Catholic Schools Week

Catholic Schools Week is a National celebration sponsored by the NCEA (National Catholic Education Association) that runs the last week of January every year.  This week Catholic schools across the United States take time to consider the gift of Catholic education.  We spend time being grateful for our families and parish, who support and believe in Catholic education.  Our church leaders who have devoted their lives to the Church.  Our community for constantly serving others.  Our staff, teachers, and volunteers who have answered the call to Catholic education and work tirelessly for its sake.  Last, but not least....our students.  The students who are learning how to listen to God, follow Jesus, and grow into compassionate and competent adults.

Each year we follow the NCEA's theme, which for 2018/2019 was LEARN-SERVE-LEAD-SUCCEED.  We also hold our new student open house at the beginning of Catholic Schools Week so it is a great time to show off our school.  This year our school-wide hallway display were rockets with the phrase "Catholic Schools Make Every Mission Possible."  Each student in the entire school made one to hang and then added his/her self portrait.  The students love looking for their project among the huge group!

We asked for each FAMILY to provide a 4x6 family picture to create a one of a kind family appreciation bulletin board.  I could barely get the pictures up and kids were already enthralled by this!!

                   
A small token of appreciation the students do for our parishioners is thank you notes/letters on the CSW logo.  We print two per page and make enough in our homerooms for our 1,000 bulletins!



Throughout the week we complete various writing projects.  We include thank you letters to our families and staff, as well as some that focus on our school and all the things that make it amazing!  Click either one of these pictures for a FREE set of Catholic Schools Week activities!

 Also, check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store to access these FREE Catholic Schools Week writing templates!  It includes a variety of sheets that can be folded into cards, given to parents, handed out to staff members, or even kept as keepsakes!

Our entire school participated in a service project to say thank-you to the unsung heroes in our community.  These treat bags (over 250!!) were given to various civic organizations that work endlessly for the less fortunate and those who are struggling emotionally, financially, and physically. 

Our volunteers received these adorable key chains and pens!  Both of these items were purchased off of Oriental Trading.  Teachers were also celebrated this week and enjoyed a morning drink stop from Sonic that was anonymously donated.  The PTO also sponsored a special meal for the teachers too!  Even our PSR program leader jumped in to help us celebrate teachers with a yummy drink and treat for each of us!

The students had a fun week spending time interacting with each other, their families, and doing fun activities focused on Catholic education.  The students participated in Orange You Glad to be at a Catholic School? by wearing their orange gear! The students also got a day to dress as their future careers after hearing from school alumni and their current careers!

One of the favorite ways to really make this week special is an invite to the families to attend a "Family Picnic" with their child!  We assigned two grade levels each day at their regular lunch time.  We made sure the grade levels had some time between their lunches to allow for an easy flow of family members in and out of the building.  This requires basically no prep from teachers except sending home an invitation to families!

Catholic Schools Week UPDATED

Gearing up for Catholic Schools Week I thought I would share some of my favorite Religion projects I have done this year and in the past!

I had been searching EVERYWHERE to get a Catholic version of the Ten Commandments Phone I saw all over the place.  I just couldn't seem to find it and it was very confusing for my kids to see one thing in their Religion books and then another in the activity, so I created one that perfectly aligns to the Catholic Bible!  If you are interested in this activity click the pictures below!

This created the most amazing hallway display!!  I just found an image online and had my aide trace them onto large pieces of construction paper, white printer paper, and some yarn...voila!  The kids looked in magazines for the letters to the acrostic poem and we brainstormed words that described our Catholic School!

We have really been trying to get our students to actually utilize their Bibles!  This is a great activity for any time of the year (we actually did it around Christmas), but would be great during Advent, Lent, and even Easter!  The kids first used their Bibles to look up the verses and find the name(s) of Jesus in each verse.  Then as a follow up activity each child selected a name and did an illustration.  If you are interested in snagging a copy just click either picture below!

As we get closer to Catholic Schools' Week please come back and check out how I have updated this post to include more fun!!!

UPDATE NUMBER ONE

One theme to Catholic Schools' Week is to show our appreciation to our families for supporting our school.  The students are going to write thank-you letters and we needed some stationary to match!  This is FREE on TeachersPayTeachers!

UPDATE NUMBER TWO

Keeping in theme with the family appreciation we added something new to our calendar this year that EVERYONE is raving about!  Family Picnic Day!!!  Of course it is January and today was a high of 28 so it was an inside picnic, but still.  As a parent and a teacher it was great to get a glimpse of the pros for all parties......no work on the teachers part, except sending home an invite and super motivating for the students!  My kindergartner asked all weekend when her picnic was!  Basically each grade level had a picnic one day during the week. We doubled up so it was K with 5th, 1st with 4th and so on so that there weren't too many parents in the cafeteria at once.  The kids ate at their regular time and either brought a packed lunch or families brought in something special.  It was easy peasy!!  Here is me and my little one....of course she got McDonald's!  I have included an example of our invites.  The CSW logos can be found at https://www.ncea.org/csw .

Another thing we did this week that went along with our religion chapter but was also great for CSW because it allowed the kids to get up and move was Fruits of the Spirit posters.  Each child found 9 pictures, one for each fruit and wrote a caption.  It opened up great discussions about what are examples of gentleness, patience, etc.  Again, so easy for such a packed week!

 STAY TUNED!

Big Changes and I need your HELP!

It has been a VERY busy week so I am sorry I haven't been blogging very much.  I work at a private school so although there is a sense of job security, our grade levels fluctuate due to the enrollment.  Some years our numbers are up and some years our numbers are down.  I previously taught Kindergarten and am now teaching First.  Next year I will be moving to third grade!  Although I am nervous about the jump, I am excited to get a variety of teaching experience and know it will make me a better teacher in the long run.    This is where I need help from you all!  I have used Daily Five in my classroom every year and I LOVE IT and the KIDS LOVE IT and I want to use it in my coming third grade class.  I would love to find some other teacher bloggers that use Daily Five in the upper elementary so I can get a idea of what it could look like.  It seems the world of teacher bloggers is bountiful in the lower grades, but I am having trouble finding much for third. I have the CAFE book on the way and WORD NERDS so I can get inspiration for how I will run my literacy block too! If you have any good advice, well wishes, or links please leave me a comment!
TOTALLY UNRELATED:
My kids did this adorable holy trinity craft this week and had a blast!  Our religion curriculum can be a bit dry, so I am always looking for ways to increase engagement.

I found this great freebie here at Sunday School Kids.com.

Easter .... a tad tardy {FREEBIES}

Ok I know that Easter was almost two weeks ago, however I teach at a Catholic school and we celebrate the SEASON of Easter.  Therefore, for the next month or so this is still relevant...he he! Before Easter we emphasis Lent and discuss Jesus and what amazing things he did during his time on Earth. We use this Lent pack to help us learn about this special preparation time.

We also have high school students make resurrection egg stories and come down to present them with the children.

We also had fun with some graphing and tally mark practice using jelly beans! These printables came from Simply Kinder and I copied them two to one page.  Click on the picture to grab yourself a FREE copy from her TPT store.

The following activity we had already made 1-100 number cards for a previous activity so this was super easy!  I put a few cards in a bucket on each table pod and the kids simply picked three cards and ordered them from least to greatest.  This is a FREE pack from Sparkles, Smiles, and Successful Students.  Click on either picture to head to her TPT store and grab yourself a copy.

 When the kids came back from Easter/Spring break I wanted to be sure we still discussed the true meaning of Easter with this great read aloud and craftivity.  You can click on the picture below to grab a FREE copy of the words and the egg.  

We also read the Tale of Peter Rabbit and reviewed cause and effect!

We read The Best Easter Eggs Ever!  Which is an ADORABLE book.  We have been talking about adjectives for quite sometime so they decorated an egg and wrote adjectives to describe their egg on the back.

After we read The Tale of Peter Rabbit we read a book to compare and contrast called Muncha, Muncha, Muncha by Candace Fleming.  This book was SO FUN to read and there are two sequel books too!  I forgot to grab a copy of the compare and contrast chart that we made, but it was perfect.  The printable I used came from Kathi at Primary Possibilities.  You can see the pack in her TPT store by clicking below.

No Worksheet Wednesday #3 and FREE HEART PUZZLE

We are at it again!!  Challenges ourselves and other primary teachers to go worksheet free!  Read on to see a couple activities we did that were worksheet free!  Click below to head to the Primary Chalkboard and see the other ideas or link up!

The past couple of weeks we have been working on adjectives (I hope to share all our studies in one big post at a later date).  For now, I will share two activities that truly made my teacher heart happy.

Firstly,  I usually do a lot of thinking and connecting before I teach a lesson.  I go through the processing and steps for myself to get the ideas to the kids and then also what I want my kids to get out of it.  THEN, there are other times when I just wing activities and all the pieces fall into place and I go AH-HA I DO KNOW WHAT I AM DOING!!!  I love that affirmation - - - especially as a newbie teacher!

To extend our adjective study we began talking about comparative and superlative adjectives with a fun interactive smartboard file from Lisa Rombach from TPT and the best part is it is FREE and she has a lot more of them!  Click the picture below to get yourself a copy!

I wrote simple verbs on sticky notes and stuck them to the board then gathered some construction paper.  I let the kids pick a paper and a word then had to write and illustrate the base word, the comparative form, and superlative form.

This kid is clever!  ha ha!

It is hard to read in the picture, but this kid was also pretty creative.  The baby is fast, the 12th grader is faster, and Dad is fastest!

Clean is a hard adjective to illustrate....LOVED this one!

The following really made my teacher heart happy because we are also currently working on a habitat research project - - Antartick (love her inventive spelling) and Tundra made it on their pages!!!!

For the Lenten season one of our focuses has been God's gifts and our eternal debt to him.  I made up a quick puzzle heart and had the kids write gifts God has given them.  Then they were to cut the pieces and get with a partner to switch pieces, discuss, and put back together.  They did an AMAZING job and the puzzle was actually the PERFECT amount of challenge for them.

Click the picture to get a FREE copy of the puzzle heart!