Dr. Pat's Orthodox Super Sunday School Curriculum

CHURCH SCHOOL

THE LIFE OF JESUS – THE GOSPELS

Middle School

This file is provided as a resource for Church School directors. Feel free to plug in your own dates and your own teachers.

TEACHERS:  

GENERAL NOTES

Classroom supplies: Middle School is supplied with the following items in a box you can carry each week to your classroom; if you use the last of something, please either replace it or let me know so I can replace it.  If you need special supplies for your lesson, just submit the receipt to me for reimbursement:

            Paper, plain and lined.                        Tape and dispenser

            Stapler and staples                              Scissors

            Colored Sharpies                                 Maps of Holy Land

            Pencils                                                 Large black marker and large pad of paper

            Bible for each student                         Set of color icons for 12 major feasts

Teaching Schedule: We all know that there will be last-minute needs; trade with someone if you cannot teach on your assigned day and let the director know!

Insurance: Each of us must “apply” each year for our volunteer position of teacher. Please be sure not to send small children to the bathroom unattended and accompany your charges back to the Social Hall after class.

Opening Exercises: The Church School director will supervise this time, or delegate it when she is absent. Church School children and teachers are dismissed first from Liturgy; children come straight across for snack during opening exercises. These are an integral part of the curriculum – reviewing material from previous weeks, presenting additional Old Testament characters, rehearsing plays, hearing memory work, and playing quiz games.

Curriculum: Each of the classes is studying the same material on the same day; therefore the theme of the lesson should be adhered to. However, the actual lesson plan, including Bible reading, discussion, and game for learning the material are open to your own creativity. The class will, through the year, work each week on their own time line of the life of Jesus – adding the scene from the lesson in question with sharpies on their own piece of wallpaper border. Remember to look up the dates of the various events; there will be some spaces and some events crowded together. The first date is BC (Nativity of Theotokos) and the last date is Pentecost. The Bibles have a nice time line to help with placement. In other years, we have worked on a massive wall time line mural of the life of Jesus, with one scene added each week, and, in another facility, that might be a wonderful idea.

Hand-Outs: Feel free to use the puzzles from the Parents' Guide as take homes to reinforce and supplement your lesson.

Movie Nights and Parties: We will have dinner after vespers on Saturday night while showing a small children’s movie. Some nights we’ll also have an overnight with a feature film for the older children; this will be announced in advance. We have several of our usual parties planned: All Saint’s, 3 Kings, Easter Egg Hunt, and, this year, the St. Nicholas Festival. All are invited; please bring friends for an outreach opportunity.