The first 6 weeks of the school year have been jam packed with learning across all grades and platforms. Here are just a few September Standouts we’d love to share!
Remembering 9/11
In 6th Grade, MCCS/LCA alumni Mr. Hanson offered to come in and speak about what it felt like to be a 6th grade student on the day 9/11 happened. He did an amazing job talking to the students and they responded with many questions! Students were heard saying “That was amazing!”
“17 years ago today … my students were not born, but the day is forever etched in my mind. In school, we never learned about the Cold War because my teachers had lived it; I am committed to remember, share, and explain this day so that my students know the history we have lived. I am constantly amazed by their curiosity and their ability to understand the significance of this day. (The post-it notes are some of their responses to the sentence starter “17 years ago today …)” #neverforget #ilovemystudents Ms. Thorson
“I teach about so many different days in History but none are as important as 9-11-01. I’m committed to being sure that my students understand not just the tragedy but also the hope we all have in Christ. God wastes nothing.” Ms. Biermeier
Spanish Verbs … learning in motion
Big Buddy Wednesday
We also enjoyed our very first Big Buddy day of the year! Big Buddies is a unique program that allows students in PreK-5th grade to enjoy a mentoring relationship with a student in grades 7-12. All of our students look forward to Big Buddy which happens once a month!
National Merit Commended Scholar K. Musgrove ’19
Musgrove is one of 34,000 students (out of 1.6 million) to receive the honor of being a Commended Student in the National Merit Scholarship competition. Students qualify based on PSAT scores. We are so proud of his academic achievement!
Building Readers … a foundation of Kindergarten
Kindergarteners are learning about how “readers” become good at reading by practice …. lots of practice! They started by learning that there are 3 ways to read a 
book:
1. Read the pictures
2. Read the words
3. Re-tell the story (if it is a familiar one you know)
As a class, we practiced doing these three things. This is an important step because, at this point in learning, we can’t read all the words yet! We need to have strategies to enjoy the book, even though we don’t know the words yet.
Next we had a lot of fun “shopping for books.” These are books (of our own selection) that are added to our book box each week. Each child has a selection of “leveled books” that he/she can read at his/her own level. These additional books that they “shop for” are books of their own choosing … fun read-alouds from our class library.
Lastly, everyone practiced our skills of “Reading to Self.” We spread out around the room and practiced reading one of the three ways.
See You At the Pole
Finally, the month ended with the student body joining together in prayer for our nation on Wednesday, September 27.