Worried?

This time of year brings worries to many adults....

.  

Will we have a Happy Thanksgiving?   

Will there be enough food?  

Will we get to the family gathering on time?  

Will the turkey dinner turn out well?  

Oh how we worry....

Will we have time to Black Friday shop?  

Will we get to the different stores on time to enjoy the great deals?  

Will we be able to afford all of the gifts we want to buy?

The students worry too!  

So many worries for such small people.  

Their worries are so real & important to them 

just as our adult worries are real & important to us. 

I think Irving Berlin had a good point in his song "Count Your Blessings".  

It's an oldie...1954!  

You can find it on Youtube sung by Bing Crosby.  

The point can be found in the lines of the song.

If your worried and you can't sleep, 

count your blessings instead of sheep.

And you'll fall asleep counting your blessings! 

So.....

Count Your Blessings!

The Lord has given us as many blessings as stars in the sky!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Gone to the Dogs

We had a lot of fun with our Dog Theme for the 1st quarter of school.  We even brought it into our AR program in second grade with Top Dogs of the Week.  Here are the Barking Proud Dogs of October!  The Very Top Dog had the most AR dollars for the week, the 2nd Place Dogs are standing,
and the 3rd Place Dogs are sitting at the right.  Some Dogs had the same amount of AR money so a tie occured for the spot they are in.  You may see 2 or even 3 students sharing the honor! 

I am very glad at the Reading Goals the students are achieving this year!!!!  
Please keep reading and enjoying the imagination inside a great book!

Top Dogs Oct. 5 - 9                                                                                             Top Dogs of Oct. 5-9 

                                                                                                                                                                       

                                                                       Top Dogs Oct. 19-23                                Top Dogs 26-30

Time Serving Others

The help the students supplied in the community today was wonderful!  They made the lives of several people easier and shared the Love of the Lord through their deeds.  Mrs. Hahn and the whole staff are proud of the Children of God at St. John School!

Glow in the Dark

A flower was delivered to me on the last day of school in June.  It came with the sadness of moving to 3rd grade and no longer spending the day together in 2nd grade.  The flower came with hugs and love.  It has reminded me of those wonderful blessings all summer long!  Now summer ended and this lovely gift has continued to produce one blossom at a time.  A sweet way to be greeted in the morning at my kitchen sink with such a nice memory.  This is probably the last blossom of the season.  I had to share it with you and hope that it makes you smile as well.  Perhaps this blossom can connect you to an inspiring memory.

Celebrating memories is a great way to bridge to remembering our Baptism Birthdays.  Today is 

Mrs. Samuelson's Baptism Birthday!  She is an encouraging person who comes in contact with every Child of God at St. John School every single school day.  She inspires them, expects the best of them, and loves to see each student shine out the love of God as they travel through the grades!  Mrs. Sam (as the kids call her) brought us a gift of a glow stick to help us remember to Shine Out God's Love!!!! We shined it right back to her today as we wished her the best baptism birthday ever! 

The second graders and I played her the song....

Jason Gray - Glow In The Dark

Even in the darkest place His love can make you radiate!
If the road get rough just keep your head up!
Let the world see what your made of!
His Love's alive in your deepest part.
Like a flame, like a burning star,
You can shine right where you are!
He made you to Glow in the Dark!!

The Cherry on Top!

 Mrs. Germain utilized an ice cream cone technique to help the students portray hues of colors.  The light and dark shades of the same color are hues. Students worked with acrylic paint and added white or black to the original tint in order to change the shade.  Each artistic composite needed to use hues, spacial relationships, and the creation of ice cream cones to support the ice cream hues.

This artist chose the addition of the Cherry on Top which sums up the entire processes.  It was wonderful to see students grasp the technique and apply it to their final work of art!

Creating Word Puzzles

We used our new Spelling Words to create puzzles today.  It is fun to explore our words and have a new way to practice them.  The trick is remembering that the words can't run into other words.  When words to lead to another word you need to have enough space.  Here is an example!

Some students recognized that we were creating our very own Bananagram!

Splitting Shapes

Most shapes can be split in half.  Shapes can be separated by at least one line of symmetry.  It is like discovering a puzzle because some shapes have more than one line of symmetry.  You can split them in half in different ways.   Here are a few shapes and the idea of symmetry.

How many ways can a rectangle be split in half?  Would a vertical line (top to bottom) work?  Would a horizontal line (side to side) work?  How about an oblique line (corner to corner)?  Cut out the rectangle from the worksheet your student brought home today and give it a try by folding it corner to corner.

A circle has a many possibilities for a line of symmetry.  It has so many choices for symmetry that they become difficult to count.  This can be described as an infinite number of lines of symmetry!

Hopefully you are having fun with the shapes of symmetry your student brought home today.  Just in case you are getting frustrated the arrows below will help you find the different ways to fold each shape.  Did you find all of the choices for each shape?  Were there shapes that challenged you?