I absolutely love teaching bible to your children. I stand amazed almost every day at the pure love this class has for hearing God's word. We have had so many great classroom discussions already about favorite passages from the bible and the importance of spending time with God. Each morning we sit in a circle, hold hands, and take turns praying. This is one of my favorite times of the day as I listen to the heartfelt prayers each child has to offer to God. We are also busy highlighting passages in the Bible as we have poured into the book of Ephesians.
This week several of our lessons focused on the armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18). We did a lesson with oranges that the kids just loved. One of our oranges was like a child who put on the armor of God (the rind of the orange) and went into the day prepared whatever came his way. The other child believed the lies of the devil and slowly took off the armor of God (we slowly peeled away the rind of the orange). We then placed the oranges into a bowl of water and observed what happened!
The class was just amazed at how an orange without it's armor sank. We talked a lot about how we STAND when we put on God's armor and that is just what God desires for all of us.
Here are a few highlights of what else we have been up to this week:
Math- We are busy multiplying and dividing! I love seeing the confidence of the students increase as we continue to learn more multiplication and division strategies. The class has now learned all of their multiplication and division facts for 2's, 5's and 10's. We practice these facts every day at school as part of our Math Drills but any additional practice at home is wonderful for your child. We also had our first Quick Quiz so I can see what concepts each child is still working at learning. Much of our learning is still very hands on and we draw a lot of pictures to understand our math equations.
Science- This week the class was very excited to work with microscopes as they observed several different earth materials. We talked about different soils such as compost, potting soil, clay, and sand and how the particle size varies from one earth material to the next. This group just loves this unit so we had a bit of fun on Friday by bringing in favorite rocks and sharing them with the class.
Bible- We wrapped up our study on Ephesians this week. To conclude the unit we made an Ephesians booklet to be placed in your child's bible. Many of the students asked to take their Ephesians booklet home so they can use it in their home bible and share it with you as well. We have begun our new Bible memory passage which is Psalm 24. This will not be due until the end of the month as it is fairly new to many of the students. We practice our Bible memory every day at school, but your child may need to review at home as well.
Reading:
This week in reading, we are still moving through our book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Each day using that text, I model a certain reading strategy that the children then go and practice at their own level in their good fit book. This week they continued to practice the strategies of questioning, envisioning, making predictions and they also learned how to read a page in their book and identify what the main idea/event was that happened on that page. This strategies will become very important when it comes to our lessons next week when we start to learn how to retell what we are reading only including the most important parts rather than retelling the whole story. We also learned some strategies this week about what to do when we get to a word in our book that we can not read or we do not know what we mean. Ask your child what they need to do when that happens! Your children are doing a wonderful job with their reading.
Please make sure that your child brings their good fit book back every day. It becomes very difficult for them to have to choose a different book in class because they start to get the plot lines mixed up and then all of their comprehension falls apart.
READING MINUTES ARE DUE MONDAY!!
Writing:
This week in writing, we have spent some time generating more personal narratives. We also spent time learning how to have a writing conference and to talk about what we are working on as writers as well as how to ask a partner about what they are working on. We also are starting to recognize certain areas in our writing that we need to get better at which becomes our next steps in our new writing. On Friday, each child picked their story that they want to turn into a published personal narrative. We will work on this for the next few weeks to start looking at how to make this piece of writing our very best.
A few items to remember:
- Discovery Testing- September 15 and 16. Make sure your child eats a good breakfast and is well rested.
- Walk-a-thon- Wedneday, September 17 at 1:00 p.m. at the High School Track
- Picture Day- Friday, September 19
- No School- Monday, September 29- Staff Development day
- Grandparent day- October 9
Mrs. Stielstra and Mrs. Wyma
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