What's Up at St. Mark's?
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA["The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalms 34:18
St. Mark's Lutheran is now pre-registering children wishing to enroll in Preschool and Kindergarten for the 2010-2011 school year. Forms are available at the school office from 8:15 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. daily or may be downloaded from our web site, http://stmarksteeleville.com/school.aspx. St. Mark's is committed to the education of the whole child, physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, and spiritually.
From "Down Under" to "Under the Ocean"! That's where the Kindergarteners and Preschoolers are journeying now. The Preschool room is slipping into the ocean depths and kelp will soon be growing there. The recent Bible lesson for both groups has been "The Lord's Prayer". As part of their study of the letter Z, the 4 year-olds and Kindergarteners made "zany zoo snacks" by putting animal crackers into cages they had constructed of marshmallows and pretzels. For the letter C, they have been talking about "What Cathy Cooks". So far she likes cooking candies, cookies, cupcakes and Cokes! 4 year olds are doing homework each night by collecting certain amounts of items for their "number cans". The results are graphed on the number chart in the hall between the two doors. Three year-olds are each constructing a "My Shape Book".
First graders Samantha Schulte and Claire Baue had their weather pictures in the paper this past week. Watch for more pictures! This week our Bible stories were about how Jesus healed people. We heard how Jesus healed the Canaanite woman's daughter, because she had faith in him. We also heard how Jesus healed the 10 lepers, and one remembered to say thank-you. In math we have been ordering numbers to 100 and counting groups of 100. We wrote about animal pictures in English, and will have the pictures and writing on the wall to see if people can match them during Lutheran Schools Week activities. We have also been working hard on our songs to sing in church on March 7.
The second graders have begun learning the location and some information about each of the 50 states. They are excited to continue learning about the sun and the earth's moon. Cursive is exciting in 2nd grade and the students are getting very good at writing in cursive.
They have been practicing learning to type on the computer. In religion we have been focusing on some of the miracles of Jesus.
3rd grade has been studying promises from God. They found many verses from the Bible of promises from God. Below are a few of the key verses.
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23
"The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalms 34:18
"Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Psalms 37:4
"The righteous cry out and the Lord hears them. He delivers them from all their troubles." Psalms 34:17
"The Lord gives strength to His people the Lord blesses his people with peace." Psalm 27:11
"Godliness has value for all things holding promise for both the present life and life to come." 1Timothy 4:8
"I, the Lord, do not change." Malachi 3:6
"The Lord is faithful to all his promises." Psalms 145:13
4th grade has been writing some poetry. They have been learning about the Japanese poetry called Cinquain. It has 5 lines, focuses on nature, and does not rhyme.
Mallard by Zach
Green head
Swims, flies, walks
My soft cute pet
Swimmer
Spiders by Daisy
Gross, weird
Creepy, crawly, sneaky
Loves to scare people
Hairy
Dog by Aaron
Loving pet
Licks my face
Happy to see me
Friend
Fifth grade finished half of My Brother Sam Is Dead and the class is doing projects and assignments for the American Revolution. We made pictures of our favorite things to do in Illinois to send to our Florida pen pals. We also successfully wrapped up math and English chapters.
Sixth grade made posters of ancient Roman accomplishments showing things such as their written codes of laws, their engineering skill at making arches that allowed them to construct aqueducts and the Coliseum, etc. They have seen again God's hand in history as they learned about the Pax Romana, or Roman Peace, during the time that the early Christian Church was growing and early missionaries were traveling around the Mediterranean…all part of the Roman Empire. The class has also studied the mistakes that led to the fall of the Roman Empire.
Seventh grade finished the study of Canada that we deliberately worked on during the Winter Olympics, and although we were ready to head back to the Middle East to continue learning about parts of Asia, we may slip down to Chile to understand that region better as we hear news reports of the earthquake there. As part of our study of the founding and purpose of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, we wrote letters to students attending "Concordias" to learn about their career and university choices.
Eighth graders will be making their first purchases of stock in the National Stock Market Game this week. It will be exciting to watch how successful they are. Mr. Truluck has loaned us some financial magazines to help us study the stock market. Meanwhile in American History we will be looking at Jefferson's years as president.