The Liturgy Song":

The Old Testament (just the best of it)
Then we hear some psalmody
Now a letter from Paul (or someone else)
Alleluia, outside of Lent

Now we hear the Gospel
Standing with respect
We sit for the homily:
The priest makes it all connect

When his talk is done, then we stand as one
And profess the Nicene Creed
Then we ask the Lord, would you hear our prayer?
We, the faithful, intercede.

The 11 songs on the CD explore a variety of musical styles. These are engaging and crafted in such a way that children can easily join in the singing... and the great fun. You can listen to short excerpts of all the songs on the CD, Songs for Catholic Kids on the CDBaby.com Web site at http://cdbaby.com/cd/dogmadogs.

A new CD is also in the planning stages and should be launched in the near future with the title The Dogma Days of Summer.

Catholic Education Learning Objects

The Religious Education page of the Web site of the Archdiocese of Brisbane, Australia, has a number of flash animations "designed to provide rich, interactive multimedia learning resources and tools that enable students to develop the knowledge, skills and values they need to participate within church and community contexts."

The learning objects include the following:

Mary MacKillop
Refugees (Values Education)
Snakes and Ladders - The game of snakes and ladders provides the vehicle for students to explore the consequences of making "loving and unloving choices".
Zacchaeus - This object contains the story of Zacchaeus and two interactive games.
Church Search - Objects in the church.
Caring for God's Creation
Needs and Wants

Children's Bible Coloring Pages

Children's Bible Coloring Pages
http://www.tstl.net/Children/Coloring/Coloring.asp

This Web page offers a number of large drawing depicting biblical characters from the Old and New Testaments.

RCIA Handbook

The Handbook for RCIA in the diocese of Toledo is available at this address: http://www.toledodiocese-spl.org/RCIA%20Handbook.pdf. Although it was written by the diocesan RCIA Committee specifically for the diocese of Toledo, this 39 pages document does provide a good overview of the RCIA process that can be useful anywhere.

Harcourt Religion Publishers’ archive activities

The Web site of Harcourt Religion Publishers has an extensive archive of activities on a wide range of topics (Advent, Angels, Bible, Christian, Christmas living, Church year, Easter, Holidays, Lent, Mary, Pentecost, Sacraments, Saints, Vocations)listed by grade levels in it's archive or activities found at http://www.harcourtreligion.com/monthly_activities/archive_activities.html. The proposed activities engage students in learning about their faith through different approaches and means including Web quests, coloring pages, puzzles, personal reflections, journaling, prayer, etc.

The Vatican YouTube Channel

The Vatican launched its own YouTube Channel today at http://www.youtube.com/vatican. The introduction to the channel reads as follows:
"This channel offers news coverage of the main activities of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI and of relevant Vatican events...
This video-news presents the Catholic Church's position regarding the principal issues of the world today.
Links give access to the full and official texts of cited documents."

Abbey of Saint Walburga Blog

Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB. of the Abbey of Saint Walburga in Virginia Dale, Colorado, has been posting reflections on the blog of this benedictine monastery since 2007. Mother Maria-Michael's reflections are often full of wisdom and spiritual depth. I hope she will not mind my reproducing her last posting on God's Vulnerability. I hope it will incite you to visit the Abbey's blog at http://stwalburga.blogspot.com:

A reflection by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB.

I was thinking about the Gospel reading when the father says to his sons, “Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.” (Lk 21:28-32) And then the son gives a response. In other words, what the father says to his son is probably in the setting of a question: “Son, will you go out?” This made me think of the vulnerability of God. He doesn’t demand anything of us, He asks it of us. And when anybody asks, there’s the option of a 'yes' or a 'no'.

I looked up in the dictionary the word 'vulnerable' and it said “capable of or susceptible of being wounded.” What humility God has allowed Himself to take on! You hear of people desiring to take control of things while God Himself gives us free will. Even He does not control us. He allows Himself to be vulnerable; susceptible to be hurt. I looked at that and was utterly amazed at what God has done for us and what it means that He gave us free will. Do we give each other that freedom as well? Are we open to being vulnerable?

I really marvel more and more at what God has done for us in simply asking, “Will you follow me?”

Essential Bibliography for Catechetical Leaders

Essential Bibliography for Catechetical Leaders
http://www.aodonline.org/aodonline-sqlimages/extranet/dre/downloadtoprint/EssentialBibliography.pdf

This document on the Web site of the Archdiocese of Detroit provides a list of Church documents and a brief description of the content of each.

Related Resources: Catechetichts - Resources for Catholic Educators at http://www.silk.net/RelEd/catechetics.htm

Catholic Faith Education Newsletter - Latest Edition

The latest Catholic Faith Education Newsletter is now available online at http://www.silk.net/RelEd/ezine1.htm .

Virtual Symposium On Adolescent Catechesis

Virtual Symposium On Adolescent Catechesis
http://v1.mycatholicvoice.com/group/Virtual+Symposium+On+Adolescent+Catechesis

The Virtual Symposium on Adolescent Catechesis was organised by the Partnership for Adolescent Catechesis on November 5-8, 2008. The three national organizations comprising the Partnership for Adolescent Catechesis are the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry (NFCYM), the National Conference for Catechetical Leadership (NCCL), and the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA). Additional support is provided by representatives from the USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops).

The Virtual Symposium was hosted on the internet and provided quality recorded video, slide handouts, and discussion guides. The question raised at the symposium was: "What is necessary for effective adolescent catechesis in the Catholic Church given the current and emerging environments in the United States?..." and the goal of the Symposium was

"to identify the factors that affect adolescent faith formation and their implications, to develop a common language that will help establish standards for effective adolescent catechesis and its assessment, to establish tools for addressing the creation of comprehensive youth faith formation programs."

The Virtual Symposium was hosted on on MyCatholicVoice.com and many of the audiovisual and written documents generated in preperation for and during the symposium are still available on that Web site at http://v1.mycatholicvoice.com/group/Virtual+Symposium+On+Adolescent+Catechesis.

More information on the symposium is available on the NIAC (The National Initiative on Adolescent Catechesis) Web site at http://www.adolescentcatechesis.org/symposium/index.htm . This NIAC Web site also makes available a number of documents on adolescent catechesis: items for the National Symposium on Adolescent Catechesis and Items found in Source Book on Adolescent Catechesis, Volume One. Therese are found at http://www.adolescentcatechesis.org/resources/documents.htm.

Apostleship of Prayer - Reflections for Children

http://apostleshipofprayer.org/reflectionsChildren.html

The mission of the Apostleship of Prayer is to encourage Christians to make a daily offering of themselves to the Lord for the coming of God's Kingdom and for the Holy Father's monthly intentions. This habit of prayer encourages a Eucharistic spirituality of solidarity with the Body of Christ and loving service to others. Nourishing this spiritual program is the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The Web site of this association provides a number of resources. One of these is a page conceived with children in mind that provides reflections on the monthly prayer requests of Pope Benedict XVI. Each month this resources suggests: new reflections on the Holy Father's main prayer request and on his prayer request for mission; the Daily Offering Prayer for Children; and the Prayer of the Month.

For additional resources on prayer: http://www.silk.net/RelEd/prayer.htm

Name that Song - Activity for Confirmation preparation classes.

Joe Paprocki, on his Catechist's Journey blog, has recently posted the outline of an activity extending over 5 sessions of 10 minutes each. He calls these sessions "Name That Song (aka Name That Sin/Virtue/Gift).

The focus of this session will be on “the SEVENS”: the deadly sins (the “poison”); the virtues (the “antidote”); and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit (the “ingredients” for the “antidote”)... I have found contemporary songs that speak to EACH of these items (yes, 21 songs) and the gist of the evening will be the catechists playing segments of these songs and inviting the young people to match them to the appropriate deadly sin, virtue, or Gift of the Holy Spirit that are being focused on in that mini-session.

This activity should be a lot of fun for the kids (and catechists!) and an effective teaching medium.

To read more about this activity and to access the lyrics of the songs I invite you to read Joe's complete blog posting at http://catechistsjourney.loyolapress.com/2009/01/08/name-that-song-aka-name-that-sinvirtuegift/

For other resources on confirmation: http://www.silk.net/RelEd/confirmation.htm

Free Curricula

Catholic Heritage Curricula
http://www.chcweb.com/catalog/freecurricula.html?s=9c42408174a15801d55d61dc4bf89579

All the materials listed on this page of the Catholic Heritage Curricula Website are available for free download in PDF format. Use is restricted to individual families only.

There is a large amount of useful and interesting material here including the following resources:

• Heroes of the Holocaust: "These articles are meant to recognize and honor a few of the brave and saintly men and women who were willing to suffer greatly for their Catholic Faith during World War II."
• Catholics in American History: A series of stories written for children about great American Catholics including the "Nun who took on Billy the Kid" about Sister Blandina and "Father of Thousands of Boys" about Fr. Edward Flanagan.
• A Catholic How-to-Draw: Step by step illustrated instructions on how to make drawings on such themes as the "Sacred Heart of Jesus", Our Lady of Guadelupe, the Holy Spirit, and so on.
• Vocations: Letters from a missionary, articles on serving at the altar...
• Coloring Pages and Activities: Coloring pages depicting Saints.
• Religious Activities Handouts: a handful of documents to read, color and/or to have fun with.

Parables - Illustrated

http://www.erain.es/departamentos/religion/PRIMBN/parabolasenglish/parabolas.htm
Parables in English

This page on the Web site of a school in Spain offers sets of large colorful illustrations for each of seven parables: Good Samaritan; Lost Sheep; Prodigal Son; Rich Fool; Sower; Talents; Two Builders. These are aimed at primary school children. Each sets of illustrations for the parables comes in a zip folder that you need to download and unzip.

For more resources on the parables: Parables of Jesus - Commentaries, Meditations, Clipart, Puzzles, Coloring Pages - http://www.silk.net/RelEd/parables.htm

Resources on Martin Luther King Jr.

http://www.silk.net/RelEd/martin.htm

The Martin Luther King Jr. page on the Resources for Catholic Educators Web site offers an extensive listing of resources including lesson plans, coloring pages, worksheets, puzzles and posters. The graphic on the right is from that page and you can download a large 1229X1257 version of the image to print as a poster.

Catechesis on Families

Preparatory Catechesis for the VI World Encounter of Families
http://www.wmf2009.com/esp/015catequesis.htm

This web page outlines the content of 10 catechesis on the family in preparation for the upcoming Word Encounter of Families to be held from January 16th to18th in Mexico. Of particular interest is the sections entitled “Reading the Teachings of the Church” in each catechesis. These provide a brief summary of Church teachings on the topics dealt with in the catechesis.

The topics of the catechesis are as follows:

1. The family, first educator of faith
2. The family, educator of the truth of man: marriage and family
3. The family, educator of dignity and respect for all human person
4. The family, transmitter of human virtues and values
5. The family, open to God and fellow men
6. The family, former of the strict moral conscience
7. The family, first experience of Church
8. Collaborators of the family: parish and school
9. The family and the model of the family of Nazareth
10. The family, recipient and agent of the new evangelization

For more resources on catechesis:

Catechetics - Resources for Catholic Educators
http://www.silk.net/RelEd/catechetics.htm

Catechesis for Persons with Developmental Disabilities
http://www.silk.net/RelEd/disabilities.htm

Resources for Catholic Educators Store - Catechesis
http://astore.amazon.com/resouforcatho0b-20?_encoding=UTF8&node=2

Online Tools to Make Bookmarks, Cards, Certificates...

Sunday School Printables
http://www.sundayschoolprintables.com

This Web site offers a number of useful online tools: a bookmark generator to create customized bookmarks for your students; a "Verse card generator" that allows you to quickly create illustrated cards with Bible verses on them such as the one on the right (click on the image to see the actual size of the cards) ; and tools to generate and print certificates and personalized Christian cards, greeting cards, holiday cards, thank you cards or birthday cards.

2009 Calendar

The Resources for Catholic Educators Web site offers a full 2009 calendar (http://www.silk.net/RelEd/calendar_2009.htm) with beautiful photos and quotations from scripture or from saints. You can download and print individual months or the full year.

I wish all of you a blessed and happy new year!