Glory to God in the Highest!

Christmas break is upon us! During Advent, our students were able to deepen their faith and prepare their hearts with kindness for the coming of Jesus. 

Have a look at our journey through Advent!

May your families be blessed with peace, joy and health throughout this Christmas season!

We're Coding Kids!

This past week, we embarked on a coding adventure! Simply put, coding is creating instructions. A fleet of little TaleBot robots joined our class and we learned how to have them follow our directions. 

We met the TaleBots and worked in pairs to learn how to use their command buttons. The commands allow the TaleBots to move forward and back, turn left and right, and even dance! 

Pairs were challenged to code the TaleBot to move around a block or two. There was lots of trial and error (and squeals of joy!) as we problem solved, discussed, and corrected our code. The spaces on the mat helped us count out our commands. 

We examined a zoo-themed coding mat and were challenged to write a story all about the zoo! 

The stories are about TaleBots who visit the zoo. What animal do they want to see at the zoo first? Next? Last? 

Once our zoo stories were written, we got back into teams. Using our story, we coded the TaleBot to retell our very own stories!

What a fantastic day of learnning! Watch for your child's Tale Bot Visits the Zoo story coming home today!

Advent: Preparing our Hearts for the Birth of Christ

This past Sunday marked the first Sunday of Advent. 

We have been learning about the liturgical calendar. Can your child point out the season of Advent?

Advent is a time of hope and anticipation. We are awaiting the birth of Christ!

As the liturgical seasons change, so does our prayer cloth and prayer table. We changed our prayer table cloth from green (Ordinary Time) to purple (Advent). Can you see our wreath? We light one candle for each of the four Sundays in Advent. This week we lit the first candle. As we light more candles each week, our world becomes brighter, symbolizing our growing anticipation of Jesus, who is the light of our world. 

Each morning, we have a daily Advent celebration, either at our weekly Monday
assembly or at our classroom Connection Time. 

Has your child mentioned our Shepherd? Each day during Advent, we hunt for the Shepherd. He is hidden around our school, and when we find him, his scripture message helps is draw closer to Jesus. 

As a school, we are rooting ourselves in Christ through the tradition of the Jesse Tree. We are decorating the Jesse Tree with an ornament or two each day that symbolizes key people and events from the Old Testament, leading us to the Birth of Christ. It is a beautiful way to hear about God's love for us through biblical events. We even created our own Jesse Trees and enjoy adding the daily symbol(s)!

As we journey towards Christmas, may we prepare our hearts with kindness as we joyfully wait for the coming of Jesus!