Third Grade-September 16th Class

We had a great first class together on Wednesday night.  The vast majority of the children came to class ready to learn, and I think most of them enjoyed our first class quite a lot.

We covered chapter one in our text book.  This chapter talked about how God sent his own Son to become one of us.  This week's key words are: Blessed Trinity, Incarnation, prophet, public ministry, repent, disciples, and Apostle.  Make sure your child is familiar with these terms and knows their definitions.  Definitions of all key words can be found in the glossary in the back of your child's text book.  I like to give pop quizzes so tell them to be prepared.

Part of class each week will involve the introduction of a new mystery of the rosary.  Each week your child will come home with a coloring page that represents a different mystery of the rosary.  Before we pray a decade of the rosary meditating on the mystery of the week, I introduce the name of the mystery and give an explanation of mystery.  I ask the children to come home and share what they have learned with their family.  Engage your child and ask him or her which mystery we covered in class and see if they can tell you what it is about.  For the next four classes we will continue to learn about the joyful mysteries of the rosary.

This week's homework assignment is to color in the first joyful mystery coloring page.  The page is about the annunciation.  This particular mystery tied in nicely with the chapter we covered this week, since we talked about the incarnation of our Lord.  Students were asked to color the page and share what they learned about the annunciation with their families.

First Joyful Mystery: The Annunciation

I spoke briefly to the class about the incentive program I will be starting at our next class.  When your child earns 20 stickers on his or her reward card he or she will get to pick a prize.  Stickers can be earned several different ways:

• Attend Mass and bring back a copy of the bulletin.
• Come to class prepared with your text book, folder,  a sharpened pencil and homework assignment.
• Complete an activity listed under the Third Grade tab on this webpage. (Limit of one activity for a sticker per week.)
• Score a 90 or above on a pop quiz.
• Learn the Apostle's creed and recite it to me. (Limit one, but student can keep trying once a week until he or she has it.)
• Prove to me that you know the prayers required for second grade (Glory Be, Our Father, Hail Mary, Act of Contrition).  Links to these prayers can be found under the Third Grade tab on this webpage.  I will award one sticker for each prayer.  (Limit one sticker per prayer.)

Next class we will be covering chapter two in our text book and we will learn about the second joyful mystery of the rosary.  If time allows we will either play a bible trivia game or saint search bingo.  Either game will help your child to come to a deeper understanding of our faith.

Please complete and return the Getting to Know You Survey that was stapled to the colorful letter in your child's folder.

I look forward to seeing all of you next week!