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

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Looking Ahead Oct. 20

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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

Looking Ahead Oct 13

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5 Senses

We began our 5 Senses learning about all five senses.  We sang Dr. Jean's song 5 Senses from her Kiss your Brain CD.  We watched a Brain Pop Jr. video about our senses.

On Tuesday, we learned about our sense of smell.  Mrs Hlay and I gave each table 6 different items to smell.  We put them in a cup and covered the cup with foil so the kids could not use their eyes to see the items.  Then the kids smelled eachcup at a time.  They had to make a hypothesis as to what they thought the item was and tell if they liked the smell or not.  I enjoyed hearing what each thought the item was.  Some of the items were easier to guess than the others!  

On Wednesday, we went on a nature walk around the school and church.  The kids took a paper with them to draw what they saw, heard, touched, smelled and what they should NOT taste.  The second picture shows them sharing their findings with their table partners.

On Thursday, we discussed our sense of touch.  Our nurse Betsy Johnson came to our class to talk to us about proper handwashing.  She sprinkled cinnamon (germs) on each child's hands.  The kids then had to wash their hands properly to remove the germs to be a germ buster!  As they finished up with hand washing I gave each partner a bag.  One partner had to reach in the bag and describe what he/she was feeling to his/her table partner.  Then the table partner would have to reach in the bag and see if he/she could feel that item.

On Friday, We tried out out sense of taste.  The kids had 4 small cups in front of them.  The cups each had a different clear liquid in them.  One was water for them to wash the taste from their mouths. The kids each had 3 Q-tips.  They were to dip the q-tip in cup number 1 and try to decide what the liquid tasted like.  Then they did the same with cup 2 and cup 3.  The liquids were sugar water, salt water, and vinegar.

We had a fun week!  I am looking forward to our activities with leaves.

Fantastic Faith - Gospel Reading for Oct. 5th

Today we discussed the readings for the twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time.  The children listened to simplified versions of two of the same readings you will:  Isaiah 5:1-7 and Matthew 21:33-43.

Symbol:  Grapes

To Reinforce at home:

Today we have readings that clearly tell us that God expects us to listen and obey.  In both Isaiah and Matthew, we hear about vineyards.  In Isaiah, the owner of the vineyard did everything he could to raise a good crop.  The harvest was poor.  The owner then declared that he would destroy the vineyard.

In Matthew, Jesus' parable was about the owner of a vineyard who rented it out in exchange for a portion of the grape harvest.  The renters were dishonest and went to great lengths to cheat the owner of what they owed him.  The owner punished the renters and found some other people to take their place.  God wants us to keep our part of our baptismal promise - to be God's child and obey him.

Activities to do at home:
*Discuss how God cares for them as the owner cared for his vines.

*Go to the grocery store and buy some grapes.  Spend a little time together with your child eating grapes and reviewing the parables that you have heard in the past few week.

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

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

Looking Ahead Oct. 6-Oct. 10

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