SPRED Safari

Whirlwind Tour - Preparing for the Sacraments

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Sun, 25 May 2008 14:39:00 +0000

We spent all of our April sessions learning more about the Eucharist and preparing to receive the Sacraments of First Confession and First Communion.

Father joined us and helped us learn more about examining our conscience. We reviewed The Ten Commandments together.

In May, when the day came for our First Confession, the nuns came to help us prepare.
We were nervous at first, but we loved adding our clean hearts to the big heart of Jesus.

Our parents came for retreat too. Afterwards, we practiced for our Big Day!

Finally, it was time for our First Communion!

Lots of anticipation as we waited for Mass to start.
Lots of joy as we could see the whole parish was so happy for us!
Lots of relief when it was finished and we could relax and enjoy our reception!
Lots of excitement at the spcecial prints of "The Last Supper" we received to commemorate our day!

Packing Light: I didn't prepare formal lesson plans for this phase of our activity. Here are links to the worksheets and activities we used:

coloring page for understanding worthiness to receive Holy Communion
booklet for examination of conscience using the Ten Commandments as our guide
booklet for reviewing the steps for Confession
note cards to hang on bathroom mirror to remember to learn the Act of Contrition
booklet/coloring page for learning more about the Eucharistic Prayer
"last ditch review" for Reconciliation and Communion

Thanks for joining us for our year. Our 2nd grade safari was a great expedition. Together, we explored and investigated lots of teachings of the Catholic Church. God truly blessed us as we grew in our knowledge and appreciation of our faith and its traditions!

See you next year, have a great summer! Here is a summer saints coloring book to enjoy.

Trip Down Memory Lane - We Receive the Gift of Jesus

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:07:00 +0000

Sunday March 30th was our twenty-fourth session together. This week we covered Unit 4, Chapter 14 "We Receive The Gift of Jesus." In preparing for the session, I established the focus that in the Eucharist, we remember the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus and nourish our union with him. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion, the activities worksheet, and craft activity.

Packing Light: If you just want the activity sheet for this session, you can find it here. It has a coloring activity, word search, crossword and maze activity.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we learned that Pragmatic Tiger, Fair Cheetah, Effusive Jaguar, Sweet Pea Elephant, and Rocking Horse would not be joining us, so we were a small group!

We started by reviewing a little:

Who is Jesus?

"God's son!"

What happened to Him?

"He died on the cross!"

Why did He do that?

(various expressions of 'hmmm' and 'I don't know' and then...) "for us?" (asked Courtly Polar Bear quite timidly)

Absolutely! He did it for us, to save us from our sins. He showed us the greatest love. And he also showed that God has power even over death. How did He do that?

"He rose up again on Easter!" (said Ingenious Giraffe triumphantly)

So then we spent a bit of time talking about the Last Supper, and how Jesus blessed the bread and wine and said "Do this in memory of me."

Why do you think he told them to keep doing that in memory of Him?

"Because He knew He was going to die?" (said Ingenious Giraffe)

That's true, He did. But let me ask you something. What did you have for dinner last night?

(various responses, but all quite confident)

OK, and what did you have for dinner last Saturday night?

(a couple of guesses, but not very confident)

OK, what did you have for lunch last Monday?

(again, a couple of guesses, but not very convincing!)

How about last Friday?

(a nearly unanimous PIZZA!)

And how do you remember that?

Because we ALWAYS have pizza on Fridays at school!

So then we talked about how it was easier to remember about dinner last night because it was more recent - it was close to us. And we could remember Pizza on Fridays because we do it every week. It's easier for us to remember things we do often. That's why when people want to remember something, they might keep a note and make sure to read it, or keep it near them, or make sure to put it where they can see it. So we decided that Jesus asked us to "do this in memory of me" because he wanted us to make sure to remember it and to keep Him close to us where we can see Him.

We talked about how today we still celebrate the Last Supper and the priest blesses the bread and wine too, just like Jesus did. We talked about how we believe that Jesus is present in the bread and the wine after the priest blesses it, and that is how we keep Jesus close to us. We remembered that the bread has many names after it is blessed, like "Holy Communion", or "Eucharist" or "Blessed Sacrament". We remembered that we have talked about Jesus in the bread and wine before, but it is still hard to understand, we decided we would talk about it more next time.

So then, we made little memorial ribbons to help us remember how Jesus blessed the bread and wine. As usual, the children did an amazing job decorating them and then they even wanted to wear them!

We wrapped up the day by making birthday cards for the Pope...

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

If you just have a bit of time, definitely go for the online activity for this chapter at Blest Are We
If you have two-bits of time, check out the "Jesus is always with us" activity on Blest Are We
For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan there are many coloring pages of Psalms

Of Colts and Giraffes

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 01:00:00 +0000

Sunday March 16th was our twenty-third session together. As it was Palm Sunday, the Mass ran longer than usual so the group was delayed in getting together. After a snack and a prayer, the group participated as a whole in a special activity. We talked a bit about Palm Sunday and then we learned how to make a cross from the palm fronds.

We also learned that we have a new student joining us, so since we only had about 15 minutes together by the time we arrived in our room, we spent the time getting to know each other and making him feel welcome. We all introduced ourselves and identified our animals. He chose giraffe as his animal.

Welcome, Ingenious Giraffe!

Stuck In A Holding Pattern

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 02:40:00 +0000

Sunday March 9th was our twenty-second session together.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we learned that only Fair Cheetah, Pragmatic Tiger, and Sweet Pea Elephant were going to be attending today. So I decided not to proceed with our planned lesson until we had more of the children in attendance. We're getting to the really important lessons about the Eucharist now, so I'd rather risk having to have a make-up session, than to have more than half the class miss one of these important topics!

Instead, the four of us reviewed our last lesson, and we remembered

Jesus really is the Son of God

Jesus really did come down to Earth as a man

Jesus really did die for us

Jesus really did rise from the dead

Jesus really will come again

And I tossed in ~ briefly, as a prelude to topics to come ~ that

Jesus really is present in the Eucharist

We decided that some of these are hard to understand and picture in our minds, but that they are part of our Catholic faith so we are going to keep trying.

There happened to be some shamrocks hanging as decorations in the room, so the children asked if they could draw some of their own. So while they colored pictures we continued to have a lively discussion. We talked about how St. Patrick used the shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity: just as the shamrock has 3 separate leaves, but is still 1 plant, so we have Father, Son, Holy Spirit - 3 persons but 1 God.

Hopefully next week we will be able to begin our travels through Unit 4, Chapter 14, "We Receive the Gift of Jesus".

Nature Trail - Jesus' Sacrifice Give Us New Life

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:48:00 +0000

Sunday March 2nd was our twenty-first session together. This week we covered Unit 4, Chapter 13 "Jesus Saves Us From Sin". In preparing for the session, I established the focus as our mystery of faith: Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion, the activities worksheet, and craft activity.

Packing Light: If you just want the activity sheet for this session, you can find it here. It has a matching activity, coloring, word search, and dot-to-dot activity.

We only met briefly with the whole group for a prayer, then we were off to our room. We learned that Fair Cheetah and Rocking Horse would be late, but it was the first time we have all been together in many weeks!

We had our usual conversation about what was going on at Mass this weekend. We talked about how Father is still wearing purple and how the Alleluia and Gloria are still locked up and can't come out. We talked about the Bible readings, how the Gospel was soooo long this week but we liked the story of how the blind man could see!

We continued by remembering what we have been discussing: that we Listen to God's Word, We Act on God's Word, and We Pray for Others. We talked about how in the Old Testament, God promised to send us a Savior, and in the New Testament we see that He did: He sent Jesus, His son. That is why we say Jesus is "the Word made flesh". Jesus came to save us. He died for us and then rose from the dead. We talked about how this is a very important part of our faith... in fact, so important that we say it every time we go to Mass. I took out a copy of the missalette and we read the parts together:

...We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered, died, and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in fulfillment of the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end. ...

We talked about things Jesus did to show us how to "Act on God's Word" and "Pray for Others". We decided he definitely helped serve other people, especially when he was curing people, like he did with the blind man in the Gospel.

We talked about how sometimes it is not easy to "Act on God's Word". Sometimes it is hard to serve others. Sometimes we have to give things up if we help others, and we don't always like to do it. Pragmatic Tiger told how one time he gave up watching his favorite show so that he could help his sister get ready for a special activity. Effusive Jaguar told how she is giving up attitude for Lent, and it is hard work. We talked about what it means to give up something so that we can help someone else, that we call this a 'sacrifice'.

I asked - what did Jesus give up? what sacrifice did he make? The children knew - "his life!".

How hard is that? Can you imagine that? We don't even like to give up a TV show, and Jesus gave up his life! It is truly a great mystery of our faith:

Christ has died,
Christ has risen,
Christ will come again.

We discussed that because Jesus gave up his life, we now have "new life", a "new life" where we can have hope and to be with God... and we often see signs of "new life" at Easter... signs like new flowers and baby birds. Working with this theme, we then did our activity, which was to color a flower that would "pop up" like a bloom when you open the card. The children colored them so amazingly beautiful! And then they did a terrific job following instructions to cut them out and attach them to the card...

Next time we will cover Unit 4, Chapter 14, "We Receive the Gift of Jesus".

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

If you just have a bit of time, definitely go for the online activity for this chapter at Blest Are We

If you have two-bits of time, check out the reading and puzzle activities on Jesus is the Way activity

For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan there are many coloring pages and pencil puzzles

Reviewing the Itinerary - A Day of Review

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:03:00 +0000

Sunday February 24th was our twentieth session together. This week we had a review for Unit 3 and also for Sacrament of Reconciliation. In preparing for the session, I decided we would focus on the forgiveness received during Reconciliation and for the Unit 3 review we would focus on the relationships between the topics of the Unit... in both activities I reused pictures and phrases that we have used throughout the lessons. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion and the activities. There is no activities worksheet for this week.

Packing Light: The whole session was "light" so just check out the online activities at Blest Are We.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we learned that Fair Cheetah and Pragmatic Tiger would not be joining us. We seem to be having a hard time getting everyone together this year!

Once we were settled into our room, we started with our usual discussion of Mass: what color was Father wearing? Did we say the full "I confess to Almight God" or did we say the "Lord Have Mercy"? Did we sing or say the Gloria? What about the Holy, Holy, Holy? What about the Our Father?

The children continued to be enthralled with the concept that we are not singing or saying the Gloria or Alleluia... they cannot wait for them to allowed to 'come out of the box' (as Rocking Horse says)!

On to the topics of the day...

I started by indicating that we were going to review the sacrament where we receive forgiveness. I asked - did anyone remember what it was called? As the children called out various answers, we discovered that we knew lots of names for it. I asked Rocking Horse if she wanted to make a list of them on the white board. Here is what we came up with:

So then we talked about what happens when we go to Confession: how we have to say our sins to the priest, how we have to say the prayer to show we're sorry, and then Father will give us the forgiveness. We talked a bit about the forgiveness. It was confusing for us why we had to tell him our sins and then get the forgiveness. We know that God can hear our prayers and knows if we are sorry for our sins. We learned that God always forgives us if we are really sorry, so how come we have to go to Confession?

So we talked about how God's forgiveness is like a gift. It is like a birthday gift from grandma. We know that grandma has a gift for us, but we can't receive it until we go and see her in person. Confession is the same way - even though we know God has forgiveness for us, we need to go and then we can really receive it. ("I hope it really is like when I get a gift from my grandma and I feel wonderful and never want to return it" said Rocking Horse. I love the amazing things these kids say!).

So then I mentioned that once we go to Confession and receive God's forgiveness and grace, then we are ready to go to Communion. I asked if anyone knew anything about it? Once again we discovered that there were a bunch of names for it, and Rocking Horse again wanted to write it on the white board. Here is what we came up with:

Other than that, the children didn't really know a whole lot about the sacrament. So I told them that was OK - because that is exactly what we would be learning together next!

After a bit of gabbing, I moved us on to the Unit 3 review...

We've been talking a lot about God's word. Where can we find God's word?

"Bible!"(in unison)

We can always read the Bible at home with our family. Where else can we hear the Word of God read to us?

"Church?" (asked Sweet Pea Elephant tentatively)

Exactly. And that was our first lesson for this unit - 'We Listen to the Word of God' - remember all the Bible stories we talked about?

(various expressions of assent)

Since Rocking Horse was in 'writing mode', she asked if she could write this down on the white board, I said 'sure!'.

OK, then... what did we talk about after that?

(various strains of "uh?")

You know... with the helping hands?

"Oh yeah! Those works of mercy or something like that"(said Sweet Pea Elephant)

You got it... we listen to the Word of God, then we act on it by serving others. What is the third piece of the puzzle?

"Praying using those finger reminders!"(said Courtly Polar Bear with GREAT enthusiasm! She was so happy she remembered ALL the fingers and who to pray for!)

Yes - so you see there are 3 pieces we studied, and they work together like a triangle. Do you see it?

"Hey, it IS like a triangle!" said Rocking Horse, "First you listen to the Bible, then you have to serve others and pray for others". And so she drew it on the white board that way!

So then I handed out the two activities: The first was for the Unit Review. It was a little triangular-shaped booklet for the topic: listening to God's word, Serving others, Praying for Others. The children carefully cut out the triangle and folded along the lines to create their booklets. When I asked whose booklet I could photograph, they ALL wanted theirs photographed. So they worked as a team to make a design out of their booklets:

Finally, I handed out a little Reconciliation activity I found at catechiceticalresources.com. The children had quite a time trying to follow the instructions and comparing their results.

Next week we will be having a starting Unit 4, We Celebrate the Gift of Eucharist.

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

If you just have a bit of time, go for any of the online or printable activities for the chapter if you missed them the first time - they can be found at Blest Are We
If you have two-bits of time, check out the check out the lent activities at CatholicMom.com
For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan from Unit 2, Chapter 6 there are many activities related to forgiveness and the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

The World in Our Hands - Learning to Pray for Others

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:45:00 +0000

Sunday February 17th was our nineteenth session together. This week we covered Unit 3, Chapter 12 "We Pray for Others". In preparing for the session, I established the focus as ways to pray for others. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion, the activities worksheet, and craft activity.

Packing Light: If you just want the activity sheet for this session, you can find it here. It has a dot-to-dot activity, decode activity, and coloring activity.

We really didn't have an activity with the whole group, so we went directly to our room. We started off with our usual discussion about Mass. The children noticed Father was still wearing Purple, and that we are still singing those 'old' versions of the Holy, Holy, Holy and the Our Father. They miss singing the Gloria, and we talked once again how the Gloria and Alleluia are 'put away' during Lent.

We tried to remember those "7 service things" from last week. We didn't really remember too many of them... but at least they remembered that they existed (and that there were 7 of them!).

We talked again about the petitions that we hear after we listen to the Gospel during Mass. We tried to remember the kinds of things that the reader lists. We remembered ones like praying for the sick and the Pope and the soldiers. We definitely remembered the "Lord, hear our prayer" that we say.

Then we created a "prayer web". I then asked the children to volunteer ideas of ways we could pray for others. As each child volunteered, she or he was handed the ball of yarn... then he or she would wrap the yarn loosely around his/her hand. So as we went around - which was in whatever order the children were ready to volunteer - we created a "web" with our prayer ideas. So then I reminded them:

See, we are all connected. We remember that God is the Father of everyone in the world, so we need to care about others because they are like our brothers and sisters.

The children had great fun with this and wanted to be able to give 2nd and 3rd ideas so they could really be connected!

So then I asked if anyone knew how we could remember who we should pray for? I told them it is hard sometimes, and I forget how to do it too sometimes. So I asked them to hold their hands like they were praying. Using the "5 finger prayer" that I found at sermons4kids.com, I walked them through it:

What finger is closest to you as you hold your hands that way?

"Thumbs!"(in unison)

Since the thumb is closest to you, you use it to remind you to pray for people who are close to you. Who are some people that are close to you?

"Parents" "Brothers" "Sisters" "Grandma"

...and so we continued for each finger... the children were quite engaged with this activity! When we finished, I handed out the coloring page and asked them to label each finger on the page with the "who we should pray for" reminders and then they colored them and decorated them. It was great to see them working together to figure out what hint they should write on each finger.

Next week we will be having a unit 3 review.

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

If you just have a bit of time, definitely go for the online activity for this chapter
If you have two-bits of time, check out the prayer card activity at We Believe.
For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan

All Hands On Deck - Learning How To Serve Others

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 01:43:00 +0000

Sunday February 10th was our eighteenth session together. This week we covered Unit 2, Chapter 11 "We Act On God's Word". In preparing for the session, I established the focus as ways we show our love for God by helping others. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion, the activities worksheet, and craft activity.

Packing Light: If you just want the activity sheet for this session, you can find it here. It has a coloring activity, word search, word tumble, and matching activity.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we started by joining with the First Graders in saying the Our Father, which they had worked hard to learn. Way to go First Grade!

Then we learned that each class was going to have a Prayer Bag that the children could take turns taking home to share with their families. The bag has prayer books, crucifix, holy water, cross to decorate and other stuff. Wow!

The first thing we did when we gathered in our classroom was to discuss the Mass. There were big changes to notice!

Did you notice anything different at Mass today?

"Father is wearing purple again! And who is that guy that was up there with him?" (said Rocking Horse)

You are right, he is wearing purple because it is Lent. The other man up there was a deacon. He is a friend of Father's and is visiting us this week. Was there anything else different?

"We sang the Our Father again, and the Holy, Holy - even though it was different. But I guess I missed the Gloria." (said Rocking Horse)

Oh no, you didn't miss it, we didn't sing it!

"Did we say it?" (said Sweet Pea Elephant)

Nope. We didn't say it either. During Lent we don't sing or say the Gloria. And you know what else? We don't sing or say the word "alleluia" either!/div>

(much amazement)

It's like we put them in a box and lock it up.

"Yeah, like we hide the key until Easter!" (said Fair Cheetah)

And so we talked a bit more about the happenings at Mass during Lent.

OK. Remember how we've been learning that the Bible is the Word of God and we listen to it at Mass? What happens after we hear the Gospel at Mass?

"Father talks for a while" (said Fair Cheetah)

... and after that?

(no takers)

And what does Father say at the end of Mass?

(again, no takers)

After the sermon, we hear what is called the petitions. We pray for our leaders, we pray for the sick, we pray for the parish...

"Oh yeah! Lord hear our prayer!" (said Rocking Horse)

And at the end of Mass, Father says 'The Mass has ended, go in peace to love and serve the Lord.' What do you think that means?

"That we can go!" (pretty much said in unison... duh!)

Well, yes... But he is saying that we need to SERVE the LORD! That means we can't just go away, we have to go and help others so we can show our love for God!

(much dramatics)

So then we read Isaiah 58:3-9 and Matthew 25:31-46. In both cases, whenever we read the part about "clothe the naked" there was a great uproar: "That's disgusting!" I had to calm them by adjusting it to explain that it could just mean the poor who don't have any money to buy any clothes.

Once we got past the clothing crisis, then there was great concern over "whatever you did for these least brothers of mine...". "Jesus didn't have any brothers!" Rocking Horse was quite emphatic on this matter! It took some convincing, but I think I was able to make the point that Jesus meant whenever we help others, we help Him. Tried to make the whole "Jesus is in all of us" point, which at least eased Sweet Pea Elephant's concerns.

(Maybe it would have been simpler if I just read the 'kiddie' version of the Bible verses, but then I would have missed all their wonderful questions and comments. And don't we all learn more by asking questions and solving problems than by sleeping through something that's easy for us?)

I went on to explain that we call these actions that Jesus taught us the "Seven Works of Mercy". I handed out the workbook pages, and Rocking Horse volunteered to read the section that talks about those works.

After she read the one about sheltering the homeless, Rocking Horse observed, "Well, it's not fair for people to be homeless. If someone lives in a gigantic house, it just isn't fair for someone else not to have any house at all." (she'll be ready for bear when we have the social justice discussion!).

We talked about how doing the works of mercy was being helpful to others. We talked about ways we could do some of those works: how we had brought food in at Thanksgiving time to give to the poor, how our moms save our clothes that are too small to give to others, how we visit our grandmas and friends when they don't feel good, how the priests go and visit people who are sick every day!

Then I described our craft for the day - that we were going to make a wreath out of the 7 Works of Mercy but tracing our hands and cutting them out and gluing them on. Construction paper! Tracing! Cutting! Gluing! Oh the joy! We got out our construction paper and scissors and got going!

Alas, I had forgotten my camera and even my cell phone and could not get pictures of all the wonderful designs the children created. But I did catch up with Rocking Horse on Monday and was able to snap a picture of her design. She had gone for the minimalist approach this time, choosing to use only white and green.

Time was so short it seemed... our session was over even as the children scrambled to finish the wreaths.

I handed out the worksheets, as well as the pages from the chapter in Blest Are We, and also the Family Time pages.

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

If you just have a bit of time, definitely go for the online activity for this chapter at Blest Are We
If you have two-bits of time, check out the activities at MSSS Bible Lessons
For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan

Community Bonfire - Learning About Lent

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:33:00 +0000

Sunday February 3rd was our seventeenth session together. Having spoken to the DRE earlier in the week about the plans for the day, I realized that I wouldn't be able to start a new lesson from our workbook. Instead, I prepared materials to support the lesson on Lent that the DRE was going to cover with the entire group. As such, I did not prepare a lesson plan for this week.

Packing Light: I didn't prepare a worksheet of activities for this week, although I did put together a package of Lenten activities, they are listed below

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we were all so happy to see Pragmatic Tiger and Fair Cheetah back with us! Rocking Horse and Courtly Polar Bear were not with us though, so we were not a complete team.

We gathered outside to prepare some ashes just like the ones used on Ash Wednesday. We put some palms from last year in the bin and one of the teachers lit them. As they burned we talked about Ash Wednesday and how it is the start of Lent, and why the priest will put the ashes on our forehead. Once they were finished, since it was also the feast of Saint Blaise, we listened to a little history about the saint and how he healed the child who was choking on a fish bone. We all went over to the church and had our throughts blessed by Fr. C.

By the time we returned, the ashes had cooled down. A small amount was placed in a cup for each class. As we adjourned to our separate classrooms, I distributed a Lent Activity Pack to each of the children. These little kits contained

a bag of pretzels, along with an activity to do with the pretzels as a symbol of prayer and penance from CatholicCulture.com, which you can find here

a calendar spanning the season of Lent, with a sticker for each day, which you can find here.

We found we would be having the third and fourth graders joining us for the remainder of the day. The first thing we did was to talk a bit more about the ashes. I dipped a finger in the ashes and drew a "+" on the back of each child's hand. We talked about why we used ashes, and we noticed how each "+" looked different - just like each of us is different! I asked the children to be sure to listen to what Father says as he puts the "+" on their forehead and tell me next week what he said.

Since there was not much time left, we spent our remaining time playing a quiz game about Lent. The questions we used were from a game called "Journey Through Lent" posted at the OTHER_Creative_Kingdom Yahoo! group. I knew there were too many children (and not enough time) to play the full board-version of the game, so we simply split into two groups, engaged a score-keeper, and started reading questions. The children seemed to have a good time taking turns reading the questions, and several of the questions - especially those about fasting and abstinence - were source for quite a bit of discussion among the group.

Next week we will will the next lesson, Unit 3, Chapter 11, "We Act on God's Word".

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games... check out some of the Lenten activities at catholicmom.com

On The Water - Casting Our Nets Into The New Testament

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 22:41:00 +0000

Sunday January 27th was our sixteenth session together. This week was part 2 of our two-part lesson that spans Unit 3, Chapter 9 and Unit 3, Chapter 10. In preparing for the session, I established the focus for this second lesson continuing the discussion of the Bible as a collection of books that are the Word of God, and then walking through the New Testament. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion, the activities worksheet, and craft activity.

Packing Light: If you just want the activity sheet for this session, you can find it here. It has a crossword, word search, and coloring activity.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we learned that Pragmatic Tiger and Fair Cheetah would not be with us again today, we again said a special prayer for their intentions.

Like last week, we gathered together in a circle on the floor and started off by discussing our regular Mass observations. Earnest Eagle was the first in the circle, rarin' to go! We were again surprised that we sang the "old" version of the Gloria, but we decided that was ok because at least we were singing. Since today was the "family" Mass, we noticed that the readings were done by children.

Remember what we talked about last week? Do you know what we are going to talk about this week?

"Last week was Old Testament so I'm guessing this week will be New Testament" (said Rocking Horse)

You got it! And just like the Old Testament, the New Testament is really a lot of books all together in one.

"Of course, we figured that out!" (said Effusive Jaguar)

But before we get into it too much, let's take a quick look how the readings at Mass match up. Remember last week we noticed that there were 4 readings, and 2 were from the Old Testament and 2 were from the New Testament? Did that happen the same way this week?

(looking at the readings in a Missalette I brought, they agreed it did happen that way again.)

During the Liturgy of the Word, we hear all these readings so we can learn and understand the Scriptures. The Old Testament looks forward to Jesus, the Gospels tell us about Jesus, and the Acts and Letters help us understand and learn about Jesus and how to live.

As this week's readings were a little tough to show how the readings are usually all related, we backed up a couple of Sundays and looked at the Baptism of Jesus. Those readings are very easy to demonstrate the relationship!

First, Isaiah tells us "Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased" (Is 42:1).

Then we have Psalm 29 with "The voice of the Lord is over the waters" (Ps 29:3).

Then we have Peter describing John the Baptist's preaching and anointing of Jesus (Acts 10:34-38).

And finally, John baptizing Jesus, with the voice from the heavens proclaiming again, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." (Mt 3:17)

OK, they were done with that lecturing type stuff. So then I handed out the workbooks, and like last week we went through the pages, talking about the section of the Bible, and trying to figure out if we knew the Bible stories represented by the pictures in that section. The children knew so many of the stories - often in such detail - we often caught ourselves with three different children telling stories (the same or different!) at once! Courtly Polar Bear didn't want to fill in the blanks in her workbook, because she didn't know the stories and wanted to listen to the other children tell them. Once the other children realized this, they immediately made sure to point out to her which picture they were describing, and to give more details in the story. It was absolutely amazing to see them really want to share the stories with her. Even Earnest Eagle, who usually likes to stay quiet during our time together, jumped in to tell a story on two separate occasions (and not because I asked him to do it!).

We were so involved in the stories we didn't even get to cover the New Testament Letters and Catholic Letters books... but the children noticed that these sections were made as coloring activities and they said they were sure they would want to color them at home. I told them they could look at their Bibles and ask their parents if they had any questions!

Next week the whole group will be together for burning the palms to prepare the ashes for Ash Wednesday. It will be tough, but I will try to get us started on the next lesson, Unit 3, Chapter 11, "We Act on God's Word".

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

If you just have a bit of time, definitely go for this conversion of Saul online jigsaw puzzle activity

If you have two-bits of time, check out other New Testament online activities at Calvary Chapel.

For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan there are many activities for Bible stories.

Travel To Ancient Lands - Learning About The Old Testament

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:38:00 +0000

Sunday January 20 was our fifteenth session together. This week was part 1 of a two-part lesson that spans Unit 3, Chapter 9 and Unit 3, Chapter 10. The two chapters together teach us about the Bible and its role in the Liturgy of the Word during Mass. In preparing for the session, I established the focus for this first lesson as the Bible as a collection of books that are the Word of God, and then walking through the Old Testament. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion, the activities worksheet, and craft activity.

Packing Light: If you just want the activity sheet for this session, you can find it here. It has a secret code activity, crossword, word shapes, and word search activity.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we learned that Pragmatic Tiger and Fair Cheetah would not be with us today as they had a family emergency. When we got to our room we said a special prayer for their intentions, and Sweet Pea Elephant lead us with the Prayer to My Guardian Angel.

After the prayers, we sat on the floor together and started off by our regular review of Mass activities. We talked a bit about why Father is now wearing Green, how we sang the "old" version of the Gloria, and just said the Holy, Holy, Holy instead of singing it.

I asked whether anyone knew what part was called "Liturgy of the Word"... no takers. I explained that this is when we hear the readings from the Bible. Effusive Jaguar happily reminded us that this is when her grandma went up and read. Exactly! Her grandma read the first reading, then the choir mistress went up for the Psalm, and then another parishioner for the 2nd reading, and then Father for the Gospel. So, 4 readings in all. I showed them how the first 2 were from the Old Testament and the second 2 were from the New Testament.

Tell me some things you know about the Bible?

"It is a big book" (said Courtly Polar Bear)... "it has 2 parts, Old Testament and New Testament. Jesus is in the new part." (said Rocking Horse).

Oh, I think you know more than that! (and I dumped out a whole tote bag full of bible story books onto the floor). Did you know it is really a whole bunch of books put together?

(lots of wows!)

Can you imagine having to carry around all those books when you get your Bible?!

(a general sense of 'oh my gosh!')

It's definitely much easier to have them all together as one. (and then I pulled out 5 or 6 Catholic Bibles, all different looking - some with leather covers, some with gilded pages, some with pictures, some large, some small) Look at all these Bibles... they all look different but they all contain the same "Bible", the same books, the same stories.

(a general sense of appreciation as they touched the Bibles and looked at them)

(getting back to the stack of story books...)Did you know that there are lots of authors who wrote those books, but they are all the Word of God? That's right, God inspired them to write.

And you know what else? I bet you know a lot of stories from those books! Today we're going to focus on the Old Testament. The Old Testament has 46 books in it! They are separated into 4 main parts, which we will look at together soon, but first, I know you want to have a look and see some of the stories and books!

And we dug through the pile, with the children happily (and proudly) shouting out when they found stories they knew: Samson and Deliliah, David and Goliath, Adam & Eve, Jonah, Noah's Ark, Queen Esther, and so on. We took turns telling the parts of stories we could remember, and sometimes peeked into the books to remember the rest.

At this point I handed out the activity books, so that we could discuss the pictures and the stories they represented together as we looked through the books. We had fun trying to match the story names with the pictures with the correct section of the Old Testament.

Next week we will be continuing this two-part lesson, so I did not hand out the workbook pages yet. I did send home the Good News pages for the upcoming weeks. You can enjoy following the mass with them through the rest of January.

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

If you just have a bit of time, definitely go for one of the online jigsaw puzzles at Word of Truth
If you have two-bits of time, check out the Bible Story activities on Calvary Chapel
For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan

Waiting At The Station

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 02:12:00 +0000

Sunday January 13th was our fourteenth session together.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we learned that only Effusive Jaguar and Sweet Pea Elephant were going to be attending today. So I decided not to proceed with our planned lesson until we had more of the children in attendance.

Instead, the three of us colored pictures and had a lively discussion. We of course talked about all the things we usually talk about Mass (what color was Father wearing, did we sing the Gloria, etc). Turns out, we all have the same favorite version of the Gloria, and it was the one we sang this morning during Mass. So we sat and hummed and the girls decided to color pictures of their pets. We talked about how much they love them (even when they are a 'handful' or snap at them). We talked about how it's the same as how much our parents love us and that Jesus loves us too, even when WE are a 'handful'!

Hopefully next week we will be able to begin our travels through Unit 3, "We Celebrate The Word of God."

Stories Around The Campfire - A Midyear Review

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 23:04:00 +0000

Happy New Year everyone! Hope there are still a few of you out there and that you feel fresh and renewed after a lovely break!

Sunday January 6th was our thirteenth session together. Can you believe we are half-way through already?! This week we used the session as a midyear review of what we have learned. In preparing for the session, I created an activity and coloring book where I re-used as many phrases and pictures as I could from our previous sessions, and created activities similar, but not identical to, activities we have completed in those sessions. I did this only partially to be lazy ~ really! The real goal was to provide reinforcers for the lessons we have already covered. In this way, each lesson's theme (pictures, phrases) will have been presented to the children 3 times (the original lesson, the unit review, and the midyear review).

Packing Light: You can find the activity book here. It has coloring, word searches, mazes, stickers, and other pencil puzzles. (It is a large file and may take a minute or two to open.)

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we learned that Pragmatic Tiger and Fair Cheetah would not be joining us this time. But we had some good news: Courtly Polar Bear, Effusive Jaguar, and Rocking Horse all received "perfect attendance" awards for December! Way to go!

Once we were in our room, we talked about whether we had fun over Christmas and what our favorite gifts were. We also discovered that some of us were able to stay up late on New Year's Eve and even made it to the new year! Wow!

The children settled in surprisingly quickly given the long break, and it wasn't long before they were clamoring for some coloring to do... what a coincidence since what I had with me was... coloring! But first, we talked about how we were half-way done with our learning already! And so, today we were going to review everything we have talked about so far.

I distributed the review books and sticker packs, and together we looked over each page and remembered what we talked about. We tried to find the right sticker to go with each page, and took turns reading from the stickers. The children did a great job with it, and really seemed to recall the key messages (or at least the activities we did) for each lesson:

From Unit 1, We Gather As Believers, we have

Our Church Welcomes Us - we remembered that we are a community and we come together to celebrate. Rocking Horse said she remembered making the church doors and the Welcome inside.

We Belong to The Church - we remembered that we have Baptism to show we are members. We talked about the 4 symbols used during Baptism: water, oil, white clothes, and candles. Sweet Pea Elephant remembered them all!

Our Church Shows Us How To Live - we remembered that we have holy people like priests and deacons to give us examples, and Saints as role models. The children definitely remembered tracing their footsteps!

We Praise And Thank God - we remembered how we can pray by saying our prayers or by singing. Earnest Eagle remembered the story about King David and how he was so strong and won lots of battles and sang lots of prayers.

From Unit 2, We Ask God's Forgiveness, we have

We Can Choose What Is Good - we remembered that we make choices, and that God wants us to make good choices. Effusive Jaguar remembered that this is when we talked about Max and we were all Wild Things!!

We Celebrate God's Forgiveness - we remembered the ways we can ask for and seek forgiveness. Everyone remembered the 4given card game!

We Think About Our Choices - we remembered the rules are called "commandments". We reviewed them together. Courtly Polar Bear remembered "that game" we played with them (fortune teller/cootie catcher).

We Say We Are Sorry - we remembered that Reconciliation is a way to say we are sorry. Rocking Horse remembered being in the puppet show!

Then, we had a review of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The children remembered the little room and we read through the prayers and activities that happen when we participate in the sacrament.

After we finished reviewing the lessons, the children each chose which lesson they liked the best (or all of them), and wrote about it in their journals.

Then at last, we had one more segment to review: I reminded them that there were other things we have been learning too, about Mass:

We learned to notice what color the priest is wearing, and know that something special happens when he wears a different color. (And there was great discussion over why the priest was wearing white with red today and not just all red or all white!)

We learned to participate in the Penitential Rite, and notice that sometimes it is short like an answer and sometimes it is like a long prayer. (And there was indecision about how we did it today, but I reminded them that today we said the 'long' version)

We learned to participate in saying the Gloria, and notice that sometimes it we say it and sometimes we sing it. (And we just said it today, and Effusive Jaguar noted that we always just say it when Fr. C says the Mass. She likes the version we sing at Christmas and she and the others started to sing it! Wonderful!).

We learned to participate with the Holy, Holy, Holy, and notice that sometimes we say it and sometimes we sing it (today we not only sang it, but we are still using 'that new way' that we started using).

We learned to participate in the Our Father, and notice that sometimes we say it and sometimes we sing it (again today, we apparently just said it because that's the way Fr. C likes it ~ I reminded them that it is not just what the priest likes but also whether the community likes it and what is happening in the Mass and so forth).

The children finished up the session coloring (finally!) and working the puzzles. It was wonderful to see the children today and they were all in such good spirits. Next week we will be starting Unit 3, which focuses on the Bible as the word of God, the Liturgy of the Word section of Mass, works of service, and Prayer of the Faithful section of Mass.

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

follow any of the links above to find the activities and worksheets for the original lessons!

Sightseeing - A Reconciliation Lesson

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 00:55:00 +0000

Sunday December 9th was our thirteenth session together. This week we had a lesson dedicated to learning more about the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In preparing for the session, I decided we would go over to the church and see the confessionals, talk about them, and talk about what goes on during the sacrament. I put together a pamphlet that walks through the steps of the sacrament, which you can find here. I did not develop a formal lesson plan for the session.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we learned Earnest Eagle would not be joining us. We missed him, but hope he had a terrific time on his special camping trip!

The children were very excited to be taking a field trip to the church! We went to see the confessional (aka the Reconciliation room). They were completely fascinated with the room! We looked at the side that had two chairs. We learned how the priest sits in one of the chairs, and then when we come in we sit on the other chair and we see and talk to the priest while we have our Confession.

Then we saw another door and looked in there. No chairs, only a place to kneel. What was that for? I explained that if we want to use this side, we do not see the priest. We have our confession by having the same conversation, we just are not face to face. The children were amazed! Why would anyone want to do it that way! I explained that was the way everyone used to do it, and today we have a choice of how we want to participate.

We all went back to the other side and climbed in (yes, we are happy we are a small class!!). First, we talked about Father's homily today. He had talked about how when he first joined the Holy Ghost Fathers, he learned that part of their credo was that they had to be true to go to Confession every week. He told how he was challenged by that and thought it was "just a rule in the book". After all, he was studying to be a priest, he was harmless... why would he need to go to Confession every week? He went on to discuss how he came to have a change of heart and challenged us to think about how we feel about the sacrament and how true are we? (He picked a perfect day to have this topic and couldn't have given a better discussion about why to go to Confession if we had planned it! The Holy Spirit is certainly with us!).

Then, we took turns reading sections from the Reconciliation pamphlet, and learning more about exactly what goes on in there. We read the Act of Contrition together.

We wrapped up the time by talking about how we felt about what we are learning about the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Do we have questions? The children had LOTS of questions. And a couple of interesting observations as well:

Rocking Horse noted that she finally figured out that the sacrament has 3 names: Confession, Penance, and Reconciliation.
Effusive Jaguar said this sacrament uses a lot of big words.
Fair Cheetah said we shouldn't be scared.
Courtly Polar Bear said we shouldn't be sad.
Pragmatic Tiger said he isn't sure how he feels about this whole thing.
Sweet Pea Elephant said she needs to think it over some more.

Next week we will be joining the parish for our Christmas party and then we have a break until after the new year. Enjoy this time with your family and with the Holy Family! Merry Christmas!

Revisiting Covered Ground

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 22:46:00 +0000

Sunday December 2nd was our twelfth session together. This week we had a unit review for Unit 2, "We Ask God's Forgiveness". In preparing for the session, I wanted to again focus on phrases and images we have already used in our sessions together. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion and craft activity. There is no activities worksheet for this week.

Packing Light: (The whole session was "light" - so just check out the end-of-unit review sheets from the Blest Are We workbook!)

As usual, we met in the common area for the whole group activity. We sang happy birthday to some children in other grades who have birthdays soon! We also learned Sweet Pea Elephant would not be joining us today as she is on a special camping trip. We missed her but hope she had fun!

We had a little excitement at the room because it was locked, so we found ourselves traipsing around the building looking for a room, but then found someone who had the key. Once in the room I had not even formed the words asking about mass when the children bombarded me with questions about why the priest was wearing purple today!

So we spent some time discussing how today was the first day of our Church year, and the first day of Advent. We talked about Advent and how it is a time of preparing for and waiting for Jesus to come. We talked about the Advent wreath and looked at an Advent calendar. We decided we would like very much to count down the days by coloring one star each day!

Then of course, I was curious about the rest of the Mass...

"What else did you notice at Mass today besides the purple robes? Did you all say the Penitential Rite like you promised?"

"(Some hemming and hawing on this one, but Rocking Horse definitely remembered that we said the whole thing instead of that short "Christ Have Mercy" version!)

"And how about the Gloria?"

"I'm guessing but we probably sang it"." (said Effusive Jaguar) "I don't know, I don't even think we said it today but that doesn't sound right." (said Rocking Horse)

"Oh, but you are right! During Advent we will not sing or say the Gloria! That way it can be extra special when we sing it on Christmas! And how about the Holy, Holy, Holy?"

"I do remember that - we sang it!" (said Rocking Horse, who was apparently my shill today!)

"Yep, you got it."

"Yeah, and today Saint Jan wasn't there except he did show up for a little while. That was different." (said Effusive Jaguar)

"Yes, Father Corry offered the Mass for us and Father Jan came to help minister Holy Communion. That is different for us, but it is nice, isn't it?"

(general agreement)

So then we proceeded with our primary focus for the day: we worked on some review booklets and read together the things we want to remember about forgiveness. The children colored their booklets and matched up the stickers. Some of them chose to start coloring their advent calendars instead. They each chose their favorite page to add to the gallery.

And then the big surprise was that the children took pictures of ME this time! This provided untold joy in the clasroom. My goodness! Turn about is fair play I guess. I would like to say that the photos didn't come out very well, but maybe it was the subject ;-) They made me promise to post them...

Next week we will be having a special session focused on the Sacrament of Reconciliation, so there weren't any Family Time pages, although I did hand out the Good News pages for the upcoming weeks. You can enjoy following the mass with them throughout December.

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

If you just have a bit of time, go for any of the online or printable activities for the chapter if you missed them the first time - they can be found at Blest Are We
If you have two-bits of time, check out the check out the advent activities at CatholicMom.com
For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan from Unit 2, Chapter 6 there are many activities related to forgiveness and the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Exploring The State of Grace - Learning About Contrition

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:14:00 +0000

Sunday November 18th was our eleventh session together. This week we covered Unit 2, Chapter 8 "We Say We Are Sorry". In preparing for the session, I established the focus as understanding contrition and why we need the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion, the activities worksheet, and craft activity.

Packing Light: If you just want the activity sheet for this session, you can find it here. It has two crossword activities.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, some of us helped out the members of Society of St. Vincent de Paul by carrying the donated food from the front of the church over to the staging area. Then we received our awards from the All Saints parade! And, also once again we had many 2nd graders win the Perfect Attendence for October: Courtly Polar Bear, Rocking Horse, Effusive Jaguar, and Sweet Pea Elephant... way to go!

We also learned that for just this session, we had a visiting 2nd grader and also the 3rd and 4th graders joined us! Wow! We are not used to so many together with us! Especially the boys, since there are usually so few... we needed a few reminders on showing respect while others are talking.

So we started off by remembering that we need to say "I'm sorry" when we sin. I wondered whether we could just say "I'm sorry" and then we would automatically be forgiven? "No way, you have to pray first" said Effusive Jaguar.

But there's something else - can anyone figure it out? If I wallop my sister on the head and say "I'm sorry" and then wallop her again -- am I really sorry? "No, it doesn't sound like you mean it!" said Sweet Pea Elephant.

And what if I wallop my sister on the head and then say "I'm sorry" right as my mother is coming over so she doesn't get mad at me? "Still seems suspicious to me" said Rocking Horse.

So what is it I need? Do I need to really FEEL sorry and not just SAY sorry? "Absolutely, you gotta mean it or it doesn't count" said Effusive Jaguar.

Exactly! And when you mean it, it is called "C-O-N-T-R-I-T-I-O-N, contrition". That is when you really feel sorry for what you have done. And when we go to Reconciliation, we say a prayer called "Act of Contrition" that says we are sorry.

Effusive Jaguar noted that this whole Reconciliation thing sure has a lot of big words to learn. I had to agree... which is why today I brought some friends to help us learn more about it. My friends here are puppets, and they need you to help finish them so they can participate in some puppet shows today! (Luckily I had enough extra puppets and scripts to go around! I do not usually have that many extra available!!).

The puppets were met with great delight by the girls, but with mixed emotion by many of the boys. It took quite some repeated encouragement to get the hestitant boys to color their puppets. Even then, they only wanted to color the boy puppets. The girl puppets were quickly used as dive bombers (NB: they do not hold up well to repeated folding and crashing into the desk~). This surprised me just a little as the boys are usually equally excited to do the activities. I used the occasion to remind the boys that they were not being respectful of the time

and care I had put into the activity and if they didn't like them they should have offered to give them back instead of destroying them. We talked about how maybe we needed to think about whether what they were doing was a good choice or not. I am very happy to say we had significantly improved behavior after that small conversation! (I must mention that the sole 3rd grade boy did not participate in the wild rumpus, but rather did an excellent job and not only colored them beautifully, but was the first to finish both his puppets!).
Meanwhile, while all that conversation was occurring, the girls had clustered into several groups, coloring away. You know my usual, I started peppering them with the questions about Mass... they never cease to amaze me with their responses! At least they are trying to pay attention!

"What color was Father wearing today?"

"Green" (said Sweet Pea Elephant) "Yes, green AGAIN. Is he EVER going to wear anything else?" (said Effusive Jaguar)

"You will be surprised, you should definitely keep watching! Did you all participate in the Penitential Rite like we discussed?"

"Yeah - but it was that different one again" (said Sweet Pea Elephant)

"Yes, Father again chose to use one of the other options today." (The 3rd and 4th graders were fully engaged by this time) "...and you know what else I am curious about? What about the Gloria"

"Oh, I know! We sang it!" (said one of our visiting 4th graders)

"You got it! And what about the Holy, Holy, Holy?"

"Oh, I know! We sang that too!" (said one of our visiting 3rd graders)

"Yeah, buddy! And we had one more special thing at Mass this morning, didn't we?"

(no takers)

"You gotta be kidding me... Effusive Jaguar I KNOW you saw something you didn't see before!"

"Oh Yeah! My Grandma did some reading up there today!"

And so we talked a bit about how the different people go up from the congregation to read now. Then, with much more prompting, the children completed their puppets... as soon as everyone had at least one puppet completed, we could begin the show.

On with the show!

Now, normally, we have a very small class and the plan was that we would read through each of the two scripts twice, that way each child would have a chance to participate. But with such a larger group today, we just had to rely on volunteers who were ready. We were a little unsteady at first, as the two first readers had a hard time holding up their puppets and keeping their place in the script... but we soon figured out how to have helpers keep their places and they got into a great rhythm. The children even helped each other over the tough words. I interjected questions and "oh wows" at ~coincidentally~ appropriate times in the plays. And once I had the boys mixed into the group (instead of clustered to the back by themselves, where they were wont to stay), everyone participated very nicely and was very interested in the stories! Even though they were not well-rehearsed or smooth presentation, we had a lot of fun with them and we also had a nice conversation about the stories afterward. The first was called "Act of Confusion" and led us through the Act of Contrition prayer line by line (in a very humorous and memorable manner!). The second was called "I Don't Want To Say I'm Sorry" which helped us understand why we need to go to Sacrament of Reconciliation even when we already said we were sorry. They were both fun! (NB - because I was having the children read these 'extemporaneously', I definitely think each child having their own copy of the script to follow along helped as an engagement factor). I heard several of the girls say that they were going to practice the show for their parents. I hope they do!

We will meet again after the Thanksgiving break. Our next session afterwards will be a unit 2 review, so there weren't any Family Time pages sent home today, although I did hand out the worksheets, as well as the pages from the chapter in Blest Are We. You can enjoy following the mass with them through the Thanksgiving holiday!

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

If you just have a bit of time, definitely go for the online activity for this chapter at Blest Are We
If you have two-bits of time, check out more of the puppet shows at Catholic Mom Puppet Ministry
For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan there are many coloring pages of Psalms

Mountain Climbing For Rules To Live By

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 23:29:00 +0000

Sunday November 11th was our tenth session together. This week we covered Unit 2, Chapter 7 "We Think About Our Choices". In preparing for the session, I established the Ten Commmandments as rules God sent us to help us know how to live. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion, the activities worksheet, and craft activity.

Packing Light: If you just want the activity sheet for this session, you can find it here. It has a follow-directions activity, word search, and maze activity.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we all turned in our Toilet Paper and Macaroni & Cheese - which we were requested to bring as our contribution to the Saint Vincent de Paul pantry. Next week we are supposed to bring Peanut Butter and Jelly!

When we arrived at our room today, we noticed the desks had been arranged in a new pattern. This was cause for great discussion and excitement (?!). I asked if everyone was so grumpy because they had eaten all their Halloween candy? Whoa, sensitive subject there I guess!

Moving on, I asked the children to gather together and sit on the floor together in a circle. We remembered how God gave each of us free choice, and that he gave us two gifts to help us make good choices: a conscience, and the Holy Spirit. Then I asked if anyone knew another gift that God gave us to help us know how to make good choices. No takers.

So I started in on a story, and asked them to let me know when they figured it out. I told it sort of mystery-style... about how God selected this man to lead His people out of Egypt, how after lots of arguments with the pharoah there, they finally left. Then, they started to cross the dessert. But they weren't being very nice to each other and they were also worshipping other gods. So God wouldn't let them find their new home until they started to act better. Finally this man went up on a mountain - what we call Mount Sanai - and asked God to PLEASE give us some rules to live by! (At about this time Pragmatic Tiger figured out that we were talking about Moses - yeah!). So then I asked what did God give to Moses on that mountain? Rocking Horse had it: "the Ten Commandments on some stones or something." We talked about how Moses took them down the mountain and taught the people the new rules and how finally they were able to get to their new home. We talked about how we still need to use these rules today.

We reviewed each commandment, what it might mean for us. Here is what we figured out:

Have No Other Gods

We should say prayers to God

We should not skip Church to watch Dexter's Laboratory, because that would be like we liked the cartoons better than God.

Respect God's Name

We should be nice when we use God's name.

We should not use His name in vain. (the children knew it this way!)

Keep Holy the Lord's Day

We should go to Church on Sunday.

We should try to be extra nice on Sunday.

Respect Your Parents

We should not be sassy.

We should not disobey them.

We should not tell them we will do something and then not do it.

Do Not Kill

We definitely should not kill other people. (The children did have a question about if we were having a war and sometimes soldiers need to do it. I told them that is a tough situation and those soldiers are not fighting for themselves they are fighting for their country. I encouraged the children to talk to their parents about it!).

We also talked about how even "just" fighting with someone is not respecting life.

Do Not Commit Adultery

We talked about how this is mostly for grown-ups, how when two people decide to get married they promise to share their love only with each other. (The children had questions about whether that meant they couldn't love their children or other family and friends, and I explained that we were talking about husband-wife kind of love. They did have more questions, I acknowledged them all and told them they were really good questions and they should remember to talk to their parents about it!)

Do Not Steal

We should definitely not take things that are not ours.

We should definitely not take things from someone even if we know they took it first.

We shouldn't cheat on a test or cheat on a game.

Do Not Lie

We should not tell anyone a lie.

Even if we think we are being nice if we tell a lie, we should not tell a lie. We should think of something else that isn't a lie instead.

Honor Your Neighbor's Wife

We talked about how this is sort of like that other grown-up commandment.

Honor Your Neighbor's Goods

We should not want to take away things other people have.

We should not want those people to get hurt or to lose their stuff just because we wanted to have it.

Then, one by one, I handed out strips of paper with a commandment written on it. We started with Fair Cheetah and "Have No Other Gods" and "Respect God's Name". Then Pragmatic Tiger had to re-state the one Fair Cheetah said, and then read his own, "Keep Holy the Lord's Day"... and so forth... each one trying to remember all the ones that came before! We were a team and gave hints when we needed to! That was tough but kind of fun!

Then I explained that we had a game we could play to help us remember. I handed out the 'fortune tellers' that had the Ten Commandments on them. The children who recognized the toys were delighted immediately and set straight away to play with them. I gave a demonstration for the others and helped them to get their fingers into the right slots. It only took a few minutes before they were all playing away and the excitement mounted! They were like butterflies going from person to person asking them to pick a commandment!

There was so much excitement and fluttering-by that I didn't even have an opportunity to catch any photos of the children enjoying their 'fortune tellers'! Now, that's what I call distraction!

I did at least have presence of mind to remember to ask about Mass though:

"What did you notice at Mass today?"

"We had 2 guys up there again today!" (said Effusive Jaguar)

"Yes, we had a visiting Deacon today. What Color were they wearing?"

"Green - definitely green. But that other guy's was different." (said Effusive Jaguar... Sweet Pea Elephant seconded the idea.)

Yes, the Deacon wears different robes. Did you all participate in the Penitential Rite like we discussed?"

"Yeah - but it was different than we practiced!" (said Sweet Pea Elephant)

"Yes, Father chose to use one of the other options today." (We talked a bit about the different options for the Penitential Rite) "...and you know what else I am curious about?"

"Yeah, we know - we sang the Gloria, AND also the Holy, Holy, Holy" (said Sweet Pea Elephant)

Next time we will be covering Unit 2, Chapter 8 "We Say We Are Sorry".

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

If you just have a bit of time, definitely go for the online activity for this chapter at Blest Are We
If you have two-bits of time, color your way through the story of Exodus at coloringbookfun.com
For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan - but note that some of the links may be non-Catholic Christian links and so the wording/ordering of the Ten Commandments may vary somewhat!

Fidgety Flock Figuring Out Forgiveness

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:11:00 +0000

Sunday November 4th was our ninth session together. This week we covered Unit 2, Chapter 6 "We Celebrate God's Forgiveness". In preparing for the session, I established the focus as ways we seek and obtain forgiveness. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion, the activities worksheet, and craft activity.

Packing Light: If you just want the activity sheet for this session, you can find it here. It has a story activity, coloring, and word search activity.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we learned that once again we have so many 2nd graders with perfect attendance for the prior month: Courtly Polar Bear, Effusive Jaguar, Sweet Pea Elephant, and Rocking Horse! Way to go 2nd graders! Today we had everyone join us!

Today we were fidgety. So fidgety. Could the wake of Halloween have left us all in the doldrums? Will we go mad waiting for a favoring wind? No! We can't wait for a fair wind, we have to make our own locomotion out of this place! And so I rowed through the session...

We talked about our discussion on choices from a couple of weeks ago, so we could remember what we talked about. We remembered that when we make a bad choice, we have to admit it and say we are sorry. Effusive Jaguar said it best: "And you have to mean it and try not to do it again, you can't just say it. I did something and so I told my mom I was sorry but then I just went and I did it again and then we talked about it and that is how I learned my lesson!"

Ok, so one thing for forgiveness is to admit we were wrong and ask for it from others.

Then we talked about how at Mass we also have a chance to ask for forgiveness. We read the Penetential Rite together. We looked through the Missalette to see where we find it during Mass and discovered it is right after the Priest welcomes us. (The children were very concerned that I had a copy of the Missalette from Church and had I asked if I could borrow it first?!!). We all promised that we would try to remember to say this out loud at Mass whenever we go. It gives us a chance to think about our week, say we are sorry, and start "fresh" again!

"Speaking of mass..."

"Before you even ask, we sang everything!" (said Effusive Jaguar) "That's right!" (said Sweet Pea Elephant)

"Color?"

"Green - definitely green. And, we had 2 priests up there today - Father Corry and Saint Jan!" (said Effusive Jaguar)

"Father Jan. He's the pastor."

"Yeah - him!" (said Effusive Jaguar)

Back to topic...row, row, row...

Ok, so now we have 2 ways we've talked about for obtaining forgiveness: say you are sorry to whoever you hurt, and ask for it at Mass during Penitential Rite.

What is a 3rd way? What is that sacrament we keep hearing about sometimes?

"You mean that one with the long name?" (asked Effusive Jaguar)

Yes, can anyone remember it?

"[something resembling 'reconciliation']?" (said Courtly Polar Bear))

So we talked just a bit about the sacrament and how we talk with the priest and he helps us get forgiveness for our sins.

Row, row, row... taking on water, sir!

OK, we have 3 ways covered: say we are sorry to others, say we are sorry at Mass, and say we are sorry at Reconciliation. Let's just talk about one more: we have to forgive others. Jesus says that we have to be forgiven if we want to have our sins forgiven.

The conversation didn't last long, we were too fidgety. It was early yet, but I brought out the craft activity: a card game called "4given".

Alright, we talked about 4 ways we can seek forgiveness, so now we have a card game called "4given" to help us learn and remember those 4 ways. ("Oh, I get it! 4 ways, forgiven!" said Fair Cheetah).

Now we're seeing that familiar eagerness! The children pounced on the decks of cards with gusto.

After speedily decorating the boxes, they immediately settled into groups of two to play the game! A quick question of ways to play - I mentioned "like matching or concentration" and they were off! I hadn't thought of a concentration-ish-version for 2-players, but they played several rounds. Two of the girls tried a "go fish" version. I wasn't sure how that would work, since there are only 16 cards in the deck, but they seemed to enjoy it nonetheless. The children happily obliged my requests to read out loud the card whenever they found a match. They all continued to play in various versions of the game for the remainder of the session.

This material is an important concept for us to master. I encouraged the children to be sure to read the BlestAreWe workbook pages and the regular activities worksheet and do the activities on them (which, as usual, Pragmatic Tiger had nearly completed already!). I suggested they read and play the 4given card games together, and maybe learn how to look up and read the Bible verses referenced.

I handed out the Family Time pages for Unit 2, Chapter 7.

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

If you just have a bit of time, definitely go for the online activity for this chapter at Blest Are We
If you have two-bits of time, check out the forgiveness activity at forgiveness activity.
For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan there are many articles and activities on Prodigal Son and Good Shepherd.

Hiking Without a Map - We Find More Role Models

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 17:46:00 +0000

Sunday October 28th was our eigth session together. This week were planning to cover Unit 2, Chapter 6 "We Celebrate God's Forgiveness"; however, after preparing for the session, I remembered we were going to be having a Saints dress-up and procession with the other classes. Feeling rather like I was suddenly driving without a road map, I gave it a bit of thought: we would only be together for just a short time at best, and if so - how to channel all that excitement and energy? Focusing on a new topic would not do, so I opted for a creative activity instead. I prepared a coloring book of saints by printing a series of the coloring pages from http://www.coloringsaints.com/ website. I captured some of the better-known saints from across the year so we could have a good variety.

Packing Light: The whole session was "light" - so just enjoy talking about the Saints - our role models!

The Saints procession was a lot of fun. We had all kinds of Saints represented. From our class we had Saints Elizabeth Ann Seton, Agnes, Helen, George, Benedict, Francis of Assisi, and Mary Magdalene. Along with all the children of the other classes, we all paraded through the campus and through the auditorium (where the Family Breakfast was taking place so we had a big audience!). Several of the parents followed along, and I especially liked their spontaneous rendition of "When the Saints Go Marching In".

When we finished the parade, we decided we would go to the classrooms for just a bit. We were joined by the 3rd and 4th graders today. Coloring for everyone! Did I mention that I deliberately left the cover of the coloring book blank so that the children could create their own design?

While we were coloring, Rocking Horse played the role of scribe for the 2nd graders, and composed a "we're sorry" card for Mrs. P. and the 2nd grade school class. You see, it is their classroom we use each week, and last week we learned that we had left the classroom too messy and gotten into some desks and materials that we shouldn't have. We decided that we had made bad choices and needed to say we were sorry. So Rocking Horse did a great job of writing up the card, and all the children signed it.

Of course I also asked about what was going on at Mass:

"Alright you guys, you know I want to know about what Father was wearing today...?"

"Green!" (said everyone, including our visitors from 3rd and 4th grade!) "hey - and before you ask, I know for sure we sang everything - definitely sang everything today" (said Effusive Jaguar)

"We sure did! Our new priest definitely likes to sing!"

"I am FINALLY getting used to all of it!" (said Sweet Pea Elephant)

The 3rd and 4th graders had a few questions about what we were talking about, and we explained that we have been watching what color Father wears each week, and whether we sing or say the "Gloria" and the "Holy, Holy, Holy". They also had noticed that sometimes we are singing a lot more now.

Next week we will be covering Unit 2, Chapter 6 "We Celebrate God's Forgiveness".

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

If you just have a bit of time, find more coloring and short stories about Saints at http://www.coloringsaints.com/
If you have two-bits of time, check out the numerous All Saints/Halloween activities and coloring at catholicmom.com
For more in-depth activities, check out our lesson on choices.

Where The Wild Things Are - We Can Make Choices

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:29:00 +0000

Sunday October 21st was our seventh session together. This week we covered Unit 2, Chapter 5 "We Can Choose What Is Good". In preparing for the session, I established the focus as God gives us free choice and wants us to make good choices. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion, the activities worksheet, and craft activity.

Packing Light: If you just want the activity sheet for this session, you can find it here. It has a coloring activity, maze, and word search activity.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we learned that Courtly Polar Bear won "Religious Ed", our fancy jack-o-lantern! Congratulations!

We started off saying the opening prayer from the workbook pages, a paraphrase from Deuteronomy 30:20

"Love the Lord, your God, and obey His word."

"Do we have to obey God?"

"Yes!"

"Why? Who makes us?"

"God!" "Your Parents!"

"I don't know about that, is there someone standing and pushing you all day saying 'you have to be good' or 'you have to do that'?"

"No way, that would be crazy!"

"Right. God gave us free choice. We can make choices. We make choices every day. Now of course God would like us to always make good choices, but he doesn't make us make the choices"

And so we proceeded to review choices that were hard and choices that were easy. (There was some dispute as to whether choosing what clothes we are going to wear was an easy choice or a hard choice~)

"How do we know when we made a bad choice? How do we know how to make good choices?"

(MULTITUDES of answers!)

"Well, let's read a story together and talk about it. We're going to read 'Where the Wild Things Are' by Maurice Sendak."

"Yeah! I love that book!" (said most) "But that doesn't have anything to do with church or Sunday school" (said Rocking Horse)

"Read it with me and let's see."

And so with each child taking on a different role, we proceeded with the Reader's Theatre. I thought I might need to do a lot of prompting and helping the children figure out "where are we?" - but Rocking Horse, our Narrator, quickly took on that role and was terrific at it! We had a rollicking rendition, complete with plenty of rolling of terrible eyes, gnashing of terrible teeth, and showing of terrible claws!

"Why do you think Max's mother sent him to his room?"

"He was being really mean and nasty!"

"Did Max make some bad choices? What choices did he make?"

"He was being mean to his mother." "He ran away."

"Why did Max return home?"

"He was hungry!"

"Is that the only reason?"

"Well, he was lonely too." (said Effusive Jaguar)

"And beside being hungry, what did the smell of dinner remind him of?"

"His mother was at home!"

"Exactly. And how do we know that his mother forgave him and was happy for him to come home?"

"She made his dinner" "Even though he was not supposed to have dinner because he was mean" (said Sweet Pea Elephant) "And it was still warm!" (said Fair Cheetah)

"So she forgave him even before he asked her to?"

"Yes!" "Just like God!" (said Sweet Pea Elephant)

"Let's read another story together. Jesus told this one."

"Yeah!"

So we read through the BlestAreWe Prodigal Son story, with the children shouting out the words whenever we encountered a picture.

"What did you think of that? Another son who didn't make very good choices!"

"Hey, that father wanted him to come home just like Max's mom!" (said Courtly Polar Bear)

"He sure did, even though the son made some bad choices. What bad choices did the son make?"

"He took all the money" "He ran away from home" "He lost all the money"

"But still his father forgave him. Just like God will forgive us when we make a bad choice. Does anyone know what a 'conscience' is?"

"I do! It's like an invisible person that stays with you and tells you what your mom would want you to do" (said Rocking Horse)

"Very good! God gave all of us a conscience. And when we need to make a choice, we should listen to our conscience and it will tell us the right choice to make. This is hard! And Jesus knew it would be hard so he gave us something else. Does anyone know what else Jesus gave us to help us?"

"Jesus?" "er, ah" etc.

"Remember, from Baptism?"

"Holy Water!" (said Pragmatic Tiger)

"He gave us the Holy Spirit. When we need to make a choice, the Holy Spirit and our conscience will help us know what to do"

And so then we drew pictures of monsters, as a reminder that when we are making bad choices, it's like we are a monster just like Max.

Then we cut out some pictures of Max and his monsters, and we stuck them all over a plastic sack that we can use for Halloween trick or treat!

While the children were coloring, I continued to pester:

"By the way, what color was Father wearing this week?"

"Green!"

"And did we sing the Gloria or just say it?"

"Sing it!" "And I was horrified because I don't know it" (said Sweet Pea Elephant)

"And how about Holy, Holy, Holy?"

"Definitely sang it!" "I am finally getting use to that" (said Effusive Jaguar)

"You guys are awesome!"

I sent home the Family Time pages for Unit 2, Chapter 6, which we will be discussing next session.

I am so glad the children seemed to enjoy today's session. I have been looking forward for WEEKS (like a kid at Christmas!) to using one of my favorite books!

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

If you just have a bit of time, definitely go for the online activity for this chapter at Blest Are We
If you have two-bits of time, check out the coloring, crossword, and word search activities on the Prodigal Son at Catholicmom.
For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan there are many articles and activities on Prodigal Son and Good Shepherd.

Easy Day at the Camp Site

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:36:00 +0000

Sunday October 14th was our sixth session together. This week we covered the "We Care" mini-topic and the review of Unit 1 "We Gather as Believers". In preparing for the session, I wanted to focus on phrases and images we have already used in our sessions together. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion and craft activity. There is no activities worksheet for this week.

Packing Light: (The whole session was "light" - so just check out the end-of-unit review sheets from the Blest Are We workbook!

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we recognized all the children who had perfect attendance in October. Almost every 2nd grader won! We learned that Pragmatic Tiger wouldn't join us today, we decided we would miss him.

Hmmm... so I don't know whether it was Religious Ed (our fancy jack-o-lantern who will be given away as a prize next week), but there was a lot of interest in Halloween this week. I don't like being the bearer of bad news. "Sorry, guys, we're not going to be reviewing Halloween this week! I understand you want some Halloween candy, but we just have to focus on a little something else for a little while today." Whew! This much excitement this early for Halloween, we're going to be in for it at Christmas!

By way of distraction I just started right in.

"OK, what are you guys going to teach me today?"

"No way!" "You have got to be kidding me!"

"No, really. Can you believe we have finished our first whole unit together?! So today we are going to review it. I can't remember anything, so you have to teach me what we've learned. Who will be the teacher today instead of me?"

(lots of volunteers)

"OK, Fair Cheetah is going to be the teacher today. Please give her respect and answer her questions."

So Fair Cheetah led us through what have we learned. We remembered that we wrote some stuff down in our journals, and we could look at it for some clues. Here is what we came up with:

1. We learned we are community.
2. We learned we belong with baptism.
3. We learned about reconciliation.
4. We learned about praying.
5. We learned about role models.

I was impressed.
"Who might be some role models for us? I forgot."

"Saints!" ("And your mom" added Rocking Horse).

"Remind me again about some symbols for Baptism?"

"Water!" "You have to wear white!" "That oil stuff!"

Awesome.

"And by the way, what color was the priest wearing today?"

"Green!"

"And did we sing the Gloria or just say it?"

"Sing!" "Say it!"

"Today we just said it. Let's keep an eye on that one. And how about Holy, Holy, Holy?"

"Sing!"

And so, on to the activity. I asked for help in completing some booklets on what we learned. The booklets had some coloring options and some stickers to apply. They were received with a resounding "these are so cool!". (Truth be told, the booklets were an almost overwhelming singular inspiration this week - usually I am blessed with multiple ideas to pick from - and they took much longer to prep than expected and so this response from the children really boosted my morale - not to mention my ego~).

Each child had their favorite page of the booklet:

Rocking Horse and Effusive Jaguar with Baptism and Belong

Earnest Eagle and Sweet Pea Elephant with Community

Courtly Polar Bear and Fair Cheetah with Thanks and Praise

Rocking Horse told me I was too crazy with my camera, but I was allowed to take a picture of some of their booklet cover designs anyway (who can resist such creative bling?):

In addition to the workbook pages for the Unit Review, I handed out the Family Time pages for Unit 2, Chapter 5, which we will be starting next session.

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

If you just have a bit of time, go for any of the online or printable activities for the chapter if you missed them the first time - they can be found at Blest Are We
If you have two-bits of time, check out the check out the saints coloring activities at Coloring Saints
For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan from Unit 1, Chapter 4 there are many coloring pages of Psalms

Lions and Tigers and Bears - Make Noise!

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 21:20:00 +0000

Sunday October 7th was our fifth session together. This week we covered Unit 1, Chapter 4 "We Praise and Thank God". In preparing for the session, I established the focus as ways to talk and listen to God through prayer. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion, the activities worksheet, and craft activity.

Packing Light: If you just want the activity sheet for this session, you can find it here. It has a matching activity, color-by-number, word shapes, and dot-to-dot activity.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we recognized all the children who celebrated birthdays in September and October. We sang "Happy Birthday" to all of them! We learned that Fair Cheetah and Pragmatic Tiger wouldn't join us today, they were on a special vacation with family, we decided we would miss them.

I had done a little scouting ahead this week, so when we arrived in our room, "Holy, Holy, Holy!" was written on the white board for us and we read it together as our opening prayer... no, that's not right. We drummed ourselves up into cheerleading mode and read it WITH GREAT JOY together as our opening prayer!

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest!

Alright! Let's remember just a tiny bit from last week. What did we learn? Courtly Polar Bear read her Journal and reminded us we learned about role models. Yes!

And what was that sacrament with the long name that helps us get rid of sins after Baptism? It was on the tip of their tongues, they tried, so I helped them out: "RECONCILIATION". I handed out the little printout, and we talked about it a while. Rocking Horse read it to us and then we talked about what the people in the picture were doing. I told them we were going to learn lots more about it, and they are going to hear that word "RECONCILIATION" a lot! Effusive Jaguar said she bets they hear it one million times! I said she was probably right!

Drumming back the rowdiness, I started off:

What color was the priest wearing today?

Green!

And who was that guy up there anyway?

Our new pastor!

Right! And what did he do different than we're used to?

He talked different!

Oh-kay... and what else?

[ah, er, what?]

Hey, Effusive Jaguar, I saw you in church, and when we said the "Our Father", you had a BIG surprise on your face! What did we do different today?

Oh Yeah! We sang lots of stuff today!

(I haven't even met the new pastor, and yet he gave me a terrific lead in for our topic! Thank You Holy Spirit!)

So we talked about how when we are at mass we say lots of prayers and sing lots of songs together. We talked about how sometimes we pray alone, like when we say our prayers at night. And sometimes we pray together, like when we are at church. Sometimes we talk, and sometimes we sing.

I asked, "What kinds of things do we say when we are praying?" ... needing some prompting I suggested, "Sometimes we ask for things"... to which Effusive Jaguar said "that's the easy kind of prayer!". (I said I agree!)

"But if we are going to ask for things, then we better be nice and say a prayer for thanks when we get it!" I said. To which Rocking Horse said, "Hey, what do you mean? It's not like God hands you something and says 'here it is' or anything!" I agreed that we don't usually see any UPS packages from God delivered to our houses, but he does give us things. So we spent some time discussing all the good things God has given us and how we know they are from God even though he didn't address the labels! We also mused on the possibility of finding such a UPS package and how awesome that would be!! I said, "You can't send God a thank-you note, so that's how come we say prayers to say thank you." Rocking Horse said it would be cool if you could give Him a hug, and I agreed. Effusive Jaguar said "I just hug myself and I know it goes up!" Wow. "What a terrific idea, I like that!", I said. (Instinctively all of them gave themselves a hug and I gotta tell you, I got goosebumps!).

We didn't do the "what am I thankful for" activity that I had originally planned in the lesson, but this conversation was probably way more fruitful anyway! We'll have lots of opportunities for the "what am I thankful for" activity.

OK, so we sometimes ask for things when we pray. We sometimes give thanks when we pray. What else do we do when we pray? Remember when we sang "Happy Birthday" to everyone? How did that make them feel? We all agreed that we were sure those kids were very happy, just like we feel so happy when it is our turn to have a birthday. Sweet Pea Elephant made the connection for me: "So sometimes we should pray just to feel good!". Yeah!

So then this led us to King David. We remembered that we mentioned him a couple of weeks ago. Yes, the same King David. We entered into a lively rendition of the story of how David was just a kid whose job it was to watch the sheep. And while he was out there he wrote lots of prayers and songs of thanks and praise to God. And sometimes he had to fight lions and bears to save the sheep! That was pretty impressive, we couldn't believe he was so brave to grab them by their heads!

We were trying to figure out how big Goliath really was. We decided he would NOT fit through the door! There happened to be a picture of Goliath on the wall. "Do you want to know how big he was?" I said. "See his sword there? Well, that sword weighed more than 15 pounds! Do you know how much that is? Let me show you." They each eagerly came up to try to lift my tote bag (which was fully loaded and weighed around 15-20 pounds ~ what a coincidence!). Rocking Horse could swing it just a little, but it was WAY too heavy for anyone to swing!

When we heard how rotten he was being and what nasty things he was saying about God, they were cheering David on when he said he was going to fight him (even though they were scared because he was just a kid and Goliath was so huge!). But I assured them that David was fighting in the name of God and asked for God's help. Sweet Pea Elephant helped me finish the story. Yahoo! Everyone was jumping up and down when David won! Exactly! And that's how David felt and he wrote many many songs of thanks and praise to God to show how happy he was!

We talked about how David wasn't the king when he fought Goliath, that was King Saul. We talked about how King Saul became very jealous of David and chased him and fought him for a lot of years. We talked about how he did some bad things and he didn't care and he wasn't sorry, and that made God very sad. So much so that eventually God decided to make David king instead.

We wrapped up our David story by talking about how David was a great king and he did some really great things (like bringing the Ark of the Covenant and planning the Temple), but he did some really bad things too (like killing some people he shouldn't have and some other things that we agreed we wouldn't discuss). But whenever he saw that he did something bad, he told God he was sorry. Effusive Jaguar broke into a spontaneous rendition of David getting on his knees and saying he was sorry and would never do it again! And whenever he would say he was sorry, God forgave him every time. ("Just like here?" asked Courtly Polar Bear, pointing back to the Reconciliation worksheet. "Exactly!" I said, "that is why we have it!").

(many thanks to our DRE who took me to a catechist seminar yesterday where one of the work sessions was on storytelling, where I learned some techniques I was able to immediately apply in our session today!)

Then it was time for our activity. "Cool!" was the general reception of the idea of putting together the window clings. Some wanted to follow the example exactly, while Rocking Horse and Effusive Jaguar exchanged pieces and were a bit more creative.

When you see the rays, give thanks and praise!

Next week we will be having a unit 1 review, so there weren't any Family Time pages, although I did hand out the worksheets, as well as the pages from the chapter in Blest Are We, and also the Good News pages for the upcoming weeks. You can enjoy following the mass with them through the months of October and November.

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

If you just have a bit of time, definitely go for the online activity for this chapter at Blest Are We
If you have two-bits of time, check out the reading and puzzle activities on King David activity
For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan there are many coloring pages of Psalms

Role Models - Picking Up Tracks

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 23:03:00 +0000

Sunday September 30th was our fourth session together. This week we covered Unit 1, Chapter 3 "Our Church Shows Us How To Live". In preparing for the session, I established the focus as being ways our Church shows us how to be good and holy members our our church community. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion, the activities worksheet, and craft activity.

Packing Light: If you just want the activity sheet for this session, you can find it here. It has a matching activity (they will need their books or another Saints resource), maze, and word search activity.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we learned that we are being joined by a new animal. We wanted to make sure to make him feel welcome in our community, so when we settled in our room, we introduced ourselves, asked him what animal he would like to chose (he chose eagle!), and then we reviewed what we have been learning together. Pragmatic Tiger reminded us what is a community, and Courtly Polar Bear filled us in on what types of communities we might belong to. Fair Cheetah read to us from her journal entry last week to recall that in Baptism we belong to our Church community. We discussed briefly that in Baptism God calls us by name to be holy and good members of His community. We remembered that the Holy Spirit comes and, as Effusive Jaguar reminded us “we get rid of that original sin thing.” (She couldn’t have stated it better had I paid her to be my shill!) I used that conversation to ask if anyone knew what Sacrament the Church has to “get rid of” other sins that we might have after Baptism. We were stumped. So I started to write RECONCILIATION on the board, and then they remembered that was the big word we didn’t know anything about from our first day! I said “exactly!” And let them know we will be learning more about that very soon.

Distributing the worksheets, I asked if anyone knew what “role model” means. We needed some prompting. So I asked “Some of you told me you are on a team. Who shows you how to be a good member of a team?” Effusive Jaguar piped up immediately: “the coach! And we know this because we are on a team!”.

“So then, who shows us how to be a good student at school?” Earnest Eagle said it was his teacher.

“And what about at home? Who helps you know how to be a good family member and not pull your sisters’ hair?” A flurry of answers: My Mom! My Dad! Grandma! My Parents!

Alrighty then, so who helps us know how to be good citizens in our Church community? Rocking Horse said “Priests and those kids in white who go up there with them!”

We talked about how Jesus gave us lots of instructions of good and holy actions. Fair Cheetah read our first Scripture reading (Mark 10:17-22), and then we reviewed the commandments He listed.

We also talked about how Saint Paul also taught people how to follow Jesus. Effusive Jaguar read our second Scripture reading (Ephesians 5 1-2).

We’re on a roll… so I keep it going: “Who knows what a saint is?” In more of a question than an answer, Sweet Pea Elephant says “A really holy person?” So we have a discussion about how saints are holy, that they tried very hard to be like God and follow Jesus’ instructions. We talked about how the saints are good examples for us.

Still groovin’, I ask, “Does anyone know what it means to say ‘follow in his footsteps’?” OK, stop the bus. This one has everyone stumped, what in the world am I talking about?! No fainting this time, but lots of drama. So I explain how the saints tried to do as Jesus did, and we call that “following in His footsteps”. Rolling out the tracing paper, I say, “and we’re going to draw our footsteps of good and holy actions too!”. So one by one they took turns standing on the paper while one of the other children traced their footsteps. While their feet were being traced, we thought of 2 good and holy actions. Then, those who wanted to could embellish their footprints with markers, etc.

Here is what we came up with:

Rocking Horse:

Honor your father and mother
Tell the truth

Fair Cheetah:

Help my sister
Share my toys with my sister

Effusive Jaguar:

Say prayers every night

Help my mom with the dishwasher

Courtly Polar Bear:

Help my brother with his homework
Help my brother with his laundry

Sweet Pea Elephant:

Help my little sister get dressed for bed
Help my mom bake

Pragmatic Tiger:

Help mom clean the toilet
Go to church

Earnest Eagle:

Help mom with clothes
Help dad with yardwork

We decided that pulling sister’s hair was not good and holy (Fair Cheetah was particularly relieved about this), nor was telling lies or cheating.

The children knew I still had a hands-on activity and were chomping at the bit to get them! We were running out of time, as we had a special Parish event and we were trying to get out early. But I squeezed in just a quick hike over to the church and handed out the activity. We saw how the pictures on the holy cards were pictures of the stained glass windows in the church! I explained how we have these 10 special saints on our windows in the church, and we have a holy card for each one. On the back of the card is when we celebrate the saint and now we can think of these saints and how good examples they are every Sunday when we come to church and see the beautiful windows. This activity was a hundred-miles-a-minute so I might have pushed it too far and the children might not have gotten a lot out of it. We are so blessed to have such wonderful stained glass windows with the four Gospel evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), Saints Peter and Paul, and four of the Doctors of the Church (Jerome, Gregory, Augustine, Ambrose). With such beauty before us as a constant reminder of their wonderful examples, I just couldn’t let the opportunity pass without trying!

I sent home the Family Time pages for Unit 1, Chapter 4, which we will be discussing next session.

I also handed out all the pages from all the chapters we have covered from our Blest Are We workbook, now that we have the books for everyone we can use them more during class too.

I realize these blog entries might be a little long for many people’s tastes… but the children are so clever and their insights so precious. I am just so pleased they are all engaged and participating in the discussion, I just have to share it all!

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

If you just have a bit of time, definitely go for the online activity for this chapter at Blest Are We
If you have two-bits of time, check out the saints coloring activities at Coloring Saints
For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan

Field Trip: In Baptism We Belong

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 16:52:00 +0000

Sunday September 23rd was our third session together. This week we covered Unit 1, Chapter 2 "We Belong to the Church". In preparing for the session, I established the focus as being ways we show how we belong to our church community. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion, the activities worksheet, and craft activity.

Packing Light: If you just want the activity sheet for this session, you can find it here. It has a color-by-number, fill-in-the-blanks, and dot-to-dot activity.

After we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we started off by taking a field trip over to the church. First, we had a brief prayer to get us started. Since we had already said the "Our Father" with the whole group, the children decided a short little prayer would be better to start us this time, so we just asked Jesus to help us open our hearts to His word during our time together.

We remembered what we talked about last time - that we are a community with our church. We talked about ways we know we belong to different communities: we wear uniforms or we have flags. I told them how Baptism is a way we know we belong to our church community. I asked if anyone has been to a baptism. Most of the children had been to a Baptism. I asked what activities happen at a baptism, here is what we came up with:

they pour water on the baby's head (Sweet Pea Elephant knew that the water was like being cleaned. We talked about Adam and Eve and "original sin". The children decided that Adam and Eve gave everyone a sin, but we could get rid of it with Baptism.)

they light a candle (no one could figure out why we had candles, so I described that it represents Jesus who is our light and we receive Him at Baptism. He helps show us the way. We decided it was like a night-light when it is dark at night, so we can find our way to the bathroom).

I asked if there was anything else that happens at a Baptism. Our Pragmatic Tiger told us that he went to his cousin's baptism and the baby screamed a lot the whole time and the priest couldn't settle the baby down. The children agreed that babies do cry a lot at Baptisms, probably because of all the cold water they dump on them. I think I was successful in convincing them that wasn't one of the symbols!

I led them through the final two symbols:

oil (I asked if anyone knew what we do with the oil and our Effusive Jaguar knew right away it was "like the Old Testament, when they break it on your head and then you are a king or something". We discussed that yes, it means we are called by name by God to be His children).

white clothes (no one knew this one, the children thought that the colors were either purple or green, they were surprised it was white, like getting married or something! After that reference, I was quick to switch the whole "represents purity" conversation over to equate with "having had the sins washed"~~)

After the discussion, we trekked back over to the classroom. They all wanted to write on the white board but agreed they would wait until after we finished all our other activities. Rocking Horse helped hand out all the activity worksheets, which were received with great relish due to the color-by-number on the front! We reviewed briefly:

why do we have Baptism? (So we Belong!)

what happens at Baptism? (Our sins are cleansed and God calls us by name) (N.B. - I had mixed reaction to my spontaneous rendition of the "Name Game" song using their names. Fair Cheetah feigned fainting! Was it my voice?).

When she recovered, Fair Cheetah read the scripture reading (Matthew 3:11-17) for us. That was a tough reading but she hung in there with all those long words! We were amazed that Jesus was Baptized! We talked about why he did that when of course HE did not have any sins to cleanse!

The children were much relieved that is was FINALLY time for the hands-on activity. They each selected a bookmark of their favorite color, and I gave each of them a strip of the stickers. The stickers were of the 4 symbols of Baptism, and of Jesus' Baptism. After they applied all the stickers they wrote "We Belong" on the bookmark. They really seemed to like this activity, and once again each child was able to apply their own flair.

Pragmatic Tiger wanted to label all the symbols

Whereas Effusive Jaguar and Rocking Horse saved their bling for the backside

We wrapped up the session with journal time. Most of the children completed their entries quickly and so had plenty of time to write and draw on the white board.

Pragmatic Tiger took advantage of this time to complete his dot-to-dot activity, and check out how he embellished it!

And Sweet Pea Elephant did her color-by-number, lovely!

Rocking Horse actually finished all her activities, but I didn't get the snapshots in time.

I sent home the Family Time pages for Unit 1, Chapter 3, which we will be discussing next session.

Hope the children feel as good about today's session as I did!

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

If you just have a bit of time, definitely go for the online activity for this chapter at Blest Are We
If you have two-bits of time, check out the Baptism of Jesus coloring activities at Catholic Mom and the Baptism of Jesus online word search game at Quia.
For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan.

First Excursion - We Are Welcomed By Our Community

noreply@blogger.com (Shirley) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 03:39:00 +0000

Our second session together was on Sunday, September 16th. This week we covered Unit 1, Chapter 1 "Our Church Welcomes Us". In preparing for the session, I established the focus as being about our church community and how we are welcomed to mass. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion, the activities worksheet, and craft activity.

Packing Light: If you just want the activity sheet for this session, you can find it here. It has a word search, crossword puzzle, and coloring activity.

Somewhat appropriately, we had a new student added to the class. So we made sure to make her feel welcome! She chose polar bear as her animal (photo forthcoming!).

I passed out the activity worksheets, which were very well received - the children wanted to work on the puzzles right away! But we decided we would have our conversation first and do the puzzles later.

We discussed "what is a community?". Our Pragmatic Tiger knew: "it is a group of people who come together." So we named some different types of communities we know about: neighborhoods, schools, families, sports teams. I asked "What about our church?". They weren't so sure about that at first, but then they decided since they do things together (like kneeling and Sunday School), church could be a community too.

We talked about ways communities come together to meet or celebrate. What kinds of things do we do when we get together? "Party!" "Eat!" Our Effusive Jaguar volunteered to write all these activities down on the white board. I asked for a volunteer to read from the scripture reading ( Luke 5:27-29) and our Courtly Polar Bear signed up. She did a terrific job! We talked about how Jesus liked to share meals with lots of different people and made them feel comfortable.

We talked about how after Jesus' death and resurrection, the early church still liked to get together to share a meal and tell stories about when Jesus was with them. Our Rocking Horse read the second scripture reading (Acts 2: 42-47) like a pro. We discussed how sometimes when the members of the early church got together they became one by sharing the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, and that is why today we still get together as a community, and how the Eucharist at mass is a special meal.

We tried to see how mass might be like a family gathering, like a birthday party. At a birthday party, when we first come together we greet each other and we also sing to the birthday person. Similarly, at mass we start off by singing and greeting the priest and each other. Sweet Pea Elephant noted that this week the priest was wearing Green. She said that was like regular mass. We agreed we would keep our eyes open for when the colors change - that must mean something important is going to happen!

Out of curiosity, I asked the children if any of them knew who King David was. Several of them knew he was a great king and our Pragmatic Tiger even knew he built a temple, but they didn't know how he liked to sing praise. They decided that was a really good thing he did.

It was then time for our hands-on activity. We cut out pictures of church doors, and glued the bread and wine and a "Welcome" inside. We are a community and we are welcome! As the children finished their crafts, they spent time talking and working on the activity sheets. We all had different ideas how to complete our crafts. Rocking Horse cut the back page and the inside designs to fit the shape of the doors and glued them all together. Pragmatic Tiger cut along all the intricate edgings of the bread and wine pictures. Courtly Polar Bear trimmed the "Welcome" letters to be individually glued. They all seemed to really enjoy the activity, and because I didn't have quite enough glue sticks and scissors to go around, they figured out how to share them and take turns so no one was sitting with nothing to do for very long!

Then it was journal time. I passed out journals for each of the children. Each journal had been customized with the picture they drew of their animal on the cover. They were so excited to see their very own artwork on their journals! I explained that after each session together we would talk about what we learned, and they would write down anything they thought they liked or wanted to remember. We took a few minutes to write our entries in our journals. As the children finished their entries, they drew on the white board. In fact, they worked as a team to locate enough dry-erase markers so that everyone could participate!

I sent home the Family Time pages for Unit 1, Chapter 2, which we will be discussing next session.

A successful outing, I'd say!

Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

If you just have a bit of time, definitely go for the online activity for this chapter at Blest Are We
For more in-depth activities, check out the lesson on the early church at Higher Praise

A note about journals: I am a strong believer in "we remember that which we write down". I use journals for myself and also with my own children when we are reviewing something we have learned. The act of formulating one's thoughts and crafting them into statements is in itself an activity that helps in retention... the actual writing out of the statements is even more reinforcement. Even if it is only one or two sentences, it still is a distillation - from the child's point of view - of what has been learned and what is to be remembered. You will be amazed at their entries and also how their entries mature over the course of the year!