Panther Pride Dennis Elementary School

1499 W. Main

Decatur, Illinois 62522

217.424.3236

December 2010

Principal’s Newsletter Article—Mr. Daniel Fuentes

It’s hoped that everyone was able to enjoy a pleasant Thanksgiving Holiday, connecting with extended family. From the break, we move into the final 3.5 weeks of the 2nd grading quar-ter. Nearly half-way through the school year, Dennis teachers will continue instruction aligned and focused to the Illinois Learning Standards, as measured by the ISAT’s. As provided in the Parent Update, elementary schools typically transition to holiday and win-ter themes in several subject areas. Kindergarten – 3rd grade students participated in an as-sembly featuring the Millikin University Faculty Brass Quintet, on Friday the All-City Honor Choir performed, and specific students attended the PTO incentive at the Avon Theater. At this time, the students are beginning preparations for the Dennis School Holiday Music Program. Dennis School families are invited to attend the Annual Christmas Program begin-ning at 1:30pm on Wednesday, December 22nd. Students in Kindergarten through Sixth Grade will perform holiday selections. Mrs. Barnabe coordinates an excellent program show-casing our students’ talent. The classroom holiday parties are scheduled for 2:30pm on Tuesday, December 21st. As indicated above, the second grading quarter will end on Wednesday, December 22nd, with classes resuming on Monday, January 10, 2011. Student Report Cards will likely be distrib-uted on Friday, January 14th. Additional information on school activities through December will be provided through Parent Updates.

You Are Invited

to

Dennis Elementary School

Holiday Music ProgramHoliday Music ProgramHoliday Music ProgramHoliday Music Program

Wednesday, December 22, 1:30 p.m.

Happy to be Healthy

Notes from the Nurse Norovirus, formerly called norwalk-like virus, is a virus that causes acute gastroenteritis in humans. Norovirus outbreaks are common in schools. The most common symptoms of norovirus are diarrhea, vomiting, and stomach pain. Norovirus is very contagious, and is spread through contaminated food or water, by contact with an infected person, or by contamination in the environment. The virus has an incubation period of 24-48 hours. Infected individuals are sympto-matic for 1-2 days, but may shed the virus for up to 2 weeks after recovering. Children and staff who are experiencing symptoms of norovirus should stay home from school until 24 hours after symptoms have stopped. Good hand hygiene is the best way to prevent transmission of norovirus.

� Hands should be washed with warm water and soap for 15-20 seconds.

� Children should be taught good hand hygiene practices, and should wash their hands after using the bathroom and before eating.

� During outbreaks, washing hands with soap and water is preferable to us-ing alcohol-based hand sanitizers. Hand sanitizers are only minimally ef-fective against norovirus.

Seasonal Flu or Influenza is a Respitory Illness! This season the CDC (Center for Disease Control) has recommended universal influenza vaccination. This means that all persons, 6 months and older (without a contraindication to influ-enza vaccine) should be vaccinated. Children who have not received the flu vac-cine before many need two shots. Contact your health Care provider for more in-formation.

Leslie White, R.N. ILCSN

855-3673

Durfee, Dennis, French

SEASON’S GREETINGS

FROM THE DESK OF

MRS. APPLEMAN

I still have 5 pairs of glasses on my desk. If you are missing your

glasses, please stop by my desk. You need your glasses; I do NOT!

Kindergarten News

Mrs. Simpson & Mrs. Mower

We have many exciting projects happening in December. We will be at the half way point in our reading. We will have finished working with num-bers 0-10 in math. We will also wrap up our study of autumn in science. We have Santa’s Workshop, an afternoon of Christmas centers, coming up

and will be looking for volunteers to help. We will be working hard on our songs

for the upcoming Christmas Program at Dennis on Dec. 22. Lastly, we will begin

preparations for the Christmas Party on Dec. 21. The Kindergarteners will have a

gift exchange. Look for more information in our newsletters.

First Grade

Mrs. Miller/Mrs. VerHeecke

First graders are very excited for the coming holiday season. We will be making cookies and writing letters to Santa Claus very soon! We will be reading about holidays around the world and learning about different types of holiday celebrations. We will also be rehearsing for our holiday program to be ready for our big performance day! Please make sure your child is at school each day this month – they don’t want to miss any of the excitement!

Second Grade Mrs. Sweitzer

December is a very exciting month! We have many holiday activities and pro-jects to complete this month! Our Class Party is Tuesday, December 21 at 2:30 and our Music Program is Wednesday, December 22 at 1:30. Please read our classroom newsletter that is sent home every Mon-day. The end of the second quarter is Wednesday, December 22 and report cards go home the week we return to school. Please encourage your child to read for fun over the Christmas holiday!

Happy Holidays! Mrs. Sweitzer

Second Grade—Mr. Dawson

I would like to give a special shout out to all of the families who attended our family reading night. It was very exciting to see so many parents, guardians, and students excited about reading.

December will be a very busy month within our classroom and the entire school. We will continue to work through unit three in our reading series and be-gin to add and subtract two digit numbers in math. We will also be spending some extra time this month practicing for the school play on Wednesday, Decem-ber 22. It is very important that your child stays on top of their class work, reading packets, and homework.

Midterm grades now calculated and should have been signed and returned. The quarter ends on December 22 and it is very im-portant to end the quarter very strong. I have a feeling that these next three weeks will go very quickly.

Lastly, I wish everyone a very safe and memorable holiday. It has been an electrifying first half of the school year and I can’t wait to see what my students are capable of in 2011.

Happy learning,

Mr. Dawson

Ms. Altenbernd’s 3rd Grade Class

Thanksgiving is over and now we are getting ready for Christmas! We are practicing for the program in music and on our own. I hope that you can make it to see your child perform on Wednesday, December 22nd. We will be having the party the day before. I will be sending home reminder notices to those who signed up to help at open house. We have finished our second book report. The next one will be due at the end of January. We will not do a book report for the month of December. Please look for more information on changes to the book report in my weekly newsletter. We have been working on multiplication and division. I encourage you to work on flashcards with your child to help them memorize their multiplication tables. It will make division a whole lot easier for them. Please feel free to contact me any time at school if you have any questions or concerns.

You Are Invited

to

Dennis Elementary School

Holiday Music ProgramHoliday Music ProgramHoliday Music ProgramHoliday Music Program

Wednesday, December 22, 1:30 p.m.

Featuring General Music Classes, Band, Choir, & Orchestra

Mrs. Burnham – 3rd Grade

November ended on a special note with the Millikin Symphony Guild perform-ing for us. What a special treat for students to be able to hear such beautiful music. December brings cold weather. Please be sure your child is dressed appropriately for going outside. We still have recess daily. Midterm grades went home last week. We only have two weeks of school left in the quarter to bring up grades. Please redo work and get it turned in by the 13th. We are still working on multiplication in Math. Please study daily on the facts. We will use them throughout the school year. Also please encourage your child to write complete sentences for math writing question. It is good practice for ISAT. In reading we finished a special selection entitled Stone Soup. As a culmina-tion activity, we made out own “Stone Soup”. It was delicious! We were also sur-prised with a special guest reader. Mr. Fuentes came into our classroom and read one of the many versions of the Stone Soup stories. We appreciate Mr. Fuentes taking the time to read to us. It was wonderful! Science lessons are focused on the properties of matter. Be sure to ask your Third Grader what they have learned about matter. Verbs are the current topic of study for Grammar. Our Millikin Intern will be presenting a special lesson on verbs and will incorporated Wordle on the computer.

Wishing all a safe and happy Christmas holiday.

Mrs. Burnham

Mrs. Phillips—4th Grade

Midterm grades have gone home. Please continue to work on cor-recting all bad grades.. Please ask your child about the State Power Points that we did in the computer lab. Each student had a different state to re-search the state facts, and then they completed at least ten different slides us-ing their facts. The students enjoyed Thanksgiving centers. We look forward to Christmas cen-ters and the Christmas program. Our Program will be Wednesday, December 22nd at 1:30pm. Our class parties will be Tuesday, December 21st at 2:30. Be looking for my December calendar to come home with more important dates about our classroom. We are really enjoying working with our Kindergarten buddies from Mrs. Mower’s room. Look for gingerbread houses.

Recycle Ink Cartridges When you have empty ink cartridges from your printer,

please send them to school in a plastic bag. Give them to

Mrs. Stolley in the computer lab. The cartridges will then be recy-

cled for money that will go to Dennis School! Thanks for your help!

Dennis Students Defy Gravity!Dennis Students Defy Gravity!Dennis Students Defy Gravity!Dennis Students Defy Gravity! This past Thanksgiving week, the 4th, 5th &

6th graders had the opportunity to defy New-

ton’s Laws (sort of). They worked in teams to

create egg drop devices capable of protecting

an egg from a 10 foot fall. All were able to

cheer their successes, and a few learned valu-

able lessons about gravity, air and shock ab-

sorption .

How many elves does it take to change a light bulb?

Ten!

One to change the light bulb and nine to stand on each other’s shoul-

ders!

What's the first thing elves learn in school?

The "elf"-abet!

Who sings "Blue Christmas" and makes toy guitars?

Elfis!

One elf said to another elf, "We had Grandma for Christmas dinner".

And the other elf said, "Really? We had turkey!"

How do elves greet each other?

"Small world, isn't it?"

Santa rides in a sleigh. What do elves ride in?