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TRANSCRIPT
Welch Elementary March PTA Newsletter
MARK YOUR CALENDAR!
● March 15th Science Fair ● March 20th PTA Meeting , 9:30am ● March 23rd Earth Hour, 8:30-9:30 (Lights Out For One Hour) ● March 25th-29th Spring Break
WELCH PTA ACCOMPLISHMENTS
* The PTA popped popcorn for Welch students and staff TWICE in February --on Welch Spirit Day and again on February 14th for the Valentine’s Day classroom parties.
* The PTA provided volunteers and activities for the classroom Valentine's parties.
* We administered the Accelerated Reader program at Welch, open to all Kindergarten through 5th grade students, and distributed incentive prizes to participating students.
* The STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) committee held planning meetings for the science fair in April.
* The PTA concluded the five-week-long Junior Achievement program for more than 100 students in all grade levels at Welch.
* We coordinated the Six Flags Read To Succeed program at Welch, earning all participants who complete the program a free admission ticket to a Six Flags theme park.
* We threw a Daddy/Daughter and Mother/Son Valentine’s 70’s theme party in the Welch gym, FREE for all of our Welch families!
* The PTA STEM committee held the STEM NIU Phun Labs Night with 25 hands on activities.
* The PTA hosted special guest speaker Kathy Pease, Assistant Superintendent, Elementary who updated us on Common Core, BYOT and the district budget at our February meeting.
* The PTA formed a nominating committee to search for PTA officer candidates for the coming school year.
FROM THE PRESIDENTS
Thank you to all of our volunteers in the month of February! Our PTA STEM committee held the STEM NIU Phun Labs event, which has definitely helped excite Welch students about the upcoming STEM fair in March! February also brought us the annual PTA Father/Daughter, Mother/Son Valentine’s Dance. This years 70’s themed event was free to all Welch families and was the highest attended yet. Thanks to all those who volunteered and made these great PTA events possible! As we move into March, students will be busily preparing their STEM projects to be displayed on March 15th. Everyone should plan to attend, whether or not your children are participating. There will be many projects on display and NIU will have an exciting presentation for all to enjoy. If you haven’t yet submitted a sign-up for our Culture Night event in April, we are still accepting them. Come out and share your heritage with Welch students and families and take part in this wonderful event on April 11th. Keep updated with all of our PTA events and Welch school activities by joining listserv, and receiving weekly emails. If you haven’t already, go to http://welch.ipsd.org/ and enter your email address under "Join Our Email List" in the bottom right hand corner. Looking forward to another wonderful month! Sincerely, Michelle Enns and Karen Duncan, PTA Co-Presidents
Science Fair Judges Help "judge" student science fair projects on March 15. No experience needed! Ask students basic questions and distribute certificates (students are not ranked). Questions? Contact: Jill Brewer [email protected] Maitreyee Das [email protected] Culture Night Would you like to share your family's culture or heritage? Help us celebrate our diverse community by setting up a table on April 11th with fun, educational items. See backpack flyer for more details or contact Michelle Enns [email protected] Fifth Grade Farewell If you would like to help with the Fifth Grade Farewell celebration scheduled for May 29, please contact: Jennifer Bergeron [email protected] Fun Fest The 4th Annual Funfest is coming in October! If you would like to help with planning, please contact: Julie Killacky [email protected] 2013-14 Officers Would you like to be part of PTA leadership? Would you like to get to know staff and other parents better? Would you like to work with chair people on social and educational programs? Officer elections will be held at the April meeting and new officers will assume their duties on July 1. Positions include President (or Co-Presidents), Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer. If you are interested or would like more info, please contact: Sandi Darnell [email protected] Michelle Engstrom [email protected] Salve [email protected]
PTA Volunteer and Donation Opportunities
Multicultural Event Where: At Welch When: April 11, 2013 Time: 6:30 – 8:00pm Cost: FREE J Volunteers are needed to share their culture/heritage. Please sign
up below! Questions/More Info? e-mail us at [email protected] Or Text: 630-318-6049 SHARE IDEAS (To display): Currency J Crafts or Art J Traditional clothing J Books J 2-6 words (i.e. Thank you, please, hello, Mom, Dad) J Flag ------------------------------------------------------ (Would you like to volunteer to share your heritage?)
Parents: ____YES____NO
Parent Name: ________________________________ Culture to share: ______________________________ Parent e-mail/contact info: _______________________________
We are still accepting forms/volunteers!
BIRTHDAY CLUB PARTICIPANTS
Jada-Marie G. Birthday: February 1st Book: Magic Treehouse-Dogs in the Dead of Night Class: 3-Cosgrove Alex N. Birthday: February 6th Book: Magic Treehouse-A Good Night for Ghosts Class: K-Kulaga Hyolin (Sarah) K. Birthday: February 12th Book: Ramona Quimby, Age 8 Class: 1-Shorts Danielle Z. Birthday: February 9th Book: Kindergarten Panda Class: 2-Strtak Elizabeth B. Birthday: January 29th Book: Magic Treehouse-Abraham Lincoln Class: 2-Johnson Maxwell M. Birthday: February 12th Book: Magic Treehouse-A Crazy Day with Cobras Class: K-Dornbos
CLASS NEWS KINDERGARTEN NEWS
Kindergarten is a busy place to be! We are busy becoming readers, writers, mathematicians, and scientists. Every day we practice reading and writing! Our word scrolls are getting really long with all the words we are learning to read! We have been learning how to count by 2’s, 5’s and 10’s! We celebrated the 100th day of school with lots of fun activities! Our exploration of magnets has us attracting a lot of knowledge!!! We explored with magnets to see what they attract and also what they can attract though! We can’t wait to show all of our hard work at Open House! Thank you to the PTA for our Dance at school, the popcorn every month, and the parties on February 14th! You help make school such a fun place to be!
1ST GRADE NEWS
Can you believe that the first semester has come and gone? We just recently celebrated our 100th day of school! Where has the time gone? Throughout the upcoming semester, we will be reading many non-fiction books and learning how to gain important information from them. In science, we will turn our focus to outer space and study the planets. We are fortunate in our district to have a planetarium to visit and learn even more about the solar system. Furthermore, during Social Studies, we will study Martin Luther King, Abe Lincoln, and George Washington. All this exposure will give us many opportunities to do some expository writing. We will continue to work on sentence writing, focusing on capitals, punctuation, and encouraging coherent sentences related to one topic or idea.
In math, we continue to work on place value, measurement, time on the hour and half hour and we continue to develop number sense. We are improving our understanding of addition and subtraction as we learn different strategies to use in solving our problems. We are learning the steps to solve story problems as we discuss them and write our answers in our math journals or on our dry erase boards. We are very excited about the great gains we are seeing from all the children! As we are beginning to focus some of our attention to the mastery of addition and subtraction facts, feel free to practice addition and subtraction flashcards through 20 with your child.
Thank you to the PTA for their support with the Valentines Parties. Also, big thanks for the parent volunteers who always come up with fun games and crafts that the children love.
Thank you for all your support in reviewing the work in your child’s folder. We work very hard each day and love to show what we do! Also, thank you for continuing to read to your child as well as listen to them read. We love to hear how they all enjoy good books. Please keep working on the "sight words" that have previously come home.
The First Grade Teachers
2ND GRADE NEWS
The second grade students have completed learning about health and nutrition. Each student learned about healthy eating habits, and how to maintain a healthy body by getting plenty of sleep and exercise. The students also learned about good hygiene practices. We discussed the different foods that are healthy and should be part of our daily diets.
After completing our nutrition unit, we began learning about the early history of our country in Social Studies. We read about various Native American groups who lived by using the resources around them. We studied the cultures of the Sioux, Powhatan, and Pueblo people. We discussed how early settlers came from Europe to the new world, and we learned about several explorers who led the way for westward expansion.
There has been much excitement and enthusiasm as we begin cursive writing instruction. We are currently learning how to write lower case letters and will then move on to learning capital letters. Students can’t wait to learn a new letter each day. Practicing these skills at home will help students become accustomed to using cursive in daily writing. Students will eventually earn a “Cursive License” once they have mastered the skills.
In Math, students have been happily learning the basics of multiplication. The children learned how to draw arrays and pictures to solve these types of problems. We continue our work with addition and subtraction problem solving skills while using a variety of strategies. Students were also introduced to the concepts of doubling and halving numbers. Do you know what a Wubble is?
In Reading the children have been having fun reading from a variety of genres including realistic fiction, fantasy, and plays. We enjoyed reading a variety of Cinderella stories and learning about Chinese New Year as well.
It’s hard to believe that the 100th day of school was celebrated on February 5th. The year is flying by!
A MESSAGE FROM YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL COMMITTEE The Green Club made crayons into hearts and posters for renewable energy, saving energy, Earth Hour in March, recycling & other ways we can help preserve our planet. Green Club wants to remind everyone to turn their lights off for Earth Hour on March 23rd from 8:30 pm - 9:30 pm.
HELPFUL WEB SITES:
http://welch.ipsd.org/ www.ipsd.org www.illinoispta.org http://www.pta.org/ www.innisbrook.com
PTA OFFICERS:
Co-Presidents Karen Duncan
Michelle Enns [email protected]
Vice President Ritu Mahajan
Treasurer Anju Ravindran
Secretary Lopa Dhar Banerjee
Thank you to the following businesses for their support of our 2013 Dance:
Aurelio’s Pizza- Naperville-Springbrook 1975 Springbrook Square Drive Naperville, IL. 60565 630-922-3600
Eggs Harbor Cafe’- Naperville
175 West Jackson Naperville, IL. 60540 630-548-1196
Houlihan’s - Naperville
2860 Showplace Drive Naperville, IL. 60564-5058 (Located at the corner of RT 59 & RT 95)
630-536-0022