Curriculum Review: New City Catechism created by The Gospel Coalition

New City Catechism Sunday School Curriculum Review

 & Adapted use for my local church proposal 

Price   Curriculum: Retail $90  Westminster Bookstore $58,  Amazon today: 58, CBD $50 

 Books for students:  Retail: $1.99  CBD $1.49 per book

Created by: The Gospel Coalition Edited by: Melanie Lacy              Published by Crossway.

Publisher Description:

The New City Catechism Curriculum features fifty-two engaging lessons developed from the questions and answers of The New City Catechism, designed to help children ages 8–11 learn the core doctrines of the Christian faith in a Sunday school, classroom, or homeschool setting. Each lesson includes three different outlines for 30-, 45-, or 75-minute sessions, a Bible passage and memory verse, a list of suggested materials, detailed instructions for activities, suggested prayers, and activity pages available for digital download—all created so that teachers can help children better understand the truth of God's Word and how it connects to their lives. The New City Catechism Curriculum is available as a boxed kit, containing lessons divided across three volumes, a resource book, and four copies of The New City Catechism for Kids.

Kit includes:

• 3 lesson volumes containing detailed outlines for a variety of settings.
• 1 resource book containing graphics and activity pages needed for the lessons. Also available as free digital downloads with purchase of a kit.
• 4 copies of The New City Catechism for Kids, a simplified version of The New City Catechism. Additional copies of this are also sold separately.

The kit is: 4 books. The orange, blue, and green are the LEADER or TEACHER guides. Purple is handouts/resources, and there are 4 small student books. 

Orange has the lessons on questions 1-20, blue is questions 21-35, Green is questions 36-52, the backs of the TG have the questions covered in that book for easy access. The lesson plans are so easy to follow, adjust, and know the content, each lesson has a suggested memory verse, big idea. aim, virtue, and bible passage cover page. Each TG book has the same intro written by the editor- a short sweet explanation of what a catechism is, the goals of this curriculum, and the goals of delivery with management types included (engage, connect, nurture heart application, how to pray and prepare), The lessons engage higher-level thinking and real-life application. 

Purple is the resource book to make copies of handouts, posters for lessons (also if purchased you can access the purple book content online.) It also contains 4 tiny and cute student books- which are just the 52 questions and answers. 

Student books: We are thinking we will have our students write down the concepts, passage, and key learning connected to the Bible study (teaching time) for each question.

We only have a 30 minute time slot and each part of the three guides gives a time limit with each activity- and suggested ways to use the curriculum in 30, 45, or 75 minutes- which is great.

I love that the main learning is to open your bibles, read one passage together, and then a brief vocabulary, concept, examples by a teacher, then discussion and activity suggestions to really learn the material, and connections to life virtues if you are living out this concept.  (we won’t likely have a lot of time for virtue connections) We will focus it as a weekly concept and Bible passage to learn and read together.  The teacher will prepare by planning how to read the passage together, what vocabulary needs to be explained, discussed, etc. (and the guides seem to do this well.) And will lead the large group in reading the passage together and briefly teach the content. 

I hope to pilot it this year with our grades 3/4/5 class. It seems solid theological curriculum and we will adapt to our needs by focusing on the content and concepts over memorization of the questions and answers in our short teaching/learning time. I think it will be easy to prepare from, and personalize to the teacher’s delivery style, and then focus 10-15 minutes on small group discussion.  We will allow parents to choose the memorization piece at home.  

My plan for the time: (will change with actually experience and input from our people)

 10:30-10:40 am singing (or start class with small group review as parents check in?)

 10:40 review/open with prayer

 10:45-11 am Teacher leads the large group through the Bible passage, shares the Q/A. 

 11:00-11:05 Students write the passage and key word definitions in their small book or notebook? Or we give stickers to place in? (but writing reaches their brains better.) 

 11:05-11:20 am (we should encourage parents to get their youngest children first and oldest children last.)  Small Group discussion time.  4^th grade boys, 5^th grade boys, 4/5 girls. 

 

Because Catechism is a liturgical word, could be a trigger- or make us seem too ‘high church’, we think we would call this the New City Curriculum, and here’s a draft of what we might give parents/teachers to describe it as:

 A one/two year curriculum where we are taking big theological concepts and letting our upper elementary students study the doctrine and what it means from the Word of God by taking one bible passage each week and discussing the key concepts it teaches, and thinking about how this applies in life.  

 Each week will feature doctrines that build on one another like: eternity, trinity, God, glorifying God, the law, sin, redemption, the Redeemer, Jesus Christ, His death, faith, salvation, Holy Spirit, Baptism, Lord’s Supper, Word of God.  

 The curriculum is organized as the traditional reformed churches catechism, but our emphasis will not be on memorizing Q & A, our emphasis will be on studying these key concepts from the Bible, and being sure that our children grasp the vocabulary, concepts, and teaching from key passages in the Bible.  We will review the concepts, not the Q & A. 

 

If approved as a curriculum, I plan to start a model of taking the curriculum and adapting it to focus more on thinking/learning than memorizing.   That would be built as a review document for the discussion leaders and would share the key learning to write in each student book. (or stick in).  But it's almost all in the curriculum- so I just need to be sure our teachers have the goal in mind. 

 I also want a scope/sequence list with the Question, the answer, the passage, the key concepts, etc.  So you have an overview in a few pages of the full scope and plan.   

 I have not yet read every part of every lesson/activity.  But here are some observations:

 ·       It seems very neutral, straight forward introductory level concepts that would build a solid foundation of key vocab, concepts, and doctrine.  And the aim is to help children grasp the life concepts of faith.

·       Example big ideas:

·       Those who have been redeemed by Christ have the confident hope of spending eternity with the triune God free from sin.   (q52)

·       When we pray, our attitude mattes (q39)

·       Example aims:

·       To help children anticipate eternal life confidently (q52)

·       To help the children consider how what we know about God should influence the attitude with which we pray (q39) 

 

So the parts of the curriculum we would use:  (and I think it’s understood that we choose curriculum for the outcomes to teach, and we trust our teachers to pick/choose the activities to deliver the content and teach the concepts.)

•  TG: Intro page with:  question, answer, Big Idea, Aim, Memory Verse, and Virtue listed.
• Student q & a books- to add the content learned.
• Teacher would read the whole lesson and choose how to use the 15 minute teaching time. (but the curriculum has a teaching outline for 15 minutes already done and they seem well done and the discussion/question time is prepared as  5 minute time, but there are activities to include as well.)
•  Teacher or curriculum support would create a teaching point note page with:
•   discussion or activity plans for small group,
• what to write in the student books (passage, vocab or aim/big idea- copied or rephrased)
• what to review

Pros:

• Bible study for our students- with thinking and talking expected of all students.
• Simple preparation, but solid teaching concepts/doctrine.
• Curriculum is designed for 30 minutes or 45 minutes- our other curriculum is designed for 60-75 minutes.
• Clear big idea stated, clear aim, key passage. (direct, easy to follow, and what will be accomplished in one day’s lesson- in CDG the aims/outcomes spiral, but a list of 10ish is presented with most lessons, so our teachers have to figure out which one-three to cover in one class, and how to build/review.)
• Will meet the needs and levels of ALL our kids- as some our of families are very biblically literate and some of our families choose us because we teach the Word of God, but the children will be able to: be exposed to a concept- and if it’s new- that’s expected. If it’s not new- reading the passage and the discussion can expand to the child’s knowledge, wonders, and questions.
• Systematic- we can choose which topics to cover, and the depths- but if we are designing a plan to create biblically literate children this seems like a great systematic approach to build in.  

Cons: 

• Catechism (could be a trigger- and if followed directly the curriculum expects each q & a to be memorized, so if our plan isn’t clearly communicated, our teachers could emphasize the true catechism and memorizing the q/a)
• Memory verse for each week, but not time to really emphasize this aspect or learn in class, even hear all the students recite the next week.
• No one has read all the teaching outlines. 
• Virtue visions- not time for, but they seem interesting and fun, perhaps could be shared with parents to discuss at home (making it a pro?)