Words from Walsh October, 2022
Staying connected with Walsh School
Greetings from Principal Martin
Dear Parents/Guardians:
Last month, our students learned a lot about safety as we conducted fire, tornado, lockdown, and bus evacuation drills. I am proud to say they did a wonderful job! This month, our students will have the opportunity to meet members of our local fire department, as they demonstrate fire safety measures and let us see the fire engines up close. This is also a good time for you to review safety measures in your own home.
October is shaping up to be a very busy month. Starting October 24th, we will celebrate Red Ribbon Week. This is a special week where the whole school participates in activities that teach us how to stay healthy and substance-free. Don't forget to join us for the return of Monster Mash coming up on Wednesday, October 26th. Our Early Childhood/PreSchool friends will have their Halloween parties on October 28th. Kindergarten and first-grade students will celebrate Halloween with a costume parade and class parties on October 31st. Look for more information on that later. Have a fun, safe and enjoyable October!
~ Mrs. Teresa Martin
Important Dates in October
Mark Your Calendars
10 - No School - Columbus Day
11 - Too Good for Drugs starts this week with Officer Debbie & Officer Andy
13 - Fire Department Drill & Fire Truck Visit
14 - Spirit Day (Favorite Team)
17 - Early Childhood & Preschool Field Trip to the Children's Farm
18 - Board of Education Meeting at 7:00 p.m.
21 - Land of Smiles Dental Assembly
24-28 - Red Ribbon Week
- Monday - Wear red day
- Tuesday - Wear your favorite sport item
- Wednesday - Wear pajamas
- Thursday - Wear silly socks
- Friday - Wear your favorite color
26 - Monster Mash from 6-7 p.m.
27 - 1st Grade Field Trip to Heap's Pumpkin Farm
31 - School Improvement Day - Early Dismissal @ 11:55 a.m.
- Happy Halloween! - Halloween Parties
Looking Ahead...
November 3 - Picture Re-Takes
November 4 - Spirit Day - Camo Day
November 6 - Daylight Savings - Fall Back 1 Hour
November 8 - No School - Election Day
November 11 - Veteran's Day - Regular School Attendance
November 15 - Board of Education Meeting
November 16 - 1st Grade Musical (more info will be sent closer to)
November 18 - School Improvement Day - Early Dismissal at 11:55 a.m.
~ Spirit Day - 80's Day
November 21 & 22 - Parent/Teacher Conferences - No School
November 23-25 - Thanksgiving Break - No School
Drop off times: no earlier than 8:40 a.m.
Please be prompt for pick-up at 3:25 p.m. (2:45 p.m. on Wednesdays)
Remember to call the office by 9:00 a.m. if your child will be absent.
Office hours are 8:00 a.m.- 4:00 p.m. ~ 815-838-7858 www.d92.org
Virtual Backpack
Walsh School, in an effort to minimize papers going home, has created a Virtual Backpack. After visiting the district website, please choose "Walsh" school, and scroll down the left side menu to "Virtual Backpack". We currently have flyers from the Homer Library, Village of Homer Glen, Girl Scouts/Cub Scouts, D92 Basketball, and more. All of the flyers have been pre-approved by the district office.
Welcoming Walsh's Newest Member, Nurse Kristen!
Hi!
My name is Kristen, the new nurse at Walsh school!
I graduated from the University of St. Francis with my BSN in 2019, and worked in a cardiac ICU prior to making the switch to school nursing this year.
Please feel free to reach out to me any time with any questions or concerns regarding your students' health.
You may reach me by email at koconnor@d92.org, or phone at 815-838-7858.
I am here to help :)
P.S. October 15th is our school exclusion date. If your student is missing records of their physical and/or immunizations, please provide these to the school prior to October 15th. If appointments are in place for these requirements after October 15th, please provide the office with proof of appointment from your doctor's office.
Thank you and let's have a happy and healthy school year!
Nurse Kristen
Reminders from the Nurse
If your child has any food allergies that were not mentioned in their physicals or health information, please let the health office know.
According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, schools are required to perform hearing screenings for preschool, kindergarten, first, second and third-grade students yearly. This is not an exam, it is just a screening to see if the child needs further follow up. We will begin these in October, and parents will be notified only if their child did not pass or will be re-screened.
Officer Debbie helping the sunshine crew during morning drop off!
RED RIBBON WEEK
Red Ribbon Week is dedicated to remembering to be healthy and to remain smoke and drug free. At Walsh School, we emphasize being healthy to ourselves, our environment, and to others. A list of scheduled events for the week of October 24th through 28th will be sent home and posted on our website calendar. Please support your child as we emphasize healthy living.
P.E. News by Mr. Wallace
Kindergarten News
We have had a wonderful beginning to our school year. The children have adapted nicely, and have been learning all of our routines. We will be focusing on letter recognition, letter sounds and letter formation. We will continue to learn new sight words. We are also learning how to identify the beginning sounds of words as well as name words that rhyme.
We have been very busy doing a variety of math activities. The children have been very engaged while learning the following math skills:
compose and decompose numbers to 5 and 10
subitize numbers to 10
build 3-d shapes using 2-d shapes
build with geometric shapes
count by 1’s and 10’s to 100
use critical thinking to create patterns
make estimates of quantities and compare them to determine which has greater or fewer
identify missing numbers in a sequence
First Grade News
What is YOUR favorite part of Fall?
Is it the crunching of the fall leaves, the nice cool breeze coming through your window, the smell of bonfires, the Chicago Bears football games? All of it sounds wonderful!
Welcome to Fall! We have been very busy in first grade. We have spent the last month working on what it means to be a “well rounded” reader. We have been looking at different levels of books, different genres and what interests us as readers. We have discussed what it takes to be a good reader. We just began our new unit on nonfiction. This is one of the genres we have learned about in our first unit. We have been practicing our Daily 5 routines. We have worked on “stamina” which in a short term, means doing something for a long period of time without stopping. We use this during our Daily 5 reading time.
Please remember to have your child read nightly to you using the book from their baggie book or Raz-Kids, whichever one your teacher assigns. This is homework, and your child is responsible for this reading.
In math, we will be working on sensible strategies for adding and subtracting single-digit numbers. We will do this using math manipulatives. We will be learning about fact families and story problems.
We will be learning about Christopher Columbus and fire safety. We will also be starting “Too Good for Drugs” with Officer Debbie and Officer Andy. This is a great program and the children are very excited! They are also excited about our upcoming Halloween party. We are looking forward to our field trip to Heap's Giant Pumpkin Farm on October 27th. We expect to have so much fun!
Thank you always for your continued support with your child’s education!
Early Childhood and Community Preschool News
The Reading Corner by Mrs. Squires, Kindergarten Reading Specialist
We’re well on our way to a great school year! Want to know how you can raise a reader? This acrostic from Reading Rockets gives some great suggestions. Go to the website at readingrockets.org to read the full article, 10 Things You Can Do to Raise a Reader. You’ll also find great resources, videos and activities to help support your child’s journey to becoming a reader!
Look for new books and authors that your child may enjoy.
Organize an area dedicated to reading and writing tools.
Visit the library for story time and book recommendations.
Encourage your child to talk about what he's read.
Talk to your child, and sprinkle interesting words into your conversation.
Offer a variety of books to read.
Read with your child every day.
Expand your home library to include magazines and nonfiction.
Ask questions if you're concerned about your child's development.
Decide to raise a reader!
Music News by Mrs. Moan
What a month of music-making in the Walsh music room!
Preschool: It is wonderful to have our youngest children in the music room! We have been learning about using our singing voices and floating in bubbles. We rode the color train around the music room and played I Spy using our colors. The students are being introduced to classroom instruments, like egg shakers and rhythm sticks. We also enjoyed playing with and moving our scarves. We liked finding the “Little Mouse” that was hiding in one of the houses of many colors! The song “I’m a Squirrel” helped the children hunt for “acorns” to collect for our teams. Next month, we will practice animal movements that correspond to music, and play more instruments! Yay!
Kindergarten: We have been “Goin’ to the Farm”, and meeting all kinds of farm
animals. We met ducks, chickens, sheep and cows this month. Poor Mary lost her little lamb, and the students helped her find it by singing to the lost sheep and tiptoeing quietly. Little Bo Peep also needed some Kindergarten help, and the students played a listening and finding game using maracas. We studied the book, Rosie’s Walk, by Pat Hutchins, and staged our own play! All the students enjoyed playing the role of Rosie (a chicken) and the fox (watch out!) The song “High and Low” taught us about high and low sounds in music. Students raised their arms to show if the sounds were high or low, and then practiced using our awesome step bells. We learned about the different volume levels of our voices in the story, “Decibella and her 6-Inch Voice”. The students will be practicing a steady beat throughout October, and playing our instruments. We will also be doing some dancing!
1st Grade: The first graders are excited about instruments! We have been learning about mystery instruments, like the violin, trumpet, timpani and clarinet. We also practiced some musical opposites, like high and low, and loud and quiet. We learned a new partner song called “Circle Round the Zero”. In the song, “Hickory Dickory Dock”, we practiced listening for up and down. Then, the students identified sounds going up and down on our small glockenspiel. Our classes played in a “band” of high and low sounds, watching the conductor. We practiced rhythms using the Muffin Man song and challenged ourselves to think the rhythm in our heads, instead of saying it out loud. We used our scarves in the “Syncopated Clock” and woke each other up with an alarm! In October, we will be continuing our steady beat practice and learning about music notation, along with some spooky favorites.
Mark your calendars for the 1st Grade Musical! Wednesday, November 16th More details to come!
News from the Media Center
The students began learning about coding. We have been using our Kodable app to learn programming. This app lets students learn about coding before they can read using fun characters and symbols. We are also using our Ozobots to discover and learn coding. Ozobots are small robots that use color codes for speed, direction and other various moves. Students used markers to create codes for the robots to follow.
We also have been discussing the difference between fiction and non-fiction. Students listened to the story “There was an Old Lady who Swallowed some Leaves” and then created an illustration on their ipads from the story.
Art News by Mrs. Deckinga
The kindergarten classes will be reading the book H is for Haunted House this month and will be creating a haunted house paper bag sculpture. This project is a great way to practice our cutting skills and gives me a chance to correct any finger placement problems with scissors.
The first grade classes are working on a multi-media fall landscape inspired by the Vincent van Gogh painting Avenue of Poplars in Autumn. We'll be learning how to use perspective to show distance as we use tempera paint, chalk pastels, and oil pastels to create our colorful landscapes.
Making Math Count by Mrs. Romeo
Another busy month at Walsh School! Students are working hard at identifying, writing, adding, and subtracting numbers. Below are websites and activities to try with your children.
This month’s focus:
Kindergarten will be able to count and write numbers 0-10.
App: Numbers with Nemo, by Disney
Activity: Have students write numerals they want to practice on plain paper. Ask them to trace over each numeral with several colors to create a rainbow effect. They may also want to glue objects to represent that number below.
First-grade students will be able to add and subtract within 20 to solve word problems.
App: Math Slide by Math Adventures, Limited
Activity:
1. Roll and add with 3 dice
2. Each person flips 2 cards and adds. The person with the highest total keeps the cards. The winner is the person with the most cards.
Walsh SEL (Social Emotional Learning)
In that spirit, we will continue with self-awareness as our SEL focus of the month.