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.