Post date: Feb 21, 2015 6:05:42 PM

Dear Parents of Kindergarteners and 1st Graders,

Below is a summary of the lessons for the past few classes. We hope that you find this helpful when you discuss church school with your children. We have been focusing on the parts of the Divine Liturgy and we are trying to help the children understand what is happening in church and what they are seeing.

Lesson 16: For this lesson we focused on the Lord’s Prayer and we discussed the meaning of the versus with the children. We discussed God as "our Father", what hallowed means and how we should respect God's name, discuss kingdom, and also, what God's will means. We talked about how when we ask for daily bread this does not just mean things to sustain us physically but spiritually too (such as receiving Communion), and we talked about forgiveness from our sins/trespasses. We also talked about the Gospel lesson and how Zacchaeus climbs the tree to see Jesus, and Jesus wants him to come down so He can go to Zacchaeus' house. It is here that Zacchaeus asks Jesus to forgive him from all the bad deeds he did as a tax collector.

Lesson 17: We made Valentine’s for the Shut Ins and all the kids did a beautiful job decorating the cards. They wrote some really nice notes on the cards and we talked to the children about who these card would be going to. And how they will brighten that person’s day! We continued to practice the Lord’s Prayer by each child saying one verse. They are doing very well. We have been focusing on the Divine Liturgy this school year and we started to review what we have learned thus far with the kids. Please ask them what the Little Entrance (Father brings the Gospel out) is and the Great Entrance (Father brings the bread and wine out) , who wrote the Gospels? What prayers do we say in church? Creed and Lord’s Prayer.

Lesson 18: This lesson focused on Communion. We discussed how communion is the body and blood of Christ and started at the Mystical/Last Supper as way to remember God and all he has done for us and as a way to be forgiven of our sins and get closer to God. We talked about how it happens toward the end of the liturgy, after the Great Entrance, Creed, and Lord’s Prayer. We also discussed how we pray on our knees for the Holy Spirit to change the wine and bread into the body and blood of Christ (the ‘Amen, Amen, Amen’ prayer J). Then, we practiced taking communion with Quentin as the priest using the chalice and spoon in the classroom. They learned about doing their cross beforehand, saying their baptismal name, and then kissing the icon of Christ/thanking Him, and getting their antidoro bread. The kids really enjoyed the practice. Lastly, we briefly touched on preparing for communion by fasting, prayer, and asking others to forgive us. We also briefly pointed out the Communion prayer on the cards in Church and they will begin to learn as they get older.

Lesson 19: For this past Sunday we reviewed what we have learned about the Divine Liturgy and the children are finishing up a project about the Divine Liturgy. We reviewed the why we light candles-the represent that Jesus is the Light of the World. We talked about the icons we see in Church and who is in them, what they show. We discussed the Little Entrance, the Great Entrance and Communion. We then we able to go visit Father Nick and he took the kids into the altar and he showed us the Communion Chalice, the Paten, spoon, veils, etc. Please ask your children about what they saw with Father Nick. He was able to quiz them on what they have been learning and they all did very well. We have also attached some pictures from our visit with Father Nick.

It has been a pleasure to teach your children. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

Maria Hochendoner

Andrea McRae, DVM

Margarita Bekiares

Dr. Karen Kolias