Benson Bulletin February 2015 February 2015 Sunday 1 Monday 2 Tues day 3 Wednesday 4 C hess Club 3:25-4:25 Thursday 5 Young Rem bran dts 3:25-4:25 Young Rembrandts 3:25-4:25 Friday Saturday 6 Kindergarten Conferences 1:00-8:00 PM @ Benso n 7 Benson & Franzen Hot Lunch IPTO Father/Daughter Dinner Dance 8 9 10 C hess Club 3:25-4:25 11 Young Rem bran dts 3:25-4:25 12 1st Gr.- Dad & Me Read 2nd Gr. Girls - Jr. G reat Books 13 Icee Day 14 Benson & Franzen Hot Lunch Market Day Pick-up 5:30-6:30 PM @ Itasca Park District Brd of Ed. Mtg. 7pm Young Rembran dts 3:25-4:25 15 16 17 District Closed No School President's D ay 18 2nd Gr. Girls - Jr. G reat Books Young Rem bran dts 3:25-4:25 19 20 2nd Gr. Boys-Jr. G reat Books 21 Benson & Franzen Hot Lunch C. Counts Caring Assembly Wear Red To day 2:4 5pm Yo ung R embran dts 3:25-4:25 22 23 24 C hess Club 3:25-4:25 25 2nd Gr. Bo ys-Jr. G reat Books 26 Young Rembrandts 3:25-4:25 27 Icee Day No School Institute 28 Teacher Young Rem bran dts 3:25-4:25 A b s e n c e P o lic y : P a r e n ts m u s t c o n ta c t th e s c h o o l to r e p o rt th e ir c h ild ’ s a b s e n c e b y c a llin g 7 7 3 -0 5 5 4 fo r B e n s o n o r 7 7 3 -0 1 0 0 fo r F r a n z e n d u rin g re g u la r s c h o o l h o u rs.C o n ta c t th e D is tric t A d m in istra tiv e c e n te r a t 7 7 3 -1 2 3 2 , p re s s 3 fo llo w e d b y F r a n z e n p r e s s # 3 o r B e n s o n p r e s s # 2 b e tw e e n 4 :3 0 p m a n d 8 :0 0 a m . P le a s e s t a t e y o u r c h ild ’ s n a m e , t e a c h e r ’s n a m e a n d e x p la in t h e ty p e o f illn e s s o r s p e c ific r e a s o n f o r a b s e n c e . S e x o f f e n d e r in f o r m a t io n c a n b e o b t a in e d @ w w w .ita s c a .c o m c lic k o n p o lic e d e p a r t m e n t lin k . Traffic Memo to Parents Safety rules apply when dropping off and/or picking up students Please remember… 1. the front of the school is a drop-off zone in the morning. Parents should remain in the car with the car running and be prepared to leave once their child has exited the vehicle. Parents who wish to stay with their student during a.m. lineup may park their vehicle. 2. the front of the school is a pick-up zone in the afternoon. Parents are asked to immediately move their vehicle once their child has been picked up. Parents are also asked to pull all the way down to the west end of the building when pulling into the pick-up and drop-off zone. 3. double and triple parking is not permitted and students will not be dismissed to cars that are double or triple parked. 4. to cross Washington Street at the marked crosswalks. 5. traffic supervisors assist with the safe arrival and dismissal of students. Traffic supervisors may ask cars to move down to assist with the flow of traffic in the drop-off and pick-up zone in front of Benson. These rules are in place for the safety of our students Thank you for your help with this matter and for helping us to keep school safe for all of our students! Early Childhood News What can you do with a huge bag of white packing peanuts, a few sleds and a bunch of excited kiddos? GO SLEDDING!! That is just what we did in the early childhood classroom. During the month of January, we learned all about winter, and the fun things you can do in the snow. During circle time, we have been working really hard on saying The Pledge of Allegiance, as well as The Days of the Week and The Months of the Year. We continue to work on expanding rote counting skills as well as patterning. As a great to integrate math and science we made snow to put into the sensory table. During art activities we made name snowmen and tissue paper mittens. We are almost completed with writing uppercase alphabet letters. We will continue to practice uppercase letters and introduce lowercase letters. We have been working on numbers 1-8. During the month of February we will be learning about the Solar System and Valentine’s Day. If your child does not have an extra change of clothing/gym shoes in their locker, please send them as soon as possible. Please keep in mind that the Early Childhood Classroom is peanut/nut free. The Early Childhood Team Let it SNOW! This month in K-Prep our theme is Winter and our favorite thing about winter is SNOW. So in centers instead of playing with real snow we played with fake snow (shaving cream). We read amazing books all about snow. Some of our favorites were: Snow Family, Snowball, Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear?, The Mitten and The Hat. We have been focusing on the beginning of the story, the middle and the end. Some of us are getting great at retelling the story. We have covered letter M,N,O,P and Q. We are matching pictures to letter sounds and we are printing the correct letter formation. In morning work, we are reviewing the letters to get extra practice with letter formation. We have a number snowman that we toss bean bags on the say the number, count to that number and print on the white board that number. We are also working on counting backwards and finding the missing number. We continue to work on patterns and rhyming during calendar time. Our most favorite thing is watching Super Simply Songs on You Tube, our absolute most favorite song Little Snowflake, and they ask every day to watch it. It is so cute it will melt your heart! Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbbKjDjMDok Thank you for decorating the hearts, they turns out GREAT! K-prep will pass out Valentine’s on February 13th. Please have students just sign their names, please do not address them to anyone. It’s just easier to pass out this way. Thank you to our Mystery Readers and Fruit Fresh volunteers. KINDERGARTEN NEWS Happy winter! Each day we have been adding winter words to our word wall! When the word is introduced the students try to figure out the word by putting the beginning sounds together while thinking of things associated with winter! Our language activities now include the following “popcorn” words-GO, WE, TO, ON, I, A, THE, LIKE, AM, and MY. We are learning about cause and effect, making predictions and connections when reading stories. When we are reading our pre-decodable books we are becoming more confident by reading fluently and with expression. Sentence writing has become part of our language work too. We are focusing on starting with a capital letter, leaving spaces between words, and using punctuation at the end of the sentence. In Math we have been working with numbers 20-100. We are using a 100 chart to see the patterns in numbers and to find “big” numbers. Using a 10 frame we are counting groups of 10 to 100, and we have been practicing proper number writing. NEWS FROM FIRST GRADE We have been so busy in first grade. We are well into our third reader from our basal series entitled Here and There. We continue to build our vocabulary, decoding skills and comprehension on a daily basis. The children are really progressing in their reading skills. Please stress at-home reading on a nightly basis. This includes a parent read-aloud and or independent student reading. This practice helps to reinforce the skills taught in school and improves fluency. In addition to the shared reading experience that our basal provides, the children are also reading books which are leveled and appropriate to their reading level. While the teacher is meeting with a small group of students, the rest of the class is actively engaged at Literacy Centers. These centers may include: using the classroom computer to reinforce different skills, listening to a book on tape, working on an art project, “Working With Words”, independent reading or writing activities. In math, we are learning to add and subtract with tens and ones and will soon begin topic 11 which is subtracting with tens and ones. Don’t forget to use addition and subtraction flashcards. All of the first graders are doing eight-minute weekly timings. These weekly timings assess accuracy and speed mixed facts. We just concluded a science unit investigating the properties of solids, liquids and gases. The students conducted experiments with these states of matter. In Social Studies we will be learning all about two famous men born in the month of February (Abe Lincoln and George Washington). We will be reading about them, writing about them and doing some fun art projects. At the conclusion of our study of these men, we will begin a unit on Dental Health. We are really stressing using proper language mechanics in our daily crosscurricular writing. The children should be using our Word Wall and spelling dictionaries to attempt proper spelling of high frequency words. We embrace the 6 + 1 Traits of writing. So far our first graders have learned about generating ideas for their writing, conventions (punctuation) and are beginning to discuss sentence fluency. Once again, we would like to thank our first grade parents for their involvement in the education of their child. It is a partnership. News Grade from Second It’s hard to believe that we have completed half the school year! During the month of February, Second Grade students will be reading a variety of stories including “Dear Mr. Blueberry”, “Cool Ali”, and “The Emperor’s Egg”. Some of the skills the students will be learning about are cause and effect, oi/oy words, adjectives, oo/ue words, and antonyms. With the completion of these stories, we will once again be giving Reading assessments at the end of February. Second Grade students are continuing to sharpen their math skills by adding and subtracting three digit numbers. They are also working on improving their quick recall of both addition and subtraction facts. Our Health unit during the first part of February is learning about our hearts. We’ll finish up the month with a unit about germs. We are always busy learning about the 6 + 1 Writing Traits (ideas, conventions, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, organization, and presentation). Your child will be writing a variety of papers with emphasis on learning more about these traits. Happy Valentine’s Day! Notes from the The month of January has seen the music room full of singing, instrument playing, rhythm clapping, and improvising. Here are some highlights of student experiences: Music Room • 1st Graders have been preparing for their recent “Snowflakes” informance and learning important tools to use when performing in front of an audience. Students have also been mastering how to recognize, count, and perform quarter notes, eighth notes, and quarter rests. These durations of sound and silence have allowed them to compose songs as a class, play rhythm games, and perform rhythms on classroom instruments. Students have also been learning about two pitches within the major scale, Sol and Mi, which they have used to sing songs and create melodic patterns. • 2nd Graders are studying different styles of music and the rhythms that create different sounds. Recently, students learned how to improvise on instruments and create their own rhythms along with music. They have been studying musical phrases, form, and lyrics through body movement. Students have discovered that taking risks in music and creating different rhythms and sounds can produce an exciting new creation! While singing our warm up songs, students have learned the word “octave” and how musical notes are a pattern that repeat over and over again. Encourage your child to sing for you at home! Ask them to demonstrate their favorite song from music, or to make up a song about a specific topic. Happy music making! First grade artists are learning about Pop artist, Jim Dine and creating their own Pop art hearts. We started by creating a heart shape on our papers. Next, we used warm colors and cool colors to add color to our artwork, carefully blending with oil pastels. The final step was tracing the heart with black oil pastel and blending along the edge to give the hearts a three-dimensional look. Second graders are learning about artist, Marz Jr. and viewed images of his illustrations. Students discussed what a cityscape is and created their own skyline that included at least one famous building. We reviewed warm and cool colors as well as watercolor blending techniques. Our final steps for this project are to transfer our drawings onto scratch foam and create prints. Students will be applying the block printing technique using brayers, barens and ink to create their cityscapes. Student artwork will be displayed throughout the school as well as the community, including locations such as the District Office, Village Hall and Starbucks! If your child has work on display a postcard will be sent home so, please stop by these locations to see all of our wonderful artwork! The artwork shown is selected randomly and is changed every few weeks or so. I am very proud to be able showcase the students’ artwork within the community! Please check Artsonia frequently to see new artwork, leave comments or join a fan club for your artist! Students love to see comments and have fan club members! Parents, if you ever have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to call or email; I appreciate all parents’ input! Lauren Marino Art Teacher Benson/Franzen 630-773-4018 [email protected] BENSON @ BEDTIME Families can call 773-1232, press “5” and then one of the extensions listed below ANYTIME of the day or night to hear a short story read aloud by a Benson Primary student. Volunteer students record at school, and the stories are available for several days before a new reader makes his or her debut. The stories and readers change frequently, so make Benson@Bedtime a part of your bedtime routine! Call 630-773-1232 … press “5” …then … “1579” “1502” 1/30 2/3 2/6 2/10 2/13 2/17 2/20 2/24 3/3 Mina Carey Nolan Hatfield Martina Passarelli Brody Kelly Lilly Kent Dior Hearn Nikoleta Pisanko Rachelle Orrico Daniella Rottinger OR 1/30 2/3 2/6 2/10 2/13 2/17 2/20 2/24 3/3 Do you want to be a Benson@Bedtime reader? Just contact Mrs. Reuter by note, phone 630-773-0554, or e-mail ([email protected]) to be put on the schedule! Matthew Poe Gina DeSantis Ava Garcia Giulena Carello Kadince Zuniga Joyce Chen Basia Papuga Sahasra Boyina Maggie Frank SECOND GRADE FAMILIES ONLY PLEASE JOIN US FOR BENSON PRIMARY’S MOM & ME READ Come to school and enjoy a book together! WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18 8:00 A.M. – 8:45 A.M. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Do not bring food or beverage with you into the school PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PARK IN THE EAST BUS LOT NOT IN THE ST LUKE’S LOT What if you have a second grader … and a child in another grade at Benson, too? If you want quality one-on-one time with your second grader, leave the other youngsters at home. If you want to make this a family reading event, bring the whole gang. Students will be supervised in the library from 8:45 – 8:55 a.m. If a mother is unable to attend this event, an adult family member or friend may attend in his place. Please contact Mrs. Reuter with any questions: [email protected] or 630-773-0554. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please return the RSVP below by Wednesday, March 4 Yes! We will be attending the second grade MOM & ME READ on Wednesday, March 18 from 8:00 – 8:45 a.m. Child(ren) name(s): ____________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ Adult name: _____________________________________________ Look for collection cans (decorated by Benson second graders) in Itasca businesses this week. The Itasca Bank has donated a coin counting machine to help us with all of the pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters. We can count the dollars on our own! Please give thoughtful consideration to participating in this annual fundraiser. THE RONALD McDONALD HOUSE THE RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE provides housing close to hospitals for families of ill children, where they are able to comfortably stay during their child’s treatment and recovery. Benson Primary School has gathered pop tabs for THE RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE for over thirteen years! The Ronald McDonald House collects the tabs for the aluminum content - the tabs are more manageable to store than entire cans. The Ronald McDonald House receives 40+ cents per pound of tabs, which allows them to raise over $5000 per year. (Information provided by The Ronald McDonald House, Chicago, IL) We continue our support for several reasons. Giving our students the opportunity to help other children increases their understanding and ownership of making a difference in the lives of others. Every child in our school can easily participate in collecting pop tabs. Second graders count and report tab totals to the student body and community on a regular basis. The “tab”ulation math activities (measurement, estimation, addition, subtraction, problem solving) build on one another, developing from week to week. To date, Benson Primary has delivered over 2,817,581 pop tabs to the RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE!