Wishing you God's wonderful gifts of faith, hope, peace, and love at Christmas-time and always!                                               

Kaleidoscope

                          

                                                 Solar System:                                    

      

We have started our unit on our solar system. We have had fun learning about the order of the planets and black holes. When we return from Christmas break we will make our solar system bracelets and learn about the phases of the moon. I am always impressed with how well the students retain what I tell them....they are like little sponges!!!!

This week in Kaleidoscope we watched a video about the history of Thanksgiving. We discussed the Mayflower, the duration of the voyage, and things we are thankful for. We talked about interesting facts, such as: turkey was not served on the first Thanksgiving, forks were not used (hadn't been invented yet), and it was celebrated about a year after the Pigrims landed on Plymouth. The 3rd and 4th grade classes wrote a sensory poem about Thanksgiving and all of the children are in the process of making a placemat.

Here are a few pictures of my trip to Haiti.  It was an amazing and heart breaking all wrapped up into one experience. The people from Haiti were the poorest, yet most thankful and God praising people I have ever had the honor of  interacting with.

                                                       Look at those beautiful smiles!

"The poor give us much more than we give them. They're such strong people, living day to day with no food. and they never curse, never complain. We don't have to give them pity or sympathy. We have so much to learn from them."
        --Mother Teresa

                                                                                                   

                                             Passing out breakfast. They all respond by saying,
                                                              "Thank you my God".

                                                                    

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                                              So grateful for a simple pair of white socks!

                                                         
                                                 
                                                                   

                              This lady kept saying "I love you" to us. She was so happy and thankful
                              to be getting her ration of food. The rations are distributed every 21 days
                              and consist of a couple scoops of pinto beans, corn, some oil, and 2 bars
                              of soap.

                                The clothes they wear has been donated. This beautiful girl looks like
                                she is wearing a flower girl or first communions dress.  The boys might have a                                     Hello Kitty backpack and pink tennis shoes. They were happy and didn't                                               complain, just grateful to have those small things.

Kaleidoscope

 Halloween Fun

In Kaleidoscope we have been following a Halloween theme. This week we have been talking about spiders. We have learned many interesting facts about spiders: They are not insects, they don't all spin webs, they can use their webs to travel hundreds of miles. We  plotted coordinates on a plane and connected the dots to make a spider. The kids were so proud of themselves that they had done middle school math!!! We are getting ready to discuss spider webs and make a spider web art project!

Creative Living

I have enjoyed this group of kids so much! They came to class eager and excited every day! I will miss them!

Creative LIving

Finishing up our bird houses

Kaleidoscope

 We wrote Halloween poems in Kaleidoscope. We also talked about the history of Halloween and the jack-o-lantern.

Kaleidoscope

We are still talking about Egypt in Kaleidescope. They loved hearing about the mummification process. We are making our own mummy and sarcophagus. 

Creative Living

We were suppose to start our birdhouses today, but it was too wet to go outside to hammer, and too loud to stay inside and hammer. We will start monday. Please make sure your child has a hammer.

Creative Living

Father Kastle blessed our rosaries after mass today. I tried to get pictures for the 5th graders that were on a field trip today, but they didn't turn out (good thing I don't teach a photography class).

Kaleidoscope

We are learning about Egyptian pyramids. We have talked about the Great Pyramid being made of over 2 million blocks. We have discussed how scientists today are still perplexed by the Egyptian pyramids. We have started our own pyramids out of sugar cubes.

Creative Living

Creative Living finished their latest project. They really "Nailed It"!!!!

We started our magazine bowls today.

Study Skills

We are finally getting the routine of Study Skills down!  On a whole, they are doing really well! I encourage you to stay on top of missing assignments. It is hard and overwhelming to them when they get too far behind.

     "Don't get upset with the results you didn't get

       With the work you didn't do".

Creative Living

We have finished our rosaries! They turned out beautiful. The kids are very proud of them, as they should be. I will have them on display all of next week. Father Kastle is blessing them this afternoon. Have a wonderful weekend!!!

 Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee.

2nd-4th grade Kaleidoscop

Please remember to bring in a package of sugar cubes by monday.
Thanks!!!!

Kaliedoscope

We have started our unit on Ancient Egypt this week in Kaliedoscope. We talked about herioglyphics  and how it goes back 5,000 years. The students wrote their names and put a cartouche around it (have them tell you what it is and why some would put it around their name).

Kaleidoscope

We had a good first week in Kaleidoscope. Since I don't know most of them, we wrote poems about ourselves.  They did a great job and it was a good way for me to get to know about each of them.   Next week we start our unit on Ancient Egyptian culture. I will keep you posted throughout our journey through Egypt!

Creative Living

We are close to finishing our rosary. If your child has not finished rolling their beads they are to bring them home this weekend. We are going to string them on monday and begin our nail art on tuesday.

Creative Living

Busy rolling beads for our rosary

Study Skills

Please make sure that your child is having their planners signed after each class and that they have their work in their best friend ( binder). I  am seeing some of my students lose so many points every day on something that should be "easy points". However, we are making progress and I have to say that I have been impressed when I have done my random locker checks!

Creative Living

We started our rosaries today. We discussed the different parts of the rosary, why we pray it, and the importance of Mary in the Catholic faith.

Creative Living

We finished our monsters!  I am so proud of them, they did an amazing job!!

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I have the monsters on display outside of the classroom.  I will only keep them out there for a couple of days because the kids are really anxious to take them home

Study Skills

We have completed week 2 of school.  They are doing great! Some are still having trouble remembering to get their planner signed and getting their homework put into their binder.  Please remind your child of the importance of this.  Have a great weekend!

Creative Living

Mrs. Stieferman's Little Monsters!

We are done working on our monsters!  If they did not finish, they are to take it home to complete over the weekend. They are due monday, as we will be starting our rosary. Please remember to send in magazines if you have any that you no longer need.  Have a wonderful weekend!