Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Preparing for The Presentation

The Presentation of Jesus


We ended the month of January with a day dedicated to The Presentation of Jesus (also known as Candlemas).  Even though we are a couple days away from the actual day on our Church calendar (February 2), we needed to fit this important day into a busy Catholic Schools' Week schedule the best we could!  (Can you tell it was Pajama Day?)

After reading from Luke, the students enjoyed seeing what was in the Atrium box that went with this Infancy Narrative.  Probably the favorite pieces were the tiny turtle doves that Joseph offered as sacrifice! 

We created a nice project, which the munchkins were able to take home right away.  Each munchkin colored a picture of Mary and Joseph presenting Jesus at the temple, with Simeon holding Him. 











They added a bit of writing (to practice some phonic rules we're working on...like using silent "e", and capitalizing names).  Our writing skills are just amazing! I am so proud of these munchkins!












To finish the project, everyone traced one hand on a folded piece of paper.  When opened, it created a dove. 











All the parts of this project were placed together on a poster. 


They were really nice when complete!


We ended our day with a fun little addition...
Would you believe it if I said that it was a snack?


We made candle cookies, because The Presentation is also known as Candlemas.  The munchkins loved them!


Until next time...
Giggles,
Mrs. D.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

The Conversion of St. Paul

Why Are You Persecuting Me?


We spent some time this past week learning about the story of St. Paul being knocked off his horse by the voice of Jesus!  The munchkins listened so intently to the story...almost mesmerized by it.  

Afterwards, we all colored a picture of the event and created a stained glass window to hang in our Atrium.  It was a great opportunity to take a look at some of the stained glass of our own church, too, discussing who and what the images were.

Our projects were done very nicely.  The munchkins colored carefully...











And added the picture to a black window shape.


Then they added beautiful colored shapes to the black border to create the stained glass look.


Pretty!


Did you think I would forget the food?

Never fear!

We made stained glass window cookies.  Chocolate iced sugar cookies with a cross made from skittles.  Extra skittles were added around the cross to create a stained glass look. 










And boy were they good!


St. Paul, Pray for Us!

Until next time...
Giggles,
Mrs. D.

Happy Birthday Munchkins!

A Birthday for Two!


We had two fun celebrations and two yummy treats this month!






Until next time...
Giggles,
Mrs. D.


Monday, January 16, 2012

Meeting Rose

A New Pet for a Munchkin


One of our munchkins brought a special visitor for the class to meet. 

Isn't she cute!?


Until next time...
Giggles,
Mrs. D.

Friday, January 6, 2012

The Feast of the Epiphany

The Happiest Search


Our first week back after a wonderful Christmas break was spent celebrating the manifestation of the Lord with the Feast of the Epiphany.  We prepared for this feast day with all sorts of fun crafts, stories and songs. 

We started with our atrium Infancy Narrative box to tell the story of the three kings.  This led us to a fun art project that introduced two interesting, new concepts:
symmetry and silhouettes

Everyone cut a silhouette of one of the wise men on a camel (which was quite a challenge).  After adding it to black paper, the munchkins used "royal jewels" to create a symmetrical design around the border.  They were beautiful!


Each afternoon of this week we had fun singing the crazy Christmas song The Twelve Days of Christmas.  Even more interesting, though, was to dig deep into the real meaning of the song.  We created an amazing lapbook filled with the hidden meanings of each of the twelve gifts given by the "true love" (after discussing who that True Love is).

The munchkins worked so hard on the lapbook.  There was so much cutting, folding, gluing, coloring and especially...following directions!  It was a huge task and helped develop so many different skills. 











Plus, it was just fantastic when it was completed.  I think every little munchkin commented on how they couldn't wait to show Mom and Dad!



This mini-unit gave us the chance to practice our writing skills too.  The munchkins wrote their own books titled Kings.  The sight word "here" was our main focus, as well as using the special ending "ing".  Considering we had been out of school for two whole weeks, the munchkins did a wonderful job remembering all the conventions of sentence writing.

Here's just a sample.

























They were very proud of their finished books...as well they should be.


We ended our week with one last fun project.  The munchkins created the setting and character pieces to retell the story of the visit from the Magi.  





















Probably the most fun was the fact that the character pieces were little finger puppets and the setting could stand up on its own!


In all, we had a great first week of January and a great first week on the new year.  

Until next time...
Giggles,
Mrs. D.