Page 8 - First Reconciliation
P. 8
I Belong to a Loving Community
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First Reconciliation 1, page 1, 5 minutes
Find the heart-shaped sticker.
Place it here.
On Monday Damian chose his cousin Nick as a buddy at swimming. He stayed in the shallow end of the pool with him.
“Maybe I’ll learn to swim this week,” Nick said to Damian. “I learned to float today.”
Once Matt waved and Damian swam to the deep end to see him. They counted to three, dived in, and raced to the rope in the middle of the pool.
Which actions include Nick? What actions leave Nick out?
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in Jesus
First Reconciliation 1 esus
Objective
The children will appreciate that they belong to a loving community.
The Trouble With Three Friends
Damian was using Matt’s road- grader. He pushed it around the huge figure-eight-shaped road he and Matt had made in their sandbox. The sandbox sat in Damian’s backyard between his house and Matt’s. Each friend had built a big castle in one loop of the figure eight.
“When is your cousin coming?” asked Matt. Matt was hauling rocks up to his castle with Damian’s truck.
“Sunday,” said Damian. “And I have to take him along all the time.”
“But next week we have swimming and day camp and puppets at the library,” said Matt.
What is the boys’ problem?
a. Ask if it’s easier to do something with two other friends or with just one other friend. Encourage volunteers to suggest briefly what can go wrong when three are together. Explain that the three children in today’s story have a problem.
1. Introduce the theme of this first lesson by having the children find and apply the sticker that goes at the top right of page 1. Invite them to observe and explain what they see in the sticker—a heart, children, the words “I belong to a loving community.”
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2. Help the children connect the visuals of the sticker with the cross symbol in the color band at the top of the page. Show the children the cover of your Reconciliation Teaching Guide. The cross is the symbol of Jesus’ love for us, giving his life for us.
Three Friends
First Reconciliation 1, pages 1-2, 15 minutes
Objectives
The children will distinguish loving from unloving actions.
The children will distinguish actions that bring people together from those that leave people out.
b. Introduce the characters in the story by pointing them out in your copy of Lesson 1. Explain that Matt and Damian are best friends and that Nick is Damian’s cousin from another town. Distribute the copies of Lesson 1.
Have the children look at the first page and identify the boys in the drawing. Read aloud the first five paragraphs, read the question, and ask the children what they think the title might mean.
1. Introduce the story problem by asking the children if they have special friends and what they like to do together. Ask: What happens when there are more than two friends playing at a time?
y cousin Nick is coming for two weeks,” Damian said to his best friend, Matt.
The Trouble With
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