ST. JOHN LUTHERAN CHURCH
(The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod)
Alma, Kansas
A family united by faith in Christ gathering around God's Word and Sacraments.
To reach out in Christ-like concern and Christ-borne love to each other and to those without Christ!
NEWS FROM THE PRINCIPAL’S DESK...
October always flies by. There are some important big events in October – teacher’s conferences, field trips, Pumpkin Patch, Harvest parties, the end of the 1st quarter and parent-teacher conferences. This year pastor and Mrs. Grimm decided to miss over half of October to go on a dull, boring trip to New Mexico (Hot Air Balloon Festival), the Grand Canyon, California (visit family), and Hawaii. The month had barely begun and all of a sudden, we are at Reformation Sunday and Halloween!
October moves fast and of course the fast months are usually the most fun (and the most work). For me the end of October is the most rewarding when Bible History class focuses on the Reformation. We talk about the amazing people God has used, is using, and will use to spread His amazing story of salvation.
Students learn about Martin Luther and other reformers who risked persecution and death to stand up and point out errors within the church. We talk about the job pastors, teachers, and parents play in our faith life. Most importantly it is also a time to discuss how we must stand up for our faith and the possible consequences of our stance. There is much that we squeeze into the 20 school days of October.
Chapel Offerings
Our 1st quarter offerings of $200 are being sent to the Lutheran Heritage Foundation. This foundation translates and publishes the Bible (child/adult levels) and other Christian books, including Luther’s small
catechism, in over 140 languages.
Our 2nd quarter offerings will be sent to Santa Express and as in the past we will be collecting items for the organization to distribute during the holiday season. The students will have a friendly competition to raise as much as possible.
Thank you for your prayers, encouraging words, and financial support for St. John Lutheran School!
2022-23 School Year Theme
“Making Disciples for Life”
Matthew 28:19-20
Veterans Day
We will once again have chapel on November 11th and honor/remember the veterans in our St. John extended family. You are welcome to join us for chapel beginning at 10 AM and stay for lunch afterwards. The children enjoy singing the medley of military songs and see the pictures of the men and women who have served in our military. Please send pictures of your veteran relatives with name, rank, dates, and the branch they served in.
KINDERGARTEN AND 1ST GRADE NEWS
Growth in students is so amazing. In a very short time, you see kids just get it. They get it when we work on the alphabet and reading, they get it when we talk about math, and they get it when we talk about kind words and actions towards their classmates. Things that were a struggle just a few weeks ago have become routine. We are not ready for college just yet, but we have grown so much since the beginning of the year. It is so much fun to be a part of their growth!
Reading is going great. The kindergarteners are progressing with their alphabet, their sight words, and sight word stories. In Math we are breaking numbers into pieces and using manipulatives to add. It is kind of a love hate relationship. We love adding (most of the time) and we hate showing our work with blocks.
Science and Art are focusing on fall and animals that get ready for winter during fall. We are going to
play a little game for STEM that will help us learn about squirrels. There are so many fun things to do in the fall!
1st, 2nd, & 3rd GRADE
Thankful November to you!
This month was filled with activities and field trips! We ended with a passport virtual trip to Wittenburg while studying the Reformation! We will begin working on our Christmas Service this month after we have completed our Veteran's Day Chapel. We are almost done working through the old testament part of our religion curriculum and are finishing learning all the commandments and meanings.
In reading we are working hard on using correct grammar in our writing, specifically focusing on contractions, plurals, and possessives. The 1st graders even wrote their own version of the Three Little Pigs! We will continue working on our blend sounds in 1st grade while working on our prefixes and suffixes in 2nd and 3rd grade. We also will be looking at non-fictions works and how to read diagrams, bar graphs, and charts.
In Math the 2nd graders are flying through two- digit addition and are even going into four-digit challenge problems! The 3rd graders are still working on learning all sorts of geometry vocabulary and really like using the shape manipulative to practice vocabulary and make new shapes, similar shapes, congruent shapes, and work on symmetry.
We are wrapping up Landforms with our big National Park Slideshows and have moved on to some Veteran's themes. We will also be working with states of matter in science and hope to get some baking in around Thanksgiving!
God's Blessing,
Mrs. Howard
GREETINGS FROM MRS. GREENE’S CLASS
Happy November!!
It is so hard to believe that the Holidays are right around the corner. The students have been busy wrapping up their First Quarter of school.
In Language Arts, the students are working on identifying the many different types of nouns, identifying sentence types, and learning when to use commas versus semicolons.
In Reading the 4th and 5th, grade students have been working on identifying the theme in “Fairy Tales” and “Folk Tales,” while the 6th - 8th grades have been working on identifying the “Problem and Solution” in Expository Texts and Short Stories.
In Writing Classes, the 4th and 5th grade students are currently working on Silly Narrative Stories, while the 6th - 8th grade students are progressing in their biographical research projects.
In Social Studies, the 4th - 5th grade students are researching national songs, national symbols, and national monuments of the United States. The 6th - 8th grades are finishing up our unit over the Cold War and getting ready to dive into the Civil War. All of the Social Studies classes enjoyed their first field trip of the year with a visit to the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas. We had a great time of learning more about science, space, and history.
In First Grade Math, the students are finishing up their math unit on “subtraction concepts.” It brightens my day to see so much excitement and enthusiasm towards learning when they get ready for learning math.
I have been fortunate to have a great group for Reading Club every Wednesday after school. We finished our first book “Notes from the Dog” and are now in our second book “Hoot.” The students are enjoying the social time together, improving on their reading strategies, and doing their best to beat the teacher in whatever game we play. It is fun for all.
In all things trust the Lord,
Mrs. Greene
WAYS TO SUPPORT THE SCHOOL:
Pray for our students
Pray for our teachers
Pray four parents.
Tell someone how great education is at SJLS Do little things which help the school financially, including:Amazon Smile: The PTL is signed up with AmazonSmile, which is perfect for all year-long shopping! This link: https://smile.amazon.com/ch/48-0554347 will take you directly to smile.amazon.com in support of St. John Lutheran School. When you shop using this link, Amazon will donate 0.5% of the price of eligible smile.amazon.com purchases to SJLS. Thank you so much for your support!
Box Tops: Box Tops have changed to fit today’s families! Scan your receipt in the new and improved Box Top mobile app. The app instantly finds participating products and add the earnings to our SJLS account. No more cutting, sorting and counting box tops. Scan any receipt from Dillons, Hy-Vee, Aldi’s, Target, Walmart, Sam’s Club, etc. Simple, easy money for our school. Box Tops for Education helps teachers purchase supplies for their classrooms, art/music/science/PE supplies and much more! Get the app today and start scanning!
Encourage neighbors, family and friends to get the app as well. Let any of the PTL Officers know if you have any questions or need help! We will continue to take paper box tops so please keep saving them too. You can continue to drop your paper box tops off at the school, or contact a St. John PTL member and we would be happy to pick them up from you. Or you may give them to your favorite SJLS student to bring to school. Year to date earnings are $16.10. Thank you for your support!
Dillon’s Community Rewards: We encourage anyone who is a Dillon’s PLUS card shopper to please take a couple of minutes to sign up for the rewards program. This is a program offered by Dillon’s to give back to local schools. Each time you make a purchase using your PLUS card, a percentage of your sales is donated back to SJLS in the form of cash. There is no extra charge to you, it is simply a donation by the Dillon’s company. Please use the following link to add your PLUS card to the rewards program: www.dillons.com/communityrewards and use the code AU093 to support SJLS.
Stop to Shop: St. John Lutheran School now has a Kickback Card at Stop 2 Shop! When you check out, just tell them you would like to use the SJLS Kickback card and then key in 7-8-5-7-6-5-3-9-1-4 (the school’s phone number). It’s so easy…be sure to participate all year long!
PTL HAPPENINGS
Pork Chop Dinner: The Pork Chop Dinner will take place from 4:30-7:00 p.m. on November 19th at St. John Lutheran School. We will be doing to-go meals with limited seating set up for those who wish to eat in the gymnasium. Each meal will have a smoked pork chop, scalloped potatoes, green beans, roll, dessert, and a drink. Adult meals will be $16 and Children (11 and under) will be $11. No need to purchase tickets this year…please pay at the door! We are hoping to sell around 200 meals but will have bags of 4 pork chops for sale for $28. We appreciate your continued support at this fundraiser!
Alpine Farms Fundraiser: We appreciate all those who purchased from this fundraiser! We look forward to seeing these beautiful greens displayed near and far.
Match Day: As a preliminary report, we are excited to say the donations received during the 2022 event totaled $9,795. We are anticipating a match of $4,897.50 when all matching is complete. This will be a great start to the new roof for our school.
In This Month's
St. John Witness
NOVEMBER WITNESS
The Eagle Cry
