NEWS
Volume 19, Issue 5
stjohnsabilene.org
St. John PTO would like to thank
all our sponsors and participants
in this years Jingle Bell Jam.
We know it was a cold one, but
are so grateful for your support
and generosity for such a festive
event! Special thanks to
Lauren Long for chairing this
event, she did an amazing job!
& Notes
January 2014
Preschool Happenings
EPK 3
Amy Harrison, Melinda Trevino, Amy Krake & Lauren Avery
Happy 2014... Our big plan in January is to begin collecting things for our second community service project. Our project is entitled "Socks of Love". Hopefully with your help we can
help the homeless of Abilene and teach our children about helping and giving to those less
fortunate. Please look for specific details from your teacher.
We will also spend our January learning about the seasons, space and construction.
Seasons will see us BBQing and throwing snowballs as well as sorting clothing according to
the weather in which you wear them. We will graph the season we like the best and make a lot
if seasonal art.
Space will have us learning about the planets, constellations and the sun. We will make our
own galaxy and measure the distance the planets are from the sun using the children so they
can visualize the actual distance.
Our construction unit will have our little budding builders hammering, drilling and sawing until their hearts are content. We will learn the names of the different construction vehicles, tools
and building materials. We will read The Three Little Pigs and graph our favorite house.
Transition
Lana Williams, Carla Clifford, Dona Neves & Kat Stone
Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Neves classes have “transitioned” into the New Year with ease! As
we move into 2014, we will enjoy talking about the season of winter!
We will learn that, just like people and alphabet letters, each snowflake is individual and
unique! We will learn about various animals and how God has equipped them to survive the
cold weather.
We will also talk about and experience some of the fun that winter can bring! We will use
our imagination as we go ice skating and have a snowball fight in the hallway before warming
up in the classroom with hot chocolate and a good book! We will make tracks in the “snow”
after reading A Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats and continue learning to identify and write
numbers after reading Dream Snow by Eric Carle.
During the last 2 weeks of January, we will visit the world of Mother Goose, Dr. Seuss, and
other authors who make rhyming fun! We are learning to use our listening skills through phonological awareness as we take steps toward pre-reading!
PK 4 Tish Ferry, Tabitha Pannell, Amy Sitzes, Kay Snead, Brooke Patterson & Diane Thompson
2014 has arrived! Our Pre-K 4's are learning so much and doing great things in their journal
writings. Come by and take a look at your child's journal and be prepared to be impressed! We
are starting out with Farm and Ranch units this month and will also explore Winter and Polar
Bears. We read lots of books that go with each unit and love for the students to bring fun
books from home that would fit with our study. We love to read The Mitten by Jan Brett. We
will make a story bag and be able to retell this fun adventure.
We are really focusing on counting one to one and writing our numbers from 10-20. Also,
telling time to the nearest hour is a fun activity that the children love. We are also preparing for
the Spelling Bee. Our 4's will amaze you with their ability to sound out words for this event.
Report cards go out this month and we encourage you to be on the lookout for them, sign
them and return as soon as possible.
January will be a busy and exciting month...we are seeing some great things from your
amazing kiddos! Thank you for entrusting them to us!!!
Classroom Blackboard
Kindergarten
Mary Catherine Cook & Stephanie Phelps
Kindergarten is having a great January, but it is going by way too fast! We rang in the New
Year talking about different New Year's traditions all around the world and making our own
New Year;s resolutions. We continue to work hard on learning our sight words and reading
everyday! We are also learning to add pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters together and
have enjoyed "shopping" in a store with pretend money. We are talking all about winter, penguins, Martin Luther King Jr. and the properties of water and how temperature affects water. Our Kindergarteners did great in the Spelling Bee! In February we are looking forward to
celebrating the 100th day of school and Valentine's Day!
1st Grade Kelsey Alexander & Temi Scott
Welcome back! I hope you all had a fantastic start to this new year! This month we will be
learning about the human body. This unit is packed full of hands on learning and discovering!
We will learn about our bones, muscular system, circulatory system, digestive system and
nervous system. Students will be examining real x-rays, calculating their resting and active
heart rates, discovering the components of our blood by making their own, and building a
body book. Mr. Alexander, a physical therapy student, will visit 1st grade to talk about different
parts of our body as well.
Towards to the end of January we will be talking about winter while doing some winter science experiments!
2nd Grade Emily Lomax
Happy New Year Everyone! Second graders are looking forward to an awesome 2014! Before Christmas break, they picked who they want to research for our big Very Important Person project. They will continue their research this month and begin writing the written reports.
They are so excited to dress up like their person from history and give an oral report in chapel
next month!
In science they will be experimenting with color. Is black really black? They will find out by
doing an experiment with coffee filters and black vis-à-vis markers. Students will have a blast
using color mixing trays, pipettes, and color tablets to try and make 24 different colors!
2nd graders have loved reading several novels. So far they have read Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Pippi Longstocking, The Trouble with Chickens, Santa Paws, and Frindle. My desire is
for them to develop a lifelong love for reading!
3rd, 4th & 5th Grade Social Studies & Language Arts Suzanne Casey
Happy New Year! We are excited to be back in the swing of school.
Our third graders had a tremendously successful Economics Fair! All of them expressed
surprise at how much effort it takes to run a successful/profitable “business.” They all enjoyed
the process, and are equipped with new knowledge and understanding.
January is here, and this is SJES Spelling Bee month! All of our PreK4 - 5th grade students
will be spending extra time in class this month learning Spelling Bee rules, and practicing word
lists. The event will be held on January 14, 2014. I love that SJES offers so many opportunities for our students to gain confidence and poise by presenting to an audience.
3rd, 4th & 5th Grade Math & Science Sarah Lara
Third Grade Math Unit 7, students will focus on learning the multiplication and division facts.
Many of the same strategies that were used in previous grades for addition and subtraction will
also be sued for multiplication and division. Students will review multiplication by 0, by 1, and
by 10; multiplication facts having square products, as such as 5x5=25 and 2x2=4; and the turnaround rule, which show that 2x5=10 is the same as 5x2=10.
Fourth Grade Math Unit 7: One if the most important ideas in mathematics are the concepts
that a number can be named in many different ways. For example, a store might advertise an
item at ½ off original price or at 50% discount-both meaning the same thing. Much of the
mathematics students will learn involves finding equivalent names for numbers.
Fifth Grade Math: Lessons 50-60 students will continue to focus on concepts and skills involving fractions and decimals. Probability and chance are introduced and concepts involving line
and angles are applied to polygons. The study of geometry continues with classifying polygons
in lesson 60 and identifying attributions of 3D figures.
Enrichments
Dear Parents,
I hope that this note finds you well. All of the students at St.
John’s have done an AMAZING job in art this year. My main focus for
this year was/is to introduce many artist and styles to the students. In
doing this, I hope that each student gains an overall understanding of
art as a whole. As part of the January lessons, it is my desire to do a
few three dimensional projects. In successfully creating a three dimensional project, I need YOUR help! The first thing that I would ask
of you is to find an old shoebox that is not in use. Next, it would be of
great help if you and your student could choose a color (ANY color!
But it MUST be one single color) and find any objects that are that
color. Now, these objects you find WILL be glued inside the shoebox,
so choose your objects wisely. The most important part is having
your student bring the objects and the shoebox BY January 27th.
During that week, in art, the students will glue their objects to the box
and we will discuss. It is my hope that we will be able to create an
instillation of these projects. Thank you for your time and effort in
helping your student succeed in art!
Ms. Whitney Joslin
Art Teacher
Physical Education
Leann Bernard
In PE our Pre K through 2nd grade classes have been having a blast as we run through an
obstacle course. We have worked on jumping and landing with both feet, jumping little hurdles, balancing on the balance beam, and crawling through tunnels. They really love it! We
also practiced underhand tosses by putting pretend M&M’s on pretend cookies. (bean bags
and hoola hoops) Second graders have been learning to do Chinese jump rope. It has been
a fun challenge to learn the various steps and jumps. As always, we continue to work on
teamwork and good sportsmanship. So far 2014 is off to a great start in PE!
Music
Colby Walker
Happy New Year! I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays. We are hitting the ground running
in the computer lab with a few intense projects! The 2nd-5th graders will be creating a Microsoft Powerpoint project over the Biography Martin Luther King Jr. Also, 1st-5th grade will be
creating a poem called “I Have a Dream”. We will use a poem generator on Internet Explorer
that allows the students to create a poem using the words I have a dream. It has been wonderful to see how caring the students are with their dreams for our community. January is the
month to learn more about MLK Holiday and the meaning behind it all. These activities are
great to review how important typing correctly is in the computer lab. We will be spending
some of the time reviewing and refreshing our typing skills. The 3rd-5th graders use a program from The Learning Company that informs each student of their progress. The K- 2nd
graders use Type to Learn Jr. They love all the typing games. If you want to let them practice
at home, www.freetypinggame.net is an excellent website with lessons and typing games.
The preschool students will be reviewing how to open and close programs and continue
working on hand eye coordination using the mouse. EPK is doing a great job on the I-pads! It
is amazing how quickly they are learning. I am blessed to be able to teach such a wonderful
group of students at St. John’s Episcopal School.
Technology Jessica Taylor
Happy New Year! I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays. We are hitting the ground running
in the computer lab with a few intense projects! The 2nd-5th graders will be creating a Microsoft Powerpoint project over the Biography Martin Luther King Jr. Also, 1st-5th grade will be
creating a poem called “I Have a Dream”. We will use a poem generator on Internet Explorer
that allows the students to create a poem using the words I have a dream. It has been wonderful to see how caring the students are with their dreams for our community. January is the
month to learn more about MLK Holiday and the meaning behind it all. These activities are
great to review how important typing correctly is in the computer lab. We will be spending
some of the time reviewing and refreshing our typing skills. The 3rd-5th graders use a program from The Learning Company that informs each student of their progress. The K- 2nd
graders use Type to Learn Jr. They love all the typing games. If you want to let them practice
at home, www.freetypinggame.net is an excellent website with lessons and typing games.
The preschool students will be reviewing how to open and close programs and continue
working on hand eye coordination using the mouse. EPK is doing a great job on the I-pads! It
is amazing how quickly they are learning. I am blessed to be able to teach such a wonderful
group of students at St. John’s Episcopal School.
Spanish
Lydia Molina
Feliz Año Nuevo! (Happy New Year). I hope each one of you were surrounded by family
and fun.
We had a successful fall semester. I would like to thank everyone, and especially Beverly
Guthrie and Ashley Puryear, for their help with our fiesta celebrating the end of our Alrededor del Mundo en la Navidad unit. The 2nd through 5th grade students did a fabulous job
and they had a great time at our fiesta.
As we begin the New Year, we are all going to be talking about the weather. The students
in EPK, Pre-K, and kindergarten will be hearing stories about the seasons and weather in
Spanish. They will also be learning the song “Que Tiempo Hace Afuera Hoy?” (What is the
weather like today?).
First through fifth graders will also be talking about the weather as well as reviewing the
months of the year and the seasons. In addition, they will be learning more expressions
with the verb tener (to have) to describe how they feel when the weather is cold or hot.
Dress for a $
SUPERHEROS
January 16th
JANUARY
3 - Addison Bayouth
3 - Zoe Neves
4 - Kiley Hirsch
4 - Elianna Kincheloe
7 - Rebecca McMillon
9 - Karsen Keesee
9 - Jake Smart
11 - Kinslee Wideman
16 - Sutton Stephenson
16 - Christopher Garcia
17 - Victoria Baker
17 - Jonathan Core
19 - Olivia Shepherd
19 - Cash Stockard
20 - Joshua Mehaffey
20 - Dennis Irby
20 - Lauren Avery
21 - Sven Lord
22 - Lukas Puryear
26 - Brenda Baker
27 - Bede Browning
27 - Maggie Trammell
29 - Mallon Murray
31 - Madyx Williams
St. John’s Episcopal School’s
Mission Statement:
St. John’s Episcopal School shall
provide an enriched academic
program that emphasizes the
development of each child’s
potential within a caring and
Christian environment.
St. John’s Board of Trustees
President: Dickson Ferguson
Vice-President: Jay Hardaway
Secretary: Susie Rockett
Treasurer: Riley Griffith
Church of Heavenly Rest Rector:
Rev. Luke Back
Church of Heavenly Rest Vestry Rep:
Yvonne Batts
PTO President: Deidre Stockard
Member: Rachel Anderson
Member: Cade Browning
Member: Claire Carlson
Member: Jordan Driskell
Member: Nancy Estes
Member: Marshall Morris
Member: Nick Shepherd
Member: Diane Stearns
Member: Melinda Stephens