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?

communities

I have a bit of work left before my communities booklet is ready!  Do you know which type of community I am missing?  It is the one that is the most fun to say when we use our body language to discribe the 3 communities.  

Urban communities are done by putting both arms straight up next to your head and making yourself into a skyscraper.

Suburban communities are displayed by making your arms into the roof of a house above your head.

Which one is missing?

Polite Pig

We have a pig in the second grade classroom.  He keeps us calm when we are faced with the idea of adding using the number 9.  This pig reminds us that adding the number 9 on to any number is truly not scary or frightening.   Mr. Nine Pig is polite and kind.  Let me introduce you!

When the students are faced with adding 9 to another number they think of him and calmly think it through.  It seems as though we have a very polite pig.  He only takes one bite away from the other number and he does put the bite right into the sum (the answer).

If you have 9 + 4 our polite pig would take a bite away from the 4 to make it a 3.  Then our nice pig would put that One Bite next to the number making the sum 13.  9 + 4 = 13.  Isn't our pig helpful!

  

This pig also doesn't seem to mind if he is the first number or not.  Your student are bringing home a sheet that will show you how well our Nine Pig minds his manners and he even lets other numbers be the first numbers you see.  4 + 9 = 13.

Oceans

The students are growing in knowledge and skills every day!  One of the areas that shows this great accomplishment is their manipulation of artistic medium to render a masterpiece.  Don't panic that is just a fancy way of saying the students use many kinds of items to create their own picture.   They have each constructed fish, an ocean, and air bubbles.  Students worked with crayon, watercolor paints, paper, and yarn.  There was also the ever popular usage of glue! They worked on the skills of painting, cutting, weaving, and sticking it together!

We have an ocean outside of our classroom in the hallway above our coat hooks and it is beautiful!

Socks!

The students received the first of their September rewards.  They will be bringing their dog bone charts home this week with a summary of how rewards are given.  October gives everyone a new chart and new incentives.  This month we will fill our charts with apple stickers.

Second graders also decided to celebrate having all of the large dog bones in the dish by having a sock day.  You might remember the empty Clifford size dog dish on the back bulletin board.  It is overflowing now!  Each bone represents a moment when our class was recognized for good volume or for being prepared!  We enjoyed wearing our socks today.  I wonder what they will choose for their next reward.

September AR Rewards will also be sent home this week.  The students get money for the school store as they accumulate points.  We have Pay Days just like our parents.  Second graders also earn incentives based on the amount of reading and testing they have successfully completed each month.

Bunny Ears and Silent e Searching

There are so many ways to watch our children as they become the wonderful people God wants them to be! They learn all of the time.  They grow in His knowledge and His faith all of the time.

This year many of the students have already conquered the idea of tightening shoestrings from the toe of the shoe to the top.  They are working at keeping shoestrings tied for a longer time by double tieing the "bunny ears".  It is great to see a skill they struggled with during the first week of school slowly becoming automatic.  Now they barely stop to think about how to double tie bunny ears.

All knowledge is like Bunny Ears.  It becomes easier to apply without thinking when we use it, practice it, and fine tune it daily.

As your students apply the knowledge of our new Silent e Spelling Pattern I hope you take some time to post their words to our blog.  Make sure words end with a silent e and contain a long vowel sound.  The last two sentences used some words that fit the pattern....hope, take, time, and make.
"Sure" ends with a silent e, but the bossy r doesn't let the u sound out as a long vowel (it doesn't say u).  Check your words before you add them to the blog.
You can add the words by clicking in the box that appears under "Post a Comment" and you'll be able to type in the box. Remember to also click on Publish before leaving the comment section.  Then your silent e search will be posted on our blog!  Happy Searching!

Name that Veggie

The students enjoyed taste testing vegetables from the Farmer's Market.  The students were surprised that the strange vegetables (Please look at the pictures from the last blog) tasted so fresh.  We showed the students how to snap off the end of beans.  Then they could actually eat the bean!

It is interesting that God is represented in everything he created.  The purple beans & the cucumbers reminded us that God is three people but one God.  Beans and Cucumbers have a outside skin, inside flesh, and seeds. Three parts but only one vegetable.   Our God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Three parts but one God.

The Beans had a surprise with them.  Purple beans turn green when you cook them!  Our God had a surprise for the disciples and all of the people of the world.  Jesus did not stay in the grave!  He rose from the dead to free us from our sin!!!  God truely teaches us all wonderful lessons through His creation.

Going to Market

Wednesday the students in second grade met their PreK Buddies!  What a blessing it is to have a buddy!  Please encourage your student to pray for their buddy and their buddy's family.

After the buddies met eachother they went to the Merrill Farmers Market.  They discovered many kinds of food that God created and explored a new place available to buy food besides the grocery store.  The students met the people who grow food and harvest honey.  Mrs. Catlin brought back vegetables and honey for us to try.

Can you guess what vegetables are in these pictures?

     

Welcome

The new school year is off to an excellent start.  We all especially enjoy our new PBIS (positive behavior intervention and supports) system. Cards are given to students and classes as they use proper volume and show that they are prepared for the different parts of the school day. The second graders love putting their name on the yellow reward cards and putting them into our collection box.  We can't wait to find out what happens to those cards next!  Please ask your second grader what the orange cards are.

We also have a classroom reward system.  It is used to notice and reward the many great ways we work together as a class.  It is a large dog's dish and we are accumulating dog bones in it.  We need to have 20 bones in the dish to earn our first class reward.  In the picture you can see our small reward charts.  Each student is collecting one sticker each day that they are prepared for school and working to be their best!  The sticker charts earn each student rewards as the month progresses.

Blessings of Summer Days

It's not too late to have summer patterns for your family!  

UW Madison Gardens

Summer time is a break from traditional schedules.  We all enjoy the outdoor world God made for us and take a rest from all the activities that Fall brings.  Jesus taught us the importance of quiet time spent with Our Father.  My prayer is that you have found a church service that fits right into your family activities.  Time with your family in worship is truely priceless!

Bond Falls

Reading every day gives the mind nourishment as well. You are sooo blessed to have the programs at the T.B. Scott Library!  They have prizes for reading and even prizes for adults too!  The Merrill Library is awesome, but their are libraries everywhere.  It is fun to walk into a library in the town you are vacationing in.  Sometimes you can get ideas for the next book you want to read and find a story time at a new library.  You can also find information about places you want to visit.


Enjoy August, the blessings of summer, and the world our Lord gave us!

Our Circus

The day began with the Lord and our 1st Graders teaching us about hats.  We spent time learning about our "Christian hat."  Mrs. Keinath showed us a baseball cap with Luther's Seal on it.  Our real Christian Hat is invisible and can only be seen through our actions.  We also celebrated Perfect Church Attendance, Perfect School Attendance, and 2nd quarter Reading Awards. We continued our learning in the classroom and then went to have some Valentine's Day graphing fun with our PreK buddies.

Mrs. Hahn was a bit surprised to see this particular picture displayed on the big whiteboard in our classroom today.  You might be too!  However, your students can tell you why we are wearing masks. Technology gave us a way to show eachother what we looked like.  The masks are a part the items that will change us into circus animals.

The blog contains some compound words.  Please try to find them together!  You can also reply to the blog with some new compound words that you know or have found somewhere else.

Our Buddy, His Cats, and a Message

We got a chance to write back to our Trucker Buddy, Jerry, today.  We told him about the snow hill, Christmas lights, Christmas gifts, Large Cats, Chocolate, and Valentine's Day.  The students had a special salutation (good-bye) for him that applies to our part in the musical.  We wonder if he can guess what it means!

We are working on the song for the church service that begins an incredible week of celebration for 

Lutheran School Week.  The 2nd and 3rd graders enjoyed using gestures to help them remember the words.  The students are probably not ready to sing it to you yet, but then again we did have a lot of fun and it is a catchy tune!

Here is our Braille message to you.  Clues can be found in the sample project your student brought home today.  The blank cells are spaces.  The message is three words long!  Good Luck!

If you need help your student can give you more clues a letter at a time.

Helen Keller & Braille

Helen Keller was not born blind and deaf.  She became blind and deaf as a result of a childhood illness.  She lived in a silent and dark world until Annie Sullivan was sent to be her teacher.  Annie certainly had a big job to carry out.  Annie needed to find a way to calm Helen who was a great fit thrower!  She needed to find a way to help Helen know about the world.  God blessed their relationship, filled Helen with knowledge, and the two ladies were friends for the rest of their lives!

The students have been learning about Braille.  Today they made the letters for their initials on a small piece of paper.

The students will be using a Braille letter chart this week.  We will be glad to show you what we have made every day!

Our New Friend

Mrs. Mueller is a kind, patient, and helpful member of the St. John congregation.  She has volunteered to visit us in our classroom once a month to read to us.  Today she brought an interactive book called, "Press Here." We started out sitting pretzel legged and ended up getting comfortable as we giggled and clapped our way through the book.  Mrs. Mueller even wore a pin that went with the book!   All of the 2nd grade students & Mrs. Mueller truely enjoyed their time together.

Sound Travels

We had a presentor at school today to help us understand how sound travels.  He also demonstrated the effect pitch has on sound vibrations.  He used our recorded voices, a beat we created, and the unique noises a few of our students created for him.

The presentor also demonstrated a larger version of candles impacted by the sound waves as they traveled from his microphone and his keyboard to a small speaker.  As the sound waves traveled through the speaker they showed vibration by the way the flames rise and fall.  When sound waves get "bunched up"  the rise and fall of the flames resembles mountain peaks with valleys.

skimming, scanning, looking, & searching

Sometimes learning is difficult to watch.  Learning sometimes means struggling through the process that becomes part of our being.  Hopefully the struggle of skimming, scanning, looking, and searching through Religion History - Unit 3 can take place in your house with an abundance of patience!!!

You might guide them to the correct story and then...Please show them a word to "scan" the page for. Let your student do the searching.  They are fantastic kids trying to come to grips with a new skill. Allow them guide you to the correct story too and see if they can tell you a word to "scan" the page for.  If we walk them through the process throughout this semester of school they will gain a skill that can last them a lifetime.  If we do this task for them they will continue to struggle to glean information out of materials in the classes they encounter.  This is not about the Religion Grade it is about mastering a new concept.

Maybe the title of this blog should have been Learning to Breath!  As adults it is hard to watch the learning struggles of our children.  We want to fix everything for them, but if we guide, breath, guide, and breath they will master those new skills!  

And oh the joy of seeing their success!!!!!  

Friends and Bears

The people at the Cosmo took a moment to tell me how much they appreciate our students!  

They like the manners of please and thank you!  They complimented the way the students work to support each other! They even talked about how they will clean up the theater instead of waiting for someone to take care of their trays and garbage!  YES, INDEED WE HAVE A FINE BUNCH OF YOUNG PEOPLE AT ST. JOHN SCHOOL!!!!  Yes, Indeed they do hear you and listen to you as you provide them with examples of how to live each God given day!

Keep inspiring your children!!!

Snowmen, Seussical, & Schools

We had Art with Mrs. Germain today!  She is teaching us about perspective.  This means looking at something in a new way.  Our project is creating a snowmen perspective.  It has us laying on the ground and looking up at our snowmen.  The finished creations will be done using craypas.  They will even be hung up in a unique way to give everyone a "new point of view".

Our Art teacher is talented, creative, and patient!

Musical Practice started today!  We will be gathering together with all the students at St. John a couple times each week. Mrs. Brietwisch led us through the first two songs.  The Seuss song and the Horton song are fun to sing. The Horton song has a jungle beat that we can't get out of our heads.  The best part of musical practice is being together and learning it with everyone!

The story we are currently reading in our Language Arts Series is about going to school.  Students are found all over the world.  They are all taught reading, writing, and geography.  Some students do not attend school in a building like we do and some students wear uniforms.  No matter where they go to school all students practice friendship, manners, and kindness.  Where did you attend school? Where did your grandparents go to school?  Did they learn to read and write in German?  

Adding 2 Digit Numbers & Spelling

We are learning to vertically write numbers in place to add with regrouping. 

   1

   24

+ 39

   63

Always start adding from the right side, which is the pennies column.  We bring the dime from 4 + 9 = 13 to the top and place it over the 2 in the tens column. Make sure you begin counting with the dime you placed at the top….

1 + 2 = 3 and continue  3 + 3 = 6  The sum (answer) is 63.  You may also need to place cent signs after each number depending on the problem.

THIS BECOMES A HARD TASK when one of the numbers is a single digit.

3 + 28 is more difficult then it looks.  Students tend to line up the 3 with the tens column instead of the pennies column.

   3

+ 28

   58

This is not correct and is very hard for students to see.  The true answer occurs when the single digit is placed into the pennies column.

   1

     3

+ 28

   31

3 + 8 = 11, The dime is placed at the top above the empty space.  Adding continues at the top of the empty space with 1 + 2 = 3.

The sum (answer) is 31. 

SPELLING WORD LIST (long e spelled ea or ee)

free, teach, teeth, please, beach, wheel, team, speak, 

sneeze, sheep, meaning, weave, eat, read, between, reason

He was a Good Pig!

We have wonderful memories of this quiet pig.  Many people called him PatPat.  Some students have called him Pumpkin.  Others called him Pumpkin Patrick, which was his "full name".  He was kind and patient.  We liked it when he told stories that you could only hear with your heart.  Our guniea was a fine listener who wanted everyone to behave kindly and politely.

He Will Be Missed.

Art in our Classroom

Here is a look at a few of the art projects we have completed in January.  Our hallway is going to look fantastic as it is filled with work of creative students!

These creations were composed of felted wire, emboidery thread, and marker.

We really got messy and had fun with our 1st grade friends when we made these abstracts.  There were many steps to the process.  It required tape, string, marbles, primary, and secondary colors.

Wonderful color transformed normal heart shapes into creations.  The students explored the elements of shading, hue, and utilitzing patterns to make incredible eye catching art.  Each child made their own paper heart, selected their own colors, and constructed their own repeating pattern. 

Hard Work

We are getting back to our daily schedule and putting in a full week of school!  Yippee!

The students have had many fun events during the month of December.  Most of them I have emailed you.  I am going to revise my email notes to include basic homework and important announcements. The blog will hold the events and fun pictures that we experience.

Here are pictures of the students using different types of art supplies to create stars.

Our stars remind us of "the star" wisemen looked at when God guided them to Bethlehem.