Week 31: Blessed Easter

May you and your loved ones be blessed knowing the certainty of the resurrection and the forgiveness that Christ won for you on the cross.  Zion's special services this weekend are listed in the calendar to the right.  I encourage you to make worship a special time for your family.  Enjoy the break from school, too!

COMING UP -

Religion - Wrapping up our study of Christ's Passion and moving into the witness of the disciples
S.S.  We travel to Europe and learn about the EU
Lit.  Poetry
Math - Percents, Graphing Functions, Geometry
Eng. - Research paper time

Zion School Auction

We would LOVE for you to attend the Zion Lutheran School Auction, to be held at Old Hickory Golf Club on April 15, 2016.  It is a great night to celebrate Zion and raise money for our school.  We would love to see many sixth grade parents there!  Thanks to our room mom, Mrs. Trampe, for preparing our class donation item - a blanket made with ski trip photos.  Let the bidding begin!

Book orders - I will place the Scholastic Book Order Saturday morning. If you still wish to order online, you may. 

Week 30: Holy Week, Disability Awareness

From last week:  General Math class

We played coordinate plane Battleship

A great review of positive and negative numbers.

Lit class - Disability awareness Day 1 - Visual disabilities

"Go this way" does not help much without vision

How can you guide 2 blind partners?  Annelise was creative

Buttering a cracker was quite difficult

Day 2: Auditory disablilities

How well can you lip read?

Playing close attention!

We have a greater appreciation of Helen Keller's achievements

Day 3 and 4: Cognitive and learning disabilities

Simulating Dyslexia, ADD, and math disabilities

Physical disabilities - could you cut out a star without one hand?

Holy Week

Spring is upon us! It is exciting to begin to see signs of new life:  green shoots poking through the brown earth, budding trees, flowers blooming, robins singing - even amidst a few snowflakes. Spring is the perfect time to reflect on how we, too, have been made a new creation.

This week is the time set aside by the Christian church to remember the last days of Jesus' life, as well as the pain and death he suffered taking our place to receive the punishment of our sins. In our study of "Who is Jesus" we are focusing on the events of Passion Week.  Micah H's dad, pastor at Chapel of the Cross Lutheran Church spent 5 days with us revealing parts of scripture that explain resurrection and leading us through events of the week through historical eyes. Thank you, Pastor, for being with us and teaching us God's Truth!!

We have also been watching the word-for-word enactment of The Gospel of Matthew presented by The Visual Bible.  For some students, seeing the man who has been teaching and preaching, with loving compassion and tenderness, to now be sacrificed on the cross for our sins can be quite emotional. 

I encourage you take time with your family to reflect on Jesus' life and death, both in worship and in reading the Passion account from one of the gospels.  Why would anyone take such pain upon himself?  It is amazing to think that we could be loved so much!  It's truly beyond our understanding.  And what does this mean for us?  Romans 6:4 talks about how we have been buried with Christ - our sins have been taken to the grave - so that "just as Christ was raised from the death through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life."  Celebrate this new life!!

I encourage you to worship with your children on these special days ahead.   On Maundy Thursday we see the remarkable transformation of the Passover into Holy Communion - Jesus himself became our saving Lamb of sacrifice.  Honor the Good Friday on which Christ died for our sins and the temple veil was torn in two - the separation that sin had caused between us and our Lord is no more.  And finally the glorious day of resurrection, EASTER, when we celebrate our victory in Christ over sin, death, and the devil. There is nothing we could ever do to deserve this love. What a wonderful opportunity we have before us to learn and to grow in our faith -  to praise and thank God for this glorious gift!!

To see a clip from The Gospel of Matthew click this link.  Palm Sunday begins at about 5 min 30 sec.

Church Services for Passion Week…Zion’s services for Passion Week leading up to Easter continue this week.  If you don’t have a church home, Zion would love to welcome you to experience Jesus’ journey to the cross with us!  We have services all week. :) 

Living Last Supper Thursday 3/24 at 3:30 and 7pm.
Good Friday  Friday 3/25 at 3:30 and 7pm.
Easter  Sunday 3/27 at 8, 9:30 and 11am.

 

Week 29: Grandparents Day

Thanks to all the parents who helped make it possible for grandparents to be here today.  We had a wonderful time of fun and fellowship in the classrooms.  I hope the sixth graders learned a little something they never knew before.  We had a lot of laughs together!

I wish I could do justice to describing the message the 7th graders had for us in worship.  It was all about Jesus' divine power that is shared with us through the Holy Spirit's power.  The service climax was a song done in sign language from the Christian artist, Jeremy Camp.  Praise God for the wonderful witness of our young people!

Please remember Achievement Testing takes place next week.  Plenty of rest, a good breakfast, and non-mechanical pencils are helpful.  Testing helps Zion see how our students are progressing as well as give you a peek at your child's strengths.  Remember, one week of testing is only a small part in the big picture of learning and growth.

Report Cards will come home on Friday.  Be aware that teachers are processing grades and Sycamore may not be up to date.  (What was I thinking giving all those tests/quizzes/projects??  Oh yes - I love to see what the kids have accomplished at the end of our units.  But why did they all end the same week??)  Enjoy this beautiful afternoon.  I'll grab my red pen and a cup of tea...

In Peace,

Mrs. R.

We Love Our Grandparents!!

Week 28: News, News, News

This week, the students have been working hard on learning about cells, unit cost, inequalities, modifiers, and creating Prezis to review NonFiction writing.  We have watched The Miracle Worker and seen the amazing story of Helen Keller.  We are exploring "Who Is Jesus" and watched portions of The Visual Bible: Matthew  as we see Jesus as God, Man, Prophet, Priest and King.  We welcome Micah's dad, Pastor H. as a guest religion instructor next week to begin our Holy Week studies.

With all this activity, I forgot to shoot photos this week, but I have lots of news to share about upcoming events:


On Sycamore this week...
Please click the link on the upper right to read Mr. Debrick's newsletter and find news on ACOLYTE TRAINING and our CALL MEETING for preschool teachers.  

FRIDAY!!
Friday is GRANDPARENTS' DAY.  Please share the schedule that came home earlier this month.   Students may direct their grandparent(s) or special guest to the church basement for devotions and refreshments and come to our classroom.  Grandparents/guests will be escorted to classrooms.  We gather as families in the church for singing, chapel and dismissal by 11:30.  If you are picking up your child that day, please look for them to be dismissed from the front of the church or waiting on the JH steps.  NO BACKPACKS FRIDAY.

Friday is also the end of the 3rd quarter.  Report cards will come home Friday the 18th. God has truly blessed me with this inquisitive class and their eagerness for learning.  We continue to grow together as we set goals for the new quarter.

BOOK FAIR
Our class may bring in money to shop at the Scholastic Book Fair on Wednesday.  Students will also have an opportunity to shop with a grandparent on Friday.  Another option for families this year is to shop online, with a greater selection, and have the books shipped to Zion free of charge.  Proceeds benefit our library.   http://bookfairs.scholastic.com/homepage/zionlutheranschool4


SAVE THE DATE - 

Friday May 20 will be our Lutheran Heritage Field trip.  This is an extended day, arriving at 6:40 a.m. and returning at 5:30 p.m. that evening.  Please mark your calendars accordingly.  We will be studying immigration and the history of Lutherans in our area.  Our day will include a trip to the Altenburg Museum and Saxon Lutheran Memorial in Frohna, MO.  This is a  colonial homestead where students will learn about the first Lutheran settlers and have an opportunity for trying chores such as gardening, laundry, and grinding corn.  Thanks to a generous sponsorship from the PTL, we are able to take a charter bus for the trip and have a few extra seats for more parents to join us.  Let me know if you are interested in chaperoning that day!


School Supplies and Book Covers
It may be time to restock school supplies.  Students need red pens, pencils, and calculators on hand for different subjects.  It may be that the spiral notebook is filled with notes (or that pages were ripped out).  

Also, it's time to ask for paper bags the next time you go grocery shopping.  Book covers need replacing if corners of the books are exposed or paper covers are ripped (or missing!).   We need to keep good care of our textbooks.  Fines are issued at the end of the year if paper covers are not adequately protecting the books or damages have occured.


2015/2016 Yearbooks -
Don`t forget to order your child’s yearbook for this school year.  To order your book visit: https://inter-state.com/yearbook  and enter code 00936Q.  Each yearbook is $20 and ordering will be available only until March 11, 2016.  We will not have extras in the office, so please order now!