First off, an apology for not being more regular in writing these updates. Some health/medical issues in my family have caused a great deal of disruption to our normal routine.
On Wednesday, Mrs. Hanzel started he class with a review of last week’s lesson, with a focus on knowing The Lord’s Prayer. Then we stepped outside the normal curriculum to take a look at the Ten Commandments. This subject used to be a part of the 5th grade curriculum, but it dropped out when we switched textbooks a few years ago. However, since these classes produced such engagement and energy, I kept them a part of our curriculum.
We started by telling the story of the Israelites escape from Egypt and how they came the base of Mt. Sinai. We talked about how they were worshiping idols, generally misbehaving and needed a set of rules to live by. We then had the students take turns reading aloud from Exodus Chapter 20, which is the first description of the Commandments.
We distributed a listing of the Commandments that included a chart showing how they are numbered differently in different religions. (Most Protestant churches break up the first three “God Commandments” into four and combine the “covet commandments” into just one.) We pointed out that this is only an issue when you discuss a particular commandment with a Protestant friend. If you are discussing the Fourth Commandment, a Catholic would be talking about “Honor your mother and father,” but the Protestant friend would be talking about keeping holy the Sabbath. We walked our way through the first three Commandments with these key points.
#1 “I am the Lord your God…” We discussed how worshiping statues and other idols was common in the time of Moses. We asked the class to think about false gods in a modern sense. We broke the class into small groups and asked them to brainstorm some things that modern people might place higher than God. They came up with things like money, popularity, music stars, gambling, alcohol abuse, drugs, and even electronic games.
#2 “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of God” We talked about using God’s name improperly. We also pointed out that the early Jewish people took this commandment so far as to give God a name that could not be pronounced. It eventually evolved into Yahweh or Jehovah.
#3 “Keep holy the Sabbath” We discussed why Christians changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, and the requirement to attend Mass on Sunday.
Next week, we will complete our coverage of the last seven Commandments. Either next week or the following week (depending on our progress), we will introduce our favorite exercise of the CCD year, when we ask the class to come up with a set of commandments relevant to modern 5th graders. That is always interesting.