Middle School English Stuff!

 Hi, Grammarland!

The 6th graders are reading a story in which a boy eats enchanted candy, so of course, we had to try it too! I posted this pic of Turkish Delight, because I always end up with a student or two who think it is delicious and want some for themselves!

On Friday,  I announced our new 6th grade project! It's due at the end of February, and students are already excited about it. Ask your student to show you the sheet, and get started!

7th grade homeroom: Our awesome Color Run, is Friday, February 12. Our homeroom class will work towards fundraising goals, and then we shall have an amazing time at the color run! Sign up on funrun.com!

All 7th grade: I have made a Khan Academy class so you can access additional grammar help.  Click here: https://www.khanacademy.org/join/CUCR6MWY     6th graders may join this class as well, especially if you are new to our school and you have never had grammar.

QUIZLET: If you have not yet signed up for quizlet, please click here: https://quizlet.com/join/P7BRFEtkA

I am loving my new students! Parents, thank you for sharing your kiddos with me.

Blessings,

 Mrs. Desjarlais

Welcome to a bright new year in English class!

 Hi, Grammarland readers!

I have had a wonderful week with your kiddos! For teachers, it was like the start of a brand new year - new students, new schedules. But it has been amazing, because of my new students. I have had the best time with them this week!

My sixth graders learned about the life of CS Lewis yesterday, while my 7th graders learned about Lois Lowry. We are all learning about nouns to get our year started, and both classes have a list of vocabulary words to study and learn. We are hitting the ground running!

I did give them weekend homework: get signed up for Quizlet. Quizlet is an awesome website and a free app that allows students to study anywhere. Please have your child join our class by clicking on this link: https://quizlet.com/join/P7BRFEtkA

Please check Microsoft Teams for assignments, and please check Renweb every couple of weeks to keep yourself informed about grades.

Middle school girls: you are invited! Come to my classroom with your lunch on Mondays. We will read scripture, pray, and learn about how to be a girl who radiates the love of God.

Thank you for sharing your wonderful younguns with me. We are already off to an awesome semester!

Blessings,

Mrs. Desjarlais

k.desjarlais@leechristianschool.org

One More Week!

 Hey there, Grammarland!

We have all kinds of important things going on these days!

First, our school's annual food drive ends Monday, December 14. Please help us to help the hungry in our community by sharing a non-perishable item or two. Thank you so much to everyone who has already sent donations! Check out what my sweet 6th grade homeroom has done so far!

Tuesday, December 15: 8th grade Hiding Place vocab test

Thursday, December 16: 8th grade SAT quiz and 6th grade Best Christmas Pageant Ever test

Thursday, December 17: SIXTH GRADE HOMEROOM and 8TH GRADE BOYS: Secret St. Nicholas gifts are due in my classroom.

Friday, December 17: EARLY DISMISSAL. Students are dismissed at 12:10. There will be no lunch and no aftercare, but there will be much happiness and celebration.

We are in the beautiful season of Advent now. How precious it is that each year, no matter what has happened, we have the promise of celebrating the birth of our wonderful Savior. May God bless you always - and please know that I am praying for you and your children.

Mrs. Desjarlais

 Hey, there, Grammarland!

It's been a great week. My 6th graders have learned many types of pronouns, and they wrote a hero story from a villain's point of view.  They are reading the classic Christmas horror story for teachers, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Today we drew Secret Saint Nicholas names. Ask your child about this. I'll be sending a corresponding email. 

The 8th grade has learned many kinds of clauses, which make our writing mature. Today they enjoyed Sandra's Donuts as payment for not sabotaging the 6th grade Penny War jar (which helped my 6th graders go from dead last to second place!) while they read aloud their spooky stories we've been writing for the past two months. Consequently, my arachnophobia has increased (thanks, Kimora), and I'm now unreasonably afraid of vines (thanks a lot, Bryan). Levi wrote the next Great American Horror Story, complete with a terrifying illustration, and Tyler wrote about a never-ending day. A very bad never-ending day. I was kinda glad when they all left class. It was getting a little creepy.

Next week will bring grammar tests for both classes, as well as a vocabulary test for 8th grade. 

May God bless your family greatly! I so love that you share your kids with me every day.

Operation Christmas Child!

Hey, Lee Christian!

The week before Thanksgiving was truly amazing. We've been collecting Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes at Lee Christian for about 8 years, and every year it's an incredible blessing. But this year.....

A slight preamble...

In 2019, our goal was 400 shoeboxes. On the day we turned them in, we had 395 boxes;

 by that Friday evening, we had 400. We'd finally met a goal I'd set for us for years. 

Then March happened, and we watched the world shut down around us.

 I honestly wondered if OCC would be canceled along with everything else.

 But it wasn't. 

We came back to school in August, and everything was fine at LCS. God has blessed our school, and He has kept it safe from Coronavirus. We know, though, that if America is hurting from this virus,

 the impoverished countries the shoeboxes go to must be crippled by it. 

The need for OCC shoeboxes, and the need for Christ, has never been greater.

The 2020 goal? 500 boxes.

In October, my sixth grade homeroom taught the elementary school how to pack a shoebox, and I took leave of my comfort zone and spoke to the middle and high school students in chapel. Teachers immediately offered help by offering incentives for turning in boxes. A Facebook appeal for masks to put in the boxes drew donations from friends, neighbors, and strangers. November arrived. The moms of the middle school girl's prayer group, my husband's aunt in Oklahoma, my mother-in-law, and my neighbor sent donations so our prayer group could have a packing party. They packed a staggering 93 boxes. Mrs. Ross's FFA had a party the next week and packed over 30. Parents sent donations, kids brought boxes, and by the start of National Collection Week we had over 300 boxes. 

Fast forward to Friday, November 20. We ran out of rubber bands by that morning, even though I'd bought a metric ton of them. Boxes came flying in through the day, and at lunch a 7th grade mom brought in about 13...which pushed us to the 500 mark. During 4th period, the 6th graders packed all of the boxes up for their journey to Jonesboro Heights Baptist Church; the boxes would then go on to Charlotte, and from there, all over this world. The boxes took up the beds and back seats of two pickup trucks and the trunk and back of an SUV. 

When the final count was taken, Lee Christian School had packed 

FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTY - THREE Operation Christmas Child Shoeboxes. 

We didn't just meet our goal. We exceeded it.

Here are some highlights from this year's OCC collection:

- Our elementary students coming into the big kids' building to drop off boxes and to collect a sticker and some candy. The cutie pie little kids were invariably greeted with "awwwwwwww" by our middle school girls.

- Hearing our students talk about seeing other people OCC shopping at Dollar Tree and Walmart - and seeing that we are part of a community of faith. One of my students was asked by a stranger for ideas about what to put in boxes!

- Getting to see my former students come by to ask for boxes or to drop off the full ones. I miss you!      Come by any time!

- Watching my co-teachers come in my room, see what I needed help with, and help. Without even asking if I needed them.

 - Having this conversation with people who stopped by: "Think you'll meet your goal?"

 "Yes, I think we got this!

- Watching middle schoolers place their hands on shoeboxes or wrap one in their arms, close their eyes, and pray over that box. Prayers that the box would go where God needed it to go, prayers for the child who would open it, and prayers that the child would accept Christ because of it

Lee Christian School: you are amazing. Jesus calls us to care for those in need, and you did. Thank you, Mr. Ricabal, for allowing this ministry to continue while a pandemic swirled around us. Thank you, teachers, for allowing this red-and-green interruption into your classrooms, and for encouraging students to pack boxes. Thank you, parents, for taking your kids shopping, for sending donations, and for showing your children that caring for others is important. Thank you, students, for sending love to children you may never meet on this side of Heaven.  These little shoeboxes are powerful, because they can free a child from the darkness of sin and bring that child into the light and love of Christ. 

What a wonderful reason to be grateful! God makes amazing things happen when we put our faith in Him. Chalk this up to a very good thing that happened in 2020!

Oh, and our goal for 2021? You guessed it. Six. Hundred. OCC. Shoeboxes. We can do it!

Blessings. 

Mrs. Kelley Desjarlais

 

 Hi, Grammarland!

Thankfulness in 2020 is something I've been thinking about. Even though we have suffered illness and losses, God is so good to us. One of the ways He blesses us is with our veterans. On Tuesday, my classes learned the history of Veterans Day; eighth graders then created one-pagers, while sixth graders made acrostic poems. I wanted them to understand why they had a day off on Wednesday.. 

Tuesday was huge day for the middle school girls! We had our first ever Middle School Girls' Prayer Group packing party. Parents, neighbors, and friends donated items and snacks, and we packed a whopping 93 boxes! I'm looking forward to next Tuesday, when Mrs. Ross's class has their FFA packing party!

Next week, 6th graders will finish "Rikki Tikki Tavi", which they are loving. We will take a test on the grammar chapter we just finished, and we will take a test on Rudyard Kipling's stories.

8th graders also have a grammar test next week on punctuation, and they will finish the spooky story rough drafts we've been working on for weeks. 

Don't forget! This is your last weekend to shop for Operation Christmas Child! Right now, there are 195 boxes in my room...and I'm looking forward to 500 by Friday!

May God bless you. Thank you, as always, for sharing your wonderful middle schoolers with me.

Blessings,

Mrs. Desjarlais

 Well. There's my classroom door! We have just two weeks to get to 500 boxes, and I think we can!

My sweet sixth graders have been awash in sentences: simple, compound, and complex. They're doing great, and I'm super proud of them! (See. That was a compound sentence!) Next week we will finish The Jungle Book and sentences, and we will begin a unit on persuasive writing. We will even enter a writing contest!

My sweet eighth graders are finishing up a unit on punctuation, which truly makes the world go round. We are in the happy stages of The Hiding Place, but that will be changing soon. We are writing a spooky story, and we are learning a lot about the writing process. After OCC is over, I will have an interest meeting for the Lee County Soil and Water Public Speaking Contest. I have signed Levi, Meredith McGuire, and Triton into a return contract, and I need ALL eighth graders who are passionate about our environment and who would like to learn more about public speaking to join us. Our environment is truly a gift from God, and that puts taking care of it in an entirely new light.

Please keep our country in your prayers. This election, this virus, the upset....

Remember. Jesus told us that in this world we will have trouble, but He has overcome this world! Put your trust in Him. It matters not who sits in the White House; it only matters that we know the One who reigns in Heaven, the One who came to give His Life for ours, the One who lives in our hearts. 

May God bless your families.

Mrs. Desjarlais

 Hello, Grammarland!

Well. Sixty-two OCC shoeboxes so far...and I can't wait to see more! 500 is our goal, and I think it's going to happen! Parents of middle school girls, I sent an email last week about our Prayer Group packing party. Mrs. Ross is having an FFA packing party as well. Please join with us to help spread the name of Jesus around the world.

6th grade....Behold, our kingdom!

My students did an amazing job on their castles! My classroom looks extremely royal now. I'm so proud of my 6th graders! Unfortunately, three of the castles were attacked and eaten by hungry marauders. Here's what they once looked like!

8th graders are living in another kingdom: the kingdom of commas. My students shall not scatter commas about like sprinkles on a cupcake. The best thing about commas are that they're attached to rules, and if you learn the rules, you'll be fine! We also spent time this week learning about the Holocaust and WWII ahead of our beginning our study of Corrie Ten Boom. Next week we will begin her incredible story in earnest.

Have an amazing long weekend! May God richly bless your family.

KD

 Well hello, Grammarland! That pic right there? That's pretty much my favorite object ever right now. I love it more than I love coffee, more than I love Oxford commas, and more than I love online shopping. It's right up there with my love of reading. Why? It turns our students into missionaries. It makes them know that they can share Jesus with our world. It makes them bless other children as they have been blessed. It helps them to know that their sphere of influence can extend to a child they will never meet. It allows them to make Heaven "crowded".  So...pack a shoebox with your child. Help us share His goodness with a lost, hurting, broken world.

6th grade...

Well. We have been on an emotional roller coaster this week. Reading The Jungle Book is an experience like no other. Parents, you should read it if you haven't. Every single Jungle Book movie is wrong, and they all pale in comparison to the book!! Next week,  we will begin our sentence structure lessons. On Thursday, students will present their castles and castle papers.

8th grade...

Hanging out with Edgar Allan Poe has been sufficiently creepy...or heartbreaking. Next week we will begin The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom. Please have this book by Monday. We started writing creepy short stories yesterday, and it has been awesome watching my students' creativity come to life! Their rough draft check in is Monday...by all means it does not have to be completely finished, but it should show direction and meaningful progress. 

Have a wonderful weekend! May God bless you. Remember - no school next Friday.

KD

 

Hey there, Grammarland!

We've been super busy this week!

The 6th graders rocked the house with their amazing Operation Christmas Child chapel! I'm extremely proud of them. They wrote, practiced, and performed their skits so well, and now they are experts at packing OCC shoeboxes. We started reading The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling on Thursday, and it's amazing. Please be sure your child has a copy of it by Monday. Barnes & Noble has a wonderful edition for $7.95. And 6th graders...don't forget - your castle and castle paper are due October 29.

8th graders are hanging out with Edgar Allan Poe for the next few days, and we will be writing our own spooky stories next week. Please be certain that your child has a copy of The Hiding Place by next Wednesday, as we will start it soon, and it's imperative that each student has a copy. The LCS office still has a copy or two, so you may start there. SPECIAL SHOUT OUTS to Juli and Carson, for winning their Cross Country meets, and to Levi and Kimora, who were special student speakers at our Operation Christmas Child kickoff on Wednesday.

It's time to pack a shoebox! Last year, we packed 400 shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child, and our goal this year is 500.....and something is making me feel we will surpass that goal. Covid has made the need for this beautiful ministry even greater.  To pack a shoebox, simply choose: Boy or Girl,  age 2-4, 5-9, or 10-14, and pack the box with age-appropriate necessities and toys.

 Here are some guidelines for packing shoeboxes:

 Pack: school supplies (some children cannot attend school if they don’t have supplies), small toys, stuffed animals, hair bows, brushes & combs, soap, wash cloths, socks, t-shirts, stickers, tissues, flashlights, fishing kits, sewing kits, hats, scarves, soccer balls, pumps, Slinkies, plastic cups, cars  - anything small, packable, and necessary.

Don’t pack:  food, vitamins, liquids, lotions, shampoo, chocolate, glass,  or  any toys that suggest war. No Pokemon and no Harry Potter. NEW in 2017: DO NOT pack any candy or toothpaste.

 Any standard size shoebox is fine. You may wrap or decorate the box in any way, but the top of the box must be removable. Don’t tape the box closed. We will secure each box with rubber bands.

Dollar Tree, WalMart, the Carpenter’s Shop, and the clearance/dollar sections of Target and Office Max are excellent places to shop.

Pinterest is full of craft and packing ideas for shoeboxes!

If you still have a rainbow loom and bands, please make some bracelets for shoeboxes!

One of the most important things you can place in your shoebox is a note from you. You can include a picture and your address; the child may write a letter to you! Your shoebox may introduce a child to Jesus Christ, so do your best to share His love!

You may pack as many shoeboxes as you wish.

MASKS: Children in impoverished countries need masks as much as we need them in America. If you sew, or if you know someone who does, please consider making or sending some masks for our shoeboxes.

Shoeboxes are due by November 20!  Please drop them off in my classroom (room 124), or leave them with your child’s teacher.. If you have any questions, please email me!

         I am praying for each of your families, and I am continually blessed by my days spent with your children. May God be with you as you enjoy this beautiful autumn weekend.               

Blessings,

Mrs. Desjarlais                          

 October is here! Bring on the pumpkins, the cool days, the changing leaves, the scarves, and the spicy coffee! God makes all things beautiful in His time, and autumn is one of His best examples. 

Oh, Narnia. This week we finished The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Last Battle. It's so hard to say goodbye. We have had so many beautiful conversations about heaven and about salvation in the past few weeks. Please know that I'm praying for your child; I want  my students to give their lives to Christ, because He is everything.

Both 6th and 8th grades tested on verbs this week (grades will be in by Monday evening). We will now venture out into the world of keeping plagiarism out of our writing!

6th graders will be writing and practicing our parts for our Operation Christmas Child chapel in a few weeks. We will also take our Narnia test on Tuesday. Work on your exciting castle! For those making edible castles: please know that we have a student who is allergic to red dye.

8th graders are learning MLA formatting, in all its annoying glory. It's good for them! We will also take our Narnia test Tuesday, and we will hang out with Edgar Allan Poe next week. Shudder.

Don't forget: next week is blessedly short, so kiddos only come to school Monday through Wednesday.

May God bless you abundantly. You're in my prayers.

LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago. Isaiah 25:1