Gospel reflections and using images

Kindness

Our school is focusing on a different virtue each month. For December we chose the word kindness. Today I found a great resource that fits perfectly with this! A teacher has put together a Random Acts of Kindness project for her class. You can read all about it here: Random Acts of Kindness. The idea is to discuss doing things for others without expecting anything in return. On her blog you will find a free download with some great printables to use. What a perfect way to celebrate Advent!

Advent calendar

It's that time of year again when the Church begins a new year with the season of Advent. Over Thanksgiving Break I started looking for some new resources to use. I found a great online Advent  calendar from Loyola Press. I plan to put it up on the Smart board each morning and a student will come up and tap the date. What resources will you use this year?

Call Me Maybe Jesus Style

I am always looking for ways to engage kids in learning, whether it's English, Math, or Religion. This week I came across a video made by the youth group at a parish nearby. It fits perfectly with this week's lesson on God's call for each of us. Hopefully you can find a way to use it in your classroom!

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...