Unit Activity

Identify basic rights that all people including children, should have: life, family, shelter, food, etc. Ask the young people to identify responsibilities they have that accompany these rights.

Background Article

Unit Activity

A worker’s wage is credited not as a gift, but as something due.
Romans 4:4

Background Article

Unit Activity

Have participants select one school day during the coming week to keep track of items that make up their own lunch. Have them list the items and how each could be reused or recycled (e.g., reuse lunch bag, take home apple core for composting, recycle juice/milk box, plastic, paper). During follow-up discussion, find out how many actually did reuse or recycle their lunch items. Discuss the experience.

Unit Activity

Discuss the immigrant experience of the Holy Family as they fled Bethlehem for Egypt to live among strangers until it was safe to return to their homeland. Compare their experience with that of a refugee family from another country fleeing to the United States to seek asylum. Have participants role-play the two experiences, or share their reflections through a poem or in a drawing.

Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick reminds us:

Unit Activity

Many children today are becoming involved in helping to care for the environment. Have the children in your group brainstorm a list of things that fifth graders can do to help care for God’s gift of Creation. Some suggestions are tuning off lights after leaving a room; tending a garden; recycling aluminum, plastic, and paper products; giving old toys and games to a younger sibling, cousin, or neighbor; composting leaves; not littering.) Have the children report back on their progress.

Unit Activity

Invite a member of your parish’s “Respect Life Committee” to a session. In advance, work with the children to create questions to ask this person, such as:

• How is our parish involved in respect life issues?
• What is our parish doing to help end abortion?
• What are some ways fifth graders can help promote a Culture of Life?

Be sure to send a thank-you note to your guest. Also, encourage the children to share with their families what they learned in this session.

Unit Activity

Assign each child to make an “inventory” of all the things he or she has at home that are not necessities. Clarify that food, clothing, and shelter are necessities of life for everyone. Have them list all the games, toys, and electronic devices they have. Instruct them to be thorough in their search.

Unit Activity

Put the names of all the children in a bowl. Each child draws a name and is to make a “medal” to honor the child whose name he or she draws. This medal should identify some inner quality the child possesses, not for external appearance or physical talent.

You may want to put on the board a sample list of possible “inner qualities,” such as: truthful, kind, humorous, generous, patient, helpful, sensitive, forgiving, loyal, honest, courageous, gentle, and thoughtful.