Three Trees and God's plans

As we near Easter- and also First Communion- we have been focusing on many stories about Jesus' life. Today's story was The Tale of Three Trees.

We started off watching a video that tells a story of three trees with great plans to hold the world's greatest treasure, become a mighty sailing ship, and grow to be the tallest tree to point up to God. Each tree is chopped down... and it is not used for what it originally wanted... God had greater plans in mind. Watch the video to see what happens:

During the video, we stopped it a few times to have pair share discussions about the three trees, their dreams, and what happened. Afterwards, the students completed a graphic organizer with pictures and written responses. (There was even a word search for early finishers!)

Finally, we ended with a stand-up cross activity. They decorated their crosses to explain how they can show others the way to God.

Have a blessed remainder of Holy Week and a lovely Easter!

Reminders:

*No school Friday or Monday - Easter weekend
*First Communion - Saturday, April 26th - 10:00am (still waiting on news about practice!)

Spring Break and Recent Learning

With Terra Nova testing finished, we resumed our normal routines this week.

Among many wonderful read aloud stories, we read a magazine about Dr. Seuss! We "celebrated" his birthday about a week late (birthday = March 3rd) with goldfish (One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish) and Dr. Seuss erasers.

In Religion, we talked about ways to be peacemakers in our school and in our homes. Our ideas are written on outlines of our hands and are hanging on the door as reminders to us for ways to act like Jesus.

In Science we've been learning about animal habitats. Check out the group posters about the rainforest, forest, desert, and arctic.

We finished our after-lunch read aloud The Tale of Despereaux, and we compared it with the movie- we found some similarities and also quite a few differences. The students were already asking what great book we are going to read next... They'll have to wait and see!

In writing, we finished up our class report about the Statue of Liberty. I was proud of how the students took the chart with notes and transferred it to an outline/paragraphs. They even added some illustrations and made a simple bibliography to cite their sources. After spring break, the students will get a chance to work on their very own research projects about a topic of their choice! (The picture below is the model I made while the students were working on their own papers.)

Please remember:
Next week is spring break (March 17th-21st). I look forward to seeing your children again on March 24th. Enjoy the time off! Please remember to have your child(ren) read every day. It is very important!