*Confirmation Retreat 2010 :]

Yesterday, the grade 7 class 2010 of St. Edmund's went to St. Paul's for a retreat, learning more about Confirmation. At first when I woke up in the morning, I didn't want to go because it seemed boring and I was really tired. But once we were at St. Paul's and got started, I saw the NET people and knew for sure that, the day was going to be fun. So to start off in the morning, we first had a morning prayer. After, we played "all it tag" to get warmed up for the rest of the afternoon. It was where everyone was it, and if you got tagged, you had to go down. If the person who tagged who got tagged as well, you got to go back up. This was a good game because it made us all to be sure to be honest. After the game, we went back inside to have some talks. Then we got into our small groups. All the girls were together, Isabel, Caitlin, Jessica, Kristina, Juliana, Karissa, Martyna, Clarissa and I. We all told our names first and our favorite dessert. We talked about anything together, if we had any questions about Confirmation.

So many things happened that day. We even said grace in a Star Wars theme, which was awesome! Now we do that every Friday at school I think? :] Many skits were acted out by the NET people too. They were all fun and enjoyable to watch. After, we watched a video. It was about a boy who lied to his parents just so he wouldn't get in trouble. But his parents find out later because he was acting weirdly. It was a very short but good movie, That teaches us a lesson. And there was this quote, "Nothing you ever do, can make me love you less." In this case talking about God's love for us. You'll need to watch the movie to have full understanding. Right after that video, we went into the Church. That's when everyone became emotional... many of my friends were crying :( It was just when we could have our own time to talk to God. There was even Confession available to us, which I went to. After about an hour of that, we had another hour of mass. It was atleast total of 2 hours inside the Church. And honestly, it really helped me. I wanted to stay longer. :)

Well that was a very fun day at the retreat, and I wish we could have something like it again!

~ Do's and Don'ts of Grade 7

Dear Rachel,

Grade seven will be the most fun year you will have at St. Edmund's. You will actually be looking forward to go to school every morning, because you have an awesome teacher, Mr. Dotto... who will make your final year at St. Edmund's memorable :D

There are many fun things that you get to do, inside and outside of the classroom.
~ There is the Homework Grand Prix, where you are in groups of 3 or 4 in a kind of board game. It's takes a long time to describe everything, so you just have to wait ;)
~ There is a couch in the classroom, and when it's your day, you get to sit on it with one other person.
~ There is also a TV, where sometimes we get to watch movies ... either for assignments or just for done during lunch.
~ I'm pretty sure you know about the mac laptops. How many times do you use them... like twice or three times a month? Well in grade 7 you use them twice or three times a week, or maybe more! So take good care of them, because our class sure did... =P

~ So many field trips and retreats, to prepare for Confirmation! I think the best field trip we had was "Spirit Day". You're there from the morning till night. I don't want to spoil it for you, so why don't you wait for 5 months? ;)

Some things you'll want to do when you're in grade 7 is...
~ Start on big assignments and projects as soon as you can, because you don't want to procrastinate and leave it all to the last minute.
~ Mr. Dotto is a great guyyy, his singing and artwork is amazing... ;] .. he's a lot of fun to have as a teacher, but you better not get on his bad side or you won't have such a fun year like you're supposed to. :)

~ Try not to get your name on the board! It affects your letter grade, and your chances to participate on the Homework Grand Prix...
~ Study hard, like you would always! There's a lot of prep to get ready for high school... and you want to make sure you're focused on that.

~ Not joke in religion! Mr. Dotto doesn't tolerate that! If you ever were to make a joke though, make it good... because if not he'll just completely ignore you :P

Grade seven will only be fun if you try to make it that way. Study hard, because you know the year after that is high school! Keep Mr. Dotto happy so you'll have a lot of free time and more freedom... hope you have a great year of 2010-2011!