End of the Year Items

Time together in first grade is rapidly coming to a close. It has been an interesting, but enjoyable journey! We have some exciting days planned the last two weeks of school.

Wednesday, May 26^th - Olympic Day! 

Remember to wear your class t-shirt and gym shoes to school. You may also want to bring a water bottle and apply sunscreen before you come to school. The lunch options for Olympic Day will be a hot dog lunch provided to the children by the PTO, school hot lunch, or lunch from home.

Tuesday, June 1^st - House Cleaning

We ask that your child bring a garbage bag to school so that we can do a thorough clean out of our desks and lockers.

Wednesday, June 2^nd - Class Celebration 

We invite your child to bring a favorite board game to school. Additionally, your child should bring a handful of their favorite books as we are going to enjoy a read-in/game day together! As an added bonus, the children will have a pizza party snack in the afternoon. Please note this pizza party is not a substitution for a healthy lunch, merely a snack to enjoy together in the afternoon.

Thursday, June 3^rd - Last Day of School 

Remember this day is only one hour, 7:55am-8:55am.

I hope you and your children are looking forward to the final days of school.  It's hard to believe it's already here, but the summer time awaits us all.  Thanks for reading and being involved in the Room 108 experience.  See you on the blacktop!

Dream Creatures

Dream Creatures was the theme for the Eric Carle Project designed and completed with the guidance of our school's media resource teacher.  She did an outstanding job with first grade students!  She used the creatures of Room 108 students to create a "VoiceThread" slideshow of the finished products.  As you will hear in the VoiceThread, students recorded a description of their uniquely named creations.  Have a look and listen for yourself.

Pro-Bike Show

Today students from Room 108 were given an exciting show as Matt Wilhelm, professional BMX flatland trick bikester, visited our school talk about bike safety and many other things.  Matt has travelled around the world to compete in BMX bike competitions and has quite a few awards and medals to his name.  In addition to bike safety, he talked to children about the importance of identifying and developing individual talents for the sake of earning college scholarships, financial rewards, and life opportunities.  By the end of his bike show he had the audience chanting "Never give up!" His message was well-received as he used bike tricks like "time-warp", "decade", and "Spiderman" to demonstrate his personal commitment to practice and never giving up.  The whole show was impressive and inspiring.  Attached is a short video of Matt using some teachers, myself included, as props to jump with his bike.  Luckily I had my iPhone to capture a first hand look at the jump.  For more videos of his tricks, head over to his multimedia loaded website.  

The whole program was made possible by our school's PTO.  They have offered great programs to our students in past years and this event was no exception.  Thank you Mann School PTO and all financial supporters of the PTO! 

Happy Mother's Day!

To all the mother's that contribute to the success of Room 108, we salute you!  The love, compassion, forgiveness, support, and comfort you offer us is immeasurable and unquantifiable.  Thank you moms!


With the end of the school year just around the corner, now is the time for teachers and school staff to find creative organized activities to motivate school children to finish the year strong.  One such activity took place this week at school.  A.C.E.S. (All Children Exercising Simultaneously) was organized by our physical education teacher and included the entire school doing a variety of dances.  Below you will find a couple video highlights of the event.  Fifth grade students were asked to be "Dance Leaders" for the younger grades.  You will see some of the fifth graders giving their best to show the littler children how to dance.  As you'll see, some of the first graders need more leadership than others!  

Unit 10 will be starting up this week in Everyday Math and Open-Court Reading.  Both of these units will be cumulative reviews of all the skills, concepts, and methods we have learned and practiced over the course of the school year.  It's very rewarding to see the way students apply thinking patterns, analysis, and problem solving skills during lessons and assessments now.  The past nine months of discipline and hard work really allows students to demonstrate their new knowledge bases.  Writing has become a more routine exercise in Room 108 as well.  With student vocabularies increased, handwriting improved, and spelling patterns applied, first graders are now starting to shape complete paragraphs full of details.  Keep your eyes in those Mail folders for writings and review activities!

The media resource teacher (the position formerly known as librarian) has generated an outstanding literary project themed around the author/illustrator Eric Carle.  His creative illustrations and early reader friendly stories like The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Brown Bear, Brown Bear are the inspiration for a project that asks first graders to go through the artist's process to create creatures of their own with stories they make up.  Students in Room 108 have gone through the first two steps with the third and final production coming this week.  Be sure to check the blog later this week for student work!

Thanks for reading and being involved in the Room 108 learning process.  It is together that we help children achieve their best.  See you on the blacktop!

District Food Survey

District 97 is interested in getting your feedback about our food service program. Please visit this link to take a brief 12-question survey regarding a variety of topics, including food variety, overall satisfaction with the program, etc.  Even if you and your child do not participate in the school lunch program very often, your input is still desired.

You can also visit the student survey link to read the survey being administered to the students. The deadline for completing the survey is May 13. Any input you can provide regarding ways we can enhance our food service program will be greatly appreciated.

District 97 thanks you for participating!