Oct. 14, 2012: We Pray as Jesus Did

     Today was all about prayer! We learned that we can pray anywhere and at anytime. We read a book called "God, Do You Love Me?" by Karen Lynn Coffee. The Book starts with Karen asking God a simple question, "Do you love me?" God then proceeds to tell Karen how much he loves her, through his gifts. "The grass to comfort your feet... The Bible to guide you...The family to care for you" just to name a few. We talked about how God answered Karen's prayer, not by actually speaking to her, but by showing her he loved her by all of his gifts around her. We also talked about how God might not always answer prayers right away either.

     We read page 202 of the We Believe textbook together. We learned that prayer is talking and listening to God, we can pray anytime, we can pray anywhere and we can pray about anything. We didn't get a chance to draw a picture of ourselves on that page, but feel free to do some at home.

     We spent a good chunk of time today talking about how there are different ways we can pray. The first thing we did was an activity where we showed different postures for prayer such as: Putting you hands together with pointing upward, putting your hands together with your fingers locked, praying with your arms open (like during the Our Father at Mass), folding them in front of you or putting them in the air. We talked about how it does not matter how you fold your hands for prayer, what matters is that you are focused and showing respect to God.

     Spontaneous prayer can be difficult for some children. Some think that the only prayers are the formed prayers like the Glory Be or Our Father. We used the "Give me 5!" method:

This poster hangs in our classroom

1. Thumb: Praise God
2. Pointer Finger: Confess Your Sins
3. Middle Finger: Thank God
4. Ring Finger: Pray for Others
5. Pinky Finger: Pray for Yourself

    

     We completed page 203 in our book as well. This page shows us that we can pray at anytime and anywhere. It shows different pictures of people praying in groups. Children are asked to place a check mark next to the pictures that show where they pray with others.

Jacob's Service Project

      Today we also completed our first service project as well. We colored crosses for those in need. Each one says, "I said a prayer for you today" and will be distributed later this year by our confirmation class on a field trip as they complete a service project.

     The final activity we did in class today was read the booklet found on pages 205 and 206 of the We Believe textbook. We talked about how people were praying and what they might be praying about on each page. We concluded by praying the "Glory Be".

     For homework, we assigned We Believe page 208, Reproducible Master 23 & Video Reproducible Master 23. It is not necessary to watch the video to do the assignment  but if you wish to do so, you can by clicking this link: Video for Chapter 23. This week we also sent home parent information for the saint you child has been assigned for the Saint Parade in November. We will be spending one more week practicing the "Glory Be" in class before moving on to our next prayer, "Hail Mary." If you would like to get a head start on the "Hail Mary," go for it! We hope you have a great week!


Yours in Christ,

     Jason & Laura Madrigal

Oct. 7, 2012: We Learn About God with our Families

     We are so glad that we had the chance to meet several of you parents during our first Parents Day. We hope that you get a better idea of how our classroom runs, even though we held class in the large hall this week. It means a lot to us that you are passionate about your child's faith.

     We started class by not sharing a big bag of Starburst candy. Immediately everyone had said that that was not fair and that we should share the candy with them. We did decide to share it with them after all, we told them that God's love is like candy. There may be times that we want to keep God's love for ourselves, but His love is meant to be shared with others. A great place to share God's love is with our families.

Morgan's "Stained Glass" Heart

    We asked everyone if they knew what their favorite color was, everyone was ale to answer that easy question. Then we began to ask some tougher questions like "What was their Mom's favorite color?" or "What was their Dad's favorite color?" Those were a bit harder to answer, but most children knew the answer. At the front of the room we had set up tables with broken crayons, separated by color families. They were each given a piece of wax paper and asked to put their favorite color on it along with those of their Mom, Dad and siblings, if applicable. We melted down the crayons and framed the "stained glass" in a heart frame. This represents how families share God's love. 

     It was parents vs. children as one group acted out ways to share God's love while the other group guessed how they were sharing God's love. We had someone sharing toys, someone helping someone with a boo boo and people cheering up someone who was sad. Page 103 in the We Believe book had an additional activity that showed more ways families can share God's love.

     This week we assigned Reproducible Master 11 and Sharing Faith Chapter 11, both of which are handouts. In addition we assigned each child the saint they will be researching for the Saint Parade next month. We will be providing parents resources on the saint assigned to your child(ren) along with more information on what is expected. The following is the list of assigned saints:

                                                                                                         

Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha	Ashlyn
St. Mary, The Blessed Virgin	Marion
St. Joseph	Jake
St. Cosmas/St. Damian	Kyle/Tyler
St. Patrick	Jacob
St. Nicholas	Len
St. Peter	Tommy
St. Francis of Assisi	DeVaughn
St. Sebastian	Jonah

     We hope to see everyone at the Halloween Dance this Saturday!

Yours in Christ,

     Jason & Laura Madrigal