A Day in Bethlehem

Saturday afternoon we had a fabulous Day In Bethlehem. Families came with their children to visit Mary and Joseph and the new baby Jesus, make crafts, bake bread, play the dreidel game, and make a keepsake ornament. Everyone had a great time!

You can see our pictures here:

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Ten Commandments and Christmas Caroling

At class on Saturday, we reviewed Chapter 7 (The Ten Commandments). We talked about making choices between right and wrong. We talked about sin and how there are really big sins that break our friendship with God (mortal sins) and smaller sins that hurt our friendship with God (venial sins). We talked about each of the Commandments and how they apply to us. I suggest you read Chapter 7 and go through the chart and talk about them as a family. We had a great discussion in class about this! 

At the end of class all of the other classes joined us and we sang Christmas carols together. We also "lit" the third Advent candle. It was a great experience to all come together and sing Christmas songs!

I especially enjoyed the enthusiastic rendition of "Happy Birthday Jesus". I got chills listening to it afterwards!

Check us out singing in the video below:

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Homework:

NONE! Merry Christmas!

Helping Children Deal with Tragedy

Reposted from my classroom blog:

http://missstephaniesclass.blogspot.com/2012/12/helping-children-deal-with-tragedy.html

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In light of the events of Friday, please visit Miss Erin's blog here 

http://misserinsclass.blogspot.com/2012/12/helping-children-cope-with-tragedy.htmlto check out some links that can help parents talk to young children when tragedy hits.

There are some other links here: http://www.naeyc.org/content/coping-school-shooting

This article gives some specific examples of what you can say to children when they ask about what happened or why the adults are sad:http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/family/2012/12/elementary_school_shooting_how_to_talk_to_your_kids_about_the_connecticut.html

One of the most important things is to limit what young children see on the TV. It is hard for young children to understand what they see and hear and we don't know how they rationalize it in their heads. 

Also, though we want to share information with kids, make sure what you share is developmentally appropriate. Your children of different ages may need to be told different things. You may want to warn older siblings to watch what they say to younger siblings. 

My thoughts and prayers are with all those touched by Friday's tragedy. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you and your families.

All Saints Day

On October 27th, we presented our Saint Projects to the class. Most of of dressed up like our saints! We learned a lot of good information from one another. After each presentation, we asked A LOT of good questions about the saints. Some we had to look up the answers to, some were able to be answered right away. You can see a tidbit of information about each of the saints below. Ms. Stephanie took notes about what we presented. 

Homework: the chapter review for Chapter 3!

Our whole class

Ms. Reema, Ms. Stephanie, Miss Theresa

Things that we learned from our classmates' presentations

-St. Juan Diego: The first Indian State

-St. Matthew: tax collector, wrote a gospel, preached

-St. Nathalan-Bishop in Scotland, performed miracles during a famine

-St. Gemma: loved prayer, good students, helped the poor, died in 1903

-St. Asella-lived in a cell in Rome, spent most of her time praying and receiving psalms

-St. Alexandra: killed by her husband because she was a Christian, she stood up for beliefs

-St. Matthew: 1 of the 12 apostles, tax collector, wrote the first Gospel

-St. Bridget: from Ireland, gave food and clothing to the poor, loved and devoted to God, didn't want to get married, became a nun, very sweet girl

-St. Angela Merici: Saw her sister after she died, her sister told her to find other girls who also waned to help people, made order of Ursulines, helped sick people and educated girls

-Holy Ghost: A spiritual gift, is wisdom, healing knowledge, symbol is fire, came to Jesus' friends when Jesus went to Heaven

-St. Mary Magdalene: Jesus' disciple, most important female disciple, Jesus cleansed her, she was present at cross after disciples left, first person to see Jesus after he rose from the dead, sent away from where she was living and landed in France, spent rest of her life in a cave, angels brought her Eucharist daily

-St. Catherine of Siena: First vision of Christ when she was 6 years old, helped poor people, she died in Rome and when the people of Siena tried to sneak her head out in a bag, the guards only found roses, back in Siena they only found her head again

-St. Theresa: gave her life to God, what matters in life is not great deeds but great love, she loved flowers

-St. Raphael of Brooklyn: Bishop of Brooklyn, built 29 parishes in the area

-St. Mary Mother of God: Visited by archangel Gabriel to tell her she would become mother of Jesus, after Joseph's death she depended on Jesus, she was devoted to him, followed her son, stood near the cross when he died

-St. Benedict: died while praying, beliefs and instruction are known as Rules of St. Benedict

-St. Adela: youngest daughter of William the Conqueror  educated, deeply religious, spoke several languages, god married and had 11 children, heroine of first crusade, rules estates as husband was away

-St. David: Welsh Bishop, founded monastery, good example as spiritual leader

-St. Peter: Worked at multiple churches, use to be fisherman, one of 12 apostles  can open all doors, he was at last summer, he was first apostle to perform miracles in the name of the lord

-St. Jeremy: He and 4 friends were slaves, tortured because they were Christian

-St. Blessed Charles the Good: son of King of Denmark, kind to poor, shared food, made sure food prices were affordable

-St. Didacus: born from poor parents, helped poor, lived hermit life, helped sick by making sign of cross, saint because spent life serving God

-St. Catherine Alexandria: changed to Catholic, defended faith when asked if she still believed in God, she refused to betray God when when she was put to death

-St. Maria of Goretti: Maria was attacked, she forgave her attacker as she was dying and her attacker begged her mom for forgiveness

-St. Jessica: from Joanna, one of the women helped protect Jesus, one o f 3 women who discovered empty tomb

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Saints and Heroes

This week in class we focused on Chapter 3. 

We talked about heroes in our lives such as firefighters, our parents, police officers, doctors, soldiers, and teachers. We took the time to write letters to a real life hero that we know. PLEASE make sure your child is able to deliver his/her letter to the real life hero your child wrote to. We talked about heroes showing they are heroes by being brave and having courage even when they are afraid. 

Writing notes to our heores

We had dress up clothes on our tables to help inspire us to think of different heroes!

In our book we read the story of the Good Samaritan. We learned that in the story, the Good Samaritan was  probably scared because most people didn't like people from Samaria. But when he saw the injured man on the side of the road, he just couldn't pass him up. He stopped to take care of him, even though he knew people wouldn't like him. 

We made finger puppets to help us retell the story.

Retelling the story with finger puppets

You can watch a YouTube retelling of the story here:

We learned about some Saints that are also heroes. We talked about different things that one could do to be considered a hero. Can you think of anything?

We also drew pictures and wrote about heroes that we are going to hang up at church.

Homework:

-Tell your family the Good Samaritan story with finger puppets

-nothing from the book because of the Saint Project

-Complete Saint Project and be ready to present to the class on Saturday. Everyone should dress up!

9-29 Class Baptism

This week we did Chapter 2. 

Before we got going with class, we took care of housekeeping. MOST of the class did their homework from last week! We reviewed ways to check on the homework in case you can't remember what it is such as: checking the website or looking at the circle pages or post-it flags in the book. We also collected bulletins and song sheets for those who attended Mass last weekend. One classmate lost his bulletin, but Mom wrote a note about attending Mass. That was a great idea!

We began by praying around the Prayer Table and asking for special intentions for those in our lives who need extra prayer.

The next several pictures will show you the mobiles we made. We talked about being God's people and we drew pictures of people in our lives that are important to us. Some of us drew pictures and some of us wrote names depending on what was more comfortable for us. 

Chapter 2 was about Baptism. We talked about our own baptisms and some of us shared stories we have heard about our baptisms. Take a moment this week to talk to your child about his/her bapstism. Find some photos if you can and talk about the special day. 

We learned there are 4 important symbols at a baptism
water-to symbolize cleansing our sins away
oil-symbolizes the Holy Spirit
white clothes-symbolizes purity
candle-represents the light of Christ in our lives

When you look at your baptism photos, keep an eye out for those 4 things!

We learned that with baptism we entered in as members of the Church.

After learning about baptisms, we acted one out. We came up with ideas of who would be there such as: parents, godparents, grandparents, and a priest!

We followed along with the book and acted our a baptism.

(The garbage can was the baptismal font)

Pouring "water" over the baby's head

Rubbing oil on the baby

Making the sign of the cross

Giving the godparents a candle lit from the Easter Candle

Proud Parents with their baby

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Our closing prayer

Homework:

Chapter 2 review: pages 33 and 34

Preparation for Chapter 3: pages 45 and 46

Attend Mass and bring a bulletin or song sheet to class from each week

First Day of Class

We had a super first day of second year religious ed today! This year the class make ups are a little different. We have second graders and third graders that are all making their First Communion this year. 

Mrs. Barb (the DRE) came to visit us. We learned she is like the "principal" of Religious Ed

We worked together to set up our prayer table. We added a green table cloth for Ordinary Time. We learned that the church has seasons, but they aren't fall, winter, spring, summer, like we are used to! Right now we are in the season of Ordinary Time and the color for that is green. We see green in the church and the priest wears green. All of us helped come up with ideas of things to put on the prayer table. What we have: candle (because Jesus is the light of the world), cross (because Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins), rosary (to help us pray), Bible, and even a picture of Jesus. Someone had the idea to put a picture of Jesus, and even though Ms. Stephanie and Ms. Reema hadn't planned to use one, they found one in their supplies!

We all gathered around the table to pray for a good year of Religious Ed, to ask God to help us learn, and we also had a chance to ask for special prayers for people in our lives who need them. After each prayer request we said, "Lord, hear our prayer."

After that, we made nametags with our name and we drew two pictures of things that represent us. We shared them with the class. Ms. Stephanie drew a book because she LOVES to read and a pumpkin because she grows pumpkins and sells them at Halloween. Ms. Reema drew a book because she LOVES to read too and a craft table because she loves to do crafts. 

We are going to "grow in the spirit" this year, so we wrote names of people that are important to us, that can help us grow, on a flower and cut it out. Some of us wanted to finish coloring and took them home. But we need to bring them back! Ms. Stephanie took our photos and they are going to go in the middle and hang around the room.

We went through Chapter 1 in our books today. We talked about different communities that we are a part of such as: family, school, soccer, cheerleading, guitar, church. We all brainstormed was to be part of our family, neighborhood, and church communities. 

In our books, we read a story about Levi welcoming Jesus to dinner. We read another story about a young boy named Tommy who moved into a new neighborhood and how some people were caring and welcoming towards him. In our books we drew ways we can be caring and welcoming such as: bringing food, saying hi, inviting him to play, bringing clothes, teaching him about the neighborhood, etc.

At the end of class, we reviewed what we learned for the day. We learned that if we ever miss a class, we can still do the homework because Ms. Stephanie posts it right here on the website! We also learned that we are going to have a sticker chart for attending Mass and for doing our homework!

Homework:

-read the parent letter

-sign up for the Remind101 Text Messaging for Miss Stephanie AND Mrs. Barb

-fill out slip with email addresses and return next week

-Go on the BlestAreWe website and do an activity

-Do homework in the book with the post-it flags: 33, 34, 35, 36

4 pages may seem like a lot of homework, but don't worry! It won't take more than a few minutes to go through it together. A lot of it just just a quick review of what we did. The next two pages are preparing you to talk as a family about the chapters we will cover next week! I believe that YOU, the family, are just as important in the religious education process as me, the teacher!