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Food Drive Thank you to all who supported our Thanksgiving Food Drive. While we didn’t win the school wide prize, we did an awesome job in supporting a wonderful cause!  Pajama Day Thank you to everyone that participated in Pajama Day. We loved being comfy and cozy in the classroom!  Social Studies In social studies we are continuing to learn about economics. This week we used The Giving Tree, Little Nino’s

On Thursday, our 3rd and 4th grade students participated in an author webinar with children’s book authors Kate Messner and Traci Sorell. Ms. Sorell is one of the authors of the book Indian No More, which is our Global Read Aloud book for 4th grade. The webinar was titled “Rethinking Thanksgiving,” and offered a thought-provoking author visit based on their books about the real histor

Rethinking Thanksgiving On Thursday Mrs. Sawyer set us up with a very informative author visit! We were able to hear from Kate Messner (author of History Smashers) and Traci Sorell (a Cherokee and author of We Are Grateful). These two authors brought to light several myths we all thought true about Thanksgiving. Did you know pilgrims didn’t always wear black? We also learned about all of the myths painted in The Firs

All Souls Day Prayer Service On Monday we learned a little bit about All Souls Day, which ties into what we’ve learned about Dia de los Muertos. We also had a prayer service for some of our important family members, friends, and pets that have passed away. It was a very powerful, enjoyable service.  Reading This week we started a unit all about Nonfiction books. So far, we have talked about how nonfiction readers rev

Happy Halloween We had so much fun celebrating Halloween in our costumes on Thursday. What an awesome crew! I hope that everyone has a wonderful and safe time trick-or-treating on Saturday!  Door Decorating Contest Our class put together an entry for the school-wide Door Decorating Contest. It involved elements of Dia de los Muertos (which we learned about from Senora Rocha) and creepy Halloween masks. It was re

Starting this month, during my weekly designated library time with our 1st-4th grade students, I have launched the 2020 Global Read Aloud initiative. Information about Global Read Aloud can be found at https://theglobalreadaloud.com. The program allows schools throughout the world to connect through designated children’s books that raise awareness. I am happy to share we are connecting with schools in

Dia de los Muertos Zoom On Friday we had the opportunity to Zoom with an SFX former teacher–Senora Rocha, the Spanish teacher! She talked to us about Dia de los Muertos, a Mexican tradition that is coming up soon. It was a lot of fun to see her! Fun Run Our class will participate in the Boosterthon Fun Run on Tuesday 10/27. Students are allowed to dress down and wear SFX spirit clothing! So far we have raised $

Boosterthon FunRun The Boosterthon began this week! This fundraiser helps us earn money for our school, and it has also been teaching us some character traits. This past week we learned and talked about teamwork, care, and courage. Thank you to all the families that have logged onto funrun.com and have gotten pledges for our class. Currently we have raised $19.67 per a lap–which is wonderful! Our class goal is

The Bluestem Award is an Illinois Readers Choice award for students in grades 3-5. The nominee list is created by librarians and educators from across the state and I have been fortunate to serve on this committee for the last three years. Any SFX 3rd-5th grade student who reads all of the 20 Bluestem nominees by May 1st and turns in this Bluestem Reading Challenge form to me on or before May 1st will get to attend a

Build-A-Plant It was so much fun to see all of the creative, colorful plants that your children brought into school! I am incredibly impressed. We were true botanists on Tuesday and did a gallery walk, sketching and recording our observations of these fascinating new plant discoveries.  Math This week in math we began chapter 2, which is all about mental addition. We started with strategies on how to mentally add one

Science In continuing our unit on living things, we studied and talked about what a seed is and even dissected a lima bean! The students were incredibly careful and observant, and it was a fun way to see and learn about the different parts of a seed.  Math This week we had our first math test! Leading up to it, we talked about ways to study and practice for it (which many of us got really good at!) and we played

The last two weeks I have been speaking with all 3rd-5th grade students  encouraging them to take the Bluestem Challenge. The Bluestem Award is an Illinois Readers Choice award for students in grades 3-5. The nominee list is created by librarians and educators from across the state and I have been fortunate to serve on this committee for the last three years. Any SFX 3rd-5th grade student who reads all of the 20 Blue

Back To School Zoom Thank you to all the families that joined me Wednesday night for our Back to School Zooms.  It was nice to connect with all of you and show you a little bit about what our days at SFX look like.  If you missed the zoom, or if you have any follow up questions, please feel free to reach out to me by e-mail. I am looking forward to conferences, in about a month, to really talk about your ch

This week was a success!  We have moved on from learning rules, procedures, and routines to hitting the books. Math Over the past two weeks we have been working on place value of numbers up to 10,000.  We have reviewed the different forms that numbers can be written in, we have compared and ordered numbers, as well as rounded to the nearest 10 and 100.  Science This week we kicked off our first science

Wow, it has been a GREAT first two weeks at SFX in our classroom! The first week we spent a lot of time getting to know all our new classmates and the routines of our room. We played games, shared our “All About Me Bags” and created puzzle pieces that include some of our favorite things and fun facts. Check out the photo—they came out great!  We also spent a lot of time learning and practicing the new safet

You have been subscribed to receive classroom news through our SFX blog system. Please note what this looks like, by grade, below: 1 – Kindergarten will use See Saw to share classroom news and updates this year across both the SJ and SFX campuses. Watch for an update here soon! 2 – Grades 1-4 will continue to share weekly updates and overviews through the SFX blog system. You are automatically subscribed