St Nicholas Visit

Fantastic Faith Dec. 12

3rd Sunday in Advent

Dear Parents,

Today your child listened to a simplified version of  John 1:19-28.

Symbol:  Scalloped shell

To reinforce at home:  Today we discussed staying on the path to Jesus' coming.  We talked about John the Baptist and how he told people about the coming of Jesus.  The scallop shell symbolizes two things:  the Sacrament of Baptism and John the Baptist. Today we explored the relationship of John the Baptist and Jesus.  John the Baptist helps us remember that Jesus is coming.

We also noticed that Advent is almost over.  Jesus is almost here!  This is the joyful Sunday in Advent marked by the pink candle in your Advent wreath.

We discussed again the things we need to do to keep trying to stay close to God during this Advent season.

Activities to do at home:  
*Jesus is coming!  Choose a quiet prayer time together each day to ask God to show you what your job is for that day.

*Share Jesus' love: With your child think of a person who might be lonely and go together to do something for that person.  You could run some small errands, or perhaps just drop in to share some cookies.

http://kvanatta.wix.com/catholicchildrensliturgy#!currentplans/c1ios
http://www.pflaum.com/readings/

Looking Ahead to the week of Dec 15

Click HERE to view Looking Ahead to the week of Dec. 15

Happy Thanksgiving, Secret Santa

The collage on the left shows our centers last week.  1. Paint corn cobs with a Q-tip.  2. practice spelling sight words with the iPads. 3. Spell consonant vowel consonant words with letter beads then write the same word on a dry erase board. 4. Unscramble a sentence and draw a picture to go with it.  Then write around the room.

5.I spy alphabet letters (not pictured)

The collage on the left shows some of the kids Secret Santa shopping with our buddies. The kids had so much fun shopping!  

                                           

We read the story The Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey.  Amazon has the following to say about the book...In this story, Pilkey adapts Clement Moore's Christmas poem to tell his wacky Thanksgiving tale. The day before Thanksgiving, eight boys and girls take a field trip to a turkey farm. They have fun playing with eight turkeys but are shocked to learn that Farmer Mack Nuggett plans to kill all the turkeys for Thanksgiving dinners. So the children decide to smuggle all the turkeys home, and all their Thanksgiving dinners become vegetarian this year. The turkeys' lives are saved!
                                                   
After reading this story the kids filled out a paper from kinderalphabet.com that said Don't Eat Turkey!  Eat More.... They had to decide what food to eat instead of turkey.

                

Sammy P. wanted to eat more raspberry ice cream.  Ethan wanted to eat more Macaroni and Cheese.  Luke wanted to eat more french toast.  Ava G.  wanted to eat more Spaghettios.

I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving holiday with your families!  

Looking ahead to the week of Dec. 1

Click HERE to view Looking Ahead to the week of Dec. 1

Fantastic Faith 11-21

Objective: : God judges us on how we live.

Symbol: Crown

To Reinforce at home:

The children listened to the Gospel reading from Matthew 25:31-46.

In this Sunday’s Gospel Jesus says that when he comes again he will judge us on how well we have loved and served other people. In loving and serving others, we love and serve Jesus.

God uses the image of a shepherd to help the people understand how much he loves us.  Sheep were the livelihood of the people who lived in biblical times.  A family’s survival often rested on the safety and health of their sheep.  Shepherds were to care for the sheep at all costs. God cares for us in the same way.

 In Matthew, we heard about the judgment day when the good and the bad people will be separated from each other. The major point of the passage is to point out the things that the “saved” people had done: fed the hungry, clothed the naked, gave comfort to the sad.  These are called Works of Mercy. The Works having to do with taking care of physical needs of people are called Corporal Works of Mercy.  Those having to do with filling spiritual needs are called Spiritual Works of Mercy.

Activities to do at home:

           

            *Whatever we do for others, we do for Jesus!  Together with your child, think of someone who needs your help.

         

            *Feed the hungry!  Buy a food item to donate to your local food pantry.

            *Clothe the naked!  Go through your family’s clothing and pull out the ones you no longer need.  Donate them to a shelter for the homeless or abused.

            *Comfort the sorrowing!  Donate your old paperback books to a local nursing home or prison.

http://www.pflaumweeklies.com/new_page/teaching_guides/english/promise4.pdf 
http://kvanatta.wix.com/catholicchildrensliturgy Copyright 2014 Kay Vanatta

Veterans Day, Then and Now, Native Americans, Turkey Tango

We began the week discussing Veteran's Day.

We read from our Lets Find Out Scholastic issue and watched a short video. Then we each wrote a thank you card and made a construction paper soldier to hold our notes.  This craftivity and our cards will be sent to a soldier currently serving. 

We then discussed then and now.  We read a book and sorted many items into then and now categories. 

We made turkeys in art.

On Thursday and Friday, we learned about the Native American Wampanoag tribe.  The kids designed the shirt that they will wear to our Thanksgiving Lunch in the Cafeteria next Thursday.

We ended our week on a fun note.
Mrs. Kolp invited us to her classroom to learn the Turkey Tango.

Fantastic Faith Nov. 14

Objective: God gives us talents.

Symbol: Talent

To Reinforce at home:

This Sunday the last Sunday in Ordinary Time this year.  Next week we celebrate the feast of Christ the King and the end of our liturgical year. 

In Matthew, we hear another parable describing the kingdom of heaven.  We hear about the faithful servant who increased his master’s money.  We compared the money left in the servant’s care to the talents and gifts that God gave each of us.  We talked about our responsibility to use those gifts to make the world a better place.

Activities to do at home:

*Make a list!  What are the things your child likes to do?  Take those talents and find concrete things your child can do to help make the world a better place. An artist might like to draw a picture to send to someone who is sick, a talker might like to visit that person.  A child who likes to shop might like to help you find sale items of food and clothing to donate to those in need.  

*Make up a prayer!  Make up a prayer to say each morning this week asking Jesus to stay in your heart all day and help you be close to him.

http://kvanatta.wix.com/catholicchildrensliturgy Copyright 2014 Kay Vanatta

http://www.pflaumweeklies.com/new_page/teaching_guides/english/promise4.pdf 

Looking Ahead to the Week of Nov. 17

Click HERE to view Looking Ahead to the week of Nov. 17

Centers

We learned about hibernation and migration.  

We finished the week listening to this book by Karma Wilson. We cut out pictures of the characters and retold the story.  We also discussed real and fantasy.

The following pictures are some of our centers from last week.

Take a look at our rainy day Thursday recess.

Fantastic Faith Nov. 7th

Today we discussed the Gospel for the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome.  The children listened to a simplified version of the Gospel from Luke 19:1-10.

Objective: Jesus gathers us to pray.
Symbol: church

To Reinforce at home:

Today we talked about two things. We reviewed some of the early history of the church. The building of St John Lateran in Rome by Emperor Constantine marked the end of persecution for Christians. 

We reminded the children that we are all temples for Jesus, that he lives in our hearts.   When Jesus comes into our hearts, we are changed – just as when the Lateran Basilica was built, the world was changed.

Activities to do at home:

*Find a picture of the Lateran Basilica in Rome.  Together with your child, write a prayer for the Pope and all Catholics in the world.

*Your child is a living temple of Jesus.  Together with your child think of ways that you can show others that you have Jesus in your heart.

http://kvanatta.wix.com/catholicchildrensliturgy Copyright 2014 Kay Vanatta

http://www.pflaumweeklies.com/new_page/teaching_guides/english/promise4.pdf

Looking Ahead to the Week of Nov. 10-14

Click HERE to view Looking Ahead to Nov.10

November Sharing

Click HERE to view the November Sharing Calendar

Happy Halloween!

Our week began with a visit from Nurse Johnson.  She talked to us about Halloween Safety.
We learned the following:
Have a costume that is fire retardant.
Take a flashlight with you.
Go trick or treating with an adult.
Go to a house with a porch light on.
Wait to eat your candy until an adult has checked it.

The kids looked at pictures and told what made the costume good or bad.


Thanks to all the parents that helped with our Halloween party.  Many thanks to the party captain Mrs. Orsini.  The kids had a great time.  Our stations were:  Spider Oreo cookies, pipe cleaner spiders,  Bingo, memory and creepy crawly corn search, and pumpkin rolling and jumping.

Pumpkin Fun, Spanish Colors

We had fun exploring our class pumpkin.  We estimated the circumference with a piece of string. Three of our kindergarten friends guessed just right. We estimated the height with unifix cubes.  Our pumpkin was 17 unifix cubes high.  We estimated the weight.  It was 18 pounds.  Then we had to draw things that would weigh more or less. We thought that a pumpkin would sink.  We found instead that it floated because of the hollow center.  Our final activity was to count the seeds.  We put 10 seeds on a plate and then counted by 10's.  Our pumpkin had 397 seeds!

Senora Protz visited our classroom on Friday.  She talked to the kids about color words in Spanish.

Fantastic Faith Oct. 17

Today we discussed the Gospel for the twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time.  The children listened to a simplified version of the Gospel from Matthew 22:15-21.

Objective: by baptism we belong to God's family
Symbol: #1

To Reinforce at home:
In Sunday's Gospel Jesus teaches that there are two great commandments:  Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.

In Matthew, we hear the story of the priests who tried to trick Jesus into criticizing the Roman Emperor.  Jesus tells the priests to give the Emperor what is the Emperor’s and to give to God what is God’s. 

From this story, Jesus wants us to learn that we can love God and love our country too.  We belong to our church, school and our country. When God is Number 1 in our lives, all of our other priorities and obligations fall where they belong.

           

Activities to do at home:

*Pray about it!  Together with your child, make up a prayer to say each morning this week to help remind you who is Number 1 in your lives..

http://kvanatta.wix.com/catholicchildrensliturgy Copyright 2014 Kay Vanatta

http://www.pflaumweeklies.com/new_page/teaching_guides/english/promise4.pdf

Fantastic Faith Oct. 24

Today we discussed the Gospel for the thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time.  The children listened to a simplified version of the Gospel from Matthew 22:34-40

Objective: Jesus' great commandment of love.
Symbol: 10 commandments tablet

To Reinforce at Home:
In Sunday's Gospel, they asked Jesus to pick the most important Commandment.  Remember that God gave Moses 10 commandments – rules to live by.  All the Commandments are important.  Jesus explained what the Commandments really meant:  they are given in two groups, the first 3 tell us how to honor and love God, the last 7 tell us how to honor and love God’s children (which includes ourselves!)

Activities to do at Home:

*Love others as you love yourself!  Sometimes we forget the SELF part.  We can give ourselves love without being selfish (and hurting others)  Do something special this week to honor and love yourselves.


http://kvanatta.wix.com/catholicchildrensliturgy Copyright 2014 Kay Vanatta

http://www.pflaumweeklies.com/new_page/teaching_guides/english/promise4.pdf

Looking Ahead Oct. 27

Click here to see Looking ahead to Oct. 27

Looking Ahead Oct. 20

Click here to see Looking Ahead to Oct. 20

Leaf Exploration

We enjoyed learning about leaves.  The pictures show some of our leaf exploration.  We used a magnifying glass, blew them, threw them up in the air, dropped them, measured them with unifix cubes, spiders, and paper clips, 

Fantastic Faith Oct. 10th

Today we discussed the Gospel for the twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time.  The children listened to a simplified version of the Gospel from Matthew 22:1-10.

Objective: to recognize that jesus invites all people to belong to the family of God..
Symbol: Birthday Cake

To Reinforce at Home:
In Sunday's Gospel Jesus tells us about a king who keeps inviting guests for his son's wedding feast until he fills the hall.  We discussed the desire of the king to share his happiness with everyone.  It was explained that the king is like Jesus's Father,who wants to people to belong to the family of God and keeps inviting more and more guests.  This was used to build on the children's experiences of birthday celebrations to help them realize that Jesus invites all people to belong to the family of God.

Activities to do at Home:

*Have a party!  together with your child, plan a celebrations for your family.  Make invitations for each family member.  Tell them why you want them to come to the party.

*Discuss it together! Talk about how you would feel if someone refused to come to your party.  God feels the same way about us.  God wants us to be with Him.


http://kvanatta.wix.com/catholicchildrensliturgy Copyright 2014 Kay Vanatta

http://www.pflaumweeklies.com/new_page/teaching_guides/english/promise4.pdf