Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Principal's Epistle



www.stmarksmilford.org            http://stmarksmilford.blogspot.com            
Calendar                   
29 Chapel at 9:15 AM
1 Turn your clock back 1 hour
2 St. Mark’s has services at 8AM, 10:30 AM and 6 PM with Sunday School at 9:15AM
4 Science Olympiad until 4:15PM, Stacking Club until 4:15
5 Chapel at 9:15 PM, Preschool chapel at 1PM, Staff mt. at 3:30
6 Science Club until 4:15PM, Stacking Club until 4:15

Prayer Families
Natalie H. (5), Emma L. (P3), Tyler F. (6), Dylan F. (4), Kyle F. (1)
Saint Salute
v A big Saint Salute to those students climbing the AR Wall of Fame
o   Joel B. (8)                    1100 points
o   Jake S. (6)                   2300 points
Notes
As the end of October approaches many young minds think Halloween.  As Christians we must look at the holiday to determine how it complements our religious beliefs and teachings.  The name “Halloween” is innocent enough.  Its literal meaning is “the day before All Saints’ Day.”  But it appears that Halloween has two faces.  For some, Halloween is a fall festival -  celebrating the harvest of God’s plentiful earth through costumes, bobbing for apples or carving pumpkins.  But, Halloween can also have a dark side.  One can find little to commend its emphasis on death, violence, the occult, gore and harmful pranks done under the cover of darkness.  The devil and his evil spirits are real.  They are powerful beings and spiritual enemies.  It would be dangerous to underestimate Satan’s power and influences and the celebration of witchcraft and superstitions certainly have no place in the life of a Christian.  Christian families may differ in their observance of Halloween and the celebration of fall fun is quite appropriate.  All Christians must consider the reason of how and why we celebrate any holiday.
Important Dates to Know
30  Parent-Teacher Conferences
November 7         Walk-a-Thon
Walk for Resources
The students have been challenged to request donations for our Walk-a-thon.  All the information was sent home last Wednesday attached to a collection envelope.  Please read all the information concerning the only big fund raiser of the year for St. Mark’s.  This is in place of the usual selling something fund-raiser.
Pictures
Students and/or parents must go to www.expressionsbyshannon.com/stmarks2014 and pick the pictures that they like.  Please pick the picture that you would like for the yearbook.  You can also order, but that is not required.
Fund Raisers
Box Tops for Education Challenge – Starting November 3, 2014, we are challenging each classroom to bring in the most Box Tops per student for a special treat.  The classroom that has the highest percent per student will have a “Build Your Own Sundae” sometime in January.  Each classroom should have a place to collect the Box Tops and we will collect them from the classrooms each week.  A running tally of how many have been turned in for redemption will be kept and posted.   The Challenge will end January 19, 2015.  Have fun collecting Box Tops!
Science Club
Starting Thursday, November 6, students in grades 1-4 may stay after school until 4:15 for unique science activities – one each week.  Mr. Reisenbichler is the leader of this group.  Parents are welcome to attend and help.
Science Olympiad
Starting Tuesday, November 4, students in grades 5-8 may stay after school until 4:15 for the start of our competitive Science Olympiad.  Students can pick from 23 different events.  Any student or parent that has a question about this team may come to our first introductory meeting on Nov. 4.  Students must be able to compete on Sat., March 7.
Stacking Club Starts Nov. 4
Students are able to join Stacking Club starting Nov. 4.  Stacking Club is a hand-eye coordination activity in which the student must stack 12 cups into a certain design and then unstack them.  Mr. Postenrieder is the leader.  Grades 1-4 meet on Tuesdays until 4:15 while grades 5-8 meet on Thursdays in his room
Increment Weather Notice
St. Mark’s may have days this year that require us to have a delay or be closed.  The best means to find out the situation is to watch your email.  Another way is to view channel 9, WCPO.  Another way is to go to www.wcpo.com.  If Milford is closed, so is St. Mark’s.
Operation Christmas Child
It’s Operation Christmas Child time!  The Women’s Guild invites all to participate in this mission.  Operation Christmas Child is a program that allows us to provide Christmas presents to children in other countries who are affected by war, poverty, disease or disaster. 
Here’s how it works:  Grab a shoebox from under the Women’s Guild table near the fellowship hall.  Choose either a box for a boy or girl.  Follow the directions in the attached flier which will tell you how to fill the box.  Write a check for $7 to ‘Samaritan’s Purse’ to help cover the cost of shipping these gifts overseas.  Place your check inside your filled box, put the rubber band back around the box, and make sure your boy/girl label is on the box with appropriate age range marked.  Return the filled box to the Women’s Guild table by November 16. Thank you!   Every shoebox offers an opportunity to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with a hurting child.
Happy Birthday
31        Michayla E. (6)
1          Hadassah . L. (P3)
2          Ian S. (2)
3          Ava D. (P3)
5          Madison C. (K)

Classroom information
Mrs. Schulte (Pre-2)
This was our final week ‘on the Farm’. We reviewed all that we have learned together this month about farm life and animals.  We shared the story The Runaway Pumpkin by Kevin Lewis.    We finished our Creation Books…AND IT WAS GOOD!  At the end of our day we celebrated together by having our Fall Party complete with great snacks, crafts, and activities to help celebrate God’s blessing of autumn! 
Mrs. Frey (Pre-3,4)
It’s Pumpkin week in Preschool! We are excited to lift the top off a pumpkin and discover what’s inside! Both classes will be cooking and enjoying class parties this week. We will make pumpkin muffins or pumpkin pudding to share with our friends. 3’s will create pumpkin bracelets with cereal, and 4’s will create pumpkin life cycles. In Bible Time 3’s will act out the account of crossing the Red Sea. 4’s will learn about Moses’ birth and how God uses him to His glory.  
Mrs. Reynolds (PK)
Pre-K loved their trip to Shaw Farms last week! We were able to get a lot of cute pictures that will soon be displayed in our classroom and in the hallway.
This week in Pre-K we will be learning the letter N and words that begin with the letter in N like nuts. Nuts is our theme of the week. We will talk about different kinds of nuts and what animals eat nuts. In Bible we will be reading the story of Jacob and Esau and how ugly jealousy can be. In math we have been practicing our counting skills by counting to 30 daily and we are also learning a few addition problems.
Mrs. Sherman (K)
It is an exciting, spidery week in Kindergarten!  Sally the Spider will pay a visit to teach the class about word families that are caught in her web.  The boys and girls will make a factual book about spiders, spin spider webs, create a spider graph and eat a "spider".  In math, the class will learn about symmetry and count on to 8 as they add missing spider legs.  On Friday, Kindergarten will celebrate the 50th day of school.  They will count to 50, do 50 exercises and measure 50 objects.  During Bible time, they will hear the account of Moses and learn of the special job God had for Moses.  The full day students continue their study of nocturnal animals.  They will count the rainbow bats around the room, sort nocturnal and diurnal animals, and complete their book of nocturnal animals. 
Mrs. Reisenbichler (1-2)
This week the children learned about Ruth in Jesus Time.  Ruth taught us about commitment, trust, and selflessness.  In math, the first graders worked with patterns and odd and even numbers while the second graders worked on place value, coins, and telling time.  Second graders published their original humorous story, researched and wrote about animals with antlers.  They continue to work with nouns and verb tense.  First graders learned to take notes with a  concept map and used the concept map to write.  We also had some fun with our spelling words.  Beakers, scales, microscopes, and magnifying glasses were tools used in science this week.
Mrs. Mayo (3-4)
The week we watched videos on the life of Joseph and talked about how God has plans for our lives, too.  We'll also talked about the Reformation.  We continued to read There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom in reading and began whole subjects and predicates in grammar.  In social studies we learned about the Constitution and Ohio government.  In science we learned about  simple machines, force, and motions.  In math, the 3rd graders worked with perimeter and area.  The 4th graders began a chapter on decimals.
Mr. Postenrieder (5-6)
In our Bible time this week we practiced for our chapel skit which we will presented last Wednesday. We also learned how to use God’s gifts to us. In 5th grade math we continued to practice using our geometry template. We also enjoyed our 3rd test. In 6th grade math we enjoyed our 5th test! We also worked our protractor, area of rectangles, and elapsed time problems. In our Language Arts time we completed our paper on recess.  In Social Studies we began to prepare power points on countries of North Africa. These power points are done individually. In Science we changed our worm bin schedule to help the kids see the changes better. We also began our study of Protists and Fungi.  In Spelling we looked at words with predictable changes when adding the suffix -ion.
Mr. Mayo (7-8)
I’m very excited about Literature for our 7&8th graders.  They get to read the book,  The Lord of the Flies by William Golding.  It is one of my favorite books and I love taking young people through it.  I enjoy watching their faces as I tell them that Golding included a Christ figure in this fine example of literature.  We’ll watch as the different characters reveal themselves through their actions.  Too many young people don’t get a chance to read this fine novel until high school.  The theological implications are tremendous!
Mr. Reisenbichler (7-8)
In religion we will study what God’s Word says about   In 7th grade math the students are calculating areas, interpreting graphs, and proportions.  The 8th grade is working with areas, properties of equality, and circumference.  In science we are making Punnett squares to determine the traits passed on by parents.  The students are planning and making a structure in STEM that stands tall and holds a lot of weight.

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