Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The St. Casimir’s School second graders’ dresses and suits have been purchased. Loving, handwritten invitations have been sent to friends and family. The food preparations are well underway and there is an anticipation for the celebrations that will follow the Mass. But what have the second graders been up to to deserve such fanfare? They are ready to receive their first Holy Communion, which will occur on May 21 at St. Casimir Church in Wells. These children have spent the last eight months preparing for this day.

One of the blessings of the combined kindergarten through second-grade class has been that they do a lot of blended learning throughout the day. When it was time to begin the second-grade Sacramental preparations, they made the learning part of it available to the whole class. They have all been eager to learn about the sacraments, to memorize the prayers, to listen about the Bible stories and embrace the Catechism lessons. What the younger children do not pick up on this year, they will certainly understand better next year or the following year. They benefit from the daily immersion in their Catholic faith.

This past week the students worked on their Eucharist Centers, which focused on hands-on learning to further solidify their book studies. The children made images of chalices out of Perler Beads, a take-home lapbook that included prayers, picture descriptions on how to receive the Eucharist and space to journal the events that they will experience during their first Communion. Of course, the best center ended up being the messiest center. The children watched a video on the Franciscan Sisters from Kentucky who make hosts for churches like St. Casimir’s. They learned a lot about Eucharist hosts.

Following the video, they went to the school kitchen to attempt to make their own hosts. After mixing flour and water, they had dough ready to be put into the altar read machine. They learned a bit of the history of the machine and how the Franciscan Sisters used the exact same machine almost 100 years ago to make the hosts for St. Casimir Church. Not only did they get to study a process, but they also learned a piece of their Catholic history at St. Casimir’s.