Regina Jr Sr High Newsletter
October 2019
From the Principal
There is a lot going on in October. We start the month with Iowa Assessments and then transition to Homecoming Week. The post season starts for our athletic teams and our fall play puts on their finishing touches for their early November production. Our 7-12 service day is Oct. 25. Our students take advantage of these and many more opportunities to showcase their talents and character.
Pope Francis announced that October will be celebrated as Extraordinary Missionary Month. This will be launched on Oct. 1 as Pope Francis presides at Vespers at Saint Peter's Basilica and coincides with the Feast of Saint Therese of Lisieux. The service can be viewed on the Vatican News YouTube channel. This link also has information on October's theme and initiative. The following is a feast day novena for peace to Saint Therese.
St. Therese, Flower of fervor and love, please intercede for us.
Fill our hearts with your pure love of God.
As we approach and celebrate your feast day,
make us more aware of the goodness of
God and how well He tends His garden.
Instill in us your little way of doing
ordinary things with extra-ordinary love.
Give us the heart of a child who wonders
at life and embraces everything with loving enthusiasm.
Teach us your delight in God's ways
so that divine charity may blossom in our hearts.
Little Flower of Jesus, bring our petitions
(mention in silence here)
before God, our Father.
With your confidence, we come before Jesus
as God's children,
because you are our heavenly friend.
As we celebrate the Feast Day of your
homecoming in heaven,continue to
shower roses and grace upon us.
Amen
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Glenn Plummer
Upcoming Events
Wednesday, Oct. 2: Mass @ 2:15 in the Jr Sr High Gym
Thursday, Oct. 3: 7-12 Volleyball at Wilton @ 4:15, JH football at Mid-Prairie @ 4:15, JH cross country at City High @ 4:30
Friday, Oct. 4: Varsity football at South Hardin @ 7:00
HOMECOMING WEEK
Sunday, Oct. 6: Powderpuff football & ironman volleyball @ 6:00
Monday, Oct. 7: RVC vocal festival at Tipton @ 10:00, JH cross country at IMS @ 4:00, Fresh-soph football at home @ 6:00
Tuesday, Oct. 8: JH football at Wilton @ 4:15, F/S volleyball tournament at Durant
Wednesday, Oct. 9: 7-12 homecoming Mass @ 2:15
Thursday, Oct. 10: 7-12 volleyball at Monticello @ 4:15
Friday, Oct. 11: Varsity football at home @ 7:00
Saturday, Oct. 12: 7-12 cross country at North Linn @ 8:00, Math club @ 8:00, Varsity volleyball at CR Prairie @ 9:00, Homecoming dance @ 8:00
Monday, Oct. 14: 7-12 picture make-ups, fresh-soph football at home @ 6:00
Tuesday, Oct. 15: JH football at West Branch @ 4:15, 7-12 conference cross country @ Kickers @ 4:30, varsity volleyball conference tournament at TBA @ 5:00
Wednesday, Oct. 16: PSAT @ 8:00, 7-12 prayer service @ 2:15
Thursday, Oct. 17: varsity volleyball conference tournament at TBA @ 5:00
Friday, Oct. 18: Varsity football at home @ 7:00
Monday, Oct. 21:
Tuesday, Oct. 22: 9th grade retreat, varsity volleyball regional at TBA @ TBA, Board of Ed. meeting @ 6:30
Wednesday, Oct. 23: 7-12 Mass @ 2:15
Thursday, Oct. 24: Varsity cross country districts at Kickers @ 4:00
Friday, Oct. 25: 7-12 Service Day, Varsity football at Dike-New Hartford @ 7:00
Saturday, Oct. 26: ACT's @ 8:00
Sunday, Oct. 27: Run for the Schools
Monday, Oct. 28: Varsity volleyball regional at TBA @ TBA
Tuesday, Oct. 29:
Wednesday, Oct. 30:
Thursday, Oct. 31: Varsity volleyball regional at TBA @ TBA
Friday, Nov. 1: All Saint's Day K-12 Mass @ 9:30, Varsity football playoffs at TBA @ 7:00
Saturday, Nov. 2: State cross country at Fort Dodge @ TBD
Homecoming Week Activities
Sunday, Oct 6
- Powderpuff football @ 6:00, Ironman volleyball @ 7:30
- Chili and water available during football
Monday, Oct. 7
- College Comfy Day (slippers, sweats, college shirt or hoodie)
Tuesday, Oct. 8
- Squad Day (find a partner or group to dress alike-everybody wears Cardinals jerseys)
Wednesday, Oct. 9
- Homecoming Mass @ 2:15
- Normal dress code
Thursday, Oct. 10
- Neon vs. Camo (wear neon or camo)
Friday, Oct. 11
- Activity Day-Pep Rally including homecoming court announcement @ 2:30
- Color Code (12th grade-blue, 11th grade-white, 10th grade-pink, 9th grade-yellow, Osweiler Via-purple, Conlon Via-brown, Wallace Via-black, Welter Via-red, Boland Via-orange, Sprengelmeyer Via-green)
- Football game vs. North Linn @ 7:00
- Homecoming King and Queen announced at halftime
Saturday, Oct. 12
- Dance in Elem. Gym from 8:00-11:00
Dress up guidelines
ALL dress must be appropriate and follow handbook dress code. No flip flops or jeggings/leggings. Nothing too short or too revealing. Follow PE length for athletic shorts. If you have a concern about dress ask Mr. Plummer, Mr. Foley, Mrs. Martin or Ms. Osweiler. Best advice. If you question your outfit, find something else to wear.
Color War Day is when 9-12th grade and VIA’s fight for the tire. You need to wear your grade/VIA color on that Friday. It can be a variation of the color but not one of the other team's colors. Ex: Red cannot wear pink but can wear cherry red or burgundy. Other Examples: Orange can wear neon orange/burnt orange. Blue can wear teal/navy/aqua. Purple can wear royal purple/lavender. Green can wear hunter green/neon green. Must wear tennis shoes on Friday for the games.
Regina Student Attends Congress for Future Medical Leaders
Regina Student Named National Merit Commended Student
Regina Alum Honored
David is one of many examples of Regina grad's doing awesome things.
Email from a 2019 graduate
Hi Mrs. Belknap, I just wanted to email you and thank you for your help in the Microsoft class I took last year. I just had a biology lab yesterday where we had to use excel for a statistical analysis, using many functions like average and sum. I was the only one in my class who knew how to use excel and the various functions, and I just wanted to let you know that I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to take that course and am using it daily here at Loras! Hope you have had a good start to the school year!
Journeys in Faith Speaker/Regina Alum
English Newsletter
AP English: The first four weeks have had an “old home’ Feel to them. We have focused on authors with a University of Iowa connection: Flannery O’Connor, Kurt Vonnegut, and Tennessee Williams. Assessments suggest but do not conclusively prove students re getting a teeny-tiny bit smarter every day. Wisdom will have to come with experience.
Senior English: O'Connor and Vonnegut also headlined the first three weeks and students are currently finishing up 1984. For those of you who do not remember that’s the book where George Orwell’s Big Brother predicted that the Hawkeyes would blow-out the Longhorns in the inaugural Liberty bowl. He was right.
Library News
The year is off to a great start with the jr/sr high school school focus on reading. Our usual order of new books had a little different content this fall. The Religion 11 class will be reading biographies and other non-fiction books that focus on how faith manifests in real life. We identified and ordered a good number of books to fill this need. If you have a favorite selection that might be relevant to this topic and to young adults, we would love to hear your suggestions.
I try to avoid lurking on Pinterest, but noticed a great bulletin board idea. Mrs. Reilly and Mrs. Owen said “let’s do it.” You may have seen it if you walked in the hall by the office. You can see a photo below. One of our goals in educating our young adults is to help them learn to take responsibility for their own actions and resulting success.
I sent out a request for students who wanted to earn Silver Cord hours by helping in the library and was pleasantly surprised to have the following young ladies volunteer: Samantha Glass, Piper Sweeting, Emelina Mendez, Sophia Claus and Diana Sanchez-Cardoza. I am confident that throughout the year, they will provide a lot of needed help to keep things looking great and running smoothly.
Since the students all have access to digital magazines through Grant Wood AEA Online Resources, we made the decision to discontinue spending funds for paper copies. If you regularly recycle magazines you receive by subscription at home, I would be interested in putting certain titles on our magazine rack for a time before continuing to the recycle center. If you have titles you think young adults might find interesting, send me an email and perhaps we can lengthen their life a bit while enriching the library offerings. My email is joan.belknap@regina.org.
Computer Applications
The students in this semester’s Computer Applications class have surprisingly good skills in keyboarding. I have a standing challenge for anyone who can beat me one-on-one and I can consistently type more than 65 words per minute. Sarah Comer recently turned in a score of 66. We haven’t had a chance to go head to head yet, but I‘m a little worried that she’s going to beat me. All of the students are improving, and overall, they have higher scores than any previous classes, with many in the high 30’s and 40’s.
We are in the final project stage of our drawing tools unit where the students have to prove their competence by designing a badge that shows their skill level, much like in scouting or 4-H. There badge can be designed using either Google Draw or Microsoft Word, and has to incorporate a number of required techniques.
Spanish Dept. News
This past month in Spanish I, we learned greetings and farewells, how to make introductions, how to say the alphabet and spell words/names, the days of the week, numbers (including how to ask for/tell our phone numbers), the weather, and how to ask/say where you are from, and Spanish-speaking countries, and how to respond to classroom instructions.
Español II (Spanish II)
We started the school year with an overall review of Level 1. We reviewed basic grammar including the uses of Ser and Estar and plural form.
In celebration of the Hispanic Heritage Month, we have studied Spanish speaking countries, their capitals and location on the map. We are presently preparing for the first oral presentation due in October. Students will introduce themselves to the class and will give some required information about themselves without using notes. All in all, the school year is going very well.
Español III (Spanish III)
This past month in Spanish III, we reviewed the present tense of regular verbs, irregular "yo" forms in the present tense, the preterite tense of regular verbs, verbs with spelling changes in the preterite, verbs with stem changes in the preterite, and irregular preterites. In addition, we practiced our reading comprehension and translation skills from readings that discussed the United States, Mexico and Central America, the Caribbean, The Southern Cone, Spain, and Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.
Español IV (Spanish IV)
We started and continue with a general review of levels 1, 2 and 3. We are presently reviewing irregular and regular verbs for all three conjugations in the present and the past tense. We reviewed/learned numbers from cero to a million. We also reviewed the uses of Ser and Estar.
We are working with listening comprehension skills as we listen to a Spanish melody and figure out what they are singing by filling in a cloze exercise.
To celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, we took a quiz on Spanish speaking countries, capitals and their location. Great group of students!
Science Department
Business Department
Senior Seminar - This group of seniors is absolutely amazing. Despite their small class size they have done a tremendous job so far of preparing for the next steps in life. As a few reminders of upcoming things this month. We have the following colleges scheduled for visits: Truman State University, St. Ambrose, Iowa Central, Hawkeye CC, and St. Louis. October is the big month for Scholarships and Financial Aid to begin. Don’t forget to file your FAFSA forms. Housing for the State Regent schools is now open for next year. Be sure to get applications in. There are a lot of scholarships available, be sure to remind your student to be completing them on time. Deadline for ordering Graduation materials is Oct. 8th. As a reminder students are required to have cap, tassel and gown. We had our first speaker of the year, Nancy Bonthius, last year who provided her 17 tips to College Success. You can find those on the Google Classroom Page.
Economics - We recently finished up with our second unit on Economic Systems and have now been diving into Unit 3. This unit takes a look at Comparative and Absolute Advantages as well as Production Possibilities Frontiers….In other words, does it make since for one child to do all the chores simply because they can do them faster/better, or should we consider efficiency. The students will be taking their next exam on Friday, Oct 4th. We will then begin working on our biggest unit of the year and the foundation of most of what we talk about in economics, Supply and Demand. This unit will take us through the entire month of October.
Personal Finance - We recently finished up our unit 1 on Goal Setting and will now be diving head first into Unit 2. This unit explores Earned and Unearned Income as well as deductions. This unit is our introduction into paychecks and taxes. Students may begin to come home and ask questions about how things look in real life. For instance, they may ask you “who is FICA? And why are they taking all my money? This can be a challenge for some students who currently don’t have “taxable” jobs and receive a paycheck. I urge you to help them whenever possible. Share what you are comfortable with and allow them to learn through “real-life” scenarios.
Social Studies Newsletter
8th grade History
The 8th graders studied the Columbus voyage, and wrote a journal as if they were on the voyage. They also began studying the the 13 original colonies, and how they started, life styles of each section of the colonies. They researched a state and gave a presentation to the class, and selected a quiz question to have for the class.
7th Grade Geography:
Currently, the 7th graders are finishing up the core concepts of geography unit. They will finish this week by discussing map projections, scale, and completing a world map assignment and then will transition into their first major unit over Central & South America starting on Monday, October 1st. The 7th graders are also still engaged with the Fantasy Geopolitics and country trades are happening daily! It is wonderful to hear them so engaged in current events and the world around them.
AP US History
In AP US History, the students have tested over the first time period from 1491 to 1607. Entering into the second time period for AP US History from 1607-1754, we have also started to write our first document-based question, also known as the DBQ, on the New England and the Chesapeake colonies. Through the writing process for the DBQ, the students are working on historical writing skills as as formulating a historically-defensible thesis, providing context for an event, sourcing the provided documents, and using those documents to form an argument as well. We will continue to work on these writing skills throughout the year!
Rules of St. Mary's School
St. John Paul II Bulletin board
Book Challenge
Regina Junior Senior High School
Email: glenn.plummer@regina.org
Website: www.regina.org
Location: 2150 Rochester Avenue, Iowa City, IA, United States
Phone: (319)-338-5436
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReginaEducation/
Twitter: @gap_4