The Messiah, The Savior, The Lord

Welcome to the First Sunday of Advent!

So blessed was I to be in the choir this morning for the first Sunday of Advent. Charmaine did us up right in our robes today, which I thought was a special way to celebrate the season and the beginning of the Church Liturgical Year.  We celebrated the Knights of Columbus and their service to the Church. The Knights were dressed in their ceremonious attire as well. I took note of the fact that the Knights did not assume an heir of importance. Although it was "their" day, they were sure to be served the Eucharist last...as a testimony of their servant-hood to the Church.

Father Sexton preached of the beginning of Advent as a time when we wait in the HOPE of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He came once as a man; He will come once again at the end of time, and He comes to us daily in the Eucharist. So blessed are we to be in the Catholic Faith!

One thing I noticed as I sat in the choir today was how kids went to the bathroom during mass. Now, it is far from me to criticize any parent for allowing their child to go to the restroom during the homily...that is between the parent and the child. A child's need to go to the restroom comes at the least expected moment.  What I noticed was the numbers of children who didn't pause at the center of the church to show respect to the Blessed Sacrament in the Tabernacle.  Sometimes, in an emergency, a child may forget to do this, but on the way back would be a good time to pause and show reverence.

Genuflection and reverence to the Blessed Sacrament are one thing that Jordan and I teach in our class.  The lessons that we teach are life lessons for our children, but only parents can make sure that they become life habits. In observing one adult leading the child to the restroom, the adult did not pause, nor did she have the child pause.

Please remember this Advent that the reason we celebrate this season is to welcome Jesus Christ, Our King, Our Lord, Our Savior. Please remember that He is there with us in the Blessed Sacrament. Please let reverence be part of your focus. Please pass that reverence on to your children.

Forever in Christ, pray for each other daily.

Miranda

Our Class Begins

Our church provides us with wonderful literature with which to teach our class. This year we even switched to an evangelistic edition of the text.  Jordan and I are not "teach by the book" teachers. We use the book; don't get me wrong, but we let the Church's liturgical and calendar year of saint feast days guide our lessons.

The beginning of our class establishes for our children that Jesus is our friend. Without that first knowledge that we can trust in Jesus, the rest of the year is in vain. We establish first and foremost that Jesus is a friend we can talk to day or night.  We also use this first lesson to establish that we are all friends and that as Catholics and Christians we can depend on each other at church, at home, and at school.

We spend the next several weeks establishing God as the creator of our world. We discuss how God created first the beautiful world we live in and then the people in it. Students begin to realize their own creation and the beauty of it. We establish up front that God created the people in this world to love him. Students today question why the world was created with all the ugliness in it. They doubt the existence of God in many cases. Schools teach all sorts of creation theories. We establish first and foremost that GOD is the creator and that He loves us, which is why we were all beautifully made.  We go on to explain temptation and original sin as it applies to Adam and Eve.

In our lessons we use stories from a children's bible, coloring pages and aids that come with our teacher material, such as worksheets for the class to complete. We incorporate songs and do short dramas, having the kids act out things we have studied. We create posters and complete color pages to enrich or introduce what we learn.

Perhaps that most significant method of teaching that we use is hands-on training. Once we have established God as the creator, we explain that God created things that are holy: the Bible, the rosary, the church itself. We take the students on a tour of the church and teach them the behaviors
and postures that are to be used during mass or when simply walking through the building.  We use the sign of the cross, and we genuflect. We visit the altar, the sanctuary lamp, the confessional, the stations of the cross. We visit with the Blessed Sacrament for a moment. We explain confession in a positive light, showing that the confessional is nothing to be afraid of and that the Priest is there to be our friend, as Jesus is our friend.  We take the mystery out of the church and open the students' eyes to what is going on when they enter the church.

During this first unit, the class is introduced to angels as spirits that God has created. We discuss the important jobs of the angels in history and talk about some of the most famous of the angels during our Archangel Feast Day lesson. We teach the Guardian Angel prayer as a prayer children can say when they are scared or lonely.

We wrap up the unit learning about different types of prayer and how Jesus taught us to pray the   Our Father. This becomes the first major prayer that the children learn in the year. We open class with it every week, and after this point, we begin calling on children to open us up with the prayer that Jesus taught us.

Welcome to First Grade!

August 2015

Hello, and welcome to you and your first-grader!  Ms. Jordan and I are very excited about our class coming up this year. First grade is not a sacramental year, yet it is a most important year in the young Catholic's faith.

In the first grade we will introduce your child to the fundamental principals of the Catholic faith. We will learn the basic postures and behaviors to use during church as well as the physical changes the church takes on during the liturgical year. We will focus on learning the basic prayers of the rosary and also the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We will begin our year with learning the first statement of our creed: "I believe in God the father, creator of heaven and earth." As we move through the year we will look at the lives of Mary and Jesus. We will show your child why Jesus is important in their lives, and why we honor Mary as his mother and our holy mother.

Our class will include reading time, activity time, song time, and prayer time. Periodically we will have special visits from our saint friends. We may also take walks at one time or another, so please be sure your child has appropriate outerwear for the season at each class. We will visit the church, observe the sacramentals there, visit the Stations of the Cross, pray the rosary, and notice the liturgical colors and decorations. We will not provide snack in our class unless it is a portion of our lesson, such as learning the Grace Before Meals and Grace After Meals, or unless we show a movie. Snacks during those times are provided by Ms. Jordan and me.

We will need YOUR help this year!!! Please be aware of notes that we send home. Soup drives, parish fund-raising activities, items to bring to class the next week...homework!  Sometimes we will ask our class to perform special tasks during the week and come back the next week and tell us what they did.  Also, we need your help as parents in taking your children to mass, encouraging them to observe the postures during mass...kneeling, standing, reverance, prayer. Also please, please work with your students on the prayers for the first grade at home. By the end of the year, your child should know all the prayers for first-graders (located in your parent folder), and will be asked to say them.

During the course of the year we will call on your child to recite a prayer, and rewards will be given for those who can do that at that time. Your child might also receive a token for exhibiting exemplary behavior, such as leadership, helping a friend in need, following directions, or compassion to others. We will not give tokens on a weekly basis to everyone in the whole class, so please discuss with your child that he should not expect tokens. They are rewards.

Finally, and quickly--some house cleaning-- please make sure that your child uses the restroom before class. No drinks or food are to be brought to class. No toys from home. Please remain on campus, or leave us your cell number should you leave the building, in case something arises with your child and we need to reach you right away.  This has only been done once, but it only takes once...we just want to be prepared.

Ms. Jordan and I are looking forward to the new year. We will see you on August 9!

Be blessed,

Miranda Jacks
205-405-7163
mibb1975@gmail.com