St. John School
Newsletter
Catholic Schools of the Diocese of Syracuse
Mission Statement
The Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Syracuse carry out the mission of Jesus Christ,
bearing witness while proclaiming the Gospel message. Together with families and
parishes, our schools provide an education rooted in the Gospel that is “living,
conscious, and active” including values and ideals that are in accordance with the
teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. We empower our students to live their faith
with compassion, integrity and respect for all life and the diversity of our world.
9/26/2014
Dear Parents,
What beautiful sunny days as we close the month of September,
being able to have recess on the playground is always so great for the
children.
We have sent home with the 4th - 6th grade students today the
parent Score Reports for the ELA and Math tests that they took in the
spring of last school year. Our St. John students did very well and we
will continue with a culture of continuous improvement.
Thank you for the many wonderful treats that were sent into school
on Friday for the bake sale and thank you to all those who
volunteered to make our Doug’s Fish Fry/Bake Sale a success!
Have a wonderful fall weekend!
Mrs. Mary Ellen Kelley
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3 Year Olds…. We were very busy bees this week learning about the
letter Bb. We made Bumblebees with our fingerprints and painted
beautiful butterflies and birds. We learned to use glue to make our
bears. Everyone had a blast having bagels for breakfast with our
bears and playing “Guess Who” with the baby pictures! Some of the
books we read include Brown bear, Brown bear, What do you see? by
Eric Carle and Buzby and the Grumble Bees About Bee-Having by
Max Lucados. Next week is Cc week so please remember a Cc item
for show and tell on Monday. Have a beautiful and blessed weekend!
~ Mrs. Burr~
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4 Year Olds.....This week we introduced the letter Cc. We read The
Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and made caterpillars by
painting with cut apples. They seem to be crawling on our hallway
wall! We were very crafty and created cool cats, mixed paint colors,
glued cotton balls on C’s, counted corn kernels and painted Indian
corn! Don’t forget to bring something on Monday for Show & Tell that
begins with the letter D. I hope your weekend is filled with many
blessings!
~Mrs. Fox~
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Transitional Kindergarten.....We had a fun week in TK learning all
about the letter /Cc/. We made candy corn decorations for the
windows and cat pins. The children also did a counting carrot project
and painted corn using legos. We read some cool books this week
too including Pete the Cat - I Love My White Shoes and The Carrot
Seed. These kids are really creative! Next week we will learn all
about the letter /Dd/. Please send in show and tell on Monday for the
letter /Dd/ and index cards are due Tuesday. I will be sending home
the October calendar next week. Have a delightful weekend!~Mrs.
Reibel~
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Kindergarten…... Mrs. Newins The letter of the week was C and we
met Cozy Cat. We learned the the beginning sound of C and wrote C
words in our ABC journals. The story of the week was Whose Baby
Am I? We learned two new sight words we and the. We are also
learning to read color words. Please review sight words and color
words with your child. The students made their own color book and I
hope they read the story at home! In Math, we ordered and wrote
numerals 0-3 to answer how many. We also represented
decompositions with materials, drawings, and equations, 3=2+1 and
3=1+2. In Religion, we learned that God gives us light. God made the
sun, moon and the stars. Remember to bring in a D item on Monday!
Enjoy the weekend!
Mrs. Newins
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First Grade... Let me begin by thanking you all for attending our
curriculum evening on Monday night. We truly are partners in your
child's education. I look forward to an exciting and successful year.
This week the students were introduced to a new unit in the reading
curriculum. We read a variety of stories both fiction and non-fiction,
worked on decoding skills, and learned the difference between a
sentence and a fragment. Miss Morgan also began the first
Listening/learning Strand: Fables and Folk Tales. The boys and girls
are listening to a variety of stories and doing activities to develop a
rich vocabulary and a deeper understanding of print. Math this week
was all on word/story problems. The students continue to work on
the RDWW process to show their work. The challenge this week was
problems with the unknown addend. We are learning a variety of
strategies to be successful with solving these problems. In our Think
First, Stay Safe program the boys and girls are learning about good
and bad weather behaviors and how to identify them in both children
and adults. We talked about the differences between tattling and
reporting behaviors to a trusted adult. We ended our week with
activities using the Scholastic News Issue on investigating apples.
We even had an apple tasting session to see our favorites. Yummy!
Ask your child their favorite. Just a reminder that Day 1 is Library so
please have your child return his/her library book so that they can
check out a new one each time. Have a wonderful fall weekend.
Mrs. Vaverchak and Miss Morgan
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Second Grade….It was wonderful, meeting and talking with each of
you who attended the Curriculum Evening. I look forward to our
continuing work together! The children welcomed Fall this week with
an Art project in which they made a Fall wreath for their door at home.
They turned out really pretty. We have continued working with
measurement in Math this week. We developed mental benchmarks
for when to use a Centimeter ruler as opposed to a Meter stick. If an
object is around the size of an unsharpened pencil we use a
Centimeter ruler. If an object is taller than a doorknob on a door we
use a meter stick. The children seem to be enjoying this exploration.
In Religion we have been discussing and learning about Thinking
First to Stay Safe. Hopefully, the children came away from these
lessons knowing how to keep themselves safe in a variety of
situations. In Language Arts our theme this week has been centered
around the concept of making friends. Our stories were fun and
interesting. Our primary element was identifying a problem in a story
and how it was resolved. In grammar we worked on identifying
Commands and Exclamatory sentences. On Friday we began our first
writing piece. It should come home after a little editing and rewriting
next week. The weekend is suppose to be really nice. I hope you all
get out and enjoy it! Many blessings... Ms. Savage
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Third Grade…. Mrs. Ballard
It was a pleasure to see so many parents at Curriculum Night.
Thank you for your interest and support in your child's learning. I look
forward to working with you to make third grade a successful year for
your child. We learned about the Kingdom of God in Religion class. In
Math class, we had our first mid-module test. I am very pleased with
the results! We are learning to do a close reading of the story,
Nasreen's Secret School. The story is based on a true story in
Afghanistan. The children were amazed at the need for a secret
school, and that led to a wonderful discussion! We continued map
skills in Social Studies. There will be a quiz next week on all we have
learned. Enjoy the first full weekend of fall! Mrs. Ballard
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ELA.....Mrs. Mary Terela
In 4th, 5th, and 6th Grade we are coming to the final pages of
unit one in our Progress books. Included in this unit were four stories
of different genres as we focused on the theme of key ideas and
details. This week we shared author Maurice Sendak’s books as an
introduction to writing our own adventure stories. We are finishing
rough drafts, which will then be edited and followed by good copies.
Last of all, illustrations will be added in art class with Mr. Gilligan. I’m
sure our final adventures will be well worth sharing! If you are
looking for some fun weekend activities, Roberson Museum is
hosting their second annual sci-fi festival, featuring activities galore
for children and adults, on sat. and sun. from 10 to 5. One of their
featured guests is Laura Anne Gilman, nebula nominated trilogy
author. A local native from our Binghamton area, Rocco Passionino,
will also be on Roberson’s guest list. He is an emmy award winning
visual effects supervisor in Hollywood! Wow! There is a small
admission charge each day. Sounds like a fun weekend! Enjoy the
70’s weather!
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Math & Science...Mrs. Rai
6th grade math had a unit 1 test this week on ratios and percents.
They will now start dividing fractions. 6th Science is learning about
elements, atoms and the periodic table. They will be doing a project
on making an atom.
5th grade math is naming, comparing and rounding decimals. 5th
science is learning about body systems. The cell project is due on
Sept 29th.
4th math had a unit 1 test on factors, multiples and divisibility rules.
4th science worked with a microscope and dissected a bean sprout.
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Social Studies, Current Events, Religion......John Kocik
4th grade Religion students are concluding Chapter 2 which includes
the importance of the 8 Beatitudes and justice.
4th grade S.S. are learning about N.Y. state's climate and weather,its
causes and effects.
5th grade in Religion will be tested on the Corporal and Spiritual
works of Mercy.
5th grade S.S. students have been learning about the contributions of
the Incas, Mayans, and the Aztecs.
6th grade Religion students are about to spend some time on the
word of Genesis.
6th graders have just moved to Phoenicia from Mesopotamia and later
ancient Isreal.
Quote
The happiness of life… is made up of tiny fractions- the little, soonforgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a gentle world, and a
heartfelt compliment.
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