Parents, your witness as a Catholic Christian makes a profound impact on your child. You are the primary teacher of the faith, when your child sees you seeking guidance in prayer, serving others by giving your time, and expressing your faith in worship, he or she sees a role model for their faith development.  This time in your child’s life is one of change and great growth: physically, emotionally and spiritually, so your witness of an adult Catholic living the faith with joy is extremely important.  The role of Saint Patrick School and myself, as their Religion teacher, is secondary and a support to what they see you living out each day.  I am very excited to be teaching 6th Grade Religion again this year, and I take my role in your child’s faith journey very seriously.  I pray I can be an important inspiration to your son or daughter in whom you have entrusted to me to teach about their faith.

Here, at Saint Patrick Middle School, we use the New Evangelization Edition of Christ Our Life published by Loyola Press.  Loyola Press is much more than a publishing company. As a Jesuit Ministry, they strive to help us find God in all things and develop a deep, personal relationship with Jesus Christ and have been doing this since 1912.   They compliment our mission here at Saint Patrick School perfectly, as we work to inspire students to grow in faith, wisdom, and academics excellence while fostering a Life Long Relationship with God .  We strive to create an environment that encourages students to integrate that Catholic Faith into daily living, to achieve academic excellence and to reach their full potential.

 

In 6th Grade Religion we will meet this mission in a wide variety of ways.  Students:

• will be learning and exploring the roots of our Judo-Christian faith,
• will be developing and practicing a variety and forms of prayer,
• will be learning about our Saints and how they have taught, guided, and inspirited us through the ages,
• will be focusing more on the Mass and learning the rich traditions of this prayer,
• will be reflecting on and building their relationship with Christ and His church and learning how to live their faith in their daily lives.

 

We will be reaching these goals through:

• Loyola Press’s curriculum Christ our Life—God Calls a People,
• Attending Sunday Mass and doing one Mass Reflection each month,
• Spending time in the chapel at school praying with a main focus on Lectio Divina (Sacred Readings),
• Researching a Saint of the Church and creating a web page on their Saint using Google Sites,
• Participation in a Seder meal during our Lenten season, date to be determined,
• Service and learning opportunities throughout the school, in the parish, and the community at large.

 

Expectations of each student will be:

• The be open and willing to learn about their faith, especially the roots of their faith, and participate in extra activities,
• To participate fully in the Mass and in daily classroom learning and discussions,
• To be prepared for each class period with the appropriate materials,
• To finish their assignments and projects on time,
• To put their best effort into assignments, quizzes, homework, and special projects and events.

 

Technology utilized  and communication will be thorough:

• Student Assignment Notebooks

We are joining the technological world with our Chromebooks this year, but we will still be relying on and utilizing student assignment notebooks as their primary mode of assignment reminders.

• Google Classroom

My goal for Religion class this year for homework and even tests, it to be paperless by the end of the year. I hope to accomplish this through the use of Google Classroom.

I am trying to figure out how I can invite you to the class also to help see what your student is doing.

• Sycamore Parent/Student Web Portal

My goal is to post any homework by 4:30 each afternoon if an assignment has been given.

If you need help with Sycamore, please email the School Office.

• Emails—tpieper@stpatrickeducenter.org

My policy and goals for emails is to return a message within 24 hours of receiving the message. 

• Parent-teacher conferences and meetings

Parent-teacher conferences are: Fall-September 28th & October 3rd and Winter-February 8th & 13th

If you ever feel the need to have a meeting outside of these times, don’t hesitate to email me and we will schedule a time.

 

Finally, remember your faith lived out everyday with your child, building a relationship together, and most importantly with Christ, together and as a family has no equal.  To this end I will be sharing what your child is learning in Religion class, specially in each unit. This information will have discussion topics on what they are learning and “Reaching out” activities to do individually and together as a family.  I high encourage you to take these to heart, a faith learned is important to this world but a faith LIVED is        important for ETERNITY!

 

I leave you with words from God Himself:

 Attend, my people, to my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth.

I will open my mouth in a parable, unfold the puzzling events of the past.

What we have heard and know; things our ancestors have recounted to us.

We do not keep them from our children; we recount them to the next generation,

The praiseworthy deeds of the LORD and his strength, the wonders that he performed.

Psalm 78:1-4