Steinkamp's Scoop

Whoa, these kids are excited for Christmas vacation!!  Yesterday our masa was a hit! I think the girls had a lot of fun and really enjoyed meeting my host mom, Svetlana. She said they were all beautiful and wishes all of you a Merry Christmas! We had a lot of fun eating and opening presents. I taught them a few words in Romanian. They especially like the word kiss in Romanian. :)  Remember today we get out at 1:10. We just finished our Christmas movie, popcorn, and hot chocolate. We are about to pick our Advent Angels to have lunch and do some Christmas caroling.  I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

The 6th grade had WHO-bilation today. We did various activities that dealt with How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Here is the winner of the first annual Cheermiester, Brodie Wallace. He spread Christmas cheer the whole class and was voted as the cheeriest Who.  Below are two of the 7th graders working on their Scrooge song. Note how close they are to me? I generally can't shake these snuggle bugs from me, so I usually have one or multiple of them sitting or laying next to my desk. :)

We are kicking off Christmas week with a bang. Below you will find the 8th grade practicing sequencing with Twas the Night Before Christmas. I made cards from the story, and they have to put the cards in order to create the story. They are having sooo much fun. ;) 7th Grade: This class is reading A Christmas Carol. It is a little difficult so we go over vocabulary and thoughts every day so they are sure they understand it. I just love these snuggle bugs!  The 6th grade will start on How the Grinch Stole Christmas tomorrow! 

My FAVORITE time of the year is here. Although the kids may think I am in full Christmas mood, they have yet to see me in action. I have my Christmas tree up complete with a "fireplace". So here is what has been going on. A couple of weeks ago 9 students from 6-8 attended the Writers in the Middle in Lamoni. It sounded like they had a good time. They each attended three sessions to learn how to become a better writer. 6th Grade: These guys just finished their unit 3 test and began their unit 4. This unit we are focusing on imagery and sensory so far. We have done a couple of activities with imagery. They will continue to learn about this topic throughout the unit.  Next week we are starting CHRISTMAS week! They will take a time out from our textbook to focus on Christmas activities and reading our Christmas book, "The Grinch". My favorite! Don't worry they will still be learning. We will do some things with imagery, sensory, comparing and con...

Hi all! I hope you are staying warm. If this is any indication of what winter will be like, I am not happy. Brr!! I like snow and all, but it is too soon for this white stuff! 6th Grade: 6th grade just finished their first middle school book report, the biography. Their "people" turned out great! I was very impressed with their first formal paper. Way to go, 6th grade! You all did such an awesome job. Here is a picture of the students with their "people". How cute are they? (Both students and people) :) Love it! This class also just wrapped up another unit test. We did things a bit different this time around. Next week they will be doing a writing activity about Todd the Turkey.  On Tuesday, three of the 6th graders will going to the Writers in the Middle with me. I think we will have a lot fun!  7th Grade: This class just got done reading "I Never Saw Another Butterfly". It is a play that is based off of children from the Holocaust....

Okay, okay, I am not the best at keeping this little guy updated. I will try to do better. To make up for my lack of blogging I come with pictures, if I can figure out how to post them. 6th Grade:  Their biography reports are due the 12th of November. We worked on the paper portion on Monday and started making our "person" yesterday. Building the person will not take too long, but I ask you parents to please read over your child's paper. This is their first formal paper. We have discussed the do's and don't's of a paper, but I know there will be minor mistakes they look over. I am excited to read their first one page paper! Last week we took a break from our textbook and worked on a short story called "The Monkey's Paw". I just love Halloween so we did activities based around it and the story. They did a scavenger hunt, played BINGO with vocabulary words, read the story and compared it to the movie we watched. We are currently working on ...

All three grades have completed their benchmark test. 7th grade's scores will be in the grade book this weekend. 8th grade just finished their corrections today and 6th grade will be correcting their tests tomorrow. Overall I am pretty pleased with the results. We are just getting into the third unit. This unit will be focusing on theme, topic, and setting for all three grades. Next week we will be focusing on these things through Halloween short stories. I love this holiday so we are going to have a lot of fun next week! 6th Grade: They will be reading "The Monkey's Paw". Their Halloween unit will be based around vocabulary, setting, and historical fiction. I plan on making a few games for them to complete and a worksheet. At the end of the week they will watch the movie to compare and contrast the text from the video. 7th Grade: This class is in LOVE with Edgar Allan Poe, how cool is that?! So they will be reading one of my favorite stories, "The Raven...

8th Grade Parents:  We will be going on a little field trip on Wednesday the 29th. We will be taking a tour of SWCC for 8th grade career day. The girls are bringing home an information sheet. Let me know if you have any questions.

Just a reminder to the 7th and 8th grade that their biography reports are due SOON. 8th grade's reports are due this Friday the 24th and 7th grade's reports are due on Monday the 27th. I am excited to see and read their reports!! E-mail me if you have any questions, parents.

October is finally here! This is my favorite time of the year. I love the changing leaves, perfect weather, and of course HALLOWEEN. Some of your kids may have informed you about my room. It is everything Halloween. It smells like pumpkins, I have a Jack-O-Lantern light, hanging pumpkin lights, spider webs, and more. The week of Halloween each of my classes will be taking a break from our textbook to do various Halloween activities. Don't worry, we will still be learning only with spooky stories. I am so excited! If the kids think I am a freak with Halloween they should wait until Christmas! Ahh, I am so excited for Christmas!!! One season at a time, Miss Steinkamp, I know it. Anyways, here is what we have been doing: 6th Grade: They have been learning about an author's purpose for writing, symbols, dialect in a story, and descriptive language in a text. They researched a little bit about the Star Spangled Banner and completed a worksheet about it. With this worksheet we dis...

Hello! All classes are keeping busy as usually! So, here is what we have been doing: 6th Grade- They have been learning about the narrator's point of view, first person or third person as well as a character's traits whether it is appearance or personality. They recently paired up to create a short story and create a character. The stories were either from the first person point of view,using the pronoun "I", or the third person point of view, using the pronouns he or she. Based off the character's appearance in the story the pairs had to draw their character. Each group read their story and presented their character to the class. They all did very well and there was a lot of creativity! We recently read a story about a hero. So, for tomorrow they will be doing a little research on a historical hero using the Internet. I made a packet of questions and such for them to fill out. We will present these heroes on Monday. Feel free to e-mail me with any question...

Brrr! I feel a chill in the air so I guess that means fall is on the way. Then, gulp, winter, but lets not get ahead of ourselves. Here is what we have been doing: 6th Grade. We learned about memoirs last week so this week they started writing their memoir. The key is to show the reader not tell. So we have been trying to get every detail and sensory detail into those stories. Today we did peer reviews on them. The kids were in groups and their group members had to edit their papers. We also learned how to give a good oral presentation. So, tomorrow their final drafts are due and they will need to present their memoir to the class. I am excited! There are a lot of creative kids in this class so it will be fun to hear their experiences. 7th Grade, Like the 6th grade, they have been learning about memoirs. We finished giving oral presentations today. They did a fabulous job! There are a lot of neat stories. They used a lot of details so I felt like I was there. Way to go, 7th grade...

We made it one full week! It feels like we just keep going without stopping. We are getting in the groove of things. I am still trying to figure out fitting in centers with our stories. So much to do with so little time! In sixth grade we are still learning about the plot of the story. We read "All in a Summer Day". This story was about a girl living on Venus. Their homework assignment is to write about what it would be like to live on Venus based on some scientific articles in their book. The seventh grade is also learning about the plot of the story. Our focus was on conflict and the characters. They presented news articles today found online about conflict. They did a great job! We will do this again and post them online for family and friends to watch.  For their homework assignment they will have to write their own article about the story we read yesterday, "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" but Rudyard Kipling.  The eighth grade read a short story by my personal favorite, ...

Bine Ati Venit!! (Welcome!!)  Holy smokes, where did summer go? Although the students may not be too excited to start school;I know I sure am excited! Let me first introduce myself. I am Brea Steinkamp. I graduated from Northwest Missouri State University in 2011. I worked at St. Malachy for a year as an aid before leaving for the Peace Corps where I did my two year service in Moldova. It was such an unbelievable experience and so life changing. I love to travel and I fortunate enough to do plenty of it while abroad. I am so happy to be back in my hometown and teaching at St. Malachy. I am very excited for this year, and I hope you are too.  We are going to start the year off with assessments before we get into the structure of a story with regards to plot, setting, and characters. We will be doing a lot of different activities and techniques this year. I plan on creating my lessons around the training and experiences I had in the Peace Corps and through my education so I a...