Christ the King

This past Sunday is known as Christ the King Sunday.  We are in the last week of the 

liturgical calendar.Next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent, the season of 

preparing for the birth of our Saviour.

To help make the connection for the littles, they each made a crown,, declaring that 

CHRIST IS KING OF

each person, each family, each community, each nation and each universe.

May Christ reign in your heart!

Gather your people, O Lord

Today was a day like no other.  It is the day that proves that the many students and staff at our school are truly a family.  We all belong together.  We all matter.  We all are loved by God.

It's a wonderful tradition that at the end of the school year, the entire body of Christ meets at our parish and prays together.  The Grade One buddies give their Grade Eight buddies a cross.  This year was especially poignant as the students in Grade 4 to 8 will all be off on new adventures.  Our school moves to a K to Gr. 4 model in September.

Before our 'farewell' assembly, the Grade Eight students lined the halls and as the other students walked by, they exchanged high fives and 'good luck' and general excitement for their new foray into high school.

The 'leader of the band' is our own music magician.  She brings tears to my eyes almost every time her kiddos sing.   It doesn't matter if is one class, the choir, or the whole school, these children sing with the voices of angels!

Here she is getting them all 'worked up' and ready for this day's song fest!

What a gift she is to our school!

The students in Grades One to Four read a poem to the older grades explaining why they are wonderful to have around!  My money is on our Assistant Principal writing that amazing piece. (The boy in stripes is from my class!)

Look at what the kiddos can do!  Their final research project in Social Studies was focused on one of the most photographed symbols in Canada, our own Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Using the writing of Mary Wise Brown, as their template, they wrote about the important thing about the RCMP.  This work was edited and the students used the school's chrome books to create their final keyboarded copy.  They learned how to :

centre the title,

change the font,

change the font size,

recognize errors,

fix errors 

import a picture

size a picture

print

It makes for a very impressive hallway display!

Great job kiddos!

A measuring we will go....

It is so important that the students see what they are learning in school, as skills that they will use in real life.  To bring this point home, the measuring unit that they worked on for the last few weeks was  a competition, one in which pairs of students blew, flicked tossed and kicked a 'puff' ball.  

They pairs of students then measured the distance that the puff ball travelled in three different ways.  

They used a measuring tape, which was divided into centimetres,

they measured with their handprints and they measured with unified cubes.

They learned how to record these measurements and are working on some follow-up activities to solidify their thinking.

The Grade Four classes led the entire school in the Living Rosary last week.

It is so difficult to get pictures in the dark...

but these two darlings volunteered to help me get at least one photo where you can see the kiddos' faces.

This morning the students walked into a changed classroom.

It wasn't a classroom at all!  It was the Retell Restaurant, an idea shared

by Christine DeCarbo/  It was the perfect way to end our Robert Munsch unit.

The students focused on the setting, characters, problem, three important events and the ending of the stories.

The appetizer was a set of three short passages, in which the students 

used colours to show those elements found in that story.

I was so impressed with their focus and determination to 'show what they know.'

The main course was a challenge to draw the elements and write about each, for some newly introduced Robert Munsch stories.  The hope was that each student would try to choose stories that they had never read before.

Look at that looonnng word at the top of this page.  It is difficult to say, but it means

the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes.

Robert Munsch stories are famous for having tons of these words.

We listened and searched and listed ones during our story time.  The students took cards and then created their idea of what those words should look like....so the word "yuck' might have goo dripping from it, and the word 'WAAAA!' might be covered with tears.  Great job kiddos!

A little bit late!

Somehow or other, I sort of forgot that I had not put these photos onto the blog.

Father Jim came into our class on Maunday Thursday.  He worked with the students to make the connection between Jesus' words and actions at the Last Supper, and the gift of His Body and Blood that the children will receive through Communion.  He was very impressed with their understanding.

He also thought that the students were doing a lovely job of recreating Leonardo Da Vinci's painting. The students were trying to remember the names of all of the 12 Apostles.

It was a lot of work....

...but I hope that you were able to display this labour of love at your Easter table.

The students also worked hard on telling the story of Passion Week.  The stories will continue as they hear more about Jesus' work with the disciples, helping be ready for his final ascension into Heaven.

We have finished our stories about Kaya, an Indigenous girl from the New Perce nation in the USA.  It is an important new curriculum requirement that students in Alberta have an understanding and appreciation for our First Nation peoples, and I believe that the students in my class see that those who came before us, lived a life that reflected values based on respect for the laws of nature. 

This is a catch up on life in our classroom...

Sometimes life in the classroom is far too busy!  I realize that we shared our 100th day bottle activity in the classroom way back on February 21 but I didn't get this photo onto the blog.  Here it is now!

The final bear that we used as the jumping off point for our reading and writing lessons is the sweet little bear named Corduroy. (The students didn't know that the word corduroy was the name for a particular type of fabric!  You never know where learning will occur)  The students worked very hard on learning how to use elaborate detail, to describe a character or a setting.  They will be working on this aspect of writing throughout the year, and started by describing the toy bear and the setting of the second book, the laundromat.

The RCMP school liaison officer stopped by on the day we all wore pink shirts in support of the campaign to stop bullying, and brought a friend, who offered each student a free hug!

Thank you to the REAL Foundation, a group who supports our Catholic school district in ways that allows our students to experience the joy of being Catholic through concerts and retreats.  On Shrove Tuesday, Face to Face ministries worked with all the students at our school to see that we are meant to Know God, Serve God and Love God.  The photos aren't the best because of the lighting in the gym, and all the movement.

The students raised the roof, lifting their voices in song.

They showed their joy by dancing.  They loved it!

Another huge thank you is owed to Mrs. Phelan and her junior hight students who flipped pancakes ALL MORNING LONG in order to feed our entire school population.  So many of the students told me that they love pancakes.  

There was juice and fruit to round out the meal, which is always part of the day before LENT begins.

Aren't these puppies the cutest?  This was a fun activity to kick off our next set of books that will lead our reading and writing activities in March.  Who is the star of these stories??

It is Clifford, of course!

 
I have noticed that there are not many parents who are taking the time to read the blog, so here's the deal.  I have a prize for each student in my class who can tell me on Monday morning, where I spent the afternoon on Faith and Wellness day.  The pictures should offer you all a clue!  I would love to be able to give away 22 gifts!!