Are you looking for a way to keep your students more engaged during Mass? I've got an idea for you. Help teach students the items commonly used during the Mass with a Catholic Mass Items Scavenger Hunt. There are so many different ways to use these three scavenger hunts and the best part is they are FREE for you!
Each year in first grade religious ed we have a chapter that teaches about the Mass. While we know some of our students regularly attend Mass, we also know the reality is many of our students aren't going on a regular basis. We've done different activities to teach them about some of the different items in Mass so that hopefully on Sundays they can look for and identify those items. This year, we are finally teaching in the church (up until this point we were at the school which is on a different campus) so we thought we would try something new to teach about the parts of Mass.
I made two different scavenger hunts for them. Both with items that we might be able to see even if Mass was not going on. We walked through the church reverently and pointed out different objects that they found. We talked about what those items were used for. For the items that we would only see if a Mass was going on, we talked about where they would be located.
Our students had so much fun exploring the church and we encouraged them to take their scavenger hunts to Mass the following Sunday to see if they could identify the rest of the items.
*Note: Paten is spelled incorrectly in these pictures, but has been corrected in the free file sent to you as of 4/12/18
I also made a third scavenger hunt that includes even more specific items that we see during the Liturgy of the Eucharist. These scavenger hunts aren't meant to distract students from what is happening during Mass, but to engage them in what is happening and help them to learn the proper names of the items we use.
These scavenger hunts would also be great for altar server training as they learn the different items they will come in contact with as they serve Mass.
I plan to laminate these and keep them in our church bag so that my daughters (6 and 4) can use a dry erase marker or crayon and reuse them each week during Mass.
Would you like to try these out with your students or your own children? Just enter your information in the form below and they will be automatically emailed to you.