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Religious Plays, Skits and Role Playing in CCD

Acting out Lessons in Catholic Religious Education Class

Oct 21, 2008

Religious plays, skits and role playing can make a dramatic difference in a Catholic religious education class.

Religious plays, skits and role playing are a fun way to drive home a CCD lesson. If seeing is believing, then doing is even better. When children see something acted out, they tend to remember it much better than if hearing or reading the same lesson. If they are the ones acting it out, the lesson is reinforced even more powerfully.

Any religious education lesson can be turned into a skit, a play or a dramatic presentation.

Impromptu Children’s Skits

Having children get up and act out a lesson after it’s been taught is a great way to reinforce the lesson and encourage students to take what they’ve learned, interpret it, symbolize it, and present it.

After finishing a lesson, a CCD teacher can suggest that any number of students get up in front of the class and act out what they just heard. For instance, after reading the Bible story of the Good Samaritan, ask four random students to act out the story, assigning the roles of the victim, the Samaritan, and several unresponsive passers-by.

If a CCD teacher assigns role playing and impromptu skits and play regularly, children will get over their stage fright and be more willing to get up and act out lessons.

It helps for a teacher to keep impromptu skits very casual, laugh at mistakes and let the children act completely without planning and rehearsals. In this way, children will learn to go out on a limb and try new things without worrying about criticism from the teacher and the audience.

Plays and Christian Drama

Presenting a more involved play or dramatic presentation may require more work and time. A play demonstrating the theme of your CCD year is a great way to end the year. Putting on a class play is an effective and rewarding team-building experience for all age children.

Some tips on putting on Christian plays:

Start early and pass out scripts with each player’s lines highlighted for them, so they can easily practice their lines at home.
Set aside rehearsal time in class, plus encourage children to practice their lines at home with a parent or siblings.
Encourage students to memorize their lines instead of reading them. Children have a phenomenal ability to memorize. If they are skeptical about their ability to memorize lines, do an early run-through without scripts and see how well they do.
Keep scenery and costumes simple and symbolic. Trying to recreate a realistic scene is time consuming and takes away from the children’s performance.
Get parents involved to help with costumes, scenery, video taping, programs and stage direction.

Modern Bible Stories

Nothing drives a lesson home like a modern version. Jesus did it with the Parables, and Catholic educators can do it, too, by taking Bible stories and turning them into modern tales that kids today can relate to.

It’s not difficult for a CCD teacher to write up a quick play, tailor-made for her class and their ages and abilities.

Christian book stores and online resources offer a variety of books with modern Bible story skits and plays. Bob Snook, a Christian writer, offers free religious skits on his Christian Skits Web site.

The copyright of the article Religious Plays, Skits and Role Playing in CCD in Catholicism is owned by Diane Laney Fitzpatrick. Permission to republish Religious Plays, Skits and Role Playing in CCD in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.