The Little Flower

Celebrating St. Therese

I just love the end of September and the beginning of October!  There are so many wonderful feast days which give us beautiful opportunities to examine and imitate the lives of the saints (which, of course, we all hope to be someday!).

Well, tomorrow's feast day is one of my favorites. 

St. Therese of the Child Jesus.

The munchkins learned all about her life this week and we created a cute little prayer box to take home and fill with prayer intentions. 

We began with a lovely coloring image of St. Therese (from Relevant Radio).  The munchkins did a wonderful job of coloring her realistically.

 

Then the munchkins created a small cross from construction paper that they decorated with paper and tissue roses.

We glued the cross to the outside of a little paper mache box.

Then we added the image of St. Therese inside the box.

Take a peek!

St. Therese, pray for us!

Novena to St. Therese

O Little Therese of the Child Jesus,

please pick for me a rose from the heavenly garden

and send it to me as a message of love.

O Little Flower of Jesus,

ask God today to grant the favors I now place with confidence in your hands...(state your petitions here). 

St. Therese,

help me to always believe, as you did,

in God's great love for me

so that I might imitate your "Little Way" each day. 

Amen.

Until next time...

Giggles,

Mrs. D.



Michaelmas

Celebrating the Archangels

We started our day the right way...with Mass to celebrate the Feast of St. Michael, St. Gabriel and St. Raphael.  Then we spent our morning learning about the special jobs God gave each of them:  Protector, Messenger, and Healer.

Our craft centered on St. Michael.

A shield of protection with his image and a prayer that the munchkins are going to try to say each morning!

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our safeguard against the wiles and wickedness of the devil.  Restrain him, O God, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of heavenly Host, by the power of God, cast into Hell Satan and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin and destruction of souls.

St. Michael, pray for us!

Amen

Until next time...

Giggles,

Mrs. D.

Happy Homecoming

Everyone Loves a Parade!

It's always fun when the local high school has its annual Homecoming Parade.  Our school is very lucky to be right along the parade route, so we get to enjoy the festivities together!

We generally sit with our first grade friends.  This year, we had our picture taken together before the parade began.  Mrs. C and Mrs. D were even in the picture!  That doesn't happen very often! 

The munchkins patiently awaited the first glimpse of the parade.

Is it coming yet?

Oh, my goodness...I see it!

Everyone waved as each float went by, hoping to have some candy pitched our way!

It was so funny to see the munchkins' faces as they realized that Father and Mr. B were in the parade too.

We so enjoyed watching as our school float came by...

especially when some of our junior high friends gave us extra candy!

But probably the most fun was gathering the candy when the parade was over!

WOW! 

Look at that stash!



Our classroom basket was very full!

What fun we will have sorting, counting and fair-sharing!

Until next time...

Giggles,

Mrs. D.

Chicka Chicka 123

Meet Me at the Top of the Apple Tree!

We climbed out of the coconut tree to end our Chicka Chicka unit in an apple tree instead!  The companion story of Chicka Chicka 123 was a fun way to usher in the season of fall, learn all about the seasonal changes of an apple tree and explore some more number concepts (like counting by 10).  It also gave us a chance to work on number word recognition, especially the words:  one, two and three.

Our centers will filled with all sorts of apple fun.

Counting apples...

Seasons of the apple tree...

Ordering apple numbers by 10...

Apple books to read...



Patterning with apples...

Number word practice...

The Apple Pie Tree at Listening...

 Johnny Appleseed poems and coloring...

And so many yummy apple things at the Snack Table!

Our main science objective was to develop a better understanding of the four seasons.  After reading the great story of The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree, the munchkins each made a poster of the apple tree showing each season.  They enjoyed the special items that made each season different...like the tissue paper blossoms, the shimmering fall leaves and the cotton ball snow!

We made this activity even more fun by creating our recipe of the week based on the same book.  Each munchkins created a cookie and cracker apple tree and then decorated it according to one of the seasons.  They were able to choose from pink sprinkles (blossoms), green skittles (summer apples), red skittles (fall apples), or marshmallows (snowflakes).

The finished recipe was so cute!

Spring

Summer



Fall

Winter

It soon became apparent that nothing in this unit could be accomplished without eating and the munchkins couldn't wait to see what the next treat was going to be!

Our math activities were probably the most popular...

Like finding the pattern on the worm in our apple (gummi worms, of course).

Of course, eating the worm was the best part...

Well...letting it hang out of our mouths was the BEST part.  Actually swallowing it was just a bonus!

And since we were at it, (you know...eating) we decided we'd better eat some apples (since that was our main focus this week, after all).  So we took an afternoon to try three different types of apples and graph our favorites.

There was a Granny Smith, a Red Delicious, and a Golden Delicious.

Sweet...

and sour!

Golden Delicious beat out Red this year.

Smiles munchkins!

No really...SMILE!



Believe it or not, we did really work this week too.  The munchkins learned to read a repetitive text emergent book all on their own.  It helped them gain fluency as readers and reinforced sight words and the number words "one", "two", and "three".  After reading the story, the munchkins wrote their own version...and yes, they did ALL the writing.  Their text used the sight word sentence:

I see one.  I see two.  I see three.

They did a fantastic job!  Many remembered the spaces between their words and to use proper punctuation.

What a great week!

Until next time...

Giggles,

Mrs. D.