Vatican Fever or Pope 101

Because I teach in a Catholic School, one of the courses that I teach is Religion. My students are certainly excited about the resignation of Pope Benedict the XVI and the election of a new pope. This week we are having a mini-lesson each day about how one becomes a pope, how the pope is elected, the papal flag, etc. In other words our Religion Class has become POPE 101.

Today we watched a wonderful little video on YouTube about how one becomes a pope. We had a terrific discussion about the hierarchy of the church while introducing two major conceptual vocabulary words: cardinal (and yes, one child did think a cardinal is named that because of the color of the office's garments looking like a cardinal) and conclave.

Next we will visit http://www.catholic-pages.com/pope/election.asp to read the article "How is the Pope elected?" First we will read it together from the projection TV, discussing the key points, then my sixers will need to read it independently while they answer the questions on this worksheet from Teacherweb. I modified it a bit, cleaning up the spacing and directions. You can download it HERE to use if you like.

We will also investigate the papal flag. I created a worksheet of the flag along with some questions about it. My sixers will need to do a bit of research in order to complete it correctly. I supplied them with a web address for a wikipedia article, but I will encourage them to range further for better material. This has been an ongoing lesson in research all year. If you're interested in the papal flag sheet, you can download it for FREE HERE, or by clicking on the link below the pic.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6Q14Z2f7SoAR1N3SWVGYXhQOXc/edit?usp=sharing

Depending how long the conclave lasts, we'll also do some investigating of the Sistine Chapel and the history of a few of the more notable popes.

Happy Teaching,

Angela

The Teacher's Desk 6

teachersdesk@yahoo.com