St. John School
Newsletter
St. John the Evangelist School
Mission Statement
St. John the Evangelist School is a Catholic learning
community in which students, staff, and parents respect,
affirm, and support each other.
St. John School fosters academic excellence from Early Childhood through 6 th grade in a
Christ-Centered
atmosphere that emphasizes Christian love.
Through education and the daily living of our faith, each
child will be empowered with the intellectual and moral foundation on which to build a
successful future.
10/3/2014
Dear Parents,
As we begin the month of October we will be holding our 2nd PTG
meeting on Wednesday, October 8 at 6:00pm in the cafeteria.
Babysitting will be provided. Please come and join our discussion of
upcoming events.
There will be no school on Friday, October 10 as our teachers will
be traveling to Syracuse for a day of professional development with
all of the Diocesan schools.
Monday, October 13 there will be no school as we observe the
Columbus Day celebration.
Please enjoy the long weekend with family and friends!
Mrs. Mary Ellen Kelley
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Mrs. Burr…..We had a lot of fun this week learning about the letter Cc.
We had a visit from a live chicken for show and tell. Everyone was
amazed at how calm the chicken was and loved petting her! They
even got to feed her a snack. We made chickens, colorful circle
caterpillars and fruit loop caterpillars. The children learned about
circles, colors and counted corn. We read Ten Chirpy Chicks, The
Very Hungry Caterpillar and Pete the Cat- I Love My White Shoes.
Please remember your Dd item for show and tell on Monday. Have a
blessed weekend.
~Mrs Burr~
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4 Year Olds.....This week we introduced the letter Dd by reading
Dogs Colorful Day by Emma Dodd and then creating our own
colorful dogs.
They were delightful to look at! The remainder of
our week we dove into “Dinosaur Days.”
We stomped around the
school halls, discovered dinosaur fossils by digging in dirt, did some
dinosaur patterns, designed letter D stegosaurs’ and even created
noodle dinosaurs! The most exciting part of our week though was
when we made our own dinosaur fossils with Plaster of Paris and
“dug” them out ourselves! We had quite the dinosaur adventures
with books, music and dino dancing too! If you’d like to expand on
our discoveries just ask your children how dinosaurs say goodnight,
go to school or even say I love you!
Just be careful if they ask
something like “can I have a stegosaurus mom? Can I? Please!?”
Just saying!!! ;-)
Next week is review week for the letters Aa,
Bb, Cc and Dd.
Show & Tell on Monday can be anything that
starts with one of those letters. I would also like to ask that only
one (1) item be brought in to share. Thank you for understanding.
I hope you have a delightful weekend filled with many blessings!
~Mrs. Fox~
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Kindergarten…… The letter of the week was D and we met Danny
Dinosaur. The story of the week was A Picnic at Apple Park. We
learned two new sight words like and am. We read many stories
about the life cycle of an apple. Each student is making their own
book about Jonny Appleseed. In Math, the students counted 4-6 in
circular and scattered configurations. They counted 6 items out of a
larger set. The students wrote numerals 1-6 in order. We worked on
our new Reading /Writing and Math centers. In Religion, we learned
about Saint Francis of Assisi.
Enjoy the weekend.
Mrs. Newins
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First Grade.....It's been a productive week in all areas. Miss Morgan
has been adding more responsibilities in her role as student teacher
as she prepares for her solo teaching week. It is wonderful to have an
extra person in the classroom to provide instruction and extra
support for the students. We finished the Think First, Stay Safe
program with a review and self assessment of the information
covered in all the lesson. We also celebrated and talked about the
feasts of the Guardian Angels and St. Francis. In Math we worked on
related facts and a difficult concept, equivalent expressions. We were
both pleased with the boys and girls understanding and application of
the topic. We took our first Reading assessment this week. It
covered comprehension skills such as sequence of events, phonics,
sight vocabulary and grammar; word order in sentences. Results will
be sent home shortly. We are also working on our first process
writing piece, a personal narrative. The students began with a word
web about themselves, then worked on a first draft, and after
individual conferencing will complete a final draft and illustrate their
piece. Look for our final products in the hall very soon. After all this
hard work the boys and girls deserve a restful weekend. Hope you
have one too!
Mrs. Vaverchak and Miss Morgan
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Second Grade…It is hard to believe that the season of Autumn is here
and we are into the month of October. We have had a busy week in
second grade!
In Religion, we completed Chapter 2 “Jesus Christ Gives Us the
Church” and will begin Chapter 3 “We Celebrate God’s Love” next
week. Since the month of October is dedicated to the Rosary, we
have been learning how to pray the rosary and the 4 mysteries of the
rosary. We also talked and learned about the Feast of the Guardian
Angel and St. Francis of Assisi.
In Math, we are about half way through Module 2 “Addition and
Subtraction of Length Units”and we will be continuing to complete it
next week. We also have been working hard on our sprints to
continue our mastery of basic math facts in a timely manner.
In English Language Arts, our story this week was Fighting the Fire.
We are continuing to identify the types of sentences, finding the main
idea of a reading passage and details that support the main idea, and
in phonics and spelling working with words that have the short vowel
sound and become long vowel sounds when an e is added to the
original word.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs. Pencek
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Second Grade….Welcome to the month of October! Did anyone see
where September went! It seems to have just flown by! The children
have been really settling in and using their manners. They are trying
hard not to yell out, but instead wait to be called on. For some this is
a challenge. I have confidence they will all master this though! We
returned to our Religion book this week. We finished chapter two in
which we learned that the Holy Spirit helps our Church even today. In
Phonics we have been differentiating between long vowel a and the
short vowel a sounds. Our spelling words this week reflect this skill
as well. Our theme in reading this week has been “Fighting the Fire”
Our stories have been centered around the jobs of Firefighters. Our
skill has been identifying the Main idea of a passage and supporting
details. In grammar we have been working on identifying the type of
sentences we are reading and writing. We have begun to look at the
two parts of the sentence. This week we learned about the Subject
part of the sentence. We have completed our first Domain in our
Listening and Learning Strand. As we leave Fairy Tales and Tall Tales
we are going to travel back in time to when ancient civilizations
began...and so we will begin our Social Studies curriculum. Hopefully
the children will find it as interesting as last year’s second grade did.
Finally in Math we have completed our Measurement Unit and will be
heading into Module 3 in which we will learn about Place Value. As a
special treat for the children I had a guest reader come in Friday
afternoon. Ms. Michele Cona read the story "Have you filled your
Bucket Today ?". Ask your child if they are a "Bucket Filler" and
what a bucket filler does. Cooler days are ahead but we will be
burning up the tracks with our learning! Have a great weekend! Many
Blessings….Ms. Savage
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Third Grade…. Mrs. Ballard
__October is the month of the Holy Rosary, so we are beginning each
religion class reciting a decade of the rosary. We have begun with the
Joyful Mysteries. We completed an introduction to map skills, and
look forward to beginning our "world tour" in North America. In math
class, we learned about the commutative and the distributive
properties of multiplication. The students already have a pretty good
knowledge of the multiplication facts for 2s, 3s, and 4s. Practice at
home involving memorization of these facts is now required. We also
completed our first classroom assessment in ELA which partially
involved a written response that required students to find and show
evidence from the text to support their response. The class is most
excited about the S'more Reading Challenge that will last through the
rest of the year. Each time the class independently reads a total of
10,000 pages, we will celebrate with a s'more party in the classroom.
After just 3 days, we are off to a great start!
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ELA.....Mrs. Mary Terela
We successfully completed unit 1 in our Progress workbooks, having
practiced several critical reading techniques. As we move on to our
traditional Treasures reading program, new workbooks in spelling,
practice, and grammar have been introduced. Students were excited
to receive brand new workbooks even though it is already October hard to believe! It was nice to return to basic skills of phonics,
spelling, and grammar along with notable literature being
incorporated into the above lessons. Our first test in Treasures
spelling will be next Wed. and our first reading test will be next thurs.
We have notated this in our planners. Our adventure stories are
being forwarded to Mr. Gilligan as he begins the art component of the
stories. It should be an exciting writing and art adventure!
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Math & Science...Mrs. Rai
A big thank you to Dr. Julia Miller for presenting the respiratory
system to the 5th grade science class. It fit in well with our unit of the
body systems.
5th Math is working on number properties and long division
4th Math is learning rounding and estimating
4th Science is working with plants and pollination
6th Math is dividing fractions and mixed numbers
6th Science is working with solubility, concentration and balancing
chemical equations.
Please keep reviewing multiplication facts with the class.
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Social Studies, Current Events, Religion......John Kocik
4th grade Religion -Mortal sin, Venial sin, Temptation, and free will are
all part of our daily lives as our 4th graders know.
5th grade Religion- We are starting on the Sacraments of Christian
Initiation- Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist.
6th grade Religion- We are beginning Chap.3 the Second Creation
Account.
4th grade Social Studies- It is all about N.Y. State natural resources
and recycling.
5th grade Social Studies- We are about to visit the Eastern Woodland
Indians.
6th grade Social Studies- We are about to be tested on the cultures of
the Fertile Crescent.
Quote
The toughest thing about raising kids is convincing them that you
have seniority.
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From the Health Office:
Just a reminder that students in grades K, 2, 4 need physical exams
completed within the calendar year. Preferably this should be done by
your child’s provider who is acquainted with the history.
● I will send an individual notice for those missing exam forms.
● If your child had an exam within 2014 calendar year, please
send/fax the completed form to school.
● If your child has an upcoming appt. please let me know the date
● Students without the form or an upcoming physical date will be
scheduled for an exam with the school practitioner when he/she
is in the building
Thank you,
Pat Chirumbolo RN
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