Christmas Eve Mass

This year our class was invited to participate in the Christmas Eve Mass as part of the Gospel. We had 10 kids from our class participate and a handful of siblings filled in the extra parts at the last minute.

Everyone did such a fabulous job and we had a great response from the congregation. People love to see the kids participating in the Mass.

A Reading from the Holy Gospel According to Luke.


In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustusthat the whole world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment,when Quirinius was governor of Syria.
So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town.

And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David,to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

While they were there, the time came for her to have her child,and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger,because there was no room for them in the inn.

And the great new star that had been following the couple stopped and came to rest over the place where the child was born.

Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock.The angel of the Lord appeared to thema nd the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were struck with great fear. The angel said to them,

You have nothing to fear, I come to bring you good News.
You have nothing to fear, I bring tidings of great joy,
which shall be shared with by all people.
You have nothing to fear, You have nothing to fear.
This Day in the City of David a Child is born, a Savior, the Messiah and Lord.
Let this be a sign to you: the Babe will lie in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes

And suddenly there was with the angels a multitude of the heavenly hostpraising God and singing:

Glory to God in highest heaven, Glory to God in the Highest; And on earth, Peace to those whom he favors. You have nothing to fear; you have nothing to fear.
When the angels went away from them to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go, then to Bethlehem to see this thing that has taken place,which the Lord has made known to us.”

So they went in haste and found Mary and Joseph,and the infant lying in the manger.When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child.All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds.

And Mary kept all these things,reflecting on them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them.
Here is a video of their part in the Gospel (or click here to go right to YouTube):

Great Job!

December 4 and Advent Mass

At class on December 4th we spent most of the class talking about Christmas. We discussed that it was coming up on the 2nd week of advent, but we would be talking about Christmas in class because it was our last class before the new year.

As always, we began the class with a prayer around our prayer table.

After that, we did a reading of the nativity story (you can see it on the video below)...

and then we colored pieces to the Nativity scene and glued them on a paper. We drew in Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus and retold the story as we did so.

After that, we discussed all of the people that are involved in making all of the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Masses possible at church. Everything from decorations to music to the priest and the altar servers. Each child thought of someone they wanted to write a thank you note to to let them know their hard work is appreciated. Everyone took a lot of time and put a lot of thought into their notes. Ms. Stephanie delivered them to the church mailboxes right after class.

Homework:

-Spend time working on your Reconciliation Book

-Attend Mass on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day

Did you know?

Because Christmas falls on a Saturday this year, there will be regular weekend Masses on Sunday. Attending Mass on Christmas Eve/Day doesn't "count" for Sunday! If you come to 9:15 on December 26th, you will see Ms. Stephanie there!

On December 11th we had our advent Religious Ed Mass. It was a great opportunity to gather all of the Religious Ed families together to celebrate Mass. Our class sang a song for the congregation in celebration of Jesus coming to us on Christmas. This song reminded us and everyone that Jesus is the light of our world.



Don't Forget!

To register your child for A Night in Bethlehem on December 21st 5:30-8:30! Click on the link to print off a registration form.

*Tip you can click on the videos to see them in a larger size on YouTube.

Advent

We had a very busy class this week at Religious Ed!

We began our class by gathering around the prayer table and thanking God for how lucky we are for all of the things he has brought us in our lives. Then we prayed for people in our lives who need extra prayers.



We talked about Advent this week because the first Sunday in Advent is Sunday, November 28th. Next week! We learned that Advent is a time of preparing for Christmas. We each made an advent wreath in class to bring home and "light" each week during Advent. We learned about the meaning of each candle and brought home a sheet with a prayer to say each week as we are lighting the candles.



After that, we had a visitor come to talk to us! Sister Marianne came to talk to us about Advent and about preparing for Christmas. She showed us a special advent wreath and read us a book about the story of Jesus' birth. We learned that the third candle on the Advent wreath is pink to remind us that we are *almost* there! It is almost the time to celebrate Jesus' birth!

While reading the story, we learned that Jesus was laid in a manger. Sr. Marianne gave us a good idea we could use at home. She said that if we have a manger at home, every time during Advent that we do a good deed, we can add a piece of straw. By the time Christmas comes, our good deeds will have made a wonderful place for baby Jesus to sleep!

We also decorated little blue squares of paper with Thanksgiving wishes for the family who is going to receive the Thanksgiving food we brought to class. We were very excited and honored to be able to bring something to help a family have a Thanksgiving meal who might not have otherwise. We brought up our food and gathered around the boxes. Then we read our notes aloud and taped them onto the box.

Homework:

-Page 120 (end of the Chapter on Advent. Discuss the Chapter as a family).

-Continue to review your First Eucharist and Reconciliation books

-Work with your child to pick our a toy for a child who may not receive toys otherwise and bring it to class December 4th.

-Don't forget to bring back the form regarding participating in the Christmas Eve enactment.

Have a wonderful and family filled Thanksgiving!

Make sure to take some time to thank God for everything you have been given.

Chapter 3

We had a very busy class this week!

We started off by collecting bulletins/song sheets for attendance at Mass and also for homework. This week we had a record number of stickers on both charts!

The kids were very excited to share about going to church and especially seeing each other at the Masses on the 30 and 31st.

After that we had a fire drill and then a guest speaker from the Archdiocese to talk to us about vocation in the Catholic church. We learned about listening to the call of Jesus in our hearts. We prayed together to invite Jesus into our hearts and invite him to be part of our lives.


We studied Chapter 3 this week and learned about the 7 sacraments. We made a Sacrament book where we drew pictures for each sacrament to represent what it means to the person receiving that sacrament. Take some time this week to look at your child's sacrament book and ask him/her about the meaning of the pictures. Miss Stacy and I were very impressed with the quality of the work and the effort our students were putting into their drawings.

We also spent time talking about our Thanksgiving project. We talked about things we are thankful for and I was very impressed and moved by the things the kids listed on their own:

-family

-friends

-house

-school to go to

-toys because not everyone has them

-pets

-parents having jobs

It also led us into a discussion about when people don't have some of these things and what we can do to help them. We realized that even if we can't do anything else, we can pray for people who need our help. We learned that some families don't even have enough money to buy food to have a Thanksgiving dinner. This can even be families in our own community. We each picked out something to bring to class next week to contribute to make a whole Thanksgiving dinner for a family who may not have had one otherwise. The kids got to choose themselves what they wanted to bring.

In addition, included in our note is a an explanation of our Christmas project. We didn't discuss it in class yet, we will do so on November 20th.

Homework
-Pages 40 and 41 Chapter 3 Assessment

-Go to Mass and bring the bulletin or song sheet

-Bring an item for our Thanksgiving collection (if you are unable to for ANY reason, please call the office or contact me and I will make other arrangements for that item)

Have a great week!

All Saints Day and Prayer

Today at Religious Ed we celebrated All Saint Day and learned about prayer.

We spent the first part of class sharing our Saint projects. Ms. Stephanie started by doing her presentation about St. Catherine of Sienna. After her presentation, we all took turns sharing about the saint we researched. We learned quite a bit from each other and even made connections between different saints. We learned that St. Joseph was Jesus' father and his wife's (Mary's) sister was in the room too as St. Elizabeth! Then we learned that St. Elizabeth was the mother of John the Baptist, who baptized Jesus!

After we were all done, we did Chapter 24 about Prayer. We learned the importance of prayer and that prayer includes talking and listening to God. During one of our presentations we even learned that Saint Samthann taught that you can pray "standing, sitting, or laying down".

Other things we learned about prayer:
-You can pray by yourself or in a group.
-When we gather for Mass on Sunday, we are gathering to pray together and this is very powerful.
-You can pray standing, sitting, or laying down.
-You can pray to thank God .
-You can pray to ask for help.
-You can pray to ask for forgiveness
-You can pray any time

We also made prayer cards. We drew a picture of ourselves praying on one side and we have the Our Father on the other side.

All of us with our prayer cards

We brought our prayer cards to the gym with us and we are going to use them every week when we pray the Our Father together at our closing prayer time.

In the gym, several of us volunteered to help lead the whole Religious Ed group in praying the Our Father.

The rest of us prayed together from our seats

Here is a slideshow of all of us doing our presentations

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Here is a video from YouTube of Ms. Stephanie's favorite version of the Litany of the Saints

Homework:

-Attend Mass this weekend in your Saint costume to present your saint certificate and receive a blessing and religious ed commitment. Bring a song sheet or bulletin to class to get a sticker!

-Chapter review for Chapter 24.

-Write 4 prayers on the sheet we passed out in class. If you were not able to make it to class, email me and I can send you a copy to print out.

Chapters 9 and 10

This week we focused on Chapters 9 and 10 to follow up on the movie we watched last week about the Ten Commandments.

We began the day with prayer around our prayer table. We prayed that God be with us as we learn about what Jesus taught. We also prayed for people in our lives that are in special need of God's care.

4 kids helped us pray at the beginning of Chapter 9

We talked about following rules and laws. We realized that there are all kinds of rules and laws that we follow every day. They can be small such as: "Make your bed" and "Put your homework in your folder" to bigger ones such as "Do not steal" and "Do not kill".

We also learned that God gave us "free will". We have the ability to make choices, both bad and good. We talked about the choices that we face every day. Just like laws, they can be small such as "Cheerios or Lucky Charms?" to more important "Should I join in teasing the boy in my class or stand up for him?"

Make sure to take the time to talk about these choices with your child when they come up in your every day life. Make note of laws and rules as well as choices. Talking about choices and the various consequences is a great opportunity to have open lines of communication with your child.

We were also reminded that God loves everybody and will forgive everybody if they ask.

Working on a crossword puzzle.

Praying at the beginning of Chapter 10

We read the story of the "Prodigal Son" right from the Bible and talked about the choices both sons made as well as the forgiveness of the father. We cut out pictures of the story and sequenced them in order. Then we wrote notes under the pictures about what is happening in each picture. Make sure to go over this story with your child and have him/her retell you the story.

Here is the vocabulary we talked about this week:

Homework:

-Assessment at the end of Chapter 9 (88, 89, 90)

-All Saints Day project. See the post from last week for details. All students will present their research about their saint for a few minutes. Everyone should dress up like their saint. Make sure your child practices at home so he/she is comfortable with the information.

-Attend Mass on Saturday, October 30 or Sunday October 31 to receive a blessing and process in wearing your saint attire.

Please let me know if you have ANY questions regarding the project.

We Honor Mary and the Saints

This week in class we watched a movie about the 10 Commandments called "The Original Top 10". The movie is about two boys who are competing to learn about the "Original Top 10". As they encounter various experiences, each one has a moral and we learned about the 10 Commandments. After the movie, the class was able to remember ALL 10!

There are the 10 Commandments that we learned about and talked about. We will delve more deeply into the 10 Commandments at our next class.

On Saturday we also learned about Mary and many different Saints. We started talking about what some of the saints did and why they and Mary are important to us. This got us ready to talk about our Saint Project. (More info about the Saint Project below)

Here is a video of us praying the Hail Mary at the end of class.

Homework:
-3 pages (assessment and share with my family) at the end of Chapter 25 (We Honor Mary and the Saints)
-Attend Mass October 3, October 10, October 17-bring a bulletin or song sheet so your child can get his/her stickers for attending Mass. Everyone was excited this week to talk about seeing each other at Mass!

Saint Project:
Due October 30
-Everyone at class on Saturday received a certificate with their name and a saint who has the same name. If there is not a saint with the same name, we picked the saint whose feast day is on your child's birthday. If your child would like a different saint, you can pick a saint with the same middle name as your child.
-As a family, you should research your child's saint and discover important facts and stories about that saint. You should decorate the certificate with stories, pictures, or facts about the saint.
-On October 30th, every child will present a brief presentation about his/her saint. Make sure you practice this at home!
-Your child should come to class representing his/her saint either in full costume or wearing something that represents the saint.
-This is a neat project that teaches us about many wonderful saints and gets us learning with our families!

Please contact me with any questions!
Really good saint website:
Saint Website

If your child did not attend class on Saturday to get his/her certificate, you can make your own with the saint's name written on the top of the page and your child's first name written underneath.

Copy of the Parent Letter:

Dear Parents/Guardians,

For All Saints Day, we are going to participate in a special activity.

Your child is coming home today with a certificate with his/her Saint Name or Birthday Saint. Families are asked to work together to research each child’s saint and display the information learned on the certificate. This can be done through notes, drawings, photographs, or stories.

As you research your child’s saint, you are encouraged to develop a costume for your child that represents his/her saint. It can be as simple as the colors that saint wears or more complex if you are creative! Your child is asked to wear his/her costume to class on October 30.

Please have your child bring his/her saint certificate to the RE class on October 30, where the students will share what they learned about their saint with the class. It would be a good idea for you to practice the presentation with your child so he/she is comfortable when it comes time to share. The certificates will also be on display in the Hospitality Room during All Saints weekend.

In addition, the weekend of October 30/31, we will be blessing all of the religious ed students. We invite you to have your child wear his/her saint’s costume to Mass. They are invited to meet in the back before the gifts (communion) is brought up (during the intercessions) to process in as a large group.

Chapter 2 and Ordinary Time

This week during class we did Chapter 2 and the Chapter 7 (Ordinary Time).

In Chapter two we heard the story of Pentecost. We read the story from our children's Bible and then we did an activity. We cut apart the parts of the story and then put them in order again. We had to think of the last part of the story ourselves.

-Early one Sunday morning the disciples were together in one place.
-The disciples went out into the street.
-The disciples heard a noise like a strong wind.
-They saw what looked like flames of fire over each of them.

For the last one our answers varied:
-Peter told the crowd what happened.
-All the people understood in their own language.
-Thousands of people were baptized that day

Cutting apart the sentences

Trying to put them in the right order

Trying to figure it out!

At the end of Chapter 2, we reviewed the 4 main vocabulary words that we learned. Then we went around the room asking our peers what the words meant and writing down their answers.

The four words we learned were:

disciples-the followers of Jesus

apostles-the 12 leaders from the disciples

Resurrection-Jesus rising from the dead

Church-the community of believers

Housekeeping

-Mostly everyone who came to class on Saturday brought in their completed homework! Everyone who did so got a sticker. If you missed class, you can show me homework at the beginning of the next class you attend to get a sticker.

-Only one person remembered their bulletin or song sheet to show that they went to Mass. Don't forget your bulletin or song sheet to get a sticker for going to Mass! Part of class is attending Mass every week. You can attend any Mass during the weekend! You will, however, most often find me at 9:15 and the 9:15 Mass has Children's Liturgy of the Word (where the kids go downstairs to learn about the Liturgy of the Word in their terms).

Homework

-Chapter 2 assessment-pages 32, 33, and 34

First Day of Class

We had a very successful first day of second grade Religious Ed class on Saturday!

We started class by gathering around our prayer table. We prayed together and anyone who had a specific person they wanted to pray for shared with the class.

On our prayer table we have a Bible, a rosary, a cross and a (LED) candle.

We got our books and our folders (that we will bring every week) and wrote our names on them. We read the first few pages in our book to learn about our book and the different parts. Then we did Chapter 1.

Three kids in our class led us in the prayer at the beginning of Chapter 1.

As we went through Chapter 1, we wrote down notes about the important things we learned.

These are the sticker charts we will be using to chart homework completion and mass attendance.

**Housekeeping Notes**

Please remember that you will need to park and come inside the gym at 11:00 for dismissal. The kids will stay sitting until you have checked in with me. I will mark each child off as he/she is picked up. This will go faster each week as I learn everybody's faces!

After you send back the permission forms, I will be able to post pictures up close of the kids as they lead us in prayer and in role playing activities. Right now I have only group pictures posted.

Homework

-go on the Sadlier We Believe website (link to the right) and complete an activity

-page 16 at the beginning of the book (review with family)

-pages 24, 25, 26 (page 24 is the assessment of the chapter we completed and pages 25 and 26 are to be shared with the family)

-attend Mass and bring a song sheet OR bulletin to class

**Notes about the homework**

There will be homework every time we have class, however, it should not take much time. There will be a chapter review for every chapter we complete that is only 5 questions. The other pages are to be done as a family so your child can share with his/her family what he/she learned in class.

We had a great first day of class and look forward to seeing you again next week!