Week 17 Merry Christmas!

 It's been a fast paced week, with special dress days, Christmas music on the P.A. 3D printed ornaments of students unique designs,  end of unit tests,  watching The Nativity Story in Religion, and a bit of fun mixed in.  Thanks to the room moms who picked up food and provided goodie bags for our Christmas party.

 

 I pray you and your family are able to have a restful and worhsipful holiday.  Jesus came to bring peace, love, and joy.  May we reflect the wonder of knowing He saves us!

 

Merry Christmas!

 

Mrs. Riemenschneider 

 

Note from the office. We are going to return to school, Wednesday, January 6th. This is a change from the original calendar. We will be in school Wednesday, January 6th

Week 16: Christmas Card project

 Christmas Service Project

    This year, 6th grade is sharing time and talents in our Christmas service project by creating Christmas cards for seniors. In all of our excitement in decorating our classroom, Advent devotions, and special dress up days celebrating together, we wanted to remember those who might be alone during this season.  Pastor Haun, husband to our Early Childhood director, will be delivering our cards to residents at Laclede Groves where he serves as a Chaplain for Lutheran Senior Services.  If you have a loved one who might like a personal card this year as well, let your child know and he/she can bring one home to mail.

**Donations - do you have old Christmas cards that you wish to donate?  We have been re-purposing cards as well as creating our own with collage art and watercolors.  Send in any now or before you recycle them after Christmas, send them my way for next year!

 HOT CHOCOLATE MONDAY -Thanks to PTL for sponsoring a special treat for our kids at morning recess on Monday.  Please let me know of any allergy concerns.  

 

CHRISTMAS PARTY and EARLY DISMISSAL

We will celebrate the birth of the Savior together with a class Pizza Party on Friday before our noon dismissal. Teachers also have some fun games planned.  Thanks to the room moms of 6th grade for getting the goodies together for us.  Remember we dismiss at noon on Friday, Dec. 18. 

 

Planning commissioner leading the policy board for urban growth

Helping the city planners come to an agreement

We studied Portland, Atlanta, and Toronto to see how these cities approached city planning

Sharing our disciple posters

 

Missing Christmas concerts?  

 

Week 15: Advent begins!

 

December 4, 2020-Austin and Olivia

 

Burrrr....it was a really cold week this week!  We even had a few flurries.  

All of us presented an environmental presentation in social studies, and we 

learned about passive, aggressive, and assertive behavior in Second Steps.  

We are in the Advent season, so the wreath and devotion books are out!  

Everybody finished their cell project for science and they all look fantastic! 

We ended with art on Friday.  It was a great end to a great week!

Click the link to Mrs. Donner's blog at the right for cell photos!! 

 

 

Religion: We started exploring Jesus's life and focusing on his temptation by the devil and learning more about the disciples. We have been comparing these events in Jesus's life with our own experiences! We have also been watching the Matthew account of Jesus's life with The Visual Bible: Matthew.  

See the Religion tab above for the unit overview.

 

English: Adjectives! 

Science: More about Cells! We built our cells in class this week too!

T-Math Divisibilty and Exponents

G-Math GCF, LCM, and the Distributive Property

 Literature: Among the Hidden novel study

 

WHAT IF...

...the government could force you to sell land?

...we had laws on what you could grow on your farm? or that said NO PETS ALLOWED?

...your family was limited to one or two children?

Would you exist?

I hope talks about our Literature novel have popped up in your family conversations.  Students began the novel, Among the Hidden by Margaret Petersen Haddix, and I have to put a STOP sign in the novels to get them to put it down.  Through the novel we discuss literary elements like characterization and conflict, but also propaganda, morals, and faith.  It also coordinates with our new S.S. unit on Urban Sprawl in which students are taking on the roles of local citizen activist groups to debate how best to plan a city for population growth.  Ask your child about it!

 

Christmas Spirit week coming Dec 14-18!!

 and finally....

Mrs. Crenshaw has been working with 7th and 8th grade students on Passion 

projects. Students pick something they are passionate about and design, create,

and follow through on it. Two of our 8th grade boys have been working on learning

video and editing with the desire to create a comedy show bringing joy to people. 

Here is a quick peek at their work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib-mLVvgI3M 

 

Week 14: Happy Thanksgiving

 

From the class bloggers-Grace and Olivia

 

What a great week!  All of us are so excited for Thanksgiving break.  On

 Friday afternoon, we had a fun time playing board games.  It was a great way 

to celebrate our Walk-a-Play-a-Thon lap number.  This week was full of tests 

so we could finish up the week well for Thanksgiving break.  We are in the middle

 of a very fun social studies project, where we are making a Google Slides 

presentation about the Great Lakes.  We also have started our Christmas art.  

Overall, we had a lot of fun!

 From Mrs. R

Last Monday marked the midpoint of 2nd quarter.  It is a good time to talk with your child about the Friday papers that came home and help them set goals for the 2nd half.  A great goal?  READ over the break!  Get those AR points before the last week of the quarter!!!  And your kids are not too old to read with you.  You can model fluency and have great conversations over books.  Traveling?  Listen to audio books in the car.

 

A note about Sycamore - I am spending my weekend grading tests and catching up with e-learning students.  Don't panic if you see a missing assignment, but have your child email me.  I won't have grades for my subjects updated until Monday.  Please don't hesitate to contact me with other questions you have about your child's progress. 

 I hope you are able to find rest and fellowship with family over Thanksgiving- even if it is just over Zoom.  We thank God each day for the blessing of being together to learn and grow in our faith! Your children are such a blessing to me!  I am thankful for all of your prayers and support this year.

 

Worship at Zion

You are invited join us as we gather to praise God at the following special services:

• Wednesday, November 25 at 7 pm Thanksgiving Eve worship
• Thursday, November 26 at 9 am Thanksgiving Day worship (mask mandatory)
• *Recorded service available on our website

 

• Midweek Advent (mask mandatory)
• Wednesdays (December 2, 9, 16)
• 3:30 pm
• Led by the pastors
• *Recorded service available on our website

• Christmastime worship plans will be communicated in early December. 
  

Week 13: Kairos of God

What's new?

Galatians 4:4-5

English Standard Version

 

 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,  to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

In Religion we began our New Testament study looking at God's perfect timing (in Greek: Kairos) as 

we learn about the birth of the Savior. The world under the Roman Empire was readied for the spread

 of the Good news! Students are being encouraged to partner and create devotion

time to help grow in their relationship with God.  What a wonderful opportunity to share stories 

of your own faith walk with your child!

  

In Social Studies, we are exploring the Human Environment interaction with the Great Lakes 

Ecosystem. Students held a lively debate today on the state of the lakes and will go on to investigate

 other environmental issues around the U.S. and Canada. In Literature, we are working with  

character development and motive. T-Math finish onestep equations next week and G-Math  

continue their pre-fraction work with Prime Factorization and GCF.. in SCIENCE , students have 

been studying cells. Information on their CELL PROJECTS came home. Be sure they show you!!! 

Parent signatures due MONDAY.

QUICK REMINDERS:

BOOK ORDERS came home LAST WEEK. I will place orders on Sunday afternoon. Remember I 

am happy to set books aside as gifts - just email me!

 

SEE SYCAMORE for school picture orders and Auction Roundup 

THANKSGIVING FOOD/SUPPLIES drive needs to be in by WEDNESDAY of this week.  

TJ's Pizza Pickup - Thursday 11/19/2020 3PM - 5PM
Product can be picked up from the parking lot between the Middle School Building and the Main School Building (where the basketball hoops are).  All of the product will be in TJs Boxes and will include your original order sheet.  Please wear a mask when you come for pickup.  To streamline pickup this year, we are asking each family to double check their product against their order sheet when they get home.  In the event you have any missing product, please email samuelswofford@gmail.com and we will schedule separate delivery from TJs to complete your orders.  If you are unable to pick up on Thursday, please reach out via email to arrange pick up.

You can help set a Guinness World Record

The World Sport Stacking Association is attempting to set a new Guinness World Record this year for 

 “The most PICTURES of people Sport Stacking”.  Due to Covid restrictions and the impossible 

task of disinfecting our stacking cups after each use our First through Sixth graders will not be working

 on our stacking skills at Zion.  However, if you have Sport Stacking cups at home I encourage you to 

pull them out and submit some photos of you stacking. The event takes place between: 

November 18th - December 2nd. 

Register TODAY! Visit https://stackup.speedstacks.com/register/ and sign up for this year’s event!

Please email msteinbacher@zionharvester.org if you’d like to borrow a set of cups in order to participate. 

If you’d like to purchase official sport stacking equipment go to Speedstacks.com. They often have some 

great deals around Thanksgiving.

Here are a few of our trees from charcoal art:

Week 12: Drama time!

Students thoroughly enjoyed the Metro Theater play this week as well as learning about  the beginnings of the Civil Rights movement.  We had a good discussion about how we are all children of God and through His love, we can be respectful and celebrate each other's differences.  

 Watching a drama led right into our own acting.  In Lit. we have been learning how writer's develop characters.  We turned the story, "Dragon, Dragon" into a drama to help illustrate character traits and enact a plot.  With the beautiful weather, we were able to take our acting outside.  It is so fun to see these kids work together and let their personalities shine!

What's happening in 6th grade:

Religion - wrapped up our Reformation unit enjoying a comedy sketch called "Happy Birthday, Luther." We next get into our Religion text and our study of the life of Christ.

G-Math - divisibility rules, exponents

T-Math - learning the "language" of math, solving algebraic expressions

English - VERBS!

Science - studying cells  and using a microscope

Social Studies - presented our Thinglink projects on Canada.  Ask your child to show off his or her project!   Moving on to study the Great Lakes ecosystem and human environment interaction.

 

And in this corner: Cassius Clay

Acting out Dragon Dragon

Last week - Indoor recess on BEE HEALTHY day

Playing Tenzi

and 20 questions with the world map

\

Finger football

Peace out!