May 29- Memorial Day. No School. June 5- Showcase/ Culmination Night 5:00-6:00 PM. June 7- Last Day!! All of Lower School will go to Sunset Park for a day of fun! Anyone is welcome to join us! The buses leave Roycemore at 9:30 and we stay at the park until 2! Feel free to take your child home if you come to the park. They will need a disposable lunch that day. LA We are finishing up with the fantasy unit. I cannot wait for you to see how awesome the games turned out! You will be playing them at Culmination Night. Math We have one more unit to complete. It focuses on fractions for both groups.
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May 20- YEA Festival, Young Evanston Artists, from 10 am-4 pm in Raymond Park. Rain Site, Roycemore. All of our artists will have some work on display there this year! You are welcome to visit at anytime, but there will be meet up times for each class, and the grade 4 meet up time is 2:30-3:00!
May 29- Memorial Day. No School. June 5- Showcase/ Culmination Night 5:00-6:00 PM. June 7- Last Day!! All of Lower School will go to Sunset Park for a day of fun! Anyone is welcome to join us! The buses leave Roycemore at 9:30 and we stay at the park until 2! Math We are finishing up our units on Measuring. The students will be completing the pracatice tests and taking the test this week. LA The Heroes Journey continues to be the central focus. Everyone is working on their games. Each game will be an original by that student, based on the book they chose to read independently. Make sure to attend Culmination Night. You will have a chance to play with your student. Everyone is enjoying The Conch Bearer. It is a fast-paced fantasy book, where the protagonist, Anand, is on his own Hero's Journey. There is a lot of practice with following the journey and identifying the archetypal characters. Science Through the experiments with the student built vehicle, we learned about the concepts of friction and air resistance. We will start viewing Shark Tank this week to prepare for our presentations to our very own Tank! We are having a great time! The kids have seen sets and costumes from the movie Lincoln, visited Honest Abe's neighborhood and toured the capitol building. Of course, the most asked question is.... "Where's the gift shop?" This trip has already been awarded, "The Best Field Trip Ever!" award. There has been no rain. We are so lucky! Tomorrow we are off to New Salem and then the Lincoln Presidential Museum. Have a wonderful night! TERRA NOVA TESTING for students in Grades 2, 3, and 4 on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Please be sure your student has pencils and erasers, a filling breakfast and a good night of sleep. The Lion King was amazing! Congratulations to all your stars! Springfield is coming quick! Please turn in your permission slip and check ASAP. LA We have started our all class Hero's Journey/Fantasy novel. Each student is also reading their own choice of novel and is completing a packet about the Journey of their hero. Once they have completed the novel and the packet, they will be creating a game based on the Journey their hero takes. Math We will be finishing up the measurement unit this week. The next unit will return to fractions. Science We have begin the Motion and Design unit. This week we will work through many concepts, including forces and Newton's Laws of Motion JA Ms. Kurasz came in to do the final unit of JA on financial literacy. The kids collected their paychecks and entered their deposits and withdrawals on their balance sheet. They had a lot of fun! Thank you to Frances for organizing a special guest in our classroom. Deepan Acharya, a refugee, came to speak about his experience of leaving Bhutan, living in Nepal and, finally, coming to the US. He has an amazing story and uses his experience to help others. THE LOWER SCHOOL, THE LION KING, will be on Thursday, April 20 at 6:30 p.m. Students in Grade 4 have their own costumes. If you do not know what is required for your child's costume, please contact Mrs. Herrick. The countdown is on! Please send in the permission slip and payment for the trip to Springfield. Let me know if you need a release form for medication. The Upper School is sponsoring a book drive for BERNIES' BOOKS. They would like books for children from Kindergarten through 8th Grade. There are boxes all around Lower School where you can put the books you want to donate. This is a good time for you to go through your children's books and donate them, so you can buy more books at our SPRING BOOK FAIR! April 24-28 in our library. It will be open before and after school!! A portion of everything you buy will support our library! Math We are working on conversion of the metric and customary systems of measurements. The students may have some pages to complete over the four day break if they did not complete the work in class. LA We are learning about the genre of fantasy and the Hero's Journey. They watched a movie from the fantasy genre. They identified the character archetypes of the Hero's Journey and outlined the structure, using events from the movie. You can watch this video or this one (with or without your child) to refresh yourself on the journey. They should continue reading the self-selected fantasy book over the break. They must also complete the Hero's Journey packet. They will be creating a game based on their novel. Science we have started the Design and Motion unit. They learned about force and potential and kinetic energy this week. They have built a vehicle that will serve as the test subject in all our experiments. Junior Achievement The group learned about different roles of the employees and sourcing of materials. Next week they will bank according to the salary determined for that employee. This is the last week before the break. We are super busy working our blogs and preparing for our Family Celebration. Family Celebration Our Family Celebration will be Friday morning, March 17, from 8:45-9:45 ish. I will post the schedule of presentations in next week's blog. Please join us to hear about each family and how they came to be here, in the Chicago area. This will complete our Chicago/Illinois History Unit. The students need to have their family artifact for their presentation. It is not necessary to send it in before. If you would rather not bring the artifact to school, that is fine. Simply take a picture and send it to me to print. Students are invited to bring a cultural food dish to share with the class. This not a requirement for the project. If they wish to bring something in, it should reflect your family culture. Think Hors d'oeuvre size portions. Parents are welcome to taste. Everyone will have the opportunity to use large sheets of paper to display their family work. However, if they would like to use a trifold board instead, they are welcome to purchase them on their own. Please have them in school by Monday. The schedule of presentations: 8:45 Jack - conference room Hamza - main library Oliver - LS library 9:00 Joseph - conference room Dave - main library Esteve - LS library 9:15 Harry - conference room Miquel - main library Jano - LS library 9:30 Lily - main library Keira - LS library We will have a tasting party following the presentations. Blogs Wow! The blogs are amazing! We will be talking about commenting this week. There is a reason for those comment areas. And it is not so can say, "Good job!" The role of blog comments are important to the intellectual development of the blog author an their readers. We are getting ready to share them with you. I will be sending out the link to your students' blog this week. There is a password to view the blog. It is not searchable to the general public. You must have the link and the password to view the blog. When commenting on your student's blog, I ask that you follow the Commenting Guidelines that will accompany the link. Thank you! Junior Achievement We have had two sessions of Junior Achievement. Everyone is learning about entrepreneurship and economic factors. As your student about the business they created on Thursday! PALIO is Friday, March 10
Roycemore will dismiss at 11:30 on Friday March 10, so we can get ready for the shows. EDP will start at 11:30 and close at its regular 6:00 time. (We will be having pizza for the 1st-4th graders who stay for EDP, as they have to be in their classrooms no later that 5:40) PALIO ATTIRE Students in Grades 1-4 need a pair of dark shorts, preferably navy blue, their Palio tee-shirt, (light blue) and a pair of white socks with their gym shoes. If you have a Palio shirt that still fits, please let your teacher know, and your child will not get a new one. Family Celebration Our Family Celebration will be Friday morning, March 17, from 8:45-9:45 ish. I will post the schedule of presentations in next week's blog. Please join us to hear about each family and how they came to be here, in the Chicago area. This will complete our Chicago/Illinois History Unit. The students need to have their family artifact for their presentation. It is not necessary to send it in before. If you would rather not bring the artifact to school, that is fine. Simply take a picture and send it to me to print. Students are invited to bring a cultural food dish to share with the class. This not a requirement for the project. If they wish to bring something in, it should reflect your family culture. Everyone will have the opportunity to use large sheets of paper to display their family work. However, if they would like to use a trifold board instead, they are welcome to purchase them on their own. Please have them in school by Friday, March 10. This week's guest bloggers: Jack and Harry Theme Week The most interesting thing we did this week was Theme Week. I was in the Arctic Tundra. We made things we needed like fireplaces, sleds, clothing, shelter and food. It was -90 degrees. We made everything out of recycled materials. I loved doing theme week. I think the best this week was Theme Week. I got to build weapons, and name them. I am really sad we are not doing Theme Week again. Math We will be finishing up the fractions unit this week. The students are also working on math project. The project incorporates all the concepts they learned so far. They are designing a special place to hang out with their friends. Please ask them all about it! We are closed tomorrow, Monday, February 20, because of Presidents' Day, we will see you all on Tuesday. SPRING BREAK CAMP INFORMATION: Spring Break Camp will take place the first week of Spring Break, March 20-24. The link to register is https://campscui.active.com/orgs/RoycemoreSchool or you may print the registration form on the flyer and give it to me. PALIO, Roycemore's oldest tradition will take place on March 10 for Grades 1-4 . It is time to begin to think about summer. DISCOVERY UNLIMITED AND CAMP information is on our website at roycemoreschool.org/summer Registration is open. THEME WEEK, MAKERS OF CIVILIZATION will take place February 27-March 3. We need lots of recyclables. You may start bringing them to Melinda's office now. Thank you! Thank you to Sandra and Frances for accompanying us on our field trip this week! We started our blogs this week. Everyone chose their topic, named their blog and chose the look of their blog. Everyone is so excited to get writing! Below is a collection of blog entries the class wrote about their week. Enjoy! Guest bloggers: Lily, Jano, Miquel, Joseph, Hamza, Oliver and Keira Math The best thing I learned this week was subtracting fractions. When I was learning this it taught me something. That something is patience, because it was very hard to learn. After I acknowledged this it made much more sense and I learned how to do it. The best time in the classroom this week was doing fractions. It is a new thing for me in math. I love doing math because I get better and better each month. At the beginning of the year I was horrible and now I am better. My favorite activity this week was the math floor planner. We get to decide what we want it to look like, what to buy and have the freedom to design a big space however we want it. That is amazing because it is mixing difficult math and letting us unleash creativity in a math problem. I didn't think it could be done! The most fun thing I did this week was the math room planner. Taking the measurements and figuring out how big the room is supposed to be was awesome. Figuring out the wall measurements was fun. Overall, I am very happy about it. LA I love learning about blogs. They are fun and exciting. I like blogs because you are taking what you love and teaching other people about it. Some parents and other people think the Internet is a waste. I think it is a good place for people around the world to share what they love. Blogging is a great way to spend your time. Social Studies The best thing I learned about this week is the Chicago fire. I enjoyed it because I learned things that happened in the past. I feel bad for the who lost family members in the fire. I like it because it is history. It was interesting that people thought it was a cow that started the Chicago fire, but it wasn't. People blamed an Irish immigrant, Mrs. O'Leary. We heard a podcast about it we started reading a book about it. It is a really cool book because the dad is a sheriff and he was shot right in the heart, but his badge saved him. Sadly, he died in a blizzard when his wagon crashed. * Lower/Middle School Conferences will be held Feb 14, 15, 16, 17. I'm looking forward to the chance to sit down with each of you and discuss all the growth your wonderful child has demonstrated throughout the year!
You will receive the link to your child's report card in an email that will be sent out on Monday, so be on the lookout for that! Upcoming dates to keep in mind: Valentine's day is on Tuesday. We will be exchanging Valentine's in the classroom and then attending a lower school party. We will also be walking to the Evanston history Center on Wednesday afternoon. We will tour the center and see the Underground Railroad photograph exhibit. Please let me now if you would like to accompany us. The cost is $5.00 for each child. Feb. 17- Conferences- students will not have school. Feb. 20- Presidents' Day- students will not have school. Registration is open for Discovery Unlimited and Camp on the website! Math The fraction units are underway. The students are adding fractions with like denominators and comparing fractions. They are converting improper fractions to mixed numbers and vice versa. They are all picking up the concepts quickly. I have even heard a few yell out, "This is fun!!" LA/Social Studies The small groups reading the World's Fair books has ended. The next book is I Survived the Great Chicago Fire. The kids will be reading this book largely on their own, with in class discussion about historical fact vs. fiction and character analysis. In Chicago history we have learned about Jean Baptiste DuSable. He was the first permanent settler of Chicago and had a great relationship with the Native Americans. We read about the Northwest Ordinance and The Missouri Compromise. The students also conducted an Underground Railroad simulation, talking a bit about the role of Chicago communities. The next phase of the family history project was sent home on Friday. The students are to create an artistic interpretation of the Chicago flag, based on what is important to your family. Students may use any materials/media to create the flag. Each part of the flag has a meaning for them and should be represented. It will be part of their final presentation. It is due Tuesday, February 21. DISCOVERY UNLIMITED AND CAMP information is on our website at roycemoreschool.org/summer
The Lunar New Year celebration was super fun! Mrs. Hu and some of her middle school students came to visit our classroom and taught us a little about the Year of the Rooster. On Friday we attended the all school celebration. The kids played games and did some crafts. Social Studies/LA The students watched the video Chicago's North Shore, hosted by Geoffrey Baer. They identified the causes and effects of the railroad on the North Shore. Work continues in our reading small groups. Students are writing responses to chapters and working on their paragraph writing skills and being able to use quotes from the book to support a response. They are also focusing on character analysis. Much of the work we are doing is closely tied to Language Arts. We are reading lots of nonfiction, and asking questions. By asking questions, the focus is on comprehension. There are many types of questions we ask while reading. The students take the time to identify which type of questions they have and then we work on answering them. The types are questions are: 1. Vocabulary 2. Answers we find in the text 3. Answers we find in the world 4. Answers that come from your brain using clues from the text (inference) 5. Never answered (wonderings) We will be heading to the Evanston History Center on February 15, from 12:30-2:30. We will be leaving around noon, as we will be walking. We should be back to school around 3:00. Please let me know if you would like to attend. We will have a tour of the Dawes house, visit the Evanston history kids exhibit and see a special exhibit on the Underground Railroad. Math We wrapped up the division unit today with test corrections. Tomorrow the students will take the pretest for Fraction Concepts. |