Students Equipped to be Exciting Disciples Day 5: Today we had one more special chapel. We were led in praise by some guest musicians named "No Grave Revival", and Mr. DeHaan shared with us about self-worth: how we are special, chosen, beloved and more to God. Some Middle Schoolers shared a dance about “Who you say I am,” and we had a family group circle time talking about lies that try to take away our self-worth, and people who build up our self-worth. It has been a great week, and the Evidence of the Spirit was seen in many ways this week, especially in how all the different pieces came together in so many meaningful ways.
Students Equipped to be Excited Disciples Day 4: How wonderful to hear two more staff members share their stories, and to see the evidence of God at work! Mrs. Bridges shared how God worked in her life growing up, and how she is learning to be BOLD for the Lord. Mrs. Bull talked about how God prepared her to serve in praising God in learning to play the bass guitar. We worshipped in song this morning with some of the members of the Harvest Fremont Worship team - thanks to Pastor Aaron and Kristie for coming today! Many of our students led our praise time with motions today. It was so awesome to hear and see the theme of “Evidence” of how God is working in us and in his people!
Students Equipped to be Excited Disciples Day 3: Today Mr. Donkersloot shared with us about love. We must love God above all, and our neighbors as ourselves. But what about loving those that are hard to love? In our family group circle time today, we talked about times when it is easy to love, and times when it is hard to love. Parents and adults joined in on our circle meetings. We also worshipped together in song with some of our Resonate moms. It is truly inspiring to hear the student’s voices raise up to sing “I am a child of God!” Thursday and Friday's SEED week chapel starts at 8:10. We'd love to have you join us!
Students Equipped to be Excited Disciples Day 2: We were again able to hear a faith story from another one of our staff members, Maestra Dena. She shared about patience, and she told us about some hard things that her husband and she went through, but how God was there and He was enough (Jehovah Jireh – the God who provides). We were also led in motions in our theme song, Evidence, by some of our middle schoolers, and it was theme shirt day! We are looking forward to more staff faith stories, and more local praise leaders leading us in worship over the next few days. Come join us: Wednesday is late start day, and SEED Week chapel starts at 9:00 in our FCS gym!
Students Equipped to be Excited Disciples Day 1: Great morning seeing and celebrating God in our lives. We enjoyed praise and worship with some of our moms from Resonate Church, and a life message share from Mr. Zach VanWyk, along with the older students sharing some faith events in their circles. The younger students had a life story message from Profe Carolina about peace – where true peace comes from (even when your car is stolen!), and a student share from Cole B. about making right choices at school. Great first day, and you are welcome to join us first hour each morning to see and celebrate God at work during our SEED Week! Keep praying for our times together too!
SEED Week is October 10 -14. During SEED Week, we take time each morning to focus on God, in celebration, praise, and learning how He is at work through his Word, his creation, and around us through his people. Parents and grandparents are welcome to come and join us any of the mornings! Just sign in at the office, and come to the gym and grab a seat! Note the times and events on the enclosed sign. PLEASE PRAY for the Spirit to be moving in our lives as we spend time together, focusing on being Students Equipped to be Excited Disciples!
Faith – in today’s chapel, the 5th and 6th graders and teachers led us in a chapel about walking in faith. We had an object lesson of an obstacle course, and even though we feel we can’t see ahead in life (in this case blindfolded), our best friend Jesus is there to walk beside us. The 5th graders also shared readings about the heroes of faith in the Bible and encouraged us to look for examples of faith in God's people.
Kindergarten OE explored where animals go in the rain today and joined a worm rescue squad! We learned why worms come out when it's raining outside.
Teaching for Transformation Core Practices: Transformational Lessons - Inviting the Learner
TfT in Ten Words:
The invitation of a transformational lesson ignites wonder in learners.
Inviting the Learner Feature: Outdoor Education with Mrs. Bull
“I deeply hope you Find God’s Fingerprints dwelling in all of creation. Together, we will worship God by stewarding creation well.”
My storyline for the Outdoor Education students is Stewards Finding God’s Fingerprints. For Kindergarten-2nd graders, I invited learners into the story by igniting a sense of wonder. I showed them a series of pictures with bugs and amazing facts like:
Did you know that some caterpillars have 12 eyes!
Praying mantises have only one ear, and it’s located on its belly!
Periodical cicadas emerge from underground once every 13-17 years!
Next we thought as a group, who decided that caterpillars would have 12 eyes? Who put one ear on the stomach of a praying mantis? Who taught the cicada to live underground for 13 years?! God did! God created the biggest things like stars and the moon, and teeny tiny details like the ear of a praying mantis. He even created each and every detail of you. The Bible tells us that we are “wonderfully made!” (Psalm 139:14)
I like to imagine God taking a piece of clay or playdough and molding every detail of creation. And left behind are his fingerprints. We can Find God’s Fingerprints in creation when we stop to look at all the details. “I deeply hope you find God’s fingerprints dwelling in all of creation. Together, we will worship God by stewarding creation well.”
After our invitation, we got busy discovering the details of God’s creation through bug catching! We learned how to use tools for proper observation and shared how we could find God’s fingerprints in even the smallest detail of a bug!
Buddies: Today many of us had a chance to meet with our buddies and do activities together. Some of us did projects together, colored together, read books with each other, interviewed each other, and played games! It was great to see the students interact with each other and get to know one another more.
This week our students in grades Kindergarten through 6th grade were able to spend time at Camp Henry. They did adventure experiences, teamwork challenges, and spent time as Creation Enjoyers!
Family Groups: Our school met together this Friday morning and divided into our new Family Groups for 2022-2023. These are all age groups that will do activities together about once a month. This month we met each other, did a circle together, and colored puzzle pieces to show that we all have a piece together and belong to this new group – our new little family group community.
It was a great morning to experience a rainbow!
TfT in 10 Words:
A teacher’s deep hope guides the classroom Christian learning journey.
Deep Hope Feature:
Maestra Alleman’s Deep Hope is that “you strive to be like Jesus by being willing to be moved by God, do His work, and show His love to others.” She challenged her 6th grade students during their morning circle to find an opportunity to show God’s love to someone else. The following day’s morning circle, each student shared one way they showed God’s love and recorded it on a heart to display on their storyboard. This acts as a visual reminder of God’s love for each student, and how we are called to love each other. As the year continues, material learned in her language arts and social studies classes will continue to dig more into how that deep hope can be lived out.
The 3rd graders painted the background of their still life artwork in art class.
Evidence: Faith! This month, our school is talking about Faith: knowing, loving, and following Jesus. In chapel, we talked about the evidence of God in creation, in his Word, in the lives of faithful followers, and in the 12 disciples actually seeing that Jesus came alive again. We learned how important it is that we need to put our faith in Jesus as our personal Savior, and need to follow Him in what we say and do. Our verse for this month is Gal. 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Take time to talk to your children about what faith in Jesus means to you!
The Outdoor Education students have been working hard preparing our spaces for growing and learning. While working, we learned how to identify plants vs. weeds and observed creatures like slugs, grasshoppers, and even a praying mantis eating another bug! Check out some of these before and after pictures!
The 6th and 7th graders have been learning about archaeologists. This week, they designed and created tools that an archaeologist might use. Then, they went on a dig! After finding several artifacts, they needed to create theories as to what the society the artifacts belong to may be like.
The first grade OE students practiced word work through paint chip spelling and rainbow spelling. They also learned all about garden tools in OE and explored how they work!
For science class in 3rd Grade Spanish Immersion, we became meteorologists. In the course of 2 weeks we will be observing the weather, discussing changes and similarities in the weather, and also what we think is causing these changes.
