Being a Catholic Teacher in a Catholic School during the Season of Lent...Priceless!

Who is this man wearing a JV Student Council t-shirt?

Why is this lady leading all this singing?

What an amazing start to our week, as Father Dan came to be with our Jean Vanier Catholic School family this morning during our assembly to read to us the Gospel message, then share its meaning with us all.

How blessed we are to be able to openly pray with faith and with our school family.

Given the strain that our school has faced this year, it was decided that we needed to remind ourselves that God is ALWAYS with us.  Father Dan came and blessed our school, generously allowing a student from each classroom to bless the room, recognizing that God is Our Ever Present Teacher.

We didn't have 'pancake day' last week, we celebrated SHROVE Tuesday, because we know that it is the day we 'shrive' or 'confess' before the Holy season of Lent.

We know that Jesus gave His life as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, so we proudly wore our ashes to demonstrate our willingness to sacrifice in Jesus' name.

Lent lasts for 40 days (we don't count Sundays).  Jesus spent 40 days in the desert praying.  We pray and fast and give alms during Lent as our own way to share in Jesus' experience.  In our classroom, we are creating a "Jesus tree" through reading a specific verse or verses from the Bible daily.  We are all trying to remember to choose not to eat meat on Friday.

Each child is trying to bring a coin daily to offer as alms.  It could be a penny, a nickel, a dime or whatever the family chooses.  At the end of the Lenten season, we will choose a charity to put the money towards.  We remember Jesus' words...'whatsoever you do for the least of My brothers, that you did unto Me.'

Ukrainian Embroidery

Many hands make light work...

Our Jr. High friends visited our class again on Friday, this time to assist with a hands on project.  Since the story of 'The Mitten' is a Ukrainian folk tale, with Baba playing a central part in the story as she knitted the mittens that the boy lost, we thought of another talent Baba probably possessed, the ability to do cross-stitch!

With a great deal of hands-on help from the Creative Arts students, the Gr. 2/3 students were able to use needle and thread to create a small Ukrainian cross-stitch border.

This project involves being able to 'see' how the pattern will evolve, count the squares to know where to put the needle in and take it out, then keep the thread from getting a knot in it!

The 'buzz' in the classroom was electric, as were the desperate cries for "Pani" or "Mrs." as small troubles arose.  I doubt any student will take those lovely embroidered blouses for granted again!

There was a true enjoyment on all students' parts as they worked through the project.....

...and recognized that they can be friends!

Here's an example of what the final product will look like, though it's not complete.  Imagine the red section, turned around and hugging the other side of the black stars in the center.  Hopefully, the Jr. High students will be coming back next week to assist with completing this project.

Now that's using your feet!

In the unit on 'projecting, receiving and retaining', we work on using both our hands and our feet, along with a variety of equipment types.  Currently, the students are concentrating their efforts on skills with would be used in soccer type games.  They can tell you the difference between the instep and outstep of their feet and when you should use each.  Here one girl is using her instep to dribble the ball around a hoop on the floor, practising being in control of the ball.

The students also learn the safe manner to stop a ball, and then redirect it.

It's not so easy to catch those little feet in action!

The Mitten

For the next few weeks, our Language Learning lessons will be centered around the Ukrainian folk tale of "The Mitten."  In this story someone loses a mitten and a number of animals decide to make it their home.  Through comparing a variety of versions, the students will discover how language and story telling has its basis in oral traditions first.  The students will be making text-to-self connections, looking for similarities and differences, practicing using synonyms, learning how to properly use quotation marks to indicate the speech of a story character and re-telling a story or using a story to pattern a new story after.

Perhaps the best known version of this folk tale is Jan Brett's.  It was compared to Alvin Tressault's version.

We were fortunate enough to be able to hear the story in the Ukrainian language!  Who helped us?

We were visited by the Ukrainian Creative Arts class and in small groups the story was read to the students in it's original language. (Thank you to these great students!)

The little ones learned that in this version, it is a grandfather who lost the mitten, not a small boy.

They were able to hear the sound of the language....

...and see how different the writing looks!

The older students helped the little ones learn the names of the animals in Ukrainian and wrote those names on the whiteboard in Ukrainian.  What a wonderful afternoon!  Both the Grade 2 and Grade 3 social studies curriculum has connections to Ukraine so this works well on two different levels.

One Hundredth Day of School!

Wednesday, February 15th was our 100th day of school this year.  We celebrated by applying many of the things we learned into a day long party!  Each student wrote 100 words on their own!

The Grade 2 students paired up with dice to race to 100 tally marks.

The Grade 3 students challenged themselves to see how many ways they could search for the word 'heart' without repeating any of the pathways.  It was more difficult than they thought it would be!

It was intriguing to see how many ways the students choose to fill in the hundreds charts.  What does this student know about the pattern that numbers follow, as shown by the choice to fill in the chart by columns?

Co-operation in putting together a 100 piece puzzle.

The Grade 2 students brought 100 items in a small bottle along with clues to have their classmates guess what could be inside.  This lad brought in the tiniest items....100 grains of rice, that didn't even cover the bottom of the bottle!

Each year there is a surprising item, and this year it went with the clues:

1.  It can be a liquid, a solid and a gas.

2.  You can skate on it.

3. It can fall from the sky.

It was 100 ml of water!  Well done!

Valentine's Day

Sometimes it's all about the food!  The Grade Two students used 'conversation hearts' to explore a number of concepts in mathematics.  Each had their own package and they worked in groups to share their strategies to complete the questions.

There is a wonderful learning 'buzz' as the students talk about what they know and explore what is problematic. 

Here's one little guy's sorting...notice there are only five colours.

The teacher prepared sheet had the colour purple (from last year's candy packs), and this 'smartie' knew how to make a new blue section!

The students' predicted how many they could stack before they actually tried it!

Food was a big hit at the party on February 14th.  Some of the students had never had finger jello before!

The heart shaped jam sandwiches were a hit as well!

They all loved the red fruit kebobs, with strawberries, watermelon and grapes!

They all beg to have their picture taken so that they can show how much they appreciate the wonderful support that the parents provide to ensure the students have a wonderful time!

Too busy during game time to take pictures, but the balloons were part of the fun time they had!

The students were able to choose what type of animal they would make to hold their Valentines.  Look at the creative ideas that were done....a puppy, kitty and bunny!

Thank you to each and every parent who provided anything to make the children's afternoon such fun!