3rd Grade Religious Ed: Class 9: Advent Set Up, Manger Craft

 Last week was Christ the King, so we spent some time talking about Christ's Kingship, and his kingdom in our hearts.  We also talked about how we treated kings and why.

I had made color photocopies of our Creed Project so that each of the kids could have an illustrated "book" of the Creed.

We went through the whole book with each kid explaining their drawings and their part of the Creed.  It was a good way to highlight both what we believe and why what we believe matters (it dictates our actions).

We also gave a copy to our pastor who had dropped by to bless our Bambinos!  More on that later.

Since Sunday starts Advent and our new liturgical year, we looked at the liturgical Calendar, and went through what the cycles were (A, B, and C - this year starts C, when we'll be hearing Luke's gospel).  I like this year's calendar from LTP, and I got a laminated copy so my own kids at home can move a bit of sculpey around it to mark the days.

Back to Advent: it's a preparation for Christmas, which is Jesus' birthday (some kids do not know this).  So, if it's Jesus's birthday, why do we get presents?

St Mother Teresa gives us the Gospel on Five Fingers: Jesus tells us that whatever you do to anyone, You Did It To Me. 

So, when we get presents or others, we're giving them to Jesus.

I then gave them a present: Advent calendars!

But this is a special Christmas for these kids: this is the first Christmas where they will get to receive Jesus in the Eucharist!  Advent is for getting your heart ready!

One way to see your heart getting ready is to have a little manger, and to put in a bit of hay every time you do something (a prayer or good deed)to get your heart ready.  So we did this super easy manger craft

It's half a sheet of construction paper with angled slits on the corners.  You fold up the sides and staple them.  Each kid also got a bag of timothy hay (from the pet store, stuffed into baggies by Klenda!), and a lovely little (blessed!) statue of Baby Jesus to go in the manger Christmas morning.
I explained this to the parents, too, so they could hold onto the statue until Christmas.

Then we talked about the upcoming Year of Mercy (the book lesson was about God being Just and Merciful!). The kids acted out the parable of the Lost Sheep (with Wooly, our stuffed sheep), and then our game was "Find Wooly." It was pretty much as it sounds: I hid Wooly in the classroom and they looked for him!