Mathathon

Every year our school participates in the Mathathon, which raises money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. This will be our fifth year participating, but in the last 4 years, Longfellow has raised a whopping $26,216.64! While it is completely optional to participate, many students enjoy it because they are able to do fun math problems while raising money to help kids who are sick and win prizes for themselves. A consent form to participate will be sent home this week. They are due by Friday, Dec. 10^th. Math funbooks will be sent home before winter break. Money raised will be due at the end of January so students have all of winter break to complete the math problems and collect the money. If you have any questions, please contact the coordinator, Ms. Smith at esmith@op97.org.

Family Math Night

Monday, December 13th is Family Math Night at Longfellow. It starts at 6:30pm in the gym and mini-gym. Bring your family to enjoy math together. You might learn some fun new games!

Way to Go!

Thanks to those of you who turned in UNICEF boxes after Halloween. Longfellow surpassed its goal and collected $1034.56! You have made the world a better place!

Safe Touches

Ms. Prescott's last two weeks with us are here. This week and next she will talk about safe touches. If you'd like to review the lessons or if you'd like me to arrange an alternate activity for your child, please let me know. The focus of the lesson is to identify adults in their lives who might need to touch them and why. Children will also learn what to do and language to use if someone touches them in a way that makes them uncomfortable. I think it is very safe and appropriate for kindergarten.

Winter Party

Our winter party is for Friday, December 17, from 1-2 in our room. If you'd like to help out with the preparation and/or at the party, please contact Lara Vergoth at lvergoth@ameritech.net

Winter weather...

is here to stay, I think. Please make sure your child is dressed appropriately as we go outside everyday: winter coats, hats, gloves. The only days we'll stay in are those when temperatures or wind chill dip into the single digits. If needed, please practice zipping, snapping, and buttoning those coats! Also, keep in mind that snow pants and boots will be needed if children want to play in the snow.

LEGO Display

Longfellow is trying to give all of its aspiring engineers and architects an opportunity to display their creativity. Using LEGOs, students can design any awesome creation they can imagine at home. It should be no bigger than 8"x8"x8" and should include the student's name and a title. Students can then bring it to school and it will be displayed in the front entry display case. Entries should be delivered in person to Mr. Pod between 7:40-8:00am, any morning before November 23rd. If students have any questions, please email Mr. Pod at epodlasek@op97.org

Sight words

In your child's backpack, you'll find a list of highlighted words to work on. I assessed children on the 25 words I've introduced so far. For the first trimester, Oak Park kindergarten teacher expect children to know at least 15 sight words. Any questions? Just let me know!

Is that a turkey?

Today children took home a blank turkey. Their homework is to disguise it so this turkey doesn't get eaten for Thanksgiving dinner! You could color it or decorate it. Glitter, cottonballs - whatever you have around the house. It could be another animal, a superhero, a famous person, whatever you like. Just don't let that turkey look like a turkey! Please turn in your turkey by next Monday.

Box Top Competition!

The PTO is always collecting Box Tops for Education from certain brands of food and household products. From now until mid-February, the PTO is challenging each homeroom to see who can bring in the most box tops. The class that wins earns a party with the use of Longfellow's new classroom set of iPod Touches. Bring in those little pink box tops!

Another way to get involved!

There is a PTO meeting Wednesday, November 17 at 7pm in the Media Center. All are welcome! Also, don't forget to check the Digital Backpack each week! The link is to the left, as well as on the Longfellow homepage.

A Veteran for Veteran's Day

This Thursday is Veteran's Day. Specialist James Blount will come to our class to speak for a short time. "Mr. James" is the son of Ms. Clarke, a teacher here at Longfellow, and is studying to be a teacher himself. He just returned from a year’s tour of duty in Afghanistan. He also did a year’s tour of duty in Iraq. He is a technical engineer in the 372^nd Engineer Brigade of the Army Reserves. His job involved surveying and designing earthworks such as helicopter landing pads. He also drove an armored vehicle and did guard duty among other things. Welcome Specialist Blount!

Interesting Pictures

I'm putting together a binder of interesting pictures for our writing center. I hope the pictures will give students ideas for writing and help them develop their sentences to describe a picture. If you have any interesting, funny, or cool pictures from magazines, junk mail - anything - please send them in! For example, I just cut out pictures from the World Wildlife Federation catalog and calendar. It helps if there is something happening in the picture so students can more easily put a verb in their sentence. Pictures should be 8x10 or smaller so it can go in the binder. Thank you!

3 Reminders

• You can still turn in your October Book It! calendar. The November calendar went home on Monday. If you ever lose a calendar, feel free to make your own and turn it in. Students should read for at least 25 min a night for 20 nights in order to earn a coupon for a free personal pizza. NOTE: the coupons expire after a month.
• UNICEF boxes should be turned in tomorrow.
• Enjoy your day off this Friday! Thanks to all of our veterans!