We had another wonderful week in our classroom.  Here is what we have been doing!

Chapels:  A HUGE thank you to Rus Blondin for leading Pine Ridge in chapels during the season of advent.  He has done a wonderful job of reminding us to focus on Jesus during this busy time of the year and to keep our focus on what an incredible gift God has already given to us.

Reading:  We continue reading in our book clubs.  I have pushed the students in their thinking as they respond to the text each day and I am so impressed with how the class has risen to the challenge. We will be concluding our series book clubs next week.  Thank you to Miska Rynsburger for being our reading helper on Wednesday.

Writing:  We finished editing our stories this week for capitalization, punctuation, and spelling.  Most students are happy with their rough drafts and have begun to write their final copy.  This is very careful work as we write in our neatest handwriting and make sure to remember all that we have learned!

Math:  We looked this week at adding and subtracting time.  This is a tough concept so much of our work was done on a timeline.  We are carefully reading our word problems, deciding whether we need to add or subtract, and then doing so on a timeline.  We will continue to work at this next week as well.

Bible:  This week we saw God's promise fulfilled to Abraham and Sarah when He gives them their son, Isaac.  We talked about how long they waited for their son, and yet God's timing is always perfect.  We learned how God still heard Hagar and Ishmael after the birth of Isaac and we looked at how He cares for them too.  We ended the week by hearing the story of Abraham being tested by God to give his only son as a sacrifice.  The kids saw Abraham's incredible faith in God and also were able to compare this story to our Heavenly father giving His son for us.

Science:  We learned about gravity, variables, force friction, mass and so much more! The students have alternated every other day between Mrs. DeZwaan  and me for their lessons and they have enjoyed this tremendously.  We had a lot of fun experiements!  Some favorites were playing with toys in class and then watching a video to see how those same toys reacted in space without gravity.  Another favorite experiment was putting everything we learned all together on a race track and changing variables to affect the motion of the cars.  (Don't be surprised if your child added a blue track to their Christmas list!  The class loved it.)

Exploring gravity on paper airplanes

Exploring how gravity affects the game of jacks.

We looked at how gravity affects toys in motion.

Magnetic Marbles

Changing variables on the racetrack to see how motion is affected

Upcoming Events:

• No word work next week.
• Reading Minutes will continue through next week but not during Christmas Vacation.  Enjoy the break with your families and encourage your child to read for fun.
• Luke 2: 6-20 is due on December 16
• Gingerbread Houses:  Tuesday, December 15 from 12:30-2:00.  This is going to be a great event!  If you still care to volunteer simply send me an email and I will add you to the list.  A letter explaining the details came home today with your child.
• We will continue collecting for Positive Options (formally Lakeshore Pregnancy Center) until Wednesday, December 16.  As of today, our class has collected 93 items!  THANK YOU for your generosity!!  You may gladly join us for our chapel with Positive Options on Wednesday at 12:35.  
• Class Party:  Thursday, December 17 from 2:20-3:00.  We will be playing a game, making a craft, and having a few snacks.  Thank you to Beth Klingenberg for taking care of the details for our class.
• On Friday, December 18 our class has been invited to the Middle School to play games with the 7th graders.  The middle school students have designed the games themselves and we are excited to spend our morning with them.  We will be walking to the Middle School so make sure your child is dressed for the weather.

Blessings!

Lynae