Monday at sundown marked the beginning of the Pesach, the major Jewish feast of the Nisan cycle (corresponding to March or April). Commonly known as Passover, it celebrates the Hebrews' freedom from Egyptian slavery. God reminded Israel to celebrate the Passover meal every year to remind future generations of God's deliverance, salvation, fidelity, and love. The Israelites ate quickly and departed Egypt with only a few belongings.
Relocation Activity
Have your students imagine they have to immediately from their homes and relocate to a land a great distance away. They are given only one wooden crate that they may fill with ten personal treasures: possessions, heirlooms, symbols of their life that will remind them of their and their families' past. Tell them to write down the ten things they will take.
Then, ask them to share their most important item with a partner. Also, for discussion ask: "How many of the ten items involved a memory of a time when you our your family reached out in service to others?"
Finally, play this enjoyable look at Passover from the largest Jewish informative website.
PowerPoint can be a powerful tool for creating prayer reflections. Below you will find a sample Stations of the Cross PowerPoint prayer reflection and template that you can use to create your own Stations of the Cross PowerPoint. This could be something you create as a teacher or something you have your students use to create their own prayer services.
How to Create a Stations of the Cross PowerPoint
You can use the Stations of the Cross PowerPoint template or start from scratch. The major components of the template include the black background and the photo credits page. Be sure to use images that are either in the public domain or available for use with citation.
Finding Stations of the Cross Pictures
Though most people will likely use Google Image Search to find images for their PowerPoints, there is no telling whether those images are free for public use. To be safe, try using images from Flickr or the Web Gallery of Art.
If you wish to use Flickr, be sure to search and download images from the Attribution License photos. Go to http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/ to find these images.
The Web Gallery of Art is another great website that presents images of many famous works of art. Images can be copied and used from that site as long as the images are used for education purposes.
The images used in the downloadable Stations of the Cross PowerPoint below were pulled from Flickr and the Web Gallery of Art and the final page is used to cite all of the sources of the photos. Unfortunately, the quality of the photos available for free that are not under copyright is currently lacking. It might be worth going to the local church or school and taking pictures of the Way of the Cross images and statues there and using these images to develop the PowerPoints.
Stations of the Cross PowerPoint Downloads
1. Stations of the Cross PowerPoint Template
2. Stations of the Cross Prayer Reflection
Use this reflection to bring your students near to the fire—figuratively and literally—listening to accusations and denials. Allow them to enter into the dialogue. Pause longer on the italic lines. Say:
Enter into this space.
Relax.
Quiet down.
Breathe in.
Hold.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Hold.
Breathe out.
Be still.
Relax.
Let all your worries fly away.
Breathe in.
Hold.
Breathe out.
It is cold.
Someone has built a large open fire to keep warm.
You are standing next to the fire.
A lot of people do the same.
Your mind is exploding with thoughts.
Your friend, Jesus, was just arrested.
You and his followers came to this place where he is being kept.
The crowd is restless, hostile even.
What is it like to be in this place?
How are you feeling?
A woman glances over at Peter, a close friend of Jesus.
Stares at him.
She points at him.
She whispers something to the woman next to her.
She knows who Peter is.
What if she knows you are?
Are you safe?
She walks over to Peter, her friend behind her.
She says, “You are one of his followers.”
Peter jumps to his feet and denies it, “No, I am not..”
Watch his expression.
Watch her reaction.
“Yes you are,” she continues.
“I have seen you with that man they call Jesus.”
Peter responds, “I am afraid you are mistaken.”
Look at Peter’s face.
“Yes you are,” she continues.
“I have seen you with the man they call Jesus.”
Peter responds, “I am afraid you are mistaken.”
Look at Peter’s face.
She replies, “No, I am not, it is you.”
“No,” Peter says sternly, “Now get away from me.”
He shoves her aside and walks away.
A rooster crows.
You look at Peter, stopped in his tracks.
He also heard the rooster.
You remember Jesus’ words at dinner.
Jesus predicted that Peter would deny him three times before the rooster crowed.
None of you, including Peter, thought that it could ever happen.
Peter is one of Jesus’ closest confidants.
What are terrible night this has been.
Let your mind replay the scene of Peter’s denial.
Walk over to Peter.
Sit with him.
List to Peter as he tells you how he feels.
He asks if you ever did something like this.
Answer him.
It is time to reenter this space.
Say good-bye for now.
Ask Jesus to lead your way into the rest of the day.
Say thank you.
Come back gently.
Open your eyes.
Remember.
Sit up.
I must confess up front that I love using RSS Feeds to access theology resources and any other kind of interest I have. It has virtually replaced the need to bookmark a website. Now that websites are dynamic with blogs, newsfeeds, podcasts, videos, twitter feeds, etc., I get instant notification when a website is updated.
Many of you are reading this in an RSS feed reader. Some of you are getting it by e-mail. Others are reading it on our actual website. Today I want to introduce teachers to using RSS Feedreaders to get access to quality resources and ideas for their theology instruction. If students aren't familiar with RSS, these tips would work just as well for them.
What is RSS?
RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication." It refers to "feeds" that aggregate frequently updated websites such as blogs, news headlines, and podcasts. The RSS feed icon is seen everywhere on the web to notify web visitors that they can follow the site's updates using and RSS feed reader. You can find a good explanation for RSS at CommonCraft.com: RSS in Plain English.
How do you follow websites?
Ten years ago, I had a mountain of bookmarks in my web browser that I would sift through to find the sites I visited often for resources and ideas. A few years later I discovered Google and just Googled the names of sites I liked to visit. Today, I rely on RSS and e-mail to update me when a website has something new. It saves time and energy and helps me organize what is most important to me on the web.
Four RSS Benefits Teachers
Real-time updates from news websites.
Get teaching ideas from blogs like Ave Maria Press Engaging Faith.
Follow your favorite interests and hobbies to catch a break during your planning period or lunch.
Get content sent to you rather than going out to find it.
Subscribe to Engaging Faith in Google Reader
There are many feed readers out there including Google Reader, My Yahoo, Netvibes, NewsGator, Outlook, etc. My personal preference is Google Reader. First, you need to set up a Google account, if you don't already have one. Then, you can customize your Google Reader to get updates to this and other blogs, news websites, and more.
How to Create a Google Account Video
TeacherTube has a nice short video on how to create a google account. Check that out here:
Or view it on YouTube.
How to Add a Blog to Google Reader
Can't see it? Check it out here: How to Add a Blog or News RSS Feed to Google Reader.
Subscribing to a blog is easy. In fact, you can subscribe to this one, by getting its feed here.
Take some time with your class to allow prayer and reflection on four courses of forgiveness: forgiveness of self, others, enemies, and reconciliation with God. If possible, seat the students in a comfortable setting away from their desks. Tell them to open a prayer journal for writing. When everyone is settled, follow these steps:
We Forgive Ourselves
1. Call on a good reader to read the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Lk 18:9-14).
2. In a journal, have them finish this sentence: "O God, be merciful to me a sinner for . . .
3. Allow a few minutes for writing. Then choose a reader to pray:
Dear God,
Have mercy on us in your goodness;
in the greatness of your compassion wipe out our offenses.
Thoroughly wash us from our guilt and of our sins.
Amen.
We Forgive Others
1. Tell the students to thin about friends, family members, classmates, acquaintances, merchants, etc. whom they are called to forgive. Tell them to write the initials of these people in their journals under the heading "I Forgive You."
2. Next, tell them to draw a symbol for peace to represent their efforts to reconcile with the persons whose initials they have written.
3. To symbolize their promise, have the students get up and share a sign of peace with their classmates. Say:
Jesus said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained."
The peace of the Lord be with you always.
Let us offer each other the sign of peace.
We Forgive Our Enemies
1. Ask the students to recall a recent experience in which they needed to forgive someone who had hurt them or offended them. Tell them to write briefly about the situation and the results. Tell them they will be asked to share what they wrote with a partner.
2. Allow time for sharing with partners.
3. Call on two or three volunteers to share their experience with the entire group.
4. Choose a student to lead this prayer:
All-holy Father,
you have shown us your mercy
and made us a new creation in the likeness of your Son.
Make us living signs of your love for the whole world to see.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
We Reconcile with God
1. Play a recording of a song that praises God's glory.
2. Choose a reader to read aloud the Parable of the Lost Sheep (Lk 15:1-7).
3. Ask the students to write a prayer expressing thankfulness for all of God's gifts, his blessings of mercy, compassion, and forgiveness.
In this week's edition of Ave Maria Press tech tips, we explore a tool that is used over 400 million times per day. In the five minute video below, we share 10 Google search tips for students and teachers to use while doing research on the Web.
Keep in mind this is only the basic search function in Google and doesn't even illustrate the excellent educational ways that Google Maps, Google Images, Google Video, Google Blogs, Google News, Google Scholar, etc. can be used as well.
10 Google Search Tips for Students and Teachers
Can't see the video? Check it out here.
The Ten Google Search Tips in the Video:
Quotation marks (" ") — Show only the webpages that include the exact search words in the sequence in which they were entered
Minus/Hyphen (-) — Excludes all webpages that have that word in it
Tilde (~) — Includes results that contain synonyms of the word
Asterisk (*) — Fills in the blank for words you can't remember in a series.
Ellipses (...) — Returns only the search results that mention the years or numbers at both ends of the ellipses (1990...2000)
define: — Provides the definitions of a word from dictionary sites
OR: — Returns results that have either word on the page, but not just both
site: — Searches a specific website for keywords.
related: — Searches for websites similar to a site included in the search query
Ctrl+F or Command+F — Though not a Google-specific function, you can search for a word in the search results by using this keyboard shortcut.
Google Search Educator Resource:
Google for Educators: http://www.google.com/educators/p_websearch.html.
