Gurnee Firemen Visit

Hello! This week the Gurnee Firemen visited us! They played a game with us about fire safety.

The class worked together to remember fire safety facts from last year.

It was amazing how much the students knew about being safe if there's a fire.

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This week we also finished our unit on Communities. Next up is our science unit about Light and Sound!

We filled our Classroom Bucket! We counted 575 pom poms in the bucket. That means that the students have given 575 written bucket fillers to each other so far this year:) We celebrated by doing a Halloween craft.

In math we have been working to measure items with inches and centimeters. We will continue to measure next week!

We are busy with our Daily Five. Everyday the students are reading and writing. Many students are working on nonfiction reading responses. We will all be doing this soon.

Reminder! Our Story Character Project is due on Wednesday!

Harvest Garden

Did you know that Elementary West has a Harvest Garden? It is back behind the school. Our Harvest Garden is planted by second graders in the spring and the produce is taken to local food banks. We visited the garden to see what it looks like at the end of the season. In the spring we will grow plants in our classroom and then plant them in the garden. Families volunteer to help over the summer to weed, water and harvest the produce.The first plant that we saw when we went to the garden was this giant sunflower!

The flower head was enormous!

We saw cauliflower, broccoli, and tomatoes.We saw pumpkins, peppers and herbs.
We picked a few pumpkins, peppers and squash.
We shared our harvest with the principals.
and kept two pumpkins that are now at home in our classroom!

Be a Bucket Filler!

Hello! At the beginning of the school year, each classroom received a copy of the book, Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud. In the book we read that everyone carries an invisible bucket that represents how we feel about ourselves. When we are happy and content, our bucket is full. When we are sad, our bucket is empty. We can help other people to fill their buckets by giving compliments and treating them kindly. When we help others to fill their buckets, it fills our buckets too! If we say unkind things or we are mean to others, then we are being bucket dippers. We are taking happiness out of someone's life. When we dip into other people's buckets, we dip out of our own bucket too.

We have a chart board in our classroom that helps us to remember to fill other people's buckets. Each child has their own pocket. There are slips of paper in the classroom that the kids fill out with a compliment for someone. They put the slips in a basket on my desk. Then I put them into each child's pocket. We are working on giving "inside" compliments. Those are compliments that are not about how we look or what backpack we have. Inside compliments talk about who the child is. For example: You did a great job in soccer at recess! or Thank you for reading with me today!
After a bucket filler compliment is written, the bucket filler child may put a pom pom into our green class bucket. Once we have the bucket filled, we will celebrate!
If you would like to check out this book to read with your family at home, please let me know! I would be happy to share it with all of you!!

Important Information:
*Your child received his/her spelling packet on Friday. I will be sending them home on Fridays from now on. This will give kids extra time to study if they need it.

*Starting in October, students will be working to earn a free personal pizza from Pizza Hut. This is called the Book It program. All your child needs to do is successfully complete her/his reading log for each week in the month. The program will run from October - December.

*I will be sending home a new book order on Monday. Feel free to order if you wish. You may order online or send in a check. I do get bonus points for every book ordered and I use them to buy books for our classroom library!

Have a great week!!