LearningCycles series What Makes My Parish Special Creative Activities for Teaching about Your Local Church

The LearningCycles series offers a creative approach to faith formation based on different learning styles, appropriate for K-5th graders.  Each LearningCycles unit generally includes seven workshops: Art, Story & Games, Drama & Activity, Music, Kitchen, Movie, and Publishing.  This series works well for whole family/intergenerational catechesis and is a great basis for grandparent camps or other vacation bible schools.

Children are an important part of our parish family, and it is important that they feel connected and involved. If we can foster feelings of family and community, children will begin to feel like “this is MY church” which can lead to greater participation in worship, as well as parish events.

Each parish is a unique combination of gifts, personalities, ministries, and resources. Think about what makes your community special and what you would like the children of your parish community to know about the place where you all come together to worship and celebrate the mystery and life of the Body of Christ.

• Art Workshop – Make mosaics or photo collages and use this to talk about stained glass windows. Weave this together with a trip to see the stained glass windows in your church, if there are any!
• Publishing Workshop – Create a class newspaper about your parish. Write stories and draw pictures for this newspaper.
• Drama Workshop – Try to complete a scavenger hunt that will take students to different parts of the parish grounds while also learning about different ministries and places within the parish.
• Movie Workshop – Experience the history of your parish or physical church through the use of compiled video clips, photos, and/or stories from parishioners. (Supporting DVDs can be found for sale here.)
• Story Workshop – Meet members involved in different parish ministries or activities who will tell students about what they do and why they choose to be involved.
• Kitchen Workshop – Learn about Eucharist (and hospitality) in your church as you bake bread together.
• Music Workshop – Learn common songs used at your parish and talk about how music is an important part of worship.

Click to find additional resources for use with this unit.