Words from Walsh October, 2018
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. This is also a good time for you to review safety measures in your own home.
Starting October 22nd, 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. Our kindergarten and first grade students will also celebrate Halloween with a costume parade and class parties on October 31st. (Early childhood classes will celebrate on the 30th, as they are not in attendance on the 31st.) All treats/gifts must be non-edible. There will be no food served during the parties. There is an early dismissal at 11:55 a.m., with regular bus service home. Have a fun, safe and enjoyable October! ~ Mrs. Teresa Martin
REMEMBER: Only non-edible goodies can be sent in for treats!
Hopefully, you have set up your PowerSchool Parent Account. This will be the first step in being able to log-in and set up your parent/teacher conference (available soon). If you need help or have questions about setting up your account, please contact the school office.
Important Dates in October
Mark Your Calendars
8 – No School/Columbus Day
9 - Last G.R.E.A.T. Program in 1st grade
10 - Yankee Candle Fundraiser Ends
10 - Parent Math Curriculum Night at Reed 6:00-7:00 pm
12 - Spirit Day (Favorite Team)
15 - 1st Grade Field Trip
16 - Fire Prevention Assembly
16 - Board of Education Meeting 7:00 pm
19 - PFA - Mummy and Son Monster Mash at Reed
22 - Second Quarter Begins (OP only)
22-26 - Red Ribbon Week
30 - Monster Mash at Walsh 6:00-7:00 pm
30 - Early Childhood and Community Preschool Parties
31 - 11:55 Dismissal - School Improvement Day (No EC/Preschool Classes)
31 - K/1 Parade 9:30 am (class parties following at 10:00)
November 1- Picture Re-Takes
Drop off times: no earlier than 8:40 a.m.
Please be prompt for pick-up at 3:30 p.m.
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
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.
Soon, Mr. Wallace and Nurse Jeri will begin their lunchtime fun. They will be giving out chances to win prizes as a reward for eating fresh fruits and vegetables, so please pack healthy lunches for your student. They will also begin taste-testing foods occasionally, which is totally optional for your child. They will then do a simple survey so the children can see if their peers liked the foods that were tried. In the past, students have tried kiwi, orange peppers and fresh blueberries, just to name a few. Last year, there were great results, with a positive impact on students.
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 November, and parents will be notified only if their child did not pass or will be re-screened.
Dental exams are a requirement for our kindergarten students, and are due in June. However, the Will County Dental Bus will come to our school December 4th. There will be a licensed dentist that will perform exams free to all children regardless if you have insurance. Packets will be sent home one week prior.
RED RIBBON WEEK
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 22-26 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 the letters: d, s, e, r, p, j, l, h, and k. The sight words we will be learning are: look, have, do, you, go, my, one, by, me, and be. 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 with geometric shapes
∙ count by 1’s and 10’s to 100
∙ count 100 objects
∙ 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
We will be learning about fire prevention, and we will have a visit from the fire department, too. At the end of the month, we will have an awesome parade, and our first classroom party.
First Grade News
The fall season has begun, and the weather is finally starting to reflect that! It’s nice to have cooler weather. ☺ 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 levels of books, different genres, and what interests us as readers. We have been looking at the best places to read, and what makes us good readers. We will begin our new unit on nonfiction. We have been practicing our Daily 5 routines, that we use during our reading groups, and are ready to start them at the beginning of this month. Please remember to have your child read nightly to you using the book from their baggie book. 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 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 have our first classroom party for Halloween. Of course, we will participate in our fun and exciting Halloween parade. Additionally, we will be going on an exciting fall trip to Dollinger Farm. We expect to have so much fun! Thank you, as always, for your continued support with your child’s education!
Early Childhood and Community Preschool News
The month of October will bring many fun, engaging and learning opportunities for our littlest learners. We will work this month on a fall unit, farm unit and explore many seasonal activities including pumpkins, spiders and bats. After having a wonderful learning experience at the farm, the early childhood students will continue learning about life on the farm through our “Read It Once Again” literary selections, “The Big Red Barn” and the “The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything." We will be learning the sound and formation of letters F, G, and H, and will continue expanding math skills by counting to 20, and naming those number symbols. Pumpkins and leaves provide numerous contexts for counting, sorting, patterning, graphing, and measuring during Number Corner and Problems & Investigations this month. The students’ fine motor skills are improving as we work daily on tracing, printing, coloring, and cutting. Halloween will bring lots of fun as we learn new games and songs. Enjoy the beautiful fall season.
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. Rutkiewicz
Happy October!
FIRST GRADE. The first graders will begin to prepare for our first grade musical performance. This year our show will be held on Wednesday, November 14, 2018. Please mark your calendars and tell everyone in the family to save this date!
Performing in the 9:30 a.m. show are students in Ms. Wise, Ms. Budds and Ms. Manietta’s classes.
Performing in the 1:30 p.m. show are students in Ms. Dennis, Ms. Polson, & Ms. Carter’s classes.
During music class, first graders will begin a review of quarter note “ta” and eighth note “ti-ti” rhythm patterns. We will also explore upward and downward melodic movement.
I also am challenging all first grade students to be able to tie their shoes by Halloween. I have a great song called “I Can Tie My Own Shoes” which we will use to help us practice! Please help out at home by allowing your children to practice with you. Remember, the more you do something the better you are at it! Here is a great web site for tips and ideas https://www.fieggen.com; also check YouTube for videos and ideas!
KINDERGARTEN. Kindergarten music classes will explore more musical opposites this month. In addition to loud/soft sounds and steady beat/no steady beat we will learn about high/low sounds and how to use our voices in different ways. Ask your kindergartener to show you our “Sleeping Bunnies” song!
Keep on Singing!
Mrs. Rutkiewicz
News from the Media Center
We have been using Tumblebooks and Bookflix to explore different stories and read alouds. These are great sites to help students with reading fluency. During the school day students have been able to access the sites on their iPads. A link takes them right to the site, where they can select a story to read. While at home, the students will need to log into the sites for Bookflix and Tumblebooks. This can be done using the Walsh Library Media Site. The login for both websites is:
username: Willcounty
password: books
You can navigate to our Media Center Page by starting at our district page: https://www.d92.org and then selecting “Walsh”. Next, use the drop down menu to navigate to the Media Center where the students have been practicing using several links.
Art News by Mrs. Deckinga
In October, the kindergarten students will be reading the book, H is For Haunted House. We'll be strengthening our fine motor skills, as we practice using scissors and learn paper manipulation techniques to create our own paper bag haunted houses.
The first grade students will be using glue and pastel chalk to make fall leaves in relief. After drawing and then outlining leaf shapes and veins with glue, we'll be adding and blending a variety of colors of pastel chalk inside and around the leaf. We'll also review the book, Why do Leaves Change Color? that we read last year.
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. I have also included the information below on a K-3 Parent Math Curriculum Night. Come and learn how math standards are related across grade levels. This parent informational night will be given by an international math consultant who works closely with our math department. She will discuss with parents student engagement and correlations of Common Core standards across grade levels. The detailed information is below.
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.
K-3 Parent Math Curriculum Night
Wednesday, October 10, 2018, 6:00-7:00 pm,
in Reed School's Main Gym
Please join our math consultant, Janis Heigl,
for an informative night to find out more
about our new math curriculum!