First Grade Buzzzz
Special Days of Second Semester

Welcome to the Second Semester of First Grade Celebrations!

Gaze into the future to see how we plan to spend our busy days together!!

      FEBRUARY     

The first week is filled with the excitement of Catholic School Week activities! Also included in that week is time observing the shadow of our furry little Groundhog friend, followed by sharing our love of the rainforest in the performance of a skit for our families.

The month of February holds the celebration of the 100th day of school: building projects made with 100 items, collecting a total of 100 cans of food to donate to the Saint Vincent de Paul Food Bank, and collecting and eating 10 samples each of 10 different food items to total 100 little snack items. We will incorporate 100 seconds of prayer into the day to thank God for the past 100 days together.

February also brings us Mardi Gras: a time to clean out the “fat” from the cupboards. After making our own Mardi Gras treat, we are ready to focus on Ash Wednesday and our Lenten promises. We make a Lenten chain to help us in our journey of sacrifice, prayer and almsgiving. We enjoy a “retreat” by spending the day reading and role-playing religion stories, doing Lenten activities, celebrating at Mass and attending Stations of the Cross.

Then there is Valentine's Day…although the treats are kept low-key due to Lenten observances, the day is special in the sharing of friendship and love through the Valentine cards.

      MARCH     

We keep Lenten promises with classroom prayer focusing on the Stations of the Cross, visits to the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, and reading Bible stories focusing on “bread” and God's love for His people. We plan to celebrate Holy Week with a prayer program, inviting our families to share in prayer, in Bible readings and in “breaking of the bread.” We hope to spend a morning making our own bread of “praying arms”-pretzels-and enjoy eating our own creations!

We will read a number of books written by Arnold Lobel and pattern some story writing after his “Frog and Toad” books. We will try to remember to treat one another as good friends, which is modeled by Frog and Toad in all of their stories.

      APRIL     

We begin the month emphasizing that the Easter season in the Catholic Church has not ended-it lasts for fifty days until the celebration of Pentecost. We even have an Easter party a week after Easter Sunday as a way to celebrate that season!

We tie our Easter theme of new life in the Risen Christ with science, as we watch the development of a caterpillar through stages until it reaches its new life as a butterfly.

      MAY     

Our highlight of this last full month of school will be the celebration of our fiction and non-fiction writing at our Authors' Tea. Each child reads his/her own stories to our many guests: parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and friends. As the guests enjoy tea and cookies, each child walks from table to table to read a story he/she has written. The adults listen and then write a positive comment in the back of the child's book of stories. The children end the day with a positive feeling about their writings AND families have had a chance to relax at a tea party!

      JUNE     

We have only a few days to enjoy being together as a first grade class family in Saint Ann School in the month of June. We give thanks and praise to God for all of the blessings He continuously gives to us. We then move on to learn more about His world and His plan for each of us as we look ahead to the next school year….

     
THUS ENDS OUR SECOND SEMESTER OF FIRST GRADE. OUR PRAYERS GO WITH OUR BUSY BEES AS THEY MOVE ON TO BECOME SECOND GRADE SAINTS