Family Activities: Lent

Two weeks ago we had family activities. Family Activities are a time when students from K- 8th grade (2 students from each grade level) come together to learn about our faith and make a craft. This time we talked about Lent. The students made  "Lent in a Bag"  and they made a Lent poster with their family group. 

This is what I typed on the purple paper that was glued to the back of the paper bag:

Lent in a Bag:  

Sand:

The sand represents the 40 days that Jesus spent walking in the desert.

Luke 4:1-13

Rock:

While in the desert, the Devil tempted Jesus to transform stone into bread. Jesus resisted the temptation and said, “The scripture says, 'Man cannot live on bread alone.'”

Luke 4:1-4

Shell:

The season of Lent is a time in which converts to our faith are prepared for the sacraments of initiation (Baptism, Eucharist, and Confirmation). Jesus began his ministry after his baptism.

Luke 3:21-22

Human Figure:

This figure reminds us that Jesus was a man like us. He understands us and knows that we are capable of doing great things with our lives. We need to take care of each other and treat others the way we want to be treated.

John 13:1-17

Candle:

Lent begins in the dark of winter and ends in the light of spring. The candle represents Jesus' resurrection and the light that he brings to the world.

Luke 24:1-12

(Sorry, I couldn't get this picture to rotate.)

Lent Poster:
Draw a line across the paper and put on a blue tape cross.

 Write Pray, Fast, Give on the poster.

 The kids put their fingerprints on the poster with purple ink.

Carefully remove the tape cross.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

We just finished our literature unit on Eric Carle's book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We did so many fun activities during this unit.

Language Arts:

The kids made name caterpillars with an AB pattern.

 We made a chart with the day of the week, the number of fruits the very hungry caterpillar ate, and the type of fruit he ate.

The students finger painted a picture of the food they would eat if they were the very hungry caterpillar.

After they finger painted their paper, they drew the food they would eat on the back of the paper, cut it our and glued it to the paper with their writing.

Math:
We made a graph for what we wanted to write our class book about. The students chose a frog. So we wrote the book The Ravenous Tadpole.

The students made caterpillars and counted by 2s, 5s, and 10s. They wrote the numbers on the segments of the caterpillar.

The students made dot pattern caterpillars.

Science:

The students categorized food as not healthy and healthy.

The students made caterpillars and then labeled the parts of a caterpillar.

The students made butterflies and then labeled the parts of a butterfly.

We learned about the life cycle of a butterfly and made the craft below. We also sang the song "The Life of a Butterfly" (sung to Skip to My Lou).

We made a can, have, are chart about caterpillars.

Cooking:

The students made this caterpillar using grapes, a grape tomato, carrots, and black decorating gel.

Poetry:
The students wrote caterpillar acrostic poems

Art:
The students made butterflies. They folded their paper in half, put paint in the center of the paper and then squished the paper to spread out the paint.

Social Studies:

The students practiced putting the days of the week in order. They had to match the day of the week with the food that the caterpillar ate.

Another fun literature unit complete!

Art Masters: Michelangelo

During Art Masters we learned about Michelangelo. We read a book about Michelangelo and then we wrote about him.

The students learned that Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. They painted their paper as if they were painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Here are two of the finished works by my students.

Class Book Update

We have finished our class book and I am sending off to the publisher today! Here are a few more pages that the kids worked on. I have my students divided into two groups, the frogs and the dragonflies.

The frogs wrote an acrostic poem about frogs and then they made this fingerprint picture. 

The dragonflies wrote a diamante poem and then made this fingerprint illustration.

We always learn the poem The Crocodile by Lewis Carroll and perform it during our graduation ceremony so I included it in our book too.

I love how our book turned out!

Studentreasure Class Book

Look what came in the mail. Our Studentreasures book making kit! We have been working on our book for two weeks now. 

First, we had to decide what to write our book about. We have been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar for literature this month so the students wanted to write a variation of that book. Each student voted on what they wanted our book to be about. The frog won. We decided to name our book The Ravenous Tadpole.

Next, we started writing our rough draft of our story.

We used a list of synonyms to change some of the adjectives in the original story.

Then, we chose new foods for our tadpole to eat.

Next, we rewrote our story.

Last,  we started our final draft. Here is the cover of our book.

Here are some sample pages. We had to do eight foods instead of ten because we were running out of space. 

It is still a work in progress. I will share some more pages later this week.