The more you know, the more you grow!

The second quarter has been a busy one for eighth grade on all fronts. Academically, socially, physically, and spiritually the students have been challenged. With classroom work, homework, projects, performances, field trips, athletics, service, and liturgies, they have been very active.

Much work has been done so that the students will be well-prepared for their high school entrance exams in January. As usual, the students are looking at excellent Catholic and top-tier public high school choices. Fenwick, St. Patrick, Resurrection, Geurin Prep, Northside, Lane, and Taft’s Baccalaureate Program are among some of the choices. This year too we are excited to have a student testing at St. Patrick High School as a Daniel Murphy Scholarship award recipient. In knowing the prestige of this award, the numbers of students that apply for it and the challenges it offers students and families trying to obtain it, St. Pascal School is extremely proud to boast of having four recipients of the award in the past ten years which students have been applying for it. We are also proud to boast of our success rate for students getting into their chosen high schools (often selective schools) and their high rates of success in those schools. It often seems their grade school tuition infused education greatly benefits them at the high school level, and their continued education often financially benefits them at the college level. Many students that I personally know have been awarded college scholarships and/or grants because of doing well in high school. This is nice to know as it somewhat like getting a rebate on the tuition you paid over the years. Also, other students come back and tell us that the foundational skills taught in grade school helped make them quality high school and college students. Sometimes they tell us that their toughest teachers ended up being ones whose sense of discipline benefited them the most. Truly, there is merit to believing that seeds planted at the grade school level (if well-cultivated) will grow into beautiful plants that blossom for a lifetime. For now we pray that this year’s seedlings are all happy with their test-taking, test results, and school choices. All of the schools they’re looking at should be lucky to have our students walk through their doors.

On the Math side Mr. Gonsiorek is heavy duty with the Algebra, hoping that our students will be ahead of the many students who are not doing Algebra at their schools. He also hopes that his endeavors will make the high school transition easier for our students.Giving them a foundation of Algebra will help them as this is the first math class for many freshmen. His push, and that of our past teachers, has afforded many St. Pascal freshmen to be in Honors Math Programs at the high school level.

On the English side Ms. Teubert has been working with students on grammar and some writing. She knows how important the grammar is on the entrance exams and how important it is to everyday life. The need to put it to practical use in writing and for answering essay questions has caused her to push the students farther this year with more writing assignments. Still wanting fun and creativity she had eighth grade students write and perform (in groups) their own versions of “The Twelve Days of School.” These are lyrics about school written and sung to the music of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Also, if you come home for Open House you will see lovely posters designed by eighth grade students visually depicting their cultural and architectural trip downtown before Christmas. This project was designed by Ms. Teubert and me

In Social Studies we are studying the Westward Movement and will get into European Immigration shortly. It is hoped the students will do some research on their own genealogy during these upcoming lessons. More than that, it is hoped that students will see the values and challenges of immigration through Catholic eyes. A civilized debate of immigration usually helps pros and cons surface. This also helps reinforce students’ abilities to speak well and problem self. It is a real life way to learn many lessons.

Students are three-fourths of the way through their Vocabulary books already. This means they will have more words than other students at their fingertips come entrance exam time. It also means we will be able to do a lot of fun and interesting language activities of our own conception sooner in the year than later.

In Literature we are just finishing To Kill a Mockingbird and (although delayed) closing in on reopening the School Library. Although not yet state of the art, we will be glad to have a functioning library for all classes to use. Fine tuning it will be done over time. I am grateful to the 8^{th grade students of this year and last for their hard work in this room and believe they have learned much through the process. I am also thankful to parents who have volunteered and will volunteer over the next three weeks. I am still hoping I can find a family member of Anne Keating’s family (our former librarian who had sons at St. Pascal School many years ago) to contact me. Also, it is hoped to find someone from Mrs. Fischer’s family (another longtime school librarian). We would love to honor their past work with this library and am hoping their families can help us to do that. If anyone has contact information, please let me know. Finally, our next novel has not been decided, but we have a few to choose from. Students will have a vote on this one.}

Meanwhile, although the wheels are turning slowly on the mini-novels, I hope that students will get a few more chapters under their belts in the next few months. I would really like them to have completed and bound stories for graduation.

In Science the 8th grade students are studying genetics and feverishly preparing for Science Fair. They have completed Punnet Squares and are clued into the value of DNA. They have carried out scientific investigations and are nearly ready to share their findings. Please come to see their projects at Open House and find out who will be advancing to the City Fair. After Science Fair and genetics we will move on to physics.

In Music they just performed at the Christmas Concert and some choir members performed out of house. All performances were four stars out of four, as far as I am concerned.

In Spanish the students are continuing with foundational efforts, but also took note of the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. They even made Mexican paper roses in honor of the feast. For fun they watch a bit of a Christmas movie in Spanish with English subtitles.

In Religion classes students wrote winter haikus and performed their own raps. The raps were written to demonstrate elements of the Jesse Tree. Students in all of junior high also created a book of birthday wishes for Mr. Stubstad, who celebrated his 65th this year. Also, eighth graders went through Reconciliation at the onset of Advent. In homeroom the students made polar fleece baby blankets for needy infants, and they donated toys to the Toys for Tots Student Council collection. Gifts of tissue paper stained glass candles were also made for their families reminding them that Christmas is about Jesus, who the Wise Men and shepherds found by following the Star of Wonder. Also, they were to remind the students that Christ is the Light of the World, and gifts do not need to cost a lot to mean a lot. They just need to come from the heart. I hope they liked the individual glass snowman ornaments I made, as keepsakes, for each of them. My work definitely came from the heart. I trust their hearts were in the many wonderful wishes, cards, and gifts that came from them to me at Christmas. For all, I am extremely touched and grateful. In the next weeks we’ll be praying to support the Catholics Come Home campaign and be preparing for Catholic Schools Week. In these endeavors we will reflect on our Catholic Identities and value of Catholic education. We will also work on our PeaceBuilding efforts. It is hoped students will create artworks connected to peace that have unique and special meanings to them.

In Gym they have played a variety of sports and worked on fitness. Some students are playing basketball on the varsity girls’ team. Look on-line for the schedule and come to a game before the season ends. Also, the volleyball season will be starting soon. Finally, even though the weather has held us in on some days, most days we are still trying to get some recess time in. Nobody wants to miss their chance outdoors to play a little football or chit chat.

Happy 2010 goes to everyone.

In Science class the seventh grade students are busy studying biology. They are all over cells, organs, tissues, and organ systems. Studying heredity and genetics is also being done on a small scale, but students have found it interesting. They created wonderful models of a marshmallow species with different character traits. These students are also working on their first true Science Fair projects and will be part of the gathering at Open House. Come to see their work and hear about their investigations. They researched a wonderful array of problems and have written some interesting hypotheses.

In Science class the sixth grade students have also been studying biology. They have studied the parts of plant and animal cells, drawn and labeled the cells, and compared and contrasted the cells. Discussions about the characteristics of life have taken place, and students created posters depicting the necessities of life. We were all surprised that iphones, laptops, and pizza were not on the list. And to think, we have a brand new science series. Comedy aside, the students are intrigued by biology and are working hard at their lessons. They have also just received directions for their science projects. Again, the sixth grade will need to find a design problem or need to be addressed in society, and they will have to try to solve it. The students will design a new or improved item to aid society. There will be the item or prototype, a research paper, a tri-fold board and a speech included as parts of this project/performance-based lesson. It will cut across all curriculums and prepare them for Science Fair next year. This year with our PeaceBuilder’s focus partly on Peace with Earth, the students need to keep their inventions as green as possible. This is an added element. Their works will be completed just in time for Open House so come and see them too.

All three junior high science classes also worked in the Science Lab to teach others this quarter. The three upper grades paired with three lower grades for a lesson. For this lesson the junior high students acted somewhat as teachers. They taught a lesson on classification and sorting using senses. Sea shells were used in the lesson, and the lower grade kids loved the lesson. The third graders who suited up in lab coats and goggles were especially amused. The upper grade kids enjoyed the task (although some were more outgoing than others) too. They said teaching wasn’t as easy as it looked and managing children was hard! That was an Oprah “ah ha” moment for me. It is hoped this will be done a few more times before the year ends. It is great to have the little ones in the Lab, and wonderful to watch the older students share their knowledge.

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