All Saints Day

All Saints Day is the day we remember all the saints in heaven.  There is some excellent information about the Holy Day on this website https://www.catholic.org/saints/allsaints/   What you will find is that, as many of our Catholic celebrations, it was first celebrated on a pagan festival day.  The idea was people were already used to celebrating on that day and the Church was trying to replace pagan festivals.  Remember that there is no Mass on Wednesday, it will be on Friday this week.  When we return from Mass we will continue with the regular schedule with 3rd period at 9:50 a.m.  Please decide with your partner/team/encore teacher what you would like to do if we get back from Mass before 9:30.

How to prepare for Nov. 1 visit:

• Look around your classroom - would a stranger walking into the room see evidence of our Catholic Identity.
• Be sure your room is neat - student books are not falling out of the desk, teacher workspace is tidy, room is safe for students to navigate.
• Plan an engaging activity for students.  I do not want you to put on a show, but this is not a day to give a test.  The engaging activity also does not mean play a game.  Engagement means student-driven learning rather than teachers lecturing.  

This comes from a document sent to me by Mary Camp from the Florida Catholic Conference and what I based my recommendations on:

·         The team will observe in each classroom for approximately 5-10 minutes looking for:

o   Mission and Catholic Identity (Standards 1-4)

o   Student engagement (Standard 7)

o   General safety (Standard 14)

You are all doing a wonderful job in your roles and it will not be difficult for the visiting team to see all this.  Have a wonderful week and no one is allowed to be sick on Friday.  Just take some Tylenol and you'll be fine :)