1. 1 Volume 1, Issue 18 May 2, 2008 NEWSLETTER: May 2008 Graymont Grade School Newsletter As the end of the year quickly approaches there are many activities scheduled. Our annual Awards Night program will be held on Thursday, May 15, at 6:00 p.m. at Graymont Grade School. We will enjoy a delicious catered banquet followed by the presentation of various awards for achievement and recognition for our students. Letters have been sent home with the details. Please send in the RSVP along with payment by May 9th. Eighth grade promotion will be held Wednesday evening, May 21st, at 7:00 p.m. This year’s graduates are Abby Campbell, Nick Elliott, Caleb Leach, Matt Regenold, Kalyn Young and Tim Young. Mr. John Kilgore, Pontiac High School Principal will be our featured speaker. A reception for the graduates will be held after the ceremony. Fun Day is being planned for Thursday, May 22. We need parents to volunteer to help that day. Anyone interested can call and let Lori know at 743-5346. Those students who have met their reading goals for the year will be enjoying a bowling party on Friday, May 23 in Pontiac. Congratulations to all the students on reaching their lofty goals. Keep on reading! Report Card Day will be Thursday, May 28th, from 8:15 to 10:30 a.m. There will be NO BUS SERVICE. Report cards will be with the students’ teachers until 10:30. After that they may be picked up in the office any time during regular business hours. If you can’t get to school, you may have your child’s report card mailed. Contact the office to make arrangements for mailing. This has been a fantastic year so far. The teachers have covered a tremendous amount of curriculum, and we will still have a lot of learning yet to do. We are looking forward to finishing the year strong and maintaining the excitement through the end of the year. We appreciate your assistance in keeping the students focused and on track. I have truly enjoyed my time at Graymont Grade School. Graymont is a wonderful community that should be very proud of their small school. Thank you to everyone for making the last five years enjoyable for my family and I. I wish everyone in the district luck and continued success in the future. Sincerely, Julie Fritchtnitch

2. 2 Band and Chorus Organizational Contest Results The band and chorus competed in the IESA Organizational Contest held at Prairie Central Junior High School in Forrest, IL on April 26th. Both the band and chorus received overall first ratings and will receive the first place plaques. The band was also honored to be selected by the judges to receive the "Best of Day" award from among all of the bands competing. The band's plaque will note the "Best of Day" award. The band scored perfect firsts on the rating sheets of the three judges. Interestingly, in 2007 the Graymont chorus received the "Best of Day" award. Student Council Spirit Week: May 12 – May 16 Monday – Hat day Tuesday – Mismatch day Wednesday – Rainbow day Kindergarten – yellow 1 st /2 nd – Red 3 rd /4 th – Green 5 th /6 th – Orange 7 th /8 th – Blue Staff - Pink Thursday – Crazy hair day Friday – Sports apparel day

3. 3 Mrs. Erickson - Kindergarten Ms. Myers – 1 st /2 nd Kindergarten is in the final countdown stage of the school year. They are working on reading and writing words and sentences. Math has students adding, subtracting, telling time, measuring, and comparing weights on our scale. The kids are going "buggy" in Science as they learn the differences between insects and spiders. "Top Secret" projects have been going on for Mothers' Day. Everyone is looking forward to FUN DAY and the AR party. The students will be taking a special Kindergarten memory book for their parents. Thank you to the Board, PTO, and everyone else who has helped make this year a great one. All 3 of the students are really looking forward to FIRST GRADE...Have a safe, happy summer!!! See everyone back in August. Reading: We are now into our 6th and final unit. Throughout the month of May we will be working on r- controlled vowels and the (ow) (ou) diphthong. Furthermore, we will be working on reading concepts such as: theme, plot, and drawing conclusions. The second graders are working to finish up their last few weeks in their final unit. They will actually finish up a week early. Throughout this time, we will focus on reading concepts such as: theme, making judgments, and character. We will also take time to review and discuss different tricky concepts that were covered throughout the year. We will also be working on our fluency with some different reader’s theatre activities! Language: As they year comes to an end, we are also coming to an end of our books. For the 1st graders the main focus for the rest of the year is pronouns and correctly using them. We will also learn when to use I and me correctly, were to place certain commas, and continue with our basic grammar review. There is a range of things that the second graders are going to work on covering before the end of the year. We will be working on using some troublesome words, such as: to, two, too correctly. Moreover, we will continue to work with verbs with spelling changes, contractions, and recognizing grammatical errors in sentences. 1st/2nd Grade Math: For the rest of the year, both grades are going to be working on the same concept together. We are hitting a lot of concepts in the final weeks of school. We will be finishing up a chapter on telling time and understanding how much time has elapsed. Furthermore, we will be studying probability using many hands on materials. Math will come to an end studying measurement. We will work on measuring length, weight, capacity, and temperature. 1st/2nd Grade Science: Our class will be learning all about food and nutrition the month. We will be focusing on learning the food pyramid and the different food groups. We will also study how much of each group we should be eating every day. Furthermore, our class will be looking at food labels and deciding if it is nutritious or non- nutritious. Finally, we will discuss the importance of exercise for our body and how we can make exercise fun for the whole family! Extra, Read All About It!!!

4. 4 Ms. Rients – 3 rd /4 th Mrs. Hott – 5 th /8 th 5/6 Social Studies - We are winding up our study of Slavery/Civil War and are looking forward to our trip to Downs for Civil War Daze. All students need to have two AR tests passed on a book about slavery or the Civil War by Friday 5/16. Each student will also be presenting their biographies as a person of this time on Mon. 5/12. 7th and 8 th Science – Our study of plants is almost complete. Most of our mini-greenhouse flowers are growing well. Hopefully, we will have something to plant by the end of the school year. We had some discussions and study of corn and soy bean growth/production and most learned a few things they didn’t know even though many are involved in farming. This information, as well as much of our experiments and supplies were provided by the Livingston County Extension Office - I just heard that their funding has finally been approved by the state after threats of it being cut, so we should be able to continue receiving their wonderful educational support. We took our last science test of the year recently and will finish out with a leaf identification activity and experiments chosen by each student where they will test one variable in plant growth (they will choose the variable and how the experiment will be conducted). 5th and 6th Science– We have learned many things about weather! Hopefully your student brought home their map of Illinois counties and information on how to stay safe in severe storms. Post this somewhere in your house where they can check what counties are involved in any severe weather we may have and whether its location causes a concern in the near future for Livingston county. We had some fun with the county map thinking up various questions that could be answered by the name of one of the counties. For example, which county is the name of a fish? Once we get through the test on this last section of weather, we will finish out the year doing weather forecasting – comparing folklore (even predicting weather using a pig spleen – we won’t try that one), observations, weather instruments and professional forecasters to see which we find to be more accurate. Math – We are continuing through the textbooks (in our own special order). All grades have made good progress this year and have greatly improved their math skills. I can’t believe it is May already; the school year really flew by! The beautiful weather is trying to distract us from the work we still have left to do. 3rd Grade Math: The 3rd graders have finished their geometry study and are now working hard to understand fractions. After learning the basics we will be adding and subtracting fractions, putting them in simplest form, and then relate them to decimals. 4th Grade Math: The 4th graders have been practicing multiplying 2, 3, and 4-digit numbers by 2-digit numbers. Now they are learning how to divide with remainders and with more than one digit as the divisor. They are figuring out why I kept telling them all year long why memorizing their multiplication and division facts is so important. Science: To end the year in science we will study weather. The students will do activities involving air mass, the atmosphere, and clouds. They will look at hurricanes, tornados, and earthquakes. They will also learn how weather is tracked and make some weather predictions. Social Studies: Our last unit in social studies is about people and culture. Since many other cultures influence our own, the students are doing country projects. They get to pretend they are a tourist traveling in a country. Then, as a tourist, they will share information about their country by writing journal entries, making postcards, or designing a travel brochure. Language Arts: We have finished the lessons in our language books, so we doing activities to improve our writing and review the parts of speech. We are also writing poetry. Check out some of our poems on the school’s website. Furthermore, we are enjoying getting to know our pen pals from King Elementary as we write back and forth with them. Reading: Both grades will read a few stories from Unit 6, which is about using our imaginations and expressing ourselves. 3rd grade will review steps in a process and identify details of the setting. 4th grade will review visualizing, along with steps in a process. Also, it’s important the students continue to read at least 15 minutes a night, as well as, keep this routine up during the summer.

5. 5 Dates to Remember May 9 – 5/6 Field Trip May 12 – 1-4 Field Trip May 13 – Dismiss @ 2:00pm May 15 – Awards Banquet dinner @ 6:00pm; Awards @ 6:45pm May 16 – 5-8 Field Trip May 21 – Graduation 7:00pm May 22 – Fun Day; 4 th qtr ends May 23 – AR bowling/pizza party May 26 – No School May 27 – No School (TI) May 28 – Report Cards (no bus) “Talent is God given; be humble. Fame is man given; be grateful. Conceit is self given; be careful. ~ John Wooden 5-6 – Reading – we have just finished our last story in our reading books!!! For the rest of the year we will be looking at plays, poetry, and weekly readers. 7-8 – In Reading we will finish the year looking at narrative fiction, plot, and symbols. 5-8 – Language Arts – We have finished our textbooks two weeks early We plan to spend the rest of the time on creative writing. 7-8 – In Social Studies we have FINALLY finished the Constitution. The test will be on Tuesday, May 13 th. We will end the year discussing Citizenship. 7-8 – In Health we are wrapping up our work in our Game Plan book on abstinence. We will end the year talking about Environmental Health. Ms. Wilson – 5 th /8 th