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Catholic Schools Week Just a reminder that Catholic Schools Week starts this Sunday!  We invite you all to attend 9:30 Mass with us at SFX on Sunday. Anyone that wears their school uniform to Mass will be presented with a Dress Down Pass when you join us back in our classrooms.  In our classrooms, you and your child will participate in a Scavenger Hunt, allowing them to show off everything they have been doing in the

Math Facts As you continue to work on memorizing your multiplication facts for speed and accuracy, throw a challenge to your child.  See if your child can turn their multiplication facts around into division facts.  We have been learning about fact families in class.   Winter Weather This week students were able to play in the snow during recess.  Remember to pack snow pants, boots, a coat and gloves for fun in

We hope that everyone had a joy filled and relaxing break!  Just a reminder, Quarter 2 ends on January 24th. Can you believe we are almost half way through the year already?   Multiplication Facts Congratulations to all the kids that practiced math facts over the break and earned a homework pass!  That extra practice is noticeable as we begin division and multiplying multi-digit numbers. Please find a way to wor

Thank you to the many parents who have registered their K-3 students for the upcoming season of Intramural Basketball in the St. Joseph Gym. Online registration is now closed. However, parents still interested in late sign ups are invited to email Mike LaRaviere at mlaraviere@gmail.com. While only one spot remains in our K-1 Girls session, we seek additional registrations for our 2nd-3rd Grade Girls program. Boys ses

Follow The Star We wrapped our 2019 up with a beautiful prayer service, Follow the Star.  What a wonderful tradition that reminds us all about the true meaning of this season.   Christmas Math Challenge Over the Christmas break, students may participate in an OPTIONAL Christmas Math Challenge.  We are challenging all third graders to practice their basic math facts for 15 minutes on 12 of the 16 days of break. 

Christmas Shop The students had a great time shopping for family and friends this week at the SFX Christmas Shop.  We hope you all love the treasures they found, wrapped and placed under the tree! Cookies & Cocoa On Friday our third graders participated in Cookies & Cocoa.  We all gathered with friends and rotated through the three third grade classrooms.  With Mrs. Zavattero students made Reindeer Food. Whil

Advent Prayers Every Monday during the month of December the entire school community gathers in the gym for an Advent Prayer Service at 8:15, right after the first bell.  We enter the gym peacefully and prayerfully.  The entire school sits in a circle around the advent wreath, where we are lead through the service by middle school students.  This is an amazing opportunity to start off the day and week in the right fr

Conferences We are looking forward to meeting with everyone next week during Parent/Teacher Conferences.  We enjoy getting to sit and chat about your child. We can’t wait to tell you all about what we see in the classroom/school setting and share the growth we see in your child.  If you haven’t done so already, please return the Pre-Conference forms. This paper will help us use the time wisely and keep our conversati

Fun Run Days for Cummings 3rd Grade Class Our class earned “Sweatshirt Day” by getting $75 worth of pledges for our school’s Boosterthon Fun Run.  Our class is allowed to wear a sweatshirt, with normal uniform bottoms, on Thursday, November 21st. We also earned a “Dress Down Day” ($100 worth of pledges per a lap), which we will celebrate on Monday, December 2nd.

Boosterthon Fun Run Thank you for all the help at home by having your child log into Funrun.com and gather pledges.  All of your help and donations will make a difference here at SFX! We had a BLAST at the Glow Run!  The kids were smiling, dancing, and cheering for a solid hour!     Recess What a fun and snowy recess on Monday! Social Studies We are starting a new unit in social studies, government. We will discover

SFX Glow Run Families, The SFX Glow Run is tomorrow! Thank you to all of our families who have been working hard to raise funds for our school. We truly appreciate your support! There is only one day left in the program. That makes tonight THE LAST NIGHT FOR PLEDGING before the SFX Glow Run. We are currently at 31 states, and we are trying to get pledges from ALL 50 STATES!! Would you consider reaching out to one or

Maple Park The game of Food Chain Tag was a huge success!  Thank you to all the parents that walked along with us, guarded the jail, stood as game borders, chased kids as natural death, and provided us with extra eyes!  We apologize for all the muddy pants, but the kids had so much fun! Just look at all these smiles… Boosterthon Thank you for all the families that have already signed up for the Glow Run!  The run hap

SFX Glow Run Families, Thank you again for supporting our school through the SFX  Glow Run! We are officially heading into the weekend, which means we are getting closer to our SFX Glow Run!! As we work towards earning pledges to help our school we can earn some awesome class rewards! If you’re looking for the easiest way to ask for a pledge, just upload a photo of your student to funrun.com to create a personalized

SFX Glow Run Families, Our class is having a BLAST preparing for the SFX Glow Run coming up soon! We’ve also begun learning how to choose to live with character every day through Booster’s brand new character theme, MindSpark: Wild West. While they’re teaming up with the MindSpark Kids to compete in character duels, your students will learn five 21st-century character traits that will help strengthen them

Halloween  Third graders had an amazing Halloween at SFX!  Our classrooms were filled with sports figures, inflatables, video gamers, and even a slice of pizza!  Students enjoyed Halloween fun all day long with a special Would You Rather writing assignment, Halloween themed math games, Jack-O-Lantern word work, and a viewing of It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.  Hopefully all the fun at school made up for the mis

All Saints Day Invitation We would like to invite all families to join us in church for 10:00 Mass on Friday, November 1st where our “Saints Will Come Marching In” to lead mass.  Immediately following Mass, parents are invited to join us in the SFX atrium for a Saint Wax Museum. You will have the opportunity to stroll through statues of the Saints from Mass.  If you lightly tap any statue, it will come to life and te

Don’t forget that today is the Elmwood Beach field trip!  Students will be eating a normal lunch at school.  We will be departing shortly after lunch and returning to SFX around 2:15.  Your child will be outside for about two hours, so please dress for the weather.  Students are expected to wear their uniforms, but we suggest layers and good walking shoes. Thank you for all that you do! 🙂

Our School Library is growing a Storybook Pumpkin Patch, and we need your help! Families with students in grades 1-4 are invited to decorate a pumpkin to look like a favorite storybook character, and bring it to the library to “plant” in our Storybook Pumpkin Patch. Download a flyer with directions here. Students who choose to submit a pumpkin must fill out the entry form at the bottom of the flyer and br

Saint Projects Thank you for completing all the Saint outlines at home, your time and energy is greatly appreciated!  Now the project is in the hands of your child. In class we will take the information and write a brief report.  We will send a copy of the report home by Tuesday, October 29th for your child to practice before the Wax Museum on Friday, November 1st.  The last thing we need from home is a costume. Plea

3rd Grade Blog, October 11th, 2019 Fire Safety On Monday the Wilmette Fire Department came out and had a Fire Safety assembly with our 3rd graders.  We discussed the importance of having a plan and a meeting spot in case of an emergency. The fire fighters suggested actually setting off the smoke detectors in your home so that your children know what they sound like and sent a reminder to check all batteries!  Mrs. Za

Build – A – Plant Project This past week your child should have brought home a packet explaining their very first 3rd grade project, Build – A – Plant.  This project will help students gain a deeper understanding of plant parts as well as the plant life cycle. In this project students will design their very own plant.  This plant can be simple as a candy bush or as complex as an interactive ju

Math As we wrap up place value, we are moving onto addition within 10,000.  In this second chapter we will review regrouping as well as learn new strategies for dissecting and solving word problems.  A strategy that will be new to third grades and is used throughout the Math In Focus curriculum is creating and using a bar model.  Remember to continue practicing addition and subtraction facts for speed and accuracy. F

3rd Grade Blog, 9-19-19 Thank you for coming out last night for the Back to School Night!  It was so great to see everyone and get a chance to talk. We are all very excited about our classes this year and can’t wait to see this amazing school year play out!  If your questions weren’t answered, please feel free to reach out to us. Religion Recently we have discussed the importance of guardian angels as well as learned

3rd Grade Blog, 9-13-19 Back to School Night We look forward to meeting everyone next Thursday, September 19th in our classrooms.  We will have a brief presentation in which we will introduce ourselves and tell a little about our classroom and daily routines.  Hope to see you then! Band All of our students have had a chance to try out a band instrument or two!  As a whole, they are showing great excitement about the

We are off to a great year in the library. Classes have been visiting our wonderful library space and we are learning/revisiting library routines and beginning to checkout to students in 1st-8th grade. Kindergarten students will begin checking out later this fall. I am excited to share that our first author visit of the year will occur this month. In partnership with the Book Stall in Winnetka, award-winning author M