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...