Summer DIY- Frame for Gospel verse

The summer is a great time to search teaching blogs and Pinterest for great ideas. I finally decided to create on of the things that I found on 4th Grade Frolics. This blogger came up with the fabulous idea of Made It Monday. I love anything with a catchy title! Every Monday she is making something for her classroom.  She made these cute signs to display learning goals for the week. All you need is a simple frame, some scrapbook paper, and dry erase markers. Amazingly I had all of these things already. Instead of posting weekly learning goals, I am going to pick a verse from the Sunday gospel reading. Then, just to add a little more learning, I am going to coordinate the scrapbook paper to the color of the current liturgical season! (You can see by my exclamation point that it's the little things that are exciting.) When school starts I am going to hang this frame right by the door so as the students are coming and going throughout the week, they will have a chance to read and think about the verse. Then on Friday when we begin our reflection we will start by discussing the verse from the week.

Daily 5/Cafe

I am so excited about the book study that is happening this summer! Some teachers/bloggers have gotten together and organized a blog where teachers can read and discuss the Daily 5 and Cafe books and how to apply them to the upper elementary classroom. Just click on the button I've posted to the right to check out the schedule. I read the Daily 5 last summer and had great intentions, but soon fell into my old patterns for teaching reading. Hopefully connecting with other teachers this summer will help me implement new things in August. Hope you can join in on the collaboration!

End of the year

Another school year has come to an end. As always I am sad to see my class move on to fifth grade. This year the students made me an extra special card. Here is is from the front:

And a look inside:

 What a surprise when I opened it! It was full of little foldables that the kids had made! We had so much fun this year making different foldables as study tools in all subjects.  It really made my day to see them use this tool for my a thank you card! Of course I immediately began to think of ways I could use their idea to summarize a subject area next year. Now I have all summer to start planning...

The Creed

This week instead of reflecting on the Gospel, I am going to use this wonderful video that talks about reciting the Creed during mass. At the beginning of the year we spent time talking about the new translation and why some of the words we say during mass were changing. This video really reminds all of us to really think about the words we are praying. I found this video from a great resource that you can find on Facebook called TheReligionTeacher. Enjoy!

Gospel Reflection- The Good Shepherd

Last week we had a great discussion about the idea of seeing Jesus in the people around us. This week the Gospel talks about Jesus being the Good Shepherd. You can read it here: Readings for the fourth Sunday of Easter. Since I have taken down my bulletin board about our Lenten promises, I thought it would be fun to let the kids draw their own sheep and write ways in which people will know that they are a follower of Jesus. I am always looking for opportunities to incorporate different uses for technology, so I thought it would be fun to watch a video on How to draw a sheep.  I have some great artists in my class and perhaps this will encourage them to hunt around for other videos on You Tube that will help them learn to draw.

Palm Sunday

As Palm Sunday approaches I was looking for a new idea to use with my students. I found some inspiration when I came across an idea on Pinterest that was from the website ministry-to-children. They even have a video to demonstrate the idea. It basically involves paper, water colors, and masking tape. The students make a cross out of tape and then paint all around it. The result is a beautiful painting with a simple cross in the middle. (Don't forget to peel the tape off!) After the paintings were dry the students looked at the Gospel reading for Sunday and picked out a quote that stood out to them.  It was interesting to look at the different quotes and hear why they chose them. Here is an example:

These crosses are a beautiful reminder of the Lenten season! After Easter we plan to color in the cross with a bright highlighter and then write Alleluia in black. I hope you enjoy doing this project with your students!

In the Desert with Jesus- The first week of Lent

Tomorrow we will reflect on the Gospel from today. I am going to focus on the line, "He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan;". We will discuss the temptations that we face today that might lead us away from God. Since we have already written our Lenten promises in our notebooks, I thought we would make a visual reference to put up in the room. I'm going to have each student draw a picture of one of the modern temptations we discussed and put it next to our picture of Jesus in the desert on the bulletin board.
*I have been reading some articles on the online ministries website from Creighton University. It is a great resource that includes daily meditations and reflections. One thing that struck me was the idea that during Lent we should not only focus on what we are giving up, but what is it that God wants to give us? Something to think about this week.