7 Quick Takes...takes from a "retired" Catholic school teacher

My days for so many years were filled with the noises, the sights, and activities of a Catholic school kindergarten classroom.  There were so many things that I learned and found out about that I am sure I will use now that I stay at home with Dominic.  So for today I am going to share a few...

1.  From Catholic Mom to Catholic Icing, I found so many others making wonderful resources to help teach my little ones about the faith.  I found it so helpful and was so thankful that others with a variety of talents were sharing with the rest of the world.  I used Catholic Mom's Sunday Gospel activities and many of Catholic Icing's crafts to help impart the Beauty of our Faith to the next generation.  There were many others too that I found by taking a little time to search the web.

2.  Sometimes I just couldn't find the resource that I needed for what I was teaching about...whether it be science or religion or reading.   Technology also helped with this.  It was easy with clip art to make different projects just using Powerpoint or Publisher.  For science, I used clip art to make projects in which the kids would sort objects into groups like living and not living things.  Being able to select the images and the number of them was alot easier then doing this type of activity searching through magazines.

3.  Little kids from a very young age can think about pretty deep things.  We talked about transubstantiation and the Eucharist in my kindergarten class.  We also went through a very basic form of Lectio Divina.  I would read through a section of the Gospel and have the kids close their eyes and try and picture the scene that I was reading.  I would stop and ask some question as we went through to get them to think about it.  Then we would talk about it after and they would share what they picture and what they were thinking about. Sure some of the comments would be silly or just very basic like "I saw Jesus" when describing what they picture when I was reading.  But I believe it helps them think about Jesus as real.

4.  We were lucky enough to have our priest visit us every week in the classroom.  The kids loved it.  They are always excited when they see the priest outside of the classroom.  I think it is important to cultivate a relationship with priest and religious so kids know they are real people that they can talk to, get to know and love.   Many of you do this already but I want to remember it as I raise my family.

5.   I loved my little prayer corner that I had set up in the room.  I was able to find many little Catholic kid books at our local Catholic thrift store or sometimes at garage sales. This way I wasn't worried if they got a little worn.  I also found various images and little statues that the kiddos could touch and look at. These little books by Father Lawrence Lovasik are gems for the kid.  They would get so excited when they saw things that we learned about in class in the books!

6.  I also found some great Catholic videos to share with my students.  In such a visual and media driven society, videos that help the saints or parts of our Faith come alive are a tool that I choose to use.  Of course, moderation with videos is important but I will use these tools with my own kids as they grow up.  A few that I liked were the Saints videos by CCC (including Saint Bernadette, Saint Francis, Saint Francis Xavier, and Juan Diego) and also the series --Brother Francis.  The Brother Francis series includes topics like Prayer, the Eucharist, Baptism, Confession and the Saints. 

7.  One of the most important things that I learned while teaching doesn't have to do with something I used or a book I read:  this is that having expectations for kids and having consistency with them is important.  In our school, the students went to Mass daily.  They were expected to behave.  Even though I had kindergarteners, while I had plenty of wiggle worms, I usually didn't have major behavior problems.  Sure I had some over the years but if I look over the students as a whole most were well behaved.(disclosure: I did have some helpers.)  The blessing of being able to go to Daily Mass with them over the years was great and it was manageable.

Thanks for letting me share a few of the things about my years in a Catholic school.  I am sure I will think of more and share those in the future!

For more 7 Quick Takes, join Kelly at This Ain't the Lyceum.