First off, I would like to thank all parents for coming to the door to pick up their students at dismissal. Now that it is pitch dark at 7:30 pm, we really don’t want the children running around in the parking lot. Please continue this practice.
Next Wednesday is Nov. 1, All Saints Day. Our family program will be to attend 6:30 Mass as a family. While most teachers will be there, this is not an organized class activity, and we won’t be sitting as a class. Please, stay with your children for the Mass.
Our class this week was OK. In honor of the World Series, I’ll say it wasn’t the home run we were hoping for, but it wasn’t strikeout either. It felt more like an infield single.
After an opening prayer, I started by talking about All Saints Day and what a saint is. I distinguished between the group of saints comprised of all who have died and have gone to heaven (saints) and the much smaller group (Saints) who have been recognized by the church as Saints.
Mrs. Baran was back with us this week. She led the first half of the class. She started with the exercise on the front cover of the Venture pamphlet. It covered the main theme of the lesson, Christ’s two greatest commandments, which was also the focus of the Gospel reading.
- Love God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind.
- Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
We then had volunteers read the story of Feeding America, the largest hunger relief organization in the U.S. We discussed the “think questions,” including ways to prevent food waste at home and ways to help those in need. I presented a challenge to the class. During this time of year, there are typically any number of food drives. Also, St Peter’s maintains a food pantry, with drop-offs in the church and church office. I suggested that, if they wished to make a food donation, that they not simply go to your pantry and grab a few cans of soup or vegetables. In that case, you, the parents, would be making the donation, and the students would just be a middle man. Instead, I challenged them to find a way to make a few dollars, either through their allowance, doing extra chores around the house, or by doing something like raking leaves for a neighbor. They should take that money and go with you to the grocery store and purchase food bank-appropriate supplies to donate. That way, the donation actually comes from something they did or sacrificed.
We moved on to the Gospel on page 4. (Matthew 22:34-40) In discussion, we talked about who are your neighbors. Matthew does not include the story of the good Samaritan, but Luke does, immediately following the description of this episode. So I read from Luke 10:29-37 to show that “neighbors” encompasses everyone.
We also noted that Jesus said to love your neighbor, but without any “buts” or “except if…” He didn’t say to love unless someone looked different, was from another place or had a different opinion from you. He said simply your neighbor.
We skipped over page 5 and went to an exercise on pages 6-7. We asked the students to pick an identity to role play from a list of frequently misunderstood people on page 7. We paired the students and had them role play a TV talk show, with one student as he interviewer and the other as the guest. Then they swapped roles. The pamphlet had suggested questions like,…
Tell us a little about yourself
What are your greatest challenges?
How can others help you?
We had a couple of students who were uncomfortable standing up in front of the class, but for the most part, they got into it.
I was going to skip the “Tell us something you learned tonight” exercise and just allow them to have a treat as a reward for their work in the previous role play. However, the class didn’t want to skip it. They wanted to cite what they learned. That was a bit of a surprise to me. That also explains why we were a minute or two late at dismissal.
St Peter the Apostle CCD- 5th Grade 