Giving, Giving, Giving

Giving was the theme of today. We started off with a devotional about a man who put his life in danger and helped start a revolution by being a light for Jesus Christ. You can be inspired by his story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJJwgcCgt7A


The students gave each other books for their gift exchange.  Then we made presents for our families and next we wrapped presents for a family in need. The children gave their pennies and dollars so that these children in a difficult circumstance will have something for Christmas. I am so proud of their hearts and pray that they will always be generous.  Of course, our greatest example of giving is when Jesus gave everything he had to save us. Let us constantly look to Him as our daily reminder.

Tomorrow we will present our science projects and then head to the Space Foundation Discovery Center in Colorado Springs for our last field trip of 2015!

Our quote for today is from William Ward, "The more generous we are, the more joyous we become."

Christmas, Fun, Art

Christmas and art go hand in hand. Ms. Patton has had the students doing fun winter paintings and today they made "gingerbread" houses out of graham crackers and lots of yummy icing and candy.  

In science we land about biomes and watched this beautiful video. Makes me praise our Creator for his generosity and creative power!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIy0ZlyPPDg

In English we worked on adjectives and adverbs - the post before this has videos, lessons and quizzes to help them get this concept better. 

We also spent part of our day making Christmas thank you cards for all of the people that support our school and there are a lot!  We are very thankful to all who support us whether in gifts of time, resources and prayer.

Reading questions and answers and persuasive essays are due on Wednesday and science projects are due on Thursday. Also don't forget that Wednesday is our book exchange and that Thursday is our field trip.
 

"Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas." ~Dale Evans

Adjectives and Adverbs

Here are some websites and videos to get that concept of adjectives and adverbs down!

http://www.gcflearnfree.org/grammar/adjectives-and-adverbs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKrh5hy1WCU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKw1j7sZni0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkuuZEey_bs

http://www.classzone.com/books/lnetwork_gr06/page_build.cfm?id=quiz&ch=5

http://www.quia.com/quiz/799986.html?AP_rand=2013834834

Creative Contest Winners

"Life in 2075" was the theme for the 10th annual Youth Creative Writing Contest, sponsored by the Friends of the Pueblo Library.  This contest was open to all students in Pueblo County from grades 3 to 12.

The students had a list of words and the last phrase of the story had to be, “The future holds unlimited possibilities!"  The 3-5 grade entries had a 400 word minimum and the 6th grade and above entries had a 1,000 word minimum.   Out of the 22 winners, three of them came from Daystar Christian School, which only has a total enrollment of seven students. For the 4th grade, Isabella Kilfoy, won 2nd place, 5th grade, Luke Velbis won 3rd place, and for 8th grade, Grant Velbis won 2nd place.

"I could not be more proud of my students," said teacher and principal, Michelle Velbis.  "They revised their stories many times to get them just right and they were very creative and thoughtful about the topic."

"It was exciting to be part of the contest because it allowed us to test our skills against other students around the city," said Grant Velbis.

Practice Makes Perfect

This morning in Bible, we discussed that the biggest rescue mission ever was when Jesus gave up everything to come and rescue us from sin. When we remember and ponder this, we will want to help others around us too. One of the greatest rescue missions by a ship was on a Christmas during the Korean War. Captain LaRue said that, "God's own hand was at the helm of my ship," as he saved more than 14,000 people. It's an incredible story of bravery and that with God, all things are possible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfFze7QxRS8

The students did a great job today practicing for the Christmas musical. A big thank you to Austin & Sharon Greeley and Nancy Shugars for helping us!

All weekly assignments are due tomorrow along with Colorado history. Next Wednesday reading questions and answers are due, as well as persuasive essays. Next Thursday the science projects are due. 

Our quote today is from Charles Dickens, “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.”

Learning is FUN!

We have been talking a lot about how learning is like being an explorer. There are tough days and there are FUN days, but no matter what, we should never give up.  Who knows what we might discover and learn. I have some fun games I am going to put up to help the students reinforce some of their basic concepts that they need to practice.  For parts of speech: http://www.toonuniversity.com/aol/4l_parts.swf and for math facts: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/math.htm.

In Bible today we learned how Jesus is the ultimate gift giver and as his followers we should be too. Giving love and respect to all those around us. Here is a video of how people react when random acts of kindness are done by some policemen at Christmas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlnxajQrL8w. I have asked the students to share their pennies and dimes in class to see if we can save up enough to help needy children or families this Christmas through ADRA. https://adra.org/

Please remember that Colorado History projects are due on Thursday and that Science projects and reading questions and answers are due next week. 

"It is when you give of yourself that you truly give." ~Khalil Gibran

Math Assignments for the Week of December 7

Monday

HOUR OF CODE

Tuesday

1^st  – 189 – 192, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT2Wdo6g-Rw

4^th –187-190, kahnacademy.org – long division practice problems

5^th – 183-186, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iscAHyfe3Pg

6^th –229-231, review and write notes, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbgxnsIF0_Y 
8^th –212-219, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzTr5zbg3tE,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKkVMbl-aTc

Wednesday

1^st  – 193-196, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPovwEHyztY

4^th – Chapter 4 Test, khanacademy.org – your choice

5^th –187-190, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn729BDCx4I

6^th –  Chapter 5 Test, khanacademy.org – your choice

8^th –220 QUIZ, khanacademy.org – geometry – your choice

Thursday

1^st  – 197-199,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHRREFdUGgM

4^th – 193-196, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P50DB8tpN4

5^th – 191-194, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvGUbdmFoBw

6^th – 238-245, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyLRpr2P0MQ

8^th – 221-223, Chapter Review, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLeNaZcy-hE, first 3 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqgEC15Aau4

Monday

1^st  – 200, Mid-Chapter Quiz, Christmas math worksheets

4^th – 197-200, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSKfTReVa-g

5^th – 195-198, Chapter Review

6^th – 246-251, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBGKiX3hjf8

8^th – CHAPTER TEST, khanacademy.org

Tuesday

1^st  – 201-204, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCm_NXSzhl0

4^th – 201-204, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWBdk3ooPd0

5^th – Chapter 4 Test

6^th – 252, Study and write notes, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb1HYyBfLfc

8^th – 230-235, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbc3_e5lWw0,  https://youtu.be/pUsojkFCWpc

Hour of Code Was A Success!

A big thank you to Mr. Lallo Vigil from the Colorado State University - Pueblo, Information Technology Services for coming and sharing his personal story of programming and computer information with the Daystar students.  Mr. Vigil shared some websites with the students that would encourage them to learn more about computer programming. He also took them step-by-step through a small exercise using html, css, and javascript. They were very excited to learn and many of them have now declared they want to be programmers!  

Daystar students also completed the Hour of Code, and the students can continue learning at code.org.  They each received a certificate of completion and the fun in knowing that they were joined by more than 185,000 classrooms around the world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNiECaVMStY&feature=youtu.be.  Why the importance? The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that there will be one million unfilled jobs for programmers in the U.S. by 2020. 

In Bible we talked about how faith and perseverance are a big part of Christmas - Mary and Joseph went through a lot and Jesus gave up a lot.  To give the students a small picture of what faith and perseverance look like I shared this video about Faith a Christmas dog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSB9aBMayxU.

Our quote for today is from Corrie Ten Boom, "Who can add to Christmas? The perfect motive is that God so loved the world. The perfect gift is that He gave His only Son. The only requirement is to believe in Him"

Christmas Begins With Christ

Clouds

We started off our day with chapel and practice for our school play. The kids have their parts memorized and are working on the songs.  

In science we studied clouds today. Here is a video that describes the different types. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAqeFSa60TE

I am excited to announce that we will be able to have a web developer and designer from the Colorado State University-Pueblo's Information Technology Services department help us celebrate our Hour of Code on Monday!  

Students, keep working on those science and Colorado history projects!

Our quote for today is from John Calvin, “There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.”
 

Persuasion

Dogs are better than cats, tacos are better than burritos, Broncos are better than the Raiders - do you agree??? These are some of the student's ideas - and now they are going to learn how to persuade their audience through a persuasion or argumentative essay.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lzGy5gizKg

Today we had a free write in writer's workshop. They came up with some great stories and had a good time sharing with each other. 

The students need to review parts of speech. Here is a fun site to help them: http://sheppardsoftware.com/grammargames/pandapopPartsofSpeech.htm 

Please remember that all weekly assignments are due tomorrow.

Our quote for today is from Sri Chimnoy, “Not to give up under any circumstances should be the motto of our life: we shall try again and again, and we are bound to succeed."

Hour of Code is Coming!

 

Hour of code is coming next week. December 7-13 is Computer Science Education Week. We will celebrate by hosting an "Hour of Code."  Computers are everywhere, but fewer schools teach computer science than 10 years ago. Good news is, we’re on our way to change this. If you heard about the Hour of Code last year, you might know it made history. In the first Hour of Code, 15 million students tried computer science. Last year, that number increased to 60 million students! The Hour of Code is a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify code and show that anybody can learn the basics.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU1xS07N-FA

Today, I gave the students a name and suggestions for our Christmas Book Exchange. In the spirit of giving and education please bring back a wrapped book by December 16th - which will be the day that we have our Christmas celebration.  Please choose an age-appropriate, new or gently used book. 

We have been studying about winds in science. Here is a great video that demonstrates the concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqzb4eT8p8Y.

We have also been studying analogies in writing.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQHh40xQ6f0

Please don't forget that our Christmas program is on Saturday, December 12th.

Our quote for today is from Socrates, "“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”