Southbury Elementary | 820 Preston Lane | Oswego, IL 60543 | 630.551.9800 | 630.551.9819 fax October 2014 Dear Shark Family, Happy October! The 17 th of.

Southbury Elementary | 820 Preston Lane | Oswego, IL 60543 | 630.551.9800 | 630.551.9819 fax

October 2014

Dear Shark Family,

Happy October! The 17th of this month marks the end of the first quarter. The staff and students have had a wonderful start to the year! We’re so excited to see all the progress that the kids have made. Both staff and students are enjoying our collection of Tom Lichtenheld books! We will read a variety of his wonderful books all year, and celebrate at the end of the year with a personal visit from Tom Lichtenheld himself!

Here are some upcoming October events:– October 2nd: Home and School Meeting– October 13th: No School- Columbus Day– October 17th : End of 1st Quarter– October 17th: Sharkfest Positive Behavior Celebration– October 17th: Home and School Game Show Mania– October 31st: Halloween Parade and Celebration (reminder, NO

FOOD!)

Have a great October!!Have a great October!!

Lindsay Allen Amanda RiderPrincipal Assistant Principal

Notes from the NurseNotes from the Nurse

Notes from the OfficeNotes from the Office

Happy Fall Southbury Sharks!Happy Fall Southbury Sharks!

A few gentle reminders from the front office:

•If your student is going to be absent, please call the attendance line at: 630-551-9801 to report the absence or tardy before 8 AM. •Please do not email the teacher to report an absence as we do not always get them forwarded to us in a timely manner.•We encourage students to take responsibility for forgotten items but if you MUST drop something off for your student, please be sure it is clearly marked with their name and their teacher’s name. •Students are not called out of class to pick up items left in the office. Items are placed on the counter adjacent to the school hallway for students to pick up at an opportune time.•With the weather being a bit unpredictable, please remember to send your child with a sweatshirt, or light coat to school. Students do go outside for recess when the temperature is above 10 degrees F.

Finally, a couple of reminders regarding Halloween parties!

-This year the district policy states NO FOOD is to be brought in for the classroom parties. We ask that you adhere to that policy.-If you are one of the 4 room party volunteers for the Halloween party, please remember to bring in a picture ID when signing in.

GO SHARKS!GO SHARKS!

Dear Parents and Guardians, Kindergarten parents, please continue to send in physical, vision and dental forms. It is an Illinois requirement to have all 3. The deadline is Oct.15, 2014. If your child does not have an updated physical and immunization record turned in by then, he/she will be excluded from school. A dental exam is also required for 2nd grade. Please send in the exam form as soon as possible. Athena Dental Van will be visiting Southbury in November. The consent forms will be going home towards the end of October. This exam will complete the requirement if your child participates. If your child is ill with a fever of 100 degrees or greater, vomiting or diarrhea, they need to stay home for 24 hours after the illness has resolved. Please do not send your child in to school if it has not been 24 hours. This is to help prevent the spread of the illness. Don’t forget to encourage your child to wash his or her hands for at least 30 seconds with soap and water to stop the spread of germs.If there are any questions, please contact me. Nurse JanelleSouthbury Elementary630-551-9802

Home and School Restaurant Night!Home and School Restaurant Night!

Congratulations Mrs. Simmons!

You are the first winner!

She had the most returned flyers at our first Home and School Restaurant night at Potbelly last Thursday!

Our Next Restaurant Night will be @

Parents are children’s first and most important teacher. You have a tremendous impact on reading and writing success. There are lots of ways you can help your child develop reading skills at any age by keeping in mind that reading takes practice every day; much more than a student can get during a school day. You can provide reading opportunities at home by implementing simple activities that will help to foster a love for both reading and writing. Below are a few suggestions that you can use. Keep it interesting and relevant.Provide reading material that is meaningful for your child. If scary stories, sports books, science fiction, animals, or fairytales are favorite interests, then make sure your child has access to those themes. Pick books that are at the right level.Help your child pick books that are not too difficult. The aim is to give your child lots of successful reading experiences. Dig deeper into the story.Ask your child questions about the story you’ve just read. Say something like, “Why do you think____ did that?” Tell family tales.Children love to hear stories about their family. Talk about a funny thing that happened when you were young and write about it together. Draw or use photographs for illustrations. It will be a story they’ll want to read over and over again. Find ways to read and write with your child every day. It’s sure to inspire your child to become a life-long reader and writer. Happy reading!

Southbury’s Reading DepartmentAllison Anderson, Stephanie Townsend, Cheri Davis

READING

We’re more than halfway through 1stquarter! In Reading, we’re tackling Idioms, Characteristics of Stories, Elements of Drama, Parts of a Poem, and Point of View.In Math, as we finish up Chapter 2 on Addition, we move to Chapter 3 on Subtraction. We will be subtracting mentally, estimating differences, subtracting with regrouping, subtracting three and four-digit numbers, and then finish up subtracting across zeros.We successfully finished up our Social Studies unit on Maps & Globes, and we have started our new Science kit on the Human Body. We’ve learned parts of the skeleton, dissected owl pellets, and learned the function of joints and muscles.Finally in Writing, we will learn how to use an editing checklist, practice spelling consciousness, use portable word walls, and work more on letter writing. Our goal is to use these skills every day in our writing. As we move into 2nd quarter, students will review the structure of paragraph writing as they are required to write a narrative, expository, and opinion paper this year..

irst grade

hird grade

Wow! The kids are really getting the hang of the routines and the structure of the school day. We continue introducing letters, sounds and word wall words. The kids are exploring sounds and words during phonemic awareness. We are chopping out words (ex: sit= s-i-t), producing rhyming words and identifying the number of syllables in a word. We are practicing counting forwards and backwards daily. It is important your child can identify numbers 0-10 in random order and write each number. Look for numbers, patterns and shapes in your house. Thanks for all your support at home!

indergarten

We have learned so much in our first 30 days of school! In reading, we are making predictions and discussing story elements. Our classes continuing to write telling, asking and exclamatory sentences while using upper case letters and punctuation. In math, we start every lesson with “How do you add numbers?” The goal is for students to learn to use manipulatives in different ways to show addition and to explain their thinking. Our Science unit on balance and motion has taught us how to balance items using counterweights along with many other topics. We are so proud of all the progress our students are making!

econd grade Hello, parents! Our second-grade Sharks have learned so much within one short month! In reading, we have been focusing on learning the characteristics of realistic fiction. We learned that realistic fiction stories are made up, but include events and characters that could be real. We have also been learning about various reading strategies that we can use when reading realistic fiction, such as predicting and summarizing. Next month, we'll change our focus to nonfiction (informational) text. In writing, we have been filling our writers' notebooks with amazing ideas and practicing our elaboration skills by writing super sentences. Also, we have all become authors of our very own little books! Very soon, we will be learning how to write expository text. In math, we just finished our first unit, which focused on adding and subtracting strategies. In unit two, we will learn how equal groups can help us add. Our plant unit in science has been very interesting, and it will be coming to a close soon. Keep a look out for a review sheet to be coming home within the next week! After we take our test, we will flip back to social studies until third quarter. We hope you read the next edition of the Southbury newsletter so that you can find out about all the amazing things we've been learning! Go Sharks!

The 5th graders are enjoying first quarter! In Writing, they have been learning all about figurative language and how it is a great way to add character to their writing. In Reading, they have been using a variety of fiction and informational texts to learn about inferring, questioning, and how different texts are organized (i.e., sequence of events, cause and effect, main idea and details, and problem/solution). Prime and composite numbers, prime factorization, exponents, and multiplication have been the major topics in math. Students are working diligently to master these skills. As for science, the 5th graders have been experiencing an awesome Ecosystems unit. This unit provides a great hands-on approach to observing how plant and animal life depend on each other within their ecosystems. In Social Studies, they have been learning about the westward expansion of the United States. Their next unit will cover the Underground Railroad, slavery, and the Civil War. Needless to say, the 5th graders have been exploring many wonderful learning opportunities!

ourth grade You might say Southbury’s fourth graders will do some time traveling this month. As part of a social studies unit on Native America Indians, the children will take a field trip to Hoover Forest Preserve, where they will visit a recreated Pottawatomi village and learn about life in the Fox Valley region during the 17th century.

Also in October, fourth grade students will host a Science Fair at Southbury, during which they will explain the results of experiments they conducted to test hypotheses on a variety of topics. The Science Fair on Oct. 16 is the capstone of a unit on the scientific method called the Processes of Investigation.

In reading, the children are analyzing how characters can change through a grade-wide novel study of The Fabled Fourth Graders of Aesop Elementary School. The students are also learning about fables in this retelling of Aesop’s ancient tales. In writing workshop, the fourth graders have been revising and editing personal narratives, and later in the month they will put their creative skills to work writing imagined narrative pieces. Finally, in math the children will take an end-of-unit assessment on patterns, estimating, and addition and subtraction. They will then begin work on multiplication and division.

ifth grade

AT Math!

Math is everywhere! And place value holds the key to unlocking our number system. AT math students have been hard at work applying the grade level math standards to unlock their potential. Third graders have been grocery shopping for their weekly meals, written book pages, and created posters of everyday arrays to show off their multiplication understanding. Fourth graders took a taxi trip and had fun finding patterns in the world around them, even in their favorite video games. Thinking hard to find the pattern strategy to an old math game made winning a breeze, and acting out a story helped students discover the underlying growing pattern at a party! Fifth graders bought tickets at the zoo and played games like “Hunt for Decimals” and “Alligator Eater” to learn more about decimals, and they used their number sense to explore number relationships as they figured out mystery ostrich amounts. The best part of math has been the huge growth in vocabulary usage and understanding. I find it so exciting to hear the students talk like the mathematicians they are! Unit one was quite fun!

AT Reading!

Readers are leaders! Whether students are questioning, inferring, analyzing text structure, or predicting, they have discovered some great authors who have big ideas to share. Tolstoy, Grimm, and O.Henry are all great authors who have engaged our readers. These authors have encouraged students to shift their perspectives and open their minds to new ways of problem solving. The 16 Habits of Mind have also provided a foundation for discussions about problem solving. The Habits of Mind will remain a part of our discussions during the year as we go deeper into texts and ensure text evidence exists for our readers’ ideas. The best leaders have an informed perspective and know how to solve problems, and reading is the best path to take you there.

Tidbits from A.T.

STARS

Happy October! The STARS programs are enjoying this fall weather and learning all about the season. We are working on many fall themed activities in our classroom rotations. We are focusing on autumn vocabulary words, too! We are excited to attend our fall field trip to Kuiper's Farm at the end of the month.

SpeechSpeechHow to Improve Listening Skills

•Critical listening affects all areas of learning. Focusing on what is important to hear plays a large part in the success of learning at school. The majority of a student’s day is spent listening to the teacher or other students. Parents can model good listening skills for children, and help them to become active listeners. As we converse with others, we can model appropriate listening skills and show children exactly how to listen. We must show children that an active listener looks his/her speaker in the eye and turns off the TV or radio in order to not be distracted while listening. If we are to teach good listening skills, we must be models of good listening.

• When your child speaks to you, be interested and attentive. Maintain eye contact. Ignore the phone or other distractions. Ask your child for his/her opinions regularly. Show that you are genuinely interested in what your child thinks and how they feel.

• Encourage your child to talk directly to you so you may model the habits of good listening. Children are more likely to talk and share when they feel important.

•Share your thoughts to extend the conversation. Strengthen your children’s confidence by reassuring them that you hear their ideas.

• Listen patiently, as if you have plenty of time. With a limited vocabulary and experience in talking, children sometimes struggle through what they want to share with you. Don’t let your eyes wander. Stay focused on your child.

• Do not cut children off before they have finished speaking. Listen respectfully, as this is a skill you wish for them to acquire. Avoid dead-end questions. Ask questions that extend conversation rather than cut it off.

• Watch for your child’s nonverbal cues. Look at the expressions on his/her face, posture, energy level, or changes in behavior patterns. Find a quiet, uninterrupted time, and help your child express and explore his/her feelings.

• Parents play the most important role in building communication skills in their children. Children spend more time with a parent than any other adult. Children are influenced by how they see parents interacting with others. Parents who listen and converse with patience, interest, and attention prove to be the best teachers of listening and give their children the greatest audience in the world.

Debbie Convey Chelsea Smith

Speech/Language Pathologist Speech/Language Intern

Literacy UPDATE!Each month a Southbury literacy update will be shared with our Southbury community! Our mission is to ignite a passion for literacy in the lives of the students while utilizing literacy best practice, increasing student achievement, and creating lifelong learners. Each class has been building a safe literacy community so that students feel comfortable and secure to take reading and writing risks and share literacy experiences.Thank you to each family who purchased a One Author, One School t-shirt! We have raised over $1,000 to fund this program. Students and staff are already reading Tom Lichtenheld's many books! Ask your child what his/her favorite Tom Lichtenheld book is so far!

LOOKING FORWARD: November 20th is Illinois's Family Reading Night! We would love to celebrate with each Southbury family! Look for more information to come home on how your family can celebrate and share your experiences with our Southbury community!

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We are so excited to dribble our way into October. In the month of October, during P.E. class, we will be playing team fitness games and start our basketball unit. During our basketball unit we will be teaching all grades the basic skills and rules of the game. We will also be playing many fun basketball activities to help improve the students' knowledge and skills that are needed to play basketball. Can't wait to tip off October! Go Sharks!!

Physical Education…

ART

MUSICWe are so excited to dribble our way into October. In the month of October, during P.E. class, we will be playing team fitness games and start our basketball unit. During our basketball unit we will be teaching all grades the basic skills and rules of the game. We will also be playing many fun basketball activities to help improve the students' knowledge and skills that are needed to play basketball. Can't wait to tip off October!

Go Sharks!!

As we head into October, there are a ton of awesome activities taking place in the music room. Each grade level will begin learning a few songs that will be performed at our annual Veterans Day assembly here at Southbury! For our assembly this year, we are going to have short video that honors veterans from our community. If you would like a veteran you know to be recognized at our in-school celebration, please e-mail Mrs. Bender ([email protected]) his or her picture along with the following information: the veteran’s name, their military branch, and any other information you would like shared (dates of service, rank, etc.). On top of our Veterans Day assembly, our third grade students are learning music for our upcoming performance entitled, “Give Thanks,” which will take place on Thursday, November 20th at 6:00 PM in the Southbury gymnasium. More information will be sent home to 3rd grade parents in the second week of October. Throughout this month, our 2nd, and 4th, and 5th grade students will continue to discover new rhythms, while our kindergarten and 1st grade students explore their singing voices and work on keeping a steady beat. We’re looking forward to another great month of music here at Southbury!

Learning Resource Center

Southbury Elementary LMC News

Did you know that October is National Book Month! It’s True and here are 5 ways that you can celebrate!

1. Find one of your favorite books and re-read it. Find out if it’s as good as you remembered!

2. Tell a friend about a really good book you’ve read recently, and ask what they’ve been reading!

3. Watch a movie based on a book you’ve read. Count how many differences there are!

4. Read aloud to someone who’s never heard you read—a brother or sister, a teacher, a friend, your dog, your cat, or a grandparent.

5. Check out a book you wouldn’t normally read. (For example, if you usually read scary books, try a funny book, or a biography instead.)

Go to Mrs. Witcpalek’s website for more great ideas to celebrate National Book Month http://mysite.oswego308.org/schools/SB/staff.asp?EID=1892

We are excited to announce that our Kindergarten students have begun checking out books! Parents, please be sure your child returns his/her book each week so a new book can be checked out. We have thousands of wonderful books and would love for your child to have something different to read each week!

Just around the corner is our Scholastic Fall Book Fair! The dates are Wednesday, November 12, 9:00-3:30; Thursday, November 13, 9:00-3:30 and Friday (with Donuts with Dad), November 14, 7:30-3:30. We will be closed from 12-1 each day for lunch. If you are interested in volunteering, please mark those dates on the calendar. More information will be coming home for signing up to help out.

New this year, our Library will be having a "Decorate a Pumpkin as Your Favorite Story Book Character Contest." Children are asked to pick any ONE of their favorite story book characters, decorate a pumpkin and bring it to the library between Oct. 27 th and 29th. The rules are as follows: the pumpkin cannot be carved, it must be decorated using markers, paint, and any other type of crafty materials or accessories needed to resemble the chosen character. More details will be coming home in the next few weeks.

Happy Reading from Mrs. Witcpalek and Mrs. Gotchie in the LMC!