Religious Classroom Activities

When teaching in a private school sponsored by the church, it is important to find a way to balance basic state-required learning goals with edification of a child's faith. The best way to balance a child's learning needs is to integrate the two ideas. Students can learn to read and to love and serve God at the same time.
  1. Service Learning

    • Service learning is a growing trend in secular education as well as private schools. Service learning projects require students to organize and act on a community need. While servicing that need, they learn science, math, social and business skills, and typing, along with any real-world skills required to complete the class. Students can pair with a local church or ministerial alliance on the project as well.

    Liturgical Calendar

    • Organize regular classroom activities around the liturgical calendar. Help students make a liturgical circle from construction paper at the beginning of the year as a craft project or social studies calendar project. Use saint stories in English class as the base paragraph for Daily Oral language. Decorate a bulletin board that celebrates each saint's martyrdom using saint stories as well. During art class, create dioramas that outline major events like Advent, Christmas and Palm Sunday scenes.

    Reading

    • Integrate religious readings into a standardized reading class. Use the psalms and proverbs to teach poetry and Song of Solomon to teach metaphors and similes. Have students compare the epic flood in Gilgamesh to Noah's flood. Assign easy readers covering religious topics to younger students for book reports and at-home reading practice.

    Music

    • Celebrate God in the classroom through music. Teach children religious songs, and songs that teach bible stories. Use these songs in Christmas and Easter pageants that have a religious theme, reinforcing the stories being taught in other classes as well. Teachers should work together so that their teacher unit objectives and religious themes align.

    Writing Practice

    • Letter practice pages are available with a religious theme. When practicing single letters, students can use handwriting pages with religious symbolism, like "A is for Angel" or "J is for Jesus." When older students practice hand writing, students can write memory verses, the catechism or the 10 Commandments. High school students should keep a daily journal for the purpose of writing practice. Have students respond to a devotional prompt daily.

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