Category Archives: Uncategorized

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Back in February we were honored to have Grady’s mom, Bridgett Thomas visit our classroom! She is an architect for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM), which is one of the largest and influential architect firms in the world! Mrs. Thomas brought in some “tools” that architects use during the design process, and two different kinds of paper that they use. During her visit she showed the children some awesome buildings have that been designed and built by architects! Two of the buildings are here in Chicago! Can you guess which ones? She also read us two stories about an engineer and architect. Rosie Revere, Engineer and Iggy Peck Architect both written by Andrea Beaty! Author Andrea Beaty is an amazing author who writes stories about influential people of our time! Check out her other books here at: http://www.andreabeaty.com/.

To wrap up our visit from Mrs. Thomas, she had the children go through a demonstration about how the Willis Tower (Sears Tower to Chicago folks) came to be! Did you know the building concept came from straws? Yes! Straws you sip your milkshakes with! The architects discovered that seven straws put together at different heights allowed the building to withstand wind force and other weather elements than just using one or two straws! That’s how it all started! The children pretended to be straws to show the strength we can have when we all work together to make one project! Great lesson learned!

Please enjoy the pictures above of Mrs. Thomas’ visit, and the days after when the kids were pretending to be architects!

Please be advised there is no school tomorrow for Chicago Public Schools due to the extreme cold temperatures. Please be careful and stay inside if you can! Stay tuned to our local news for further updates!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We’ve been busy little piggies here in Room 121 for the past 4 days! Last Thursday we had the opportunity to step into the story of The Three Little Pigs on the Kohls McCormick Storybus! This annual visit of the Storybus offers our students the experience of stepping into a storybook and becoming the characters!

With our House Study approaching, it was a perfect fit to have the story of The Three Little Pigs integrated into our curriculum! We’ve been reading several versions of the story, and will be reading our 6th version tomorrow! Please enjoy some of the moments we captured on camera during our visit on the Storybus! Check back later this week for more pictures and updates on our House Study Unit and Three Little Pigs Study.

Have a marvelous week!

CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett just announced on ABC’s 2:00pm news brief that the Chicago Public Schools will remain CLOSED on Tuesday, January 7th, 2014. Please stay inside if you can, and check on your neighbors and loved ones. We hope to be back in school on Wednesday when temperatures are to be in high 20s. (A heat wave!) 

It’s been awhile since I have posted to our classroom website. Getting sick before winter break and then the holidays arriving, time seemed to have slipped away! I hope you have a wonderful winter break with your preschooler, and are staying warm on this terribly cold day!

Looking forward into the rest of this week and on, we will begin our house/building/construction unit! To start off the unit, we will be listening to four different versions of “The Three Little Pigs”. On January 9th we have a special treat for the children by having the Kohls McCormick Storybus visit our school. We will have a chance to visit the bus for 30 minutes to step into the story of “The Three Little Pigs”. Students will have the opportunity to role play their favorite character and bring the story to life! We are looking forward to all of the learning and connections this unit will bring! On the Friday before winter break, we sent home for you to work with your child over break a “House Project” paper. It is for you and your child to begin to explore different parts of your home? Do you live in a highrise or apartment or a single-family home? How many windows does your home have? How many rooms? How many doors? What color is your home? What is your home made out of? This project is to help build your child’s environmental knowledge of his/her surroundings. Introduce new vocabulary with them like siding, brick, shingles, shutters, 90 degree angles, roof, etc… If you misplaced this paper and cannot find it, we will send another one home. This project is due by this Friday, January 10th.

Looking forward to seeing all the kiddos this week! Stay warm and be safe!

Attention Families,

CPS would like to gather parent input on when they would like for the 2014-2015 school year to begin. You will need your child’s 8 digit student ID# to take the survey. It is either to start before Labor Day or after Labor Day. Your voice matters! Please do this today! Thank you!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/cps-calendar

THANK YOU

This week was the official start of our family unit in room 121! 

At parent/teacher conferences I passed out a “My Family” paper for you and your child to complete together! This is due Friday for your child to share with the class. We will be displaying these throughout the classroom. If you need another copy please email me and I will place one in your child’s folder. 

Our family is such an important part of our lives and who we are. All of our families are special and unique, and we are teaching the children to celebrate the differences and similarities. This week we have been reading the beautiful and vibrantly colorful book, “The Family Book” by Todd Parr. It’s a perfect explanation and illustration of what a family is and can be. If you have not checked out any of Todd Parr’s books, please do so this weekend at the library. Below are some pictures of his newest books about family! Please check out his website to learn more about this great children’s author! (Our preschool team had the opportunity two years ago to meet Todd Parr at an Early Childhood Conference. His life story is so inspirational, and truly heartwarming. He was raised by his grandmother after his parents passed away at a young age. His grandmother was the one to encourage him to paint which led to him writing and create his beautiful children’s stories. I have several signed copies of his books in my classroom).

 http://www.toddparr.com/index.html

Hope you’re staying warm on this cold snowy day! Now that the snow and cold weather is here, this would be a great time to get that sharpie marker out and write your child’s name in his/her coat, scarf, hat, gloves/mittens, and boots!!! Imagaine trying to get 40 preschoolers ready to go out with each of those items on!!! Help us out by labeling your child’s winter gear! 

As a reminder, there is no school tomorrow, Tuesday, November 12th for students. Parent/Teacher conferences begin at 12:00p.m. and are going until 6:30p.m. I will make sure to honor the time assigned to you by keeping on track with appointment times. Due to the amount of families we have to meet with in 6 hours, we have to limit each conference to 10 minutes max. If there is more that you would like to discuss after the 10 minutes is up, I would be more than happy to meet with you at a later date. 

Enjoy the rest of the day with your little one! 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Wow what a day!!! I am exhausted, are you? We had a lot of fun at the Peggy Notebart Nature Museum today with the little ones! Our grade level teamed realized halfway through the field trip that we now know why we wait until January to take them on a field trip! WOWZA there was a lot of energy! Overall the kids did a fabulous job on their first field trip. No one got lost, or hurt, and everyone left with a full belly from lunch, and a great load of memories to share with you!

We wanted to thank you for allowing us to take your child on a field trip. We know that it sometimes can be scary to let your little one go on a big yellow school bus all by themselves without you. They were adorable on the bus! The bus company that we have always used in Preschool has seat belts for them to wear. (Not all of them have that). And all of their drivers have wonderful records, so we have always felt great about using that particular bus company.

Lastly, a HUGE thank you to our six parent volunteers who came along to help with the kiddos! It was greatly appreciated!

Attention All Preschool Families!

This month Student Council is holding its annual Canned Food Drive benefiting Edgewater’s “Care for Real” food pantry. Please have your child bring in any type of non-perishable canned food items, rice, boxed potatoes, diapers, baby wipes, toilet paper, paper towels, baby formula, canned cat food, or canned dog food! 

Care for Real is a non-profit organization that helps hundreds of families and senior citizens in our neighborhood. The canned food drive is going on now until Friday, November 22nd. 

Thank you for your support! 

To learn more about this wonderful organization, please see the link below:

http://careforreal.org/