Who knew that our August retreat could aid in receiving a plenary indulgence. It might. Pope Francis has granted a Jubilee indulgence for making a pilgrimage to an official site and doing other things like receiving communion, reconciliation, etc. Bishop Parkes has named six sites Official Places of Pilgrimage in our Diocese. Among them are Sacred Heart Church and St. Leo Abby (a couple of you went there recently). You may have a head start. You can find all the details at https://gulfcoastcatholic.org/pilgrimage (You will need to copy/paste.) There are also plans for a Corporal Works of Mercy challenge, but I have not seen the details yet. We probably have a good start on that as a school already.
Monday is Holy Card free dress. There may be a variety of cards tomorrow, so please accept any holy card. They were delivered to the church Friday after the office closed, and every priest may not have known their location. Monday is also IXL Math testing. Please see Mary's email for any questions you may have.
Let's talk about Sunday's homily for a moment. You may have wondered about something if you were like me and listened to Fr. Primus. Or maybe it's just my ignorance, but I learned a new word. The word is Theophany. Fr. Primus talked about how we went from Epiphany to Theophany. I was grateful that Prince was with me to tell me what the word was because I'd never heard it. He knew what it was and Googled it for me. I learned that the Baptism of Jesus is also called Theophany in Easter Christian churches, both Catholic and Orthodox. It is the manifestation of the fullness of God. If you want to learn more, this is a good article about it https://www.catholic.org/news/national/story.php?id=66425
Finally, this part is for teachers. Coming back to our conversation about note-taking. Maria and I continued the discussion all week and did some research/reading. Here is what we learned:
- Kudos to Anna for highlighting! While this is not truly a form of note-taking, it is a prerequisite for that skill. Students need to be able to identify main ideas and essential information. The next good step is graphic organizers, where the 3rd grade is headed.
- Kudos also goes to Heather for her discussion on helping students learn to organize information into graphic organizers.
- Kudos to those teachers who know that not all students benefit from the same type of notes and introduce multiple ways of taking notes. While graphic organizers are great, simple Cornell notes or just two-column notes (used by Claudia and David) are also important to teach.
- We learned that this skill is a high school benchmark. That means we need to keep teaching the skill of taking notes all the way through 8th grade. While they may have learned note-taking skills in 5th grade, it doesn't mean they are skilled at it in 6th grade. They will be in 9th grade if we keep teaching.
- Finally, there is a great deal of research supporting hand-written notes over electronic note-taking. While it may be optional for students to do either, we may want to look at having times when it's mandatory for all.
During the next two PLC meetings, please talk about what you are doing at grade level (for early childhood it may be as simple as highlighting words or ideas). and then at subject area, how these ideas can progress from grade to grade. If you are a core subject teacher and do not teach math or ELA, please join the ELA PLC for this discussion.
Have a wonderful week and Happy Theophany to all!
