Gentle Hands and Grateful Hearts: Remembrance Day

As followers of Jesus, we are called to be His hands and feet, bringing kindness, gentleness, and peace into the world. 

We shared the story Beautiful Hands and reflected on the question, “How can we use our hands to show kindness, gentleness, and peace?”

Then we created meaningful poppy art. The small muscles in our hands worked hard as we rolled and dipped tissue paper to bring our poppies to life.

Through our creativity we expressed gratitude and peace, remembering that we are called to be the hands of Christ. 

Today, our school gathered as a community to pray, to remember, and to give thanks for all who have worked and continue to work for peace. 

I hope that when the children look at the poppies pinned to their collars, they do so with deeper understanding and heartfelt gratitude. May we all use our hands to bring gentleness and peace into our world, for we are the hands of Christ.

We Are The Hands of Christ

We are called to be the hands and feet of Christ. Remembrance Day is a wonderful opportunity to make kindness, peacefulness, and service our focus. 

As we often do, literacy drove these topics:

We read Beautiful Hands and wondered, "How can we be kind, gentle and peaceful with our hands?". 

Painting and writing made our ideas come alive!

We spent some quiet time creating some beautiful "stained glass windows" that can be hung at home during the fall break as a reminder to pray for all peacemakers. 

We worked the small muscles in our hands and created these little masterpieces: 

Today, we gathered as a school community to pray, remember, and express gratitude for all those who have worked and are currently working for peace.

What a meaningful week. Hopefully the boys and girls are able to look at the poppies on their collars with a little more understanding and a lot more gratitude. May we all use our hands for gentleness and peace, as we are Christ's hands here on earth. 

We Remember

This year, Remembrance Day falls during our Fall Break. To help the children better understand this special day, we spent lots of time this week learning about it's significance. How have others made our world peaceful? How can we thank them? How can we be peaceful? Our focus this week was peace.  

We  took time to read Todd Parr's "The Peace Book", a wonderful story reflecting on simple moments of peace we experience throughout the day. 

Inspired by the story, we took time to reflect and made a book together about when we experience peace.

Peace is (a) playing in my bed (b) when my mom is with me
(c) resting under a tree in the hot sun, and (d) doing my nails. 

We also read Beautiful Hands and I Call My Hand Gentle. Together we wondered, "How can we be kind, gentle and peaceful with our hands?". 

Look at our beautiful  projects, highlighting our peaceful hands.

Today we will gather as a school community to pray, remember, and express gratitude for all of those who have worked and are currently working for peace. 

What a meaningful week. Hopefully the boys and girls are able to look at the poppies on their collars with a little more understanding and a lot more gratitude. 

Love & Peace: Remembrance Day

This year, Remembrance Day falls during our Fall Break. To help the children better understand this special day, we spent lots of time this week learning about it's significance. How have others made our world peaceful? How can we thank them? How can we be peaceful? Our focus this week was peace.  

Together we read the books "I Call My Hand Gentle" and "Beautiful Hands". 

We wrote about how we are gentle, kind and loving with our hands. Then we painted our hand, adding a creative touch to our writing!

Pop by our hallways to see how we are gentle and peaceful with our hands. 

My hands are gentle when I play soccer.
My hands are gentle when I cook.
My hands are gentle when I pet my cat. 

We also took time to read "The Peace Book" by Todd Parr. As a class, we took time to reflect and, using our senses, made a book together about when we feel, smell, taste, hear, and see peace.

Peace looks like when I snuggle my family.
Peace looks like a sunset.
Peace feels like when I pet my cat.
Peace tastes like popcorn. 

We spent some creating beautiful "stained glass" windows that can be hung at home during the fall break as a reminder to pray for all peacemakers. 

We took part in an initiative through Veterans Affairs where we were able to write postcards of gratitude. The postcards will be delivered to Canadian veterans. 

Tomorrow we will gather as a school community to pray, remember, and express gratitude for all of those who have worked and are currently working for peace. 

What a meaningful week. Hopefully the boys and girls are able to look at the poppies on their collars with a little more understanding and a lot more gratitude. 

Peaceful Hands & Hearts

Remembrance Day can be a challenging concept for our littlest, so this week we took it down to their level; kindness, peacefulness, and gentleness became our focus. How have others made our world peaceful? How can we thank them?  How can we be the hands of Jesus? Our focus this week was peace.  

As we often do, literacy introduced these topics:

Together we read the book I Call My Hand Gentle.

Then we traced and decorated our hands, reflecting on when our hands are gentle. 

Please enjoy this little slide show of how gentle our hands can be!



We also took time to read The Peace Book by Todd Parr.  He is an author we all enjoy!

As a class, we made a book together about when we feel peace, inspired by Mr. Parr's book!

Peace is ... playing my iPad, when I pet my dog, playing the guitar, and reading in bed.

We spent some quiet time creating some beautiful "stained glass windows" that can be hung at home during the fall break as a reminder to pray for all peacemakers. 

Today, we gathered as a school community to pray, remember, and express gratitude for all those who have worked and are currently working for peace.

What a meaningful week. Hopefully the boys and girls are able to look at the poppies on their collars with a little more understanding and a lot more gratitude. 

May we all use our hands for gentleness and peace, as we are Christ's hands here on earth. 

We Can Spread Peace

This year, Remembrance Day falls during our Fall Break. To help the children better understand this special day, we spent lots of time this week learning about it's significance. How have others made our world peaceful? How can we thank them? How can we be peaceful? Our focus this week was peace.  

Together we read the book "I Call My Hand Gentle".

Then we traced and decorated our hands, spending time thinking about when our hands are gentle:

Pop by our hallway bulletin board to see how we have gentle hands!

We also took time to read The Peace Book by Todd Parr. As a class, we took time to reflect and made a book together about when we feel peaceful.

Peace is my mom reading me a story. 

Peace is reading a good book in bed. 

Peace is making pancakes. 

Peace is helping my baby brother.

Peace is holding my cat. 

Peace is eating popcorn. 

We spent some time today creating beautiful "stained glass" windows that can be hung at home during the fall break as a reminder to pray for all peacemakers. 

Today we gathered as a school community to pray, remember, and express gratitude for all of those who have worked and are currently working for peace. 

What a meaningful week. Hopefully the boys and girls are able to look at the poppies on their collars with a little more understanding and a lot more gratitude. 

We are Peace Makers

Remembrance Day can be a challenging concept for our littlest, so this week we took it down to their level; kindness, peacefulness, and gentleness became our focus. 

Together we read the book I Call My Hand Gentle.

Then we traced and decorated our hands, reflecting on when our hands are gentle. 

Would you like to see how gentle we are with our hands?

We also took time to read The Peace Book by Todd Parr.  Enjoy!

As a class, we made a book together about when we feel peace.

Peace is swimming.

Peace is counting the stars. 

Peace is a family supper. 

Peace is doing my nails. 

We were so excited we tweeted a few of our ideas to author Todd Parr himself ... 

... and he responded to us! So cool!

We spent some quiet time today creating some beautiful "stained glass windows" that can be hung at home during the fall break as a reminder to pray for all peacemakers. 

Today, we gathered as a school community to pray, remember, and express gratitude for all those who have worked and are currently working for peace.

What a meaningful week. Hopefully the boys and girls are able to look at the poppies on their collars with a little more understanding and a lot more gratitude.