Coming back to school after Christmas always means one thing in my 8th grade religion class: time to start planning Catholic Schools Week. Each year the 8th grade classes plan and prepare all the activities for the school during Catholic Schools Week, which this year is from January 27th to January 31st. Our school approaches this week the way many schools approach a Spirit Week- lots of fun activities and assemblies and chances to wear themed “free dress” (aka not uniforms).
The first thing we establish during our planning sessions is how we will embrace the theme. Some years we focus more on the theme for the week, which this year is Learn Serve Lead Succeed, and other years we focus on the daily themes. These themes are parish, community, students, nation, vocations, and faculty, staff and volunteers. Once we’ve picked our themes, students break into teams to plan the activities for each theme. The 8th graders also host a door decorating contest with prizes in many different categories. You can see our doors from the last several years in the posts Catholic Schools Week: Door Decorating Contest and Amazing Catholic Schools Week Doors Part 1.
For ideas about how to plan actvities for the various themes suggested by NCEA, check out these posts:
Community
Students
Nation
Coming soon: some ideas for each of the words in the theme of the week: Learn, Serve, Lead, Succeed. Also, stay tuned for this year’s guest blogger series about why families are choosing to send their children to Catholic schools.
