Each session meets once per week. When registering, please pick just one day per child.

Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is a full year program that runs September through May. Class fees are $100 per student for families without a weekly volunteer, and $50 per student for families with a weekly volunteer. Our catechists are unpaid (but highly trained) volunteers and their children attend for free! If you would like to become a catechist, contact Julia at hovingjulia@gmail.com.

Care for the children of the catechist(s) and room moms who are younger and/or older than Atrium age. They will be younger than 3 and may be older than 9. The children must be supervised at all times, so please make sure that is happening.

1. Please arrive at the Atrium ten minutes early, each and every week. The catechist and room moms will need that time to get ready for the Atrium session, so you will need to be ready to care for their children ten minutes before each session begins.
2. There are toys in the closet in room 2, which you may pull out before Atrium begins and put away at the end.
3. There is to be no running, no yelling, and no climbing on furniture of any kind in the nursery or anywhere in the parish center. This applies before, during and after Atrium session times. Please take authority in the nursery, make sure the kids understand these rules from the very first day, and enforce this consistently.
4. You may allow snacks in the nursery if you are willing to make sure they get cleaned up. For example, you may choose to outlaw the more crumbly snacks like graham crackers, in order to minimize vacuuming needs.
5. If you decide to allow the children to write on the chalkboards or dry-erase boards, you are responsible for getting them washed (chalkboards) or wiped off (dry-erase). The children can do this with supervision if they are old enough.
6. Do not allow anyone to play or even walk behind the partition. That area is off-limits to the kids.
7. If a child is removed from the Atrium to the nursery for inappropriate behavior, you are responsible to make sure that child does NOT use this time as playtime, rather that he/she stays in a time-out until either he is retrieved  by the catechist, or the end of Atrium time arrives. You may want to use a time-out chair, placed in a very boring spot in the room.
8. Cleanup responsibilities (you can divide these however you see fit; sometimes the room moms or catechists will be able to help, but the final responsibility is yours):
   1. Clean the floors of the nursery, rooms 1 & 2 and rooms 3 & 4 if they were also used. This can be done with the sweeper or with the vacuum, whichever is necessary.
   2. Take out trash from all three rooms, and from both bathrooms.
   3. Check toilets in both bathrooms to make sure they are all flushed.

Classroom Aid Volunteer

1. Your main duties are to assist the catechist and children in the Atrium, during your CGS session each week.
2. Please arrive at the Atrium ten minutes early, each and every week.
3. Speak very quietly in the Atrium – just above a whisper. The Atrium is a place that is sacred and so we speak quietly so as to respect the work and prayer of others.
4. No food or drink in Atrium. NO NUTS at all.
5. Please keep socializing to a minimum:) For the most part, please use the time prior to and after class for non-essential questions and/or small talk.
6. How to assist the catechist during presentation & prayer time, also during work time:
   1. Help the catechist to call a particular group of children quietly to circle or to presentation area, or guide a child to a work if he/she needs guidance.
   2. If a child is misbehaving (talking out of turn, touching materials during presentation, goofing around with friends)
      1. Go and sit next to him/ her.
      2. Quietly remind child: “how do we sit at the circle/ work quietly?”
      3. Switch child’s location to avoid influence of friends
      4. Remove child to hallway for short time-out. “You’re not ready to be in the Atrium right now.”
      5. Remove child to nursery for longer time-out/ balance of Atrium session.
      6. Most work in the Atrium is meant for one child only. Enforce this when a group of two or more children gets out of hand: “This work is for only one person. Let’s go find another work that you can do right now, and you can have a turn with this one when so-and-so is done with it.”
   3. When a catechist is presenting to a selected group of children, help the other children to remain with their work instead of watching the presentation. If they’re not invited to it, then it’s not meant for them at that time.
   4. Frequently the catechist will need you to go and get something for her: candle, lighter, matches, glue sticks, white paper, etc. Please familiarize yourself with the storage closet in room 1 so that you will be able to assist in this way, and please make yourself available by asking if you can help her with anything.
7. Some things you can do for the children to assist their work:  
   1. Offer to read a booklet to a child who is working with a narrative or parable material.
   2. Help the children to stick to working with materials which have already been presented to them. “Have you seen this work presented yet? Remember, we only work with things we’ve seen presented.”
   3. Light candles on altar when requested, and stay until child extinguishes them.
   4. Altar work: ask child to name this or that item, or ask if he/she can find the paten, chalice, etc. Only do this if child isn’t engrossed in the Altar work on his/her own. Never disturb a child who is working in a concentrated manner.
   5. Present a material, modeling the way you have seen it presented.
   6. Guide an aimless child to a work, if he/ she is open to it. Sometimes a child will want to just sit and watch, or pray, or think, and that’s fine.
8. Help children who need to go to the bathroom by walking them there, then remaining outside of the bathroom with the door propped open until the child is done.
9. Straighten the shelves & check over materials each week towards the end of the session, or after it has ended. If something needs refilling, repairing, or replacing, try to do it if you can. If something is broken, make note of it on the clipboard in the closet. If something is missing, try to find it or find a replacement and if you can’t, then notify the catechist. If this is done well at the end of each Atrium session, it will minimize the need for room moms to run and fetch things during Atrium. 
10. After the children have departed, use Clorox wipes to clean & disinfect any area that you can wipe easily: tabletops, tops of bookshelves, doorknobs, altar & ambo, gestures items and area. Also please clean the sink area with Clorox wipes (start with paper towels if necessary!)
11. OBSERVE the child and PRAY for him/ her. You can keep notes on your observations during the session. The catechist will be eager to hear your observations & insights, after the Atrium session has ended.

We ask that children entering the level I atrium be three years old by Sept. 1. This is the new state cut off date, so parents will be familiar with it in other school contexts. Parents are frequently eager to get their almost three year old started in the atrium, and that is great! However, after years of experience, we have found that children do better to wait. They will still have the opportunity to experience three full years in the atrium with the added advantage of then being the appropriate age to move on to level II when the time comes.

We understand that this can be a struggle! We ask that incoming three year olds be able to be potty-independant for the span of two hours (their time in the atrium), OR that a parent is available on-site to help the child. Part of our ‘Safe Children’/ VIRTUS training is that no adult can be alone in private with a child. It is our policy to make sure children get to and from the bathroom safely. The main door to the bathroom is propped open, but we do not enter a stall. We can verbally help children from outside the stall, remind them to wash hands etc. We can even help them button once they are outside, but we can’t be responsible for more personal help than that, including diaper changes. You know your child’s readiness best 🙂