Little things mean a lot

"You're going to fire me," she told him, shamefaced. She had tried to have religious-ed students illustrate the "Footprints" poem by making plaster footprints of their own, but now, "there are plaster of Paris footprints I can't get off all over the parking lot!"

Thankfully, the deacon laughed off the mishap, and Mrs. O'Rourke kept her job. But the footprints were just one activity students tried:

* During a Vacation Bible School this summer, for instance, leaders showed kids the story of David and Goliath, then Mrs. O'Rourke videotaped them acting out the story -- complete with a tiny David "slaying" Goliath with a Nerf ball. The students were so excited that they watched the tape every day for a week.

* One sixth-grade teacher likes her students to learn aspects of the Catholic faith they may not learn elsewhere, so she begins each of her classes with a decade of the Rosary.

* Students also made "St. Therese good deed beads." St. Therese, the Little Flower, used a string of beads to keep track of her good deeds, pushing one bead over a knot in the string for each deed. The children made theirs with plastic beads, and "a lot of the kids still wear them," Mrs. O'Rourke remarked. "They see me at Mass on Sunday and hold them up and say, `See, I've done two!'"

* It's a tradition at St. Therese's for younger students to make "cocoons" during Lent, sealing a promise to God inside a roll of tape and paper, and leaving the basket of promises in the church under a sign reading, "Butterflies Under Construction." Older students make butterflies, and at the Easter vigil, the cocoons are replaced with butterflies. Mrs. O'Rourke said some younger children become convinced Jesus turned their cocoons into butterflies.

(KB)

(09-13-01)