Merry Christmas!

Good Morning Families, 

This week's blog will serve as our blog our next week as well since it is only a two day, half-day, school week. We want to wish each of you and your families a very joyous and blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year! We hope 2016 has been one for the books and as we ring in the new year, may we all be blessed with good health, happiness, and love. 

Looking ahead this week and next...

• Monday, December 12th and Tuesday, December 13th - Social Studies Salt dough Map Project
• Wednesday, December 14th - All School Gift Mass: Please send in a wrapped gift with a tag for Wednesday's Mass. The tag needs to specify the age and gender the gift would be most appropriate for. 
• Wednesday, December 14th -- Reconciliation in the afternoon 
• Monday, December 19th - Half Day
• Tuesday, December 20th - Christmas Party, half day, and NO AFTERCARE

**Please pack your child a lunch on Monday, December 19th as we will have a designated lunch time during our day. 

**You child may wear Christmas socks on Tuesday, December 20th 

**Please send in a gently used or new book on Tuesday, December 20th for a book exchange during our Christmas party. 

English Language Arts 

There are no spelling words this week. We will resume in January.

We will working on Daily Oral Language this week for additional practice in basic conventions. 

We will continue working with Lesson 11: Hurricanes. The genre is informational text, so students will be looking at text features and creating a brochure highlighting key details. 

We will continue working on persuasive writing by composing a paragraph that will be titled, "Elf for Hire." Students will try to convince Santa to hire them as an elf to work in his workshop. 

Social Studies 

Our big focus this week is on creating our 3D salt dough relief map of Arizona. 

Math 

The students will be working on multiplication problems up to 4-digits by a single digit. Example: 1,423 x 3. They will be learning the standard algorithm. 

Science

The students will be learning about animal life cycles. Chapter 2, lesson 4

Religion 

In honor of the fest day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the students will have an understanding of the clothing she wears.

As we enter into the third week of Advent, below is our weekly prayer. 

Gaudete Week

Our week begins with “Gaudete Sunday.” Gaudete means “rejoice” in Latin.  It comes from the first word of the Entrance antiphon on Sunday.  The spirit of joy that begins this week comes from the words of Paul, “The Lord is near.”  This joyful spirit is marked by the third candle of our Advent wreath, which is rose colored, and the rose colored vestments often used at the Eucharist.

The second part of Advent begins on December 17th each year. For the last eight days before Christmas, the plan of the readings changes.  The first readings are still from the prophesies, but now the gospels are from the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke.  We read the stories of faithful women and men who prepared the way for our salvation.  We enter into the story of how Jesus' life began.  

These stories are filled with hints of what his life will mean for us.  Faith and generosity overcome impossibility.  Poverty and persecution reveal glory.

Preparing our Hearts and asking for Grace

We prepare this week by feeling the joy.  We move through this week feeling a part of the waiting world that rejoices because our longing has prepared us to believe the reign of God is close at hand.  And so we consciously ask:

Prepare our hearts

and remove the sadness

that hinders us from feeling

the joy and hope

which his presence

will bestow.

Each morning this week, in that brief moment we are becoming accustomed to, we want to light a third dinner candle.  Three candles, going from expectation, to longing, to joy.  They represent our inner preparation, or inner perspective.  In this world of “conflict and division,” “greed and lust for power,” we begin each day this week with a sense of liberating joy.  Perhaps we can pause, breathe deeply and say,

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,

     my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

Each day this week, we will continue to go through our everyday life, but we will experience the difference our faith can bring to it.  We are confident that the grace we ask for will be given us.  We will encounter sin - in our own hearts and in our experience of the sin of the world.  We can pause in those moments, and feel the joy of the words,

“You are to name him Jesus, 

  because he will save his people 

  from their sins.” Matthew 1:21

We may experience the Light shining into dark places of our lives and showing us patterns of sinfulness, and inviting us to experience God's mercy and healing.  Perhaps we wish to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation this week.  We may want to make gestures of reconciliation with a loved one, relative, friend or associate.  With more light and joy, it is easier to say, “I'm sorry; let's begin again.”

Each night this week we want to pause in gratitude.  Whatever the day has brought, no matter how busy it has been, we can stop, before we fall asleep, to give thanks for a little more light, a little more freedom to walk by that light, in joy.

Our celebration of the coming of our Savior in history, is opening us up to experience his coming to us this year, and preparing us to await his coming in Glory.

Come, Lord Jesus.  Come and visit your people. 

We await your coming.  Come, O Lord.