Thankfulness

Colossians 2:6-7 

"So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness."

 

It's hard to believe that this weekend marks the end of the 1st trimester. One-third of the school year is already over! Wow.

So, in looking back over the last trimester, I have found that I am incredibly thankful.

I am thankful that I have the opportunity every single day to live my life rooted in Christ. 

I am thankful that I teach at Upland Christian Academy.

I am thankful that I work with men and women who love the Lord and share Him with their students and each other every day!

I am thankful that I have the opportunity to teach 6th, 7th, and 8th graders this year in subjects that I love: English Language Arts and Bible and Study Skills!

I am thankful that I got to teach a mini session of Crafty Art.

I am thankful for students with whom I can laugh and be silly and pray and be serious!

I am thankful for students who work hard to learn new things every day. 

I am even thankful for students who don't want to work hard to learn new things every day. 

I am thankful for those moments when my students shine in unexpected ways, when they express their learning so clearly and thoughtfully, and when they surprise even themselves that what we are learning in school "really matters."

I am thankful for a Lord whose mercies are new every morning - after all, I teach junior high!

As we enter this season of Thanksgiving, my prayer is that my students also cling to a spirit of thankfulness, strengthening in their faith, and living their lives in Christ!

 

Let it Shine!

Our school verse this year is Psalm 119:105: "Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path." God's Word is to light our path as we LET IT SHINE for Jesus! There is nothing greater than serving our Lord, and I am so excited to meet our new students and catch up with my returning ones! My prayer is that Jesus shines through me in a powerful way this year, and I also pray that my students grow in their love for the Lord and in their desire to shine for Him!

It is shaping up to be a great school year (and we haven't even started yet)! Upland Christian Academy is implementing 1:1 iPads in grades 6-12, embracing the benefits of technology and combining those with our high academic standards. After using an iPad and teaching with a smartboard last year, I am excited to take that to the next level with my students. Last year, there were so many things that I thought, "When they all have an iPad, they will be able to _____" Yeah! That moment has arrived! Bring it on!

Counting down: 6 days 'til school starts!

Putting it all Together: _Across Five Aprils_ and the Civil War

Wow! My 8th graders have worked so diligently to put together their culminating projects for our Across Five Aprils and the Civil War unit. Rather than a unit test, they are demonstrating what they've learned through eight required learning "pieces."

These include:

1) a dialectical journal on one of the significant passages, 

2) a poem imitating Walt Whitman's "I Hear America Singing" in which the students are expected to show prominent images of the novel and the war, 

3) a map of the Union and Confederate states along with paragraphs on the significance of three battles fought in both the novel and the war - bridging history and fiction, 

4) a "Rank of Importance" in which the students determine the five most significant events in the life of the protagonist Jethro Creighton, and they defend those choices, 

5) a mini research essay on a significant person, place, or event from the Civil War era, 

6) an analysis of a piece of Civil War art, connecting art, literature, and history, 

7) a choice piece of either "Twitter Tweets," a movie soundtrack playlist, or a photo/word collage, and

8) a Reflection of Learning in which the students reflect on what they learned, how they know they learned it, and how they might use this information in the future. 

I have enjoyed the creative process with them, as they have worked to produce these pieces over the course of only three weeks. One of my goals was for their projects to be designed, created, and put together at school - without any outside help. I wanted these projects to genuinely reflect what my students have learned about literature and history. In order to do this, with limited class time, I have encouraged students to stay after school all week to use the computer lab and my classroom as a working place. The collaboration and camaraderie that I have seen as students encourage one another to do their best has been one of the highlights of my year! I am so excited to put these final projects on display at our annual Achievement Expo this Thursday, May 22nd! 

Above: Students working to complete their projects. 

Culminating projects demonstrate thoughtful analysis and synthesis of what they've learned during this historical fiction unit. 

Nothing is tidy around here this week! Paper, adhesive, scissors, notes, novels, and creative juices are everywhere!

Knowledge is powerful stuff! :)

Book Review - Keeper of the Lost Cities

Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. The protagonist of this story is twelve-year-old Sophie Foster, a telepathic elf who being raised by a human family. She is an outcast in the human world, but finds belonging in the elven world when she is finally located by an elven family that is seeking her whereabouts. This novel combines fantasy and adventure, reminiscent of the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson novels. I found myself crying (of course!) at some moments as well as cheering on the heroine as she makes discoveries about who she really is.

Although this novel is being marketed toward 8-12 year olds, I think that it has an appeal for the teen reader. In fact, I often found myself thinking that Sophie Foster, although only twelve, had characteristics that were atypically mature for a tween.

I would definitely recommend it to my middle school readers looking for an engaging story with themes of loyalty, bravery, and friendship. Oh, and another plus? It is the first book in a series! I love that!

Across Five Aprils - English 8

Combining a love for the Lord, literature, and history is a great way to get students to engage in the study of literature. Add grammar and writing and it is even better!

In my 8th grade English class, we have been studying the novel Across Five Aprils  by Irene Hunt. I have been using this novel to teach not just the plot, character, setting, and theme of the novel, but also to teach about the Civil War, the presidency of Lincoln, the ideas of amnesty and emancipation, writing, researching, vocabulary, sentence structure.... The list goes on! Teaching in a Christian school adds umbrella of teaching everything from a Biblical worldview, seeing everything from the lens of the Word.

As we bring the study of this novel to a close, my students will be designing and creating a project display board - as they take on the role of Literary Curator to analyze and demonstrate their understanding of the novel and its historical context, incorporating, of course, a Biblical worldview. I can't wait to see what they create!

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry - English 7

For the past six weeks, we have been studying the novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. My students have been tackling such difficult topics as segregation, Jim Crow Laws, and racism is 1930's Mississippi.

Using pictures to introduce this unit, we looked at photographs from the 1930s - found online at the Library of Congress website! This was a great resource for photographs to introduce this historical time period in a concrete and visual way. Students then studied these photographs, sketching them and writing what they observed about history from them.

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa2000001258/PP/

During these several weeks that we have been studying this novel, my students have learned so much about history through literature. I love the connections that they are making between literature and their own lives. We have also been making connections between the literature and our Biblical worldview. One of the many ways that we have done this is through the study of Biblical passages and the application of those passages to the choices that the characters are making. For example, after the Logan children dig a ditch to waylay the white children's school bus, we discussed the idea of revenge as instructed through the Bible. We have further made connections between the friendship of Stacey Logan and T.J. Avery and what the Bible instructs us on friendship.

Combining a love of the Lord, literature, and history is one of my favorite ways to get my students to engage in their study of literature.