Here are the Powerpoints that you may reference re:7th grade information from Back-to-School Night.

Please also note that we do have a few new items this year:

• Junior High Homework Wiki (to check your child’s daily assignments, test/quiz dates, project due dates) – see link to the right
• SJS Junior High Spiritual Formation Program – see link to the right
• 7th Grade Homework Folder (comes home every Friday with graded work; must be returned the following Tuesday)

Feel free to email me at any time if you have questions at mdyogisjs@yahoo.com

Thank you for your support this year!

Blessings,

Mrs. Dyogi

Great Southern California ShakeOut Website

Los Angeles Fire Department Emergency Preparedness Booklet

As progress reports come upon us, I would like to offer you a resource from Focus on the Family that you may find helpful when working with your children at home in support of their academics.

Focus on Your Child is a membership program that is designed to help parents bond together, share practical advice, and encourage one another to make the most of the parenting years. If you choose to simply use their website for the articles that pertain to you and your child/ren, then you can always visit http://www.focusonyourchild.com/

Here you can access tips and information from a family-oriented, Christian perspective that guides you as your child’s primary educators. One article in particular that I just sent to a parent is The Secret to Your Child’s Academic Success.

You will notice this menu where you can get more detailed descriptions and read up on some strategies that would benefit you and your child’s academic progress, not only in junior high but into high school as well. It’s worth checking out!

It wasn’t until Thanksgiving weekend of 1995 that I realized the value of those daily Rosaries. My dad had fallen off the couch one evening as my mom was cooking dinner. He tried to play it off and say he was okay as I picked him up and walked him to the dinner table, but something about him made me concerned. My mother confirmed this fear when in the morning she told me that I had to drive my dad to the hospital because he had a stroke. He was having a hard time moving one side of his body and was overall very weak.

At seventeen years old, I had never been so scared in my life. The man who I looked up to since I was a little girl – the pillar of our family – started to deteriorate as the days went by. First it was his physical strength, then it was his mental alertness, and after some time he couldn’t wake up and talk to us anymore.

The one thing that got us through those next eight months before his death was the Rosary. The same wife and kids who would struggle through those fifteen minutes of prayer with my dad’s faithful leading now begged God with those same prayers for courage and strength. We stood around his hospital bed and prayed every night for a miracle. Maybe we didn’t get the miracle we had hoped for – for my father had gone to meet our Lord in his time – but each of us was transformed through the experience and realized that God would always be there in times of distress and sadness.

Life is busy and we cannot deny that, but to go through our days pulling together as family in prayer definitely helps us when things happen that we don’t expect. Prayer helps us to keep God first in our lives and to lift up both our joys and our sorrows. Just those few minutes we spend together each week (or every day, if possible) will open us up to the blessings and graces the Lord wants to pour into our hearts if we simply allow Him the chance…

- Mrs. Dyogi