Teaching Kids about Baptism

I told you we were teaching the kids about sacraments this summer and doing our own "homeschool Catechism" (our kids go to Public school and we attend a parish that has VERY few English speaking young families).

So here is what we did:

Day 1:

We looked at pictures and "artifacts" from their baptisms.  I had them find the photo albums from the year they were born and they each God their baptismal garments, candles, etc.

So we looked at the pictures and talked about who was there.  What was happening at each point in the pictures etc.  We talked about the parties that we had afterwards etc.

They loved learning that: 1. They were naked when they were baptized, if they fell asleep or cried, how old they were when they were baptized etc.

Day 2:

I asked them to recall the things about about the photos and artifacts that they remembered.  They nailed almost all of them: 

Oil

Water

Clothes

More Oil

Candle

And then I added:

Naming

Godparents

Blessing of parents

We put all of these on a poster paper as they came up with them.  So then we wrote down, next to the word, the meaning of these symbols:

Naming: even though God already knew them and loved them the naming shares them with God's people for the first time.

Oil of the elect

Water- washing new life (we talked about amniotic fluid a bit)

White new clothes- putting on the clothing of Christ

Chrism oil- anointing like kings and queens are when they become rulers and we talked about being annointed "priest prophet and king"

Candle- being a visible blessing for others

Godparents- remind us that we are not alone in our faith life

Blessing of parents at the end reminds us that families are super important places of faith.

That night, at dinner they presented their word and the meanings to Papa.

Day 3:  We took olive oil and chrism essential oils  and made our own Chrism smelling oil.  Then we set up all the tools for baptism: (see list above) and we "played baptism."  I don't have a sacramentary around here so I googled it and got a perfectly accurate ORDO that I printed and followed.

We "baptized" a couple of baby dolls.  Each kiddo played parent and godparent.  Then at dinner they wanted to be "baptized" so we did it again.

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