Jeremy May, Pastor Sunday Services: 8:30, 11:00 Sunday School: 9:45 a.m. Church: 580-762-1111 www.flcspc.com
Sola Gratia, Sola Fide,
David Birnbaum, Principal School: 580-762-9950 website: flspc.org On-line pay: http://flspc.org/resources.html E-mail: lutheransecretary@yahoo.com Child Care: 580-762-1124 FastDirect: fastdir.com/flcspc
Sola Scriptura
November 1, 2017
CARDINAL CHATTER 11/2 11/3 11/5
11/7 11/13
FLS @ McCord; 6:00, 7:00 Extended Deadline for Shoebox Gifts Friendship Sunday; 9:30 Sunday School, 10:45 FLS Students sing in church, followed by meal and games (see below) Play at Cowley College Book Fair Opens
11/14 11/15 11/16 11/20 11/21 11/22-24
Vision Screening Mid-Quarter Reports 5th – 8th to NOC/Godspell PS3 & PK4 Grandparents’ Day K-8 Grandparents’ Day NO SCHOOL – THANKSGIVING BREAK
FRIENDSHIP SUNDAY: We're looking forward to seeing you all in church on Sunday. Come to Sunday School to hear Pastor May discuss "Why do Lutherans do that?" Join us for worship where the students will lead in singing the song "In Christ Alone". Stay for lunch and games. And remember Sunday marks the time change—Fall Back one hour Saturday night. Sunday School is 9:30; Church is 10:45. SCRIP/GIFT CARDS: As your thoughts begin to turn towards Christmas shopping, remember that gift cards are available in the school office. Businesses sell them to the school at a reduced cost, we sell them at face value, and we keep the difference as a fundraiser. We have a limited supply on hand, but over 700 gift cards are available for order. To see a list of what is available, visit www.shopwithscrip.com, click on the dropdown box in the upper right, and click on retailers. We will be placing an order at the end of the month to have cards available at the beginning of December; come by the office soon to place your order. FALL PORTRAITS went home with students last week. If you ordered pictures, you should have received them by now. If you did not order pictures (or even if you did but you now want more) there is a sheet inside the picture packet with instructions on how to order them online. If your student was here on picture day (Thursday, October 5) and you didn’t receive a picture packet, please contact the office as soon as possible. CONGRATULATIONS TO THE FLS CHEERLEADERS AND STUDENTS: LANDON SEIDEL, MADUX JOHNSON, AND KARLEA RICH! Landon’s Conservation Poster won at the Local and District level and is now going to State Competition! The FLS Cheerleaders competed in OKC and placed 2nd; Madux won Best Jumps, and Karlea won Best Cheerleader! BOOK FAIR is coming! It will be open beginning 11/13, and the last day will be Grandparent’s Day. Grandparents will have the opportunity to visit with their grandchildren. Watch next week’s Chatter for more details. LIBRARY – Mrs. Ware: If you are a parent/grandparent who would like to volunteer to help with the book fair this year, I would love to have you! Please contact me through Fast Direct or call the office and let me know if you would like to help with this very special yearly event. It takes a lot of volunteers to make this special day happen for grandparents and grandchildren. OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD: The deadline for the Shoebox gifts has been extended to Friday, November 3. If you have not picked up a box yet, you are welcome to stop by the office and get a box, fill it with goodies, and return it to the office by this Friday. Churches in more than 100 countries around the world will hand out the shoebox gifts and will teach the recipients of the gifts we send, about God’s Greatest Gift: Jesus. You can choose how you participate: -- 1 --
1. You can donate money towards the shipping of the boxes; a gift of $9 will cover the shipping of a shoebox. 2. You can donate a shoebox full of gifts. See attached flyer for instructions, but basically, stop by the office, pick up an empty shoebox, and load it up with 1 wow item like a doll, stuffed animal, or soccer ball with an air pump. Also include other gifts like school supplies, toys, and/or non-liquid personal items. (Toys should not require batteries.) Include a personal note, photo, and/or a self-addressed return envelope if you wish, and return the box to the school office. Items that cannot be sent in the Shoebox: Candy; toothpaste; used or damaged items; war-related items such as toy guns, knives, or military figures; chocolate or food; seeds; fruit rolls or other fruit snacks; drink mixes (powdered or liquid); liquids or lotions; medications or vitamins; breakable items such as snow globes or glass containers; aerosol cans. You may wrap the box, but wrap it so that the gifts inside can be inspected without removing the wrapping. Indicate on the box whether the gift is for a boy or a girl, and the age bracket: 2-4, 5-9, or 10-14. 3. Pray for the child(ren) who will receive our boxes. 4. All (or any combination) of the above. For suggestions on what to pack in the shoeboxes, visit: https://www.samaritanspurse.org/operation-christmas-child/pack-a-shoe-box/
Sometimes children will reply to the boxes that have been sent. If you choose to include a personal note with your name, we encourage you to list the school address of 1104 North 4th Street, Ponca City, OK, 74601 as your return address. Any communications that we receive will be forwarded on to the appropriate family. Please have any donations, monetary or otherwise, to the school office by November 3, 2017. T-SHIRT SALES: We have a few of the 2017/2018 t-shirts available for sale in the office; they are $12 each. Remaining sizes are Youth Medium, Adult Small, and Adult XL.
We have outside recess every day, and some days remember to send a are getting pretty cool. Please jacket with your student to school eVERY day! Also, please make sure their name is in the jacket. They will have a much more enjoyable recess period if they are warm, and so will the staff who is supervising them on the playground! "We are beggars this is true." - Martin Luther PRINCIPAL – Mr. Birnbaum: I chose the above quote of Luther this week because it reminds me of Halloween and begging for treats. On Hallow's Eve, Christians would put candles in the window so beggars knew that they could come to this house to get gifts of food on the night before "All Hallow's Day" when we remember our deceased brothers and sisters in Christ. Happy All Saint Day today - November 1st. PRE-SCHOOL – Mrs. Herard: What a fun week we are having in PS! Thanks parents for the fantastic costume party. I love the excitement on the kiddos little faces! We will have SHOW and TELL on Thursday. Book order is due Friday. Please get the Grandparent Day forms and $ to me by the 6th or before so that plans can be finalized. We need your help to make Grandparents Day a success! This week we are learning about autumn and leaves. Our letter is "J". Have a blessed week! PRE-KINDERGARTEN – Mrs. Kelly/Mrs. Colvin: Thank you Student Council for the fun Red Ribbon Week! Thanks to the families that donated items or money for our class Operation Child Shoe Boxes. We were able to fill a box for a boy and a girl our age. If you would still like to help you can donate money to ship the boxes. Each box is $9.00 to ship. Thanks to our room moms and other parents that helped us have a fun costume party! PreK celebrated our 50th day of school on Monday with Root beer floats and 50's music. This is Mrs. Heitman’s last week in PreK. We will celebrate with her on Friday. If you would like to let your child make her a card, I'm sure she would appreciate it. Book orders are due to me or online by Friday, November 3rd. Grandparents' Day sign up is also due by Friday. Show and Tell will be on -- 2 --
Friday! PreK will be singing in church on Sunday. Please have your children meet Mrs. Schelp in the church Narthex at 10:35. Our Bible words this week are, With God all things are possible. Matthew 19:26. We are learning the letter "Cc" and the number "6" this week. Have a Blessed Week! KINDERGARTEN – Mrs. Miller: It was so great seeing all the parents during our "Fall party” on Tuesday! I hope everyone had a wonderful time trick-or-treating. Wow, it is November and the days are going by fast. We will have Grandparents' Day on November 21st so you might want to give all the grandparents a heads up. If your grandparents can't come, your child can adopt a grandparent for the day (no parents please). It could be an older friend, neighbor, church member, etc. I need all the field trip forms to Mary Poppins back by tomorrow (Thursday, Nov. 2nd). Also, show and tell will be this Friday. Please bring something that fits in your child's backpack. Have a fantastic week! FIRST GRADE – Mrs. Birnbaum: Memory for Friday is Psalm 23:3 - He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Thank you parents for making the time to come to your conference. You all have wonderful children and thank you for sharing them with me this year! Thank you Elizabeth Jones for planning our party yesterday and for the parents who helped. October reading logs are due by the end of the week for the Pizza Hut certificate. November logs were sent home today. If you have not done so yet, please turn in the field trip form and money by tomorrow, Thursday. The student book order form is due on Monday, Nov. 6. I sent an envelope home today for you to put your order form in. Even if you are not ordering a book, please mark "No" on the form and still return to me. Thanks! I hope you are making plans to join us for Friendship Sunday. Please see the note in the chatter for more information about this Sunday (Nov. 5). Hope to see you on Sunday! Blessings on your week! SECOND GRADE – Mrs. Powell: Happy November! In this month of giving thanks, I want to thank you for entrusting your child to my care. We are so blessed by your love and support. Please inform your child's grandparents that we will be inviting them to join us for Grandparents' Day on Tuesday, November 21. A special turkey project is coming home today. These are due on November 10. Have fun! Let me know if you have questions. We're becoming reading machines in second grade! I'm so proud of our group. Happy November birthday to Faith, Claire, and Kinley! God's Blessings, dear Friends! Blessings on your week! THIRD GRADE – Mrs. Steichen: We are off to an exciting start this week; Happy Reformation! This week: Spelling, Reading, and Math Test! We are starting our next Unit in Social Studies, as well as Science. This new Science unit will come with an animal project, this will be short and easy. Look for it next week. Book Report: project guides should have come home today. I will be needing book titles by the end of the week. Christmas Boxes: Thank you all for donations for our boxes. We are going to make some kids very happy! Church: We are singing in Church this Sunday. Hope to see you all there. Have a wonderful week. FOURTH GRADE – Mrs. Sibley: Thank you for amazing Parent Teacher Conferences last week. I really see God working in our families and our classroom. We will begin the states & capitals for the NE region. The kids know great tools to practice this and all regions. November book orders are due Friday November 10th. The Rose Hill project is due by the 2nd, and Mary Poppins permission slips are due by the 3rd. Keep Reading for AR & Book It - the goal is 500 pages. Remember to bring in your Operation Christmas Child box if you have not done so yet. Remember this goes to a child that may not have had a Christmas this year. Blessings as we praise the Lord! FIFTH GRADE – Mrs. Schatte: Can you believe it is November already?! My head swims with how quickly time flies when one is having so much fun!:) A special thank you to all parents that scurried to give us a delightful Halloween party yesterday. The children and I enjoyed it! Please see my FD Bulletin board for the week's tests and quizzes. I also included several things for next week so you have a heads up. Blessings as we enjoy this lovely fall weather. Isn't our God just awesome?! The changing of the seasons always reminds me of how blessed we are.
MIDDLE SCHOOL 11/3
Winter Dance, 7-9:30, Gym
11/5
Youth, 5:15 – 6:30, Youth House
FLC&S YOUTH: First Lutheran Youth (7th Grade High School) meets Sunday, Nov. 5th, 5:15-6:30 in the youth house. Snacks provided, bring a friend! STUDENT COUNCIL – Mrs. Harbeson: Middle School Winter Dance - Friday, Nov. 3, from 7:00 - 9:30, in the FLS gym
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The theme is "A Starry Night." The dress for this first dance of the year is dressy. Typically, girls wear dresses and boys wear nice pants with a button-up shirt and tie or a nice polo. Please do not wear ripped jeans, t-shirts, hoodies, shorts, etc. to the dance. Also, please follow the school's dress code. Dresses need to be an appropriate length, not too tight, and not strapless. Spaghetti straps (for the dance only) on dresses will be ok. (If you have any questions on appropriate dress for the dance, please contact Mrs. Harbeson. We encourage all students to attend the dance individually and meet up with friends once you are there. Over the years, some of the parents organize a class dinner at an agreed-upon restaurant before the dance. This would be a fun way for everyone to get together and grab some pictures and food before the dance begins. We will have snacks and punch at the dance, but you should definitely eat dinner before arriving. This dance, like all FLS dances, is for First Lutheran students only. We hope to see everyone there! Mrs. Harbeson: Greetings! I hope you all are doing well and are keeping warm! I LOVE that it's finally getting cooler! I really enjoyed getting to visit with all the students and parents at our student-led conferences last week. I thought the students did a fabulous job! (Again, I apologize to the last group of 6th graders and their parents for running late during our conferences. I appreciate you all "hanging in there" and staying.) The middle school students will be attending the production of Godspell at NOC in Tonkawa on Thursday, November 16. We will need parent drivers to attend this event. Permission slips came home last week. Please complete and return your permission slip to your homeroom teacher ASAP. In language, all classes have also started their new novels in literature. I have gone over 2nd quarter projects for 6th, 7th and 8th grades. 6th graders will be writing a book report on their AR book of choice that they read first quarter; 7th graders have begun their bloom ball projects on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; and 8 th graders have begun working on their AdobeVoice projects on their new novel The Pearl. For all classes, projects are due Monday, November 20 (this is the Monday before Grandparents' Day and Thanksgiving Break.) This is a big grade for all students. These projects will be worth two test grades since this is about four weeks worth of work. Students MUST have projects submitted by November 20 or I will not be able to accept them. If you know that you will be leaving early for Thanksgiving, be sure to get your projects to me before you leave. If you are ill on the day that your project is due, please have a parent or trusted friend turn it in for you on the 20th. Please check out your class's announcement page on my website (harbolanguage.blogspot.com) to see what we are doing in language this week. Blessings to you all! Mrs. Hanson: This quarter we are starting these chapters in our book, along with doing individual research on the topic. Each class will have a vocab quiz this Friday. I am excited to see all the kids sing this Sunday at Church at 10:30 am. This is Friendship Sunday and we are having one big service, inviting community members, and having some awesome worship and fellowship. Mrs. Pacey: Happy Belated Reformation Day! I loved seeing all the costumes on Tuesday and having the chance to dress up myself. We are working on our survey project in 6th grade. Have another great week! Mr. Covert: Welcome to November! Fall is definitely in the air as we’re starting to move into the Thanksgiving season. Also, don’t forget to set your clocks back an hour on Saturday! Classes are continuing where we left off last week. 8th grade is talking about the states we added between 1800 and 1850, skipping around to different ones. 7th grade is heading across the Pacific to talk about East Asia. In 6th grade, we’re still talking about the ancient Greeks in history, before we move on to their culture. I pray that God continues to bless our school family as we move on through this year. Blessings on your week!
First Lutheran Church & School—Growing up into Jesus, Reaching out with Jesus, Walking together in Jesus
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FRIENDSHIP SUNDAY November 5, 10:45 First Lutheran Church
YOU ARE INVITED! First Lutheran Church is sponsoring a Friendship Sunday on (this Sunday) November 5 at 10:45. The students of First Lutheran School are requested to be present to sing at that service. Following the service, we'll have a potluck meal in the cafeteria (the church will provide the chicken; members will bring the sides). After lunch we'll have a competition with parents and children in relays, three-legged races, and the egg throw. Practice your skills and plan to join us. We hope to see you here! It’s Time for the Book Fair! Read what our middle school scholars are looking forward to at the book fair: Books, where different lives come to life. Where a princess meets her Prince Charming. Where a boy makes his way back home after being lost at sea. Where a girl sacrifices herself for her little sister. These are just a few of the “worlds” I’ve been sucked into….Books take people into totally different realities…This is a great opportunity for us to instill the love of reading into others. God has put these very imaginative people into the world. Half of these stories I would’ve never thought about. It’s cool how each one means something different to every person…I hope this book fair has a huge impact and shows how amazing books are. – Margaret Blackstar, 8th Grade I love book fairs because you get a chance to get any book you want. You don’t just get to check it out and return it, but you buy that book and it’s yours. You can read it as often as you want. Book fairs are the best because you walk in along with a whole bunch of other kids and they’re all smiling excited to get a book or a diary. All kids love book fairs. And I love how they have chances to get a prize under certain circumstances. This is why I like book fairs. – Caroline Gates, 7th Grade My most memorable time at the book fair was with my Grammie and Papa. They always come on Grandparent’s Day and take me to the book fair. Normally I get to buy 1 or 2 books. They are always so patient while I find the perfect book. My Grammie doesn’t let me get any book unless it is in my reading level. The best book she has bought me was last year and it was called “Night Divided”. Before they gave me the book, she wrote inside the cover. I hope this year they have more books like this so that my Papa, Grammie, and I can carry on the tradition. – Dalton Laughlin, 6th Grade
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Don’t like our public schools? Blame Martin Luther’s 500 years of influence By Jay Mathews Columnist
June 26, 2016
WASHINGTON POST – Education Section
Perhaps if I went to church more often, I would have realized it sooner. Next year is the 500th anniversary of when priest Martin Luther nailed 95 anti-papal theses to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany. That simple act from a 33-year-old man transformed Western civilization with the rise of Protestant Christianity. My interest was sparked by Andrew Pettegree’s new popular history, “Brand Luther: 1517, Printing and the Making of the Reformation.” I learned a great deal I didn’t know, particularly that Luther inspired an approach to schooling that deeply influenced — through German, English, Scottish, Dutch and other immigrants — how American children, for good or ill, are taught today. Luther set a course for how our schools relate to the economy, to elites, to genders and to religion. The great change he made in history stemmed from his own education. The son of a copper mine investor who could afford to send him to the university, Luther read so deeply and widely that he found, to his shock, that the Bible and thinkers such as St. Augustine did not sanction what the popes of his time were doing with their church. I grew up thinking Luther was a dour scold. That comes from the liberal denomination (United Church of Christ) in which I was raised. Some of Luther’s flaws, such as his anti-Semitism, are impossible to defend. But he was also — as I learned from Pettegree — witty, creative, musical, kind and quite brave. He built a new church while under the equivalent of a death sentence from Rome. He was also deeply interested in the lives of children, including the five he had with the resourceful runaway nun he married, Katharina von Bora. His major work on education was “A Sermon on Keeping Children in School.” It was written in 1530, a time when education was largely a prerogative of the church. Schools trained future priests and the children of the political and economic elite. Pettegree’s book describes how Luther revolutionized the infant publishing industry. He was born 44 years after Johannes Gutenberg introduced movable type in Europe. Five years after Luther posted his 95 theses, excoriating the Catholic practice of raising money by promising less time in purgatory, “he was Europe’s most published author,” Pettegree said. That sermon on education was one of his bestsellers. The sermon throbs with his amazement at the technological progress of his era, similar to the way people my age feel about the Internet.“Knowledge of all kinds is so abundant, what with so many books, and so much reading,” Luther wrote. “One can learn more in three years than used to be possible in twenty.” Christianity could only be saved if there were more schools, he said. “I would like to know where we are going to get pastors, schoolteachers and sacristans three years from now if we do nothing about this.” Schools had to be public, he said, supported by the German princes who ruled the fractured Holy Roman Empire. He wanted education available to everyone. The next generation needed lessons in literature, history and science if they were to fulfill their destiny. He wanted to include girls. By the late 16th century, rural German schools were gender balanced, Pettegree reported, while Venetian students were nearly all male. Luther’s passion for better schooling feels like the impatience of today’s educational reformers. Many of his readers might have thought, as many do today, that Luther was pushing reform too hard. Many German parents preferred their children stay home to help make ends meet. But Luther didn’t relent. He thought the world would soon end. He wanted his people educated so they would be ready for God. Our rush for better schools has different roots, but we live in a time like his, full of innovation, conflict and anxiety. Like him, we pray that our schools will prepare the next generation to handle all that.
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