What's Up at St. Mark's?
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Now that same day two of [the disciples] were going to a village called Emmaus...They were talking with each other about everything that had happened…Luke 24:13-14
Pastor Janneke led our chapel service last Wednesday morning by talking about the story of the Emmaus disciples who walked with Jesus without knowing it. Pastor used students to act out the story and pointed out that the disciples had been talking about Jesus as they traveled. Pastor asked all the students whom they could talk to about Jesus and reminded us how important it is to always be talking about Jesus, our Savior.
Mrs. Karen Gramenz was recognized for 25 years of teaching at the St. Mark's Sunday morning service on May 15. The first and second graders sang as the bell choir played. The service was followed by a special brunch at the school and recognition of Mrs. Gramenz's contributions during the past years. The faculty and staff presented her with a special quilt. Congratulations, Mrs. Gramenz!
Strawberries, strawberries, strawberries! That's the story of last week in Preschool and Kindergarten! The students counted strawberries and learned about the growing system of the plants-roots, stem, blossoms, and berries. They made strawberries in the hallway and ate strawberries in many ways. They tried strawberries alone, strawberries with whipped topping, strawberry jam and peanut butter and trifle with strawberries. They ended the week by making strawberry ice cream! Throughout the "fruitful" week, they discussed the many ways that God has blessed us with food. The classes also read "The Grouchy Ladybug" and Kindergarteners took an AR test on it.
First Grade has been practicing plays to perform for parents and other classes May 18 and 19. One play is about Jack and the Beanstalk, and the other is about the Bremen Town Musicians. We are having lots of fun working on the plays. First grade will be going to Charter Oak School and the Pierre Menard Home on Friday, May 20 for a field trip.
Second Graders finished reading Skylark and watched the movie Skylark. The class is learning to multiply by 5's and the students are also working on their cursive letters.
Third Grade has been studying solar energy. There was enough sun one day last week to see if our solar oven would cook anything. We tried hot dogs and cookies. The hot dogs worked well and the cookies were under-baked but we ate them anyway. Seems like the sun has been hiding behind a cloud a lot lately so our solar projects haven't worked so well. We have been studying pronouns, direct objects, and indirect objects in English. We didn't need sun to study sentences, so that is going well. The students can't believe how close the end of the year is and they are looking forward to their field trip this week.
Fourth and Fifth Graders put the finishing touches on their Science Fair projects and displayed them last Thursday evening for parents and Friday morning for students at school. The projects involved everything from bubbles to birdseed to popcorn.
The Sixth grade will finish reading "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and test on the book this week. They will have an English test on Tuesday over Chapter 11. Then they will finish up learning about indefinite pronouns and personal pronouns with antecedents.
The Seventh Grade is reading some folk tales and is continuing their work with sentence patterns. They finished their geography projects and displayed them on Thursday evening and Friday morning.
The Eighth Grade is finishing up reading the play The Diary of Anne Frank. We have taken the opportunity to discuss aspects of World War II and the Holocaust in preparation for their trip to the Holocaust museum in Washington D. C. In history, the class spent three days studying the Civil War led by Eric Gramenz who is a senior at Concordia University Nebraska. Eric spent three days with the class, overviewing the war and directing them as they prepared and gave presentations on various aspects of the war.