Hessville Youth Hoops

Here is one of the personal narratives written by Morgan.

What would happen if the five foot two inch girl had popped my shoulder out of socket? What if I wouldn’t be able to play with or support my team for the rest of the season? Would I heal quickly enough or would I just sit in the crowd and watch? These were all the questions I asked myself as a clutched my shoulder in pain.

It was a Sunday afternoon, about one-thirty, at Morton High School. My teammates and I were facing the best girl basketball team in the league. We had never beaten them before, but we were looking pretty good then.  It was the second quarter and we were on defense. I saw one of the girls race down the court to make a lay-up, but that was NOT happening while I was on the court. In my head, my plan seemed great. I would get in my defensive stance in front of her, steal the ball, dribble down the court, and make a three-pointer. Well it actually didn’t go as well as I had planned. What really happened was this: When number five was dribbling down the court I stopped in front of her and just stood there for a while. She was running towards me so fast that when she ran into me I heard a pop/crack in my shoulder and it hurt really badly. I started to feel dizzy and my vision started to blur. I almost fell but I got my footing together. Luckily, the clock was counting down so the next sound I heard was “BUUAAAH”!!!!

I walked over to the sidelines with the rest of my team and sat Native American style on the floor. My friend’s mom, one of the assistant coaches, saw what had happened and came over to me. “Are you alright? I saw that girl run into you and you looked hurt”, she asked. “Yea, I’m fine. But that girl is so retarded, man. I mean I hope someone fouls her in this next quarter if she plays. That should’ve been a foul!” By the time I had finished going off, I checked the scoreboards. We were falling behind and I knew this game was going to be a blow-out. The pain from my shoulder mixed with the frustration from the game was very stressful and I just wanted to get back on the floor and get all that energy out.

By fourth quarter my shoulder was feeling better and I was able to go back on the court. I was happy to be back on the court but it was also too late for us to catch up with the other team. Time was running out and my teammates weren’t hustling as much. I tried my best and I’m sure some others did too but we were losing by twenty. Even though we lost that day, we still had fun, well except for my arm almost falling off.

Personal Narratives

Today the students turned in their personal narrative stories that they've been working on for the past couple of weeks. They've been working really hard both in class and at home to get their stories just right.

The students did a great job of allowing their distinct author voices be heard and exploding a single moment in their lives. Here are a few of the documents we used throughout the writing process (inspired by Mr. Hughes' anchor charts):

Explode the moment.pdf

Personal Narrative Chart.pdf

Many students chose to read their stories to the class. We all enjoyed them so much!

Great job Grade 7!

The Day the Books Arrived

We are really enjoying the 40 book challenge we started at the beginning of the quarter and the students are reading voraciously! One of the major challenges was that the seventh grade classroom library was rather limited. I brought in about six bins of books from home and a student brought in a bin of books as well. Of course my books are limited and I'm now trying to buy a few books at time every so often to expand our library.

A great, budget-friendly resource for expanding libraries (classroom or personal) is Scholastic. I had some rewards points saved up with them and ordered half a dozen new books for our class. The books arrived during class time last week and I was mobbed by students trying to get a first look! I wish I had some pictures of the students as they rushed me to call dibs on the books. I LOVE that they are so excited about reading!

I also passed out book order forms that Scholastic included with our order. I want to stress that I am not promoting all of the books advertised in these flyers. Scholastic offers many great books at affordable prices but, it is important for parents to use their discretion when ordering for students. There are some books that may have content you find objectionable, I'm not suggesting that all of the books are appropriate. If there are books you wish to order you can follow the link to right of this post. I'm still so happy that the students are getting as excited as me about reading and books!

40 Book Challenge

Teaching 7th grade Language Arts this year is so exciting! I'm really enjoying interacting with y older students and sharing my passion for reading with them.

Coming into this school year, one of my biggest concerns was being able to convey my love of reading to my students. Sure, I like it but, how do I convince them? Then I read The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller and I was totally inspired!

 

Mrs. Miller is a middle school reading teacher who has achieved great success with her students by requiring voracious reading and allowing students to choose what they read independently. Before I was halfway through the book I knew this was the approach I should be taking in the classroom. This is exactly what worked for me when I was young so I know firsthand what the results can be.

Although the school year was already well underway I decided my students and I couldn't afford to wait any longer. It is imperative that we utilize every moment we have to become lifelong, passionate readers so, at the start of the second quarter I launched the 40 Book Challenge with my seventh grade class. With only a few tweaks from what Mrs. Miller suggests, here is what we are aspiring to read this year:

10 Non-fiction Books

3 Spiritual Books

5 Realistic Fiction Books

5 Historical Fiction Books

5 Fantasy/Sci-Fi Books

2 Poetry Books

10 Student Choice Books.

Genre Requirement Page.pdf

I think we are all (the students and I) really excited about this challenge and the new approach we are taking to reading class. Be prepared to hear a lot more about what we are doing!

Insect Flip Book

We're going to be doing a mini-unit on insects this week, so I made this little flip book to teach my kiddos some of the basic characteristics of bugs. It's a fun simple way to introduce my students to this subject. Feel free to download it and use it in your own classroom!
Insect Characteristics
Note: If you are picky like me and want nice, even sections, trim the edges a half inch or so.

Fall Fun

Fall is one of my favorite times of year and today the Kindergarten students and I took full advantage of it! Our wonderful school landscaper (and a certain kiddo's daddy) set up the best play area we could imagine - a huge pile of fall leaves surrounded by hay bales, corn stalks, and great big pumpkins. I couldn't resist taking some photos and video to share with you. 

I hope you've had the chance to enjoy this beautiful season us. If not, drink some apple cider and stop to play in the leaves!

A Visit from the High School

One of the great parts about being in a PreK-12 school is that students from all grade levels get to interact with one another. Friday was a great example of how much time all the students spend together.

We started the day as we do every Friday with PreK-2 joint worship. This worship time is always one of my favorite parts of the week. The kids love being all together and it's inspiring to see the joy they take in praising God!

Following worship some of the Freshmen and Sophomores came down to spend time with the Kindergarten class. The high school underclassmen were spending the day doing outreach and wanted to read and work with the younger students. First the Freshmen and Sophomores helped the Kindergarteners make a class book about friends.

Once the students finished their pages they spread out around the room and read together. They loved it, and seemed pretty disappointed when we told them time was up. 

    

We are so blessed to have such great students of all ages in our school and I'm so glad they have the opportunity to learn from each other!

I'm Back!

The new design is finally done and I'm so excited to share it with all of you and get caught up with what's happening in Kindergarten! There will be lots of pictures and updates coming soon!

Makeover

This blog is under construction! See you soon!

San Antonio Adventures

This past weekend I ventured all the way down to Texas with a few friends for some professional development. Mrs. U, Miss Alabata, Mrs. Prokop, and I went to San Antonio for a three day workshop by "The 2 Sisters". It was a fantastic opportunity to learn more about the Daily 5 and CAFE strategies for teaching literacy. The Sisters were fantastic! We learned so much and were reminded of even more while we were there. We spent most of the plane ride back discussing our classrooms, deciding what we can start doing right away, and making plans for next year already.

The Sisters shared this beautiful quote by Rachel Naomi Remen with us
"The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing w ever give each other is our attention. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words." 
However I think my favorite quote I heard while we were at the workshop was from Louisa Moats "Teaching reading IS rocket science."

Of course we had a little bit of fun in the evenings and I promised my students some pictures. Being teachers, our first stop was the famous historical landmark, The Alamo.

 

We were able to take a trip down the San Antonio river on a boat tour, enjoy the River Walk, and of course eat lots of delicious Mexican food al fresco. In fact, for our last meal in the city we were even serenaded by a Mariachi band singing La Bamba!  

Overall it was a great learning experience and a fun trip, but I missed my students. I'm glad to be back!

What a Wonderful School

I've been working on a research and data analysis project of our school recently and I had the opportunity to really study some of our greatest strengths. I am so proud to be a part of our school family for many reasons, but most of all because we have the chance to share God's love with each other and the world around us. In addition to our Christian atmosphere we have a lot of other good things going for us. If you haven't decided about re-enrollment for next year yet, please consider a few facts.

1. 100% of our high school students graduate - the average graduation rate in Illinois is between 72% and 76%.

2. Between 95%-98% of graduates from our school continue on to higher education.

3. The average student to teacher ratio in our school is 12.5:1, meaning we have small class sizes.

4. We are a highly diverse school with students literally from around the world!

5. Our teachers are very highly qualified, half of the faculty and staff in the building either have or are working on advanced degrees.

Most of all we are Christian family passionate about educating young people for eternity! I'm praying you will all be a part of our family again next year.

Just a reminder that if you fully register by Monday you will save $50, registering by May 15 will save you $25.

For more information visit our website here.

March in Review - Part 2 - Look Up!

Over the course of the month we learned all about things in the sky. It was great that just as the weather warmed up we were learning about birds and the weather.

One of the things I love is that we have teachers with so many talents and interests teaching in our school and they are willing to come do special activities with other classes! One of the things the students love is listening to someone besides me on occasion. :) Ms. Morse, our fifth grade teacher, is an avid bird-watcher and wealth of knowledge on the subject, so she spent an afternoon with our class sharing a little bit of what she knows. She shared video and sound clips of some common birds in our area such as the Mourning Dove, Black-Capped Chickadee, and the Cardinal (our state bird).  Ms. Morse even took us on a "field trip" to her classroom where she has several bird feeders just outside her windows. We learned some important tips for successful bird-watching, be very quiet and do not make any sudden movements. Our "field trip" continued with a hike around the school. We saw a number of birds, heard even more, and even spotted a few nests. Ms. Morse ended her visit with fun bird coloring books for all of us. Thanks for visiting us Ms. Morse, we hope you'll come back soon!

After learning so much from Ms. Morse, I thought it might be fun to make little bird feeders to hang outside. It took some searching, but I found a great way to make our own bird feeders without peanut butter and without leaving litter after the seeds are gone on Bargain Hoot.

Of course birds weren't the only things up in the sky that we learned about. The Kinder Kids really got excited about studying weather and rainbows.  We read two books in particular that the students really enjoyed. Weather Words and What They Mean by Gail Gibbons and Sometimes It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw.  After we read Spilt Milk we created our own version by painting cloud pictures and describing what they looked like. This class book is a favorite for read to self time.

We spent a lot of time discussing primary and secondary colors. We learned about color mixing, prisms, and how rainbows are formed. As a concrete representation of our learning we created hanging rainbows to decorate the room.  

 

We ended the month (and started April) by studying the solar system. The kids created their very own Solar System Big Books. 

I think their favorite activity was orbiting in the gym though. Each student acted as a body in the solar system and we attempted to orbit around each other. It was a wonderful way to demonstrate how God's power is evident throughout the universe, the student's couldn't think of any way, other than through His power, the planets would fall into such perfect orbits.

March was busy, but so much fun. I'm sure April and May will only bring more exciting learning!