Week 16: Midquarter and Thanksgiving

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration.   I am so thankful for each one of your children in my class this year. What a blessing they are to me!  Thank you, parents, as well, for the support you give to your children and to me. I hope you are able to enjoy this holiday week with family and friends!  

 

Midquarter

 

Monday marked the midpoint of 2nd quarter.  It is a good time to talk with your child about the Friday papers that came home, check grades on Sycamore, 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 December!!!  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.

 

Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions you have about your child's progress.  

 

 

ADVENT IS HERE !

5/6 ADVENT WORSHIP:  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4 

 

The songs are learned, the dramas are getting polished, and practices are winding down; preparations are nearly complete for our Advent Services on Wednesday.   It is time now for families to join in the preparation! The Advent season prepares us for the coming of Christ.  Please plan to join us for one of the services to hear the message of how God works in our hearts to prepare us for his coming.  Details about our worship services are below.  Blessings to your families this Advent season!

Thank you,

5^th and 6^th grade teachers

 

Times:  10:00 A.M. (chapel with Zion students) and 7:00 P.M.  

  

Arrival for the evening services: Students are to meet in the JH building (6^th grade in our homerooms, 5^th grade - upstairs) between 6:30-6:45 P.M.  (Pre-service musicians should check in with their teacher by 6:30 and then proceed to the church)

 

Dress:  Students should dress nicely for both the morning service and the evening service. 

 

            Morning – standardized school dress (or costume)

            Evening – standardized school dress or “Sunday best” -  avoid jeans and clothing                                 with writing (unless costume)

 

After the evening service:  Parents may pick up students from the Welcome Center in church.

 

** Reminder: As students are leading worship, please refrain from flash photography during the service.  We would be happy to stage pictures after the worship service ends. 

Our church technology team will be creating a video of the service for us.

Week 15: Novel Study begins

From the class bloggers:  Aaron and Lily

This week was a fun week! We started the week out with a Literature test.
 For memory we had A Shoot Shall Come Forth out of Jesse. A season to sing
 was on the next day and had a mid quarter memory quiz. Galatians and
 Ephesians and a song for advent of our choice. Our Cell project is due on Monday 
and our prezi for Social Studies is due Tuesday. Jv boys basketball has a game on 
Friday against Ellisville and varsity had an away game on Thursday. Advent practice 
is coming along great and our advent service is on Dec 6.This week we had a special
 birthday too! Mrs. Reminschneider had her birthday on Tuesday and the class had 
Culvers ice cream.This week was an exciting week. 

 Thanks to all for helping make my birthday special! Mrs. R. : )

Thanks to all for contributing the the Thanksgiving Food Drive. Our STUCO wrote a special chancel drama reminding us about how to be thankful in all circumstances. It was a wonderful reminder of all of God's blessings!
 

GMath simplifying expressions by combining like terms

Novel unit intro

STUCO skit at chapel

2nd Step - reading body language and facial expressions

 

 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 next  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!

  P.S.  Need a gift idea?  This is the first of a series of seven.  Scholastic has the The Shadow Children series for $28. I'll place our last Scholastic order before Christmas on Saturday, Dec. 7.   Email me any gift order and I'll send them to the office for you to keep the secret!

Week 14: World Cup Stacking Day

From the class blogger: Aaron K.

This week was a good week. We started learning our Advent songs for memory and sang them 
in our second song rehearsal of this years Advent service. The kids in 6th grade that have an Advent
 parts are busy working on them. We had our first Snow Day of the year on Tuesday because of the
 icy roads. Also, we finished our background on our Christmas canvases. These canvases will go
 up in the halls on December 10. I hope everyone had a good week.

 

From Mrs. R.

What's happening?

Religion - We have begun our study of the New Testament!  Student's got into our textbooks with a look at the Kairos of God - his just right time for sending us a Savior.  A perfect tie into the coming Advent season.  Check out the Religion tab above for more details.

Math-G math is learning the LCM, Distributive Property, and the algebraic concept of combining like terms.  We will supplement the Pearson text to review fraction concepts before jumping into operations with fractions in chapter 4.

T math wraps up solving basic algebraic equations with a test Monday.  Remembering long division and where to place a decimal is important in solving those equations.   Next up will be the fraction foundations of understanding divisibility, factors, GCF, and LCM.

S.S.-

In Social Studies we held the "Great Lakes Debate" looking at the conditions of this ecosystem from the 1960's until present day.  Pollution, invasive species and habitat loss are all examples of Human-Environment Interaction.  

Students will be involved in research of these environmental issues around North America and present their findings with an online presentation tool called Prezi.

Lit.-  We wrapped up Short Stories by exploring literary conflict and will start a class novel unit next.

 

Art- Our Christmas paintings are off to a great start.  Students are enjoying learning to work with acrylics on a larger canvas.  Mark your calendar to stop by the JH Christmas Art display in the main school building Dec. 10th (after 9:00 a.m.) and 11th.   

From the Class Bloggers: Leah and Asher

DATE:  November 8, 2019

This week we sent varsity volleyball to state at a pep rally. We also started on our art projects 
for the display of the Christmas art. We are practicing our Advent services coming up in December. 

From Mrs. R.

Third Quarter is off to a great start! In Social Studies, we are exploring the Human Environment 
interaction with the Great Lakes Ecosystem. Students will debate the state of the lakes and go on 
to investigate other environmental issues around the U.S. In Literature, we are working with 
character development and motive. T-Math finish one step equations next week and G-Math  
continue their pre-fraction work with Prime Factorization, GCF and LCM.

In Religion we have finished the Reformation and will begin our New Testament study - perfect 
timing as we are learning about the birth of the Savior while we prepare for our Advent worship!

Thank you for your patience with updates to Sycamore as the 3rd Q begins. My family moved to a 
new house last weekend and we're not yet hooked up with WiFi at home. I hope to be caught up 
by Monday. 

BOOK ORDERS came home today. I will place orders again next Saturday. Remember I am happy
 to set books aside as gifts - just email me!

Our Christmas collection for the Birthday Project continues  - please bring items by 11/15

Week 12: 2nd quarter begins

Thank you all for meeting with me about your child!  It is so good to hear your insights as we partner together.  Here are a few news items/upcoming events:


Nov. 5-15  Collection Drive for Christmas - The Birthday project:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P3VoLdNNrXu_TynCL4W4dP1GYVIjJNUqirpO8NVth0s/edit  This flyer came home.  Here's the Amazon link for an easy way to donate:  https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/I0FT191MTGZL?ref_=wl_share

 

Nov. 6 - Muffins for Moms: 7:00-7:45 a.m.  in church basement - please join us for chapel after if you can.)


Nov. 7  Parent Ed. Night  

Nov. 10 :  3-5 p.m.  Zion open house - tell a friend!

Our Zion students will once again take part in World Sport Stacking Day and help set 
a Guinness World Record for “The most people sport stacking in multiple locations on 
one day”. On Thursday, Nov. 14, people all over the world will participate in this event.  
Zion will contribute about 250 sport stackers of the 624,391 participants needed to 
break the previous record set in 2018.

Volunteers are needed throughout the day. Please contact Melinda Steinbacher 
at msteinbacher@zionharvester.org if you have time to help out.

2019 World Sport Stacking Day Schedule for Thursday, Nov. 14

8:10-8:45                        2G and 2L

8:50-9:25                        5C and 5E

9:30-10:05                      3B and 3K

10:25-11:05                    6R and 6P

12:05-12:40                    1B and 1T

12:45-1:20                      4J and 4M