Thanks to one of our creative catechists for sharing how she introduced October’s topic to her 4th graders.  We’re sharing it here because this technique would be a great way to introduce other topics and to maintain an ongoing discussion.  You can see her classroom notes here (The Holy Bible).

Students directions:

1.  Fold a piece of paper into 2 parts – the long way.
2.  On the left side record: “What I Notice”
3.  On the right side record: “What I Wonder” ???
4.  Now look through your Bible and write or draw pictures of things you notice or wonder about the Bible.

After a few moments ask a few students to share an “I Notice” or an “I Wonder” to help others get the idea of what to write.   One student said, “There are a lot of words in the Bible!” How true! We added it to our class chart. (Class chart was set up the same as the student chart.) Another student wondered, “Will God’s Kingdom ever end?” We added that to our chart. Then give the class some more time to explore, record and think about what they see.  After the students seem to be done with their work (about 5-10 minutes), ask students to share their ideas and record them on a class chart.

If need be, ask them some guiding questions such as: Do you know how many parts there are in the Bible? (2- Old Testament/New Testament)
Did you notice the words at the top of the pages? What are they? (the names of the books). How many books are there in the Old Testament? Let them count them.  One student pointed out the table of contents and said that is a good place to count the books….

I just guide the kids through the key points of the lesson and direct them to discover as much as they can on their own.  They love this active involvement! They remember it because they discovered it for themselves.

We will keep out chart and add to it as we discover more things during the year.