How To Book Reports

At the end of last quarter, Mrs. Huelsing's second graders worked on book reports on a nonfiction book. Specifically, they chose books that taught them how to do something. After reading the book, the students followed the instructions, created a special item, and brought it to show the class. Students chose a wide array of items to create: a wooden bench, wax gifts, origami churches, and a paper mache globe, among other things.

Remembering the Saints

In November, the 2nd graders learned about the lives of the saints. Each student chose a saint then created a likeness of him or her out of a paper bag. Once finished, the second grade class traveled around the school sharing information about their saint puppets. They did a great job reading and memorizing information about their saints.

Spooky Stories

As part of their Halloween celebration, Ms. Schweiss and her third grade class penned some spooky stories. They worked independently to weave their creepy masterpieces then shared their works one-on-one with other students.

1st Grade Writing

Mrs. Mongan's first graders have written their first paragraph. They started with a main idea and wrote four supporting details. Their topic was ducks!

2nd Grade Writers

Mrs. Huelsing's 2nd graders are learning about animals. Each student recently wrote a paragraph about their favorite animal. They also had the opportunity to showcase their drawing talent!

ProLife Award

Clayton, his mother, and grandmother proudly display his award.

Congratulations to 8th grader Clayton, who was recently recognized by the Archdiocese for his prolife essay! 1,100 students from throughout the metropolitan area submitted essays in a contest held by the Respect Life Apostolate, and he was selected as a finalist. Clayton and other finalists were honored at an award ceremony last month at the Bishop Rigali Center. We are so proud of you, Clayton!

7th Grade Newspapers

Mrs. Ryan and her students are always at work understanding and creating real-life writing samples. Recently, they studied newspaper writing. They spent time studying articles in the St. Louis Post Dispatch to see samples of real articles, understand the research involved, and to assess how news writing differs from other sorts of writing. You just might see their byline in the Post one day!

Knights of Columbus Essay Winners

The OLS 6th, 7th, and 8th graders participated in an essay contest sponsored by the Knights of Columbus Council 453.  This year’s winning essays emphasized our school’s values of reverence, respect, and responsibility.  The award winners were recognized last week at our quarterly Home & School Association meeting.

 

Winners:

6^th: Maria K. and Ned M.

7^th: Jenna M. and Halie M.

8^th: Vincent L. and Amy D.

Daily Sentence Editing

The 4th graders are practicing their grammar skills by using the program Daily Sentence Editing.  The students write the sentences correctly and a student then models the correct answers on the Smartboard.  We have many future writers in the class!

 

Building Creative Sentences

Recently, the 7th graders played a game constructing simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentence structures using dice and creative independent clauses. The students wrote independent and dependent clauses, numbered them, and then rolled the dice to combine them into complex sentences. The results got pretty silly, which is always helpful in keeping everyone's interest!

We Mustache you a Question

When you study Edgar Allan Poe in late-October, what's the best way to celebrate this famous poet? By sporting your own Poe-inspired mustache, of course. Mrs. Ryan's 7th graders pose with Poe after studying some of his works:

Diagramming Sentences

Diagramming sentences can be tricky business! But our 6th graders, like the student pictured here, make it look like a piece of cake. Compound subject? No problem for these diagramming pros.

Student Reporter News: 7th Grade Studies

Now that second quarter is underway, our students are firmly established in their classroom routines. Two of our 7th graders, Halie and Dylan, report on some of their recent studies:

"Well the school year is moving along pretty fast and it's been fun. We have already gone through one class book. In my opinion, I thought the book could drag you into the story and really make you feel like you were there. Elijah of Buxton was adventurous and very exciting. 7th grade is tough but fun."  -- Halie M.

"Seventh grade science is definitely a step up from sixth, but that was to be expected. We are learning about so many things, such as graphs, the scientific method, experiments, and many other things. Today we made what's called a box and whisker plot, which is a type of graph, but as complicated as rocket science. Still, science is very fun and one of my favorite classes. Even though it's hard, it still makes me want to learn more about it!"  -- Dylan W.

Celebrating Our Lady of the Rosary

At Wednesday's all-school Mass, our students celebrated the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. The 3rd grade made a special presentation explaining why we should pray the rosary. Among other reasons, the 3rd graders told the OLS community that they pray the rosary:

• "to remember Mary."
• "to pray for someone we love."
• "because it makes me happy in my heart."
• "when I am sad or worried because I know Jesus is with me."
• "so that I can be kinder to others."
• "because it makes our faith grow stronger."

They repeated their presentation for us after Mass so that we could share it with you. (Editor's note: some of the students speak softly; you may need to turn up your speakers in order to hear.):

Student Reporter News: Infographics

Our student reporters chime in out their recent work on infographics. Find out how Mrs. Ryan's students are putting these tools to work:

As always, the OLS 8th grade is learning something new. Technology is being used more and more these days, and now we've learned how to make the new way to get information called the infographic. An infographic is a creative design used to spread information. To begin, we analyzed the parts of an infographic. Then we chose our topics and did research. Once we had filled our brains, templates were given to us so we could create an infographic all our own. It was a fun and easy way to learn.  -- Amy D., 8th grader

An infographic created by two baseball-loving 8th graders.

This week in English, we are learning about infographics. Understanding these is a good life skill to know. They are a good way to organize data and are interesting. It's a good skill to know how to read them because most companies now use them to display data. Right now, we are learning how to make one. Some key things you need for an infographic are color, a good subject, organization, and an eye catching design. It's also a good idea to add charts to display your information. I am happy that we are learning this skill!  -- Natalie K., 7th grader

These students created a graphic look at monkeys and their difference from apes.

Kindergarten Color Days

OLS students start kindergarten in a colorful way! Among the first things they study, our students learn to read and write the names of the basic colors. They spend one week per color and end the week by wearing their special color to school and bringing a show and tell item of that color.

The kindergarteners kicked off their color studies with red week. We saw lots of Cardinals gear, fire trucks, and superheroes, not to mention hearts, Santa, and a rose. Look for more colorful adventures from this crowd!

The Show Me State

While we are getting our ducks in a row for this semester's academic content, we have some goodies from last year to share. We had more projects, events, and lessons than space on our blog, so we'll post some of them over the next few weeks.

In one of their final units of last year, the fourth graders learned about their home state of Missouri.  They wrote an article to attract tourists to come to our state using information they learned.  They also made a Missouri magnet.  They were given a wooden shape of Missouri and labeled major cities and rivers.

Essay Winners

During the month of May, we had the privilege of honoring several of our junior high students for their writing abilities.  Four 8th graders received the ProLife Award for their essays on prolife topics.  Jack W., Biaggi G., Zellie L., and Sally H. wrote powerful essays that noted the challenges of choosing life in our culture, especially as a teenager.  We commend them for their hard work and strong stance in support of life.

The ProLife Award recipients.

Two outstanding 7th graders, Vincent L. and Faith K., were also recognized this month and received the annual Home & School Scholarships.  To be considered for the award, these students wrote essays outlining their record of responsibility, leadership, and dedication - the hallmarks of an OLS education.  They are fine role models for the younger students, and we are pleased to honor them with this year's scholarship.

The Home & School Scholarship winners.

Congratulations to all!

7GP Regional Poetry Reading

Earlier this semester, our seventh graders had the opportunity to enter the 7GP Poetry Contest, a country-wide contest open to budding poets which was established here in St. Louis five years ago.  The winning poet from OLS, Amy, recently had the chance to share her poem with the region during a special event at The Book House.  At the event, Amy met with other winning poets, autographed copies of the anthology in which her poem is published, and read her thought-provoking poem aloud.  We are proud of you, Amy!

Special thanks also to Mrs. Ryan for coordinating this project and for encouraging our young poets!

Landform Reports

 

Mrs. Skillman's sixth graders recently completed a landform project in which the students selected a famous landform, researched it, and wrote a report on their findings.  Besides the written project, students also created a 3D model to display and gave an oral presentation to their classmates.