The students at Hiawatha definitely have reason to celebrate.  On Friday we had our first all school reward for earning 600 pink tickets as a school.  The entire school enjoyed an extra Friday Fun Recess!!!  We had bubbles, sidewalk chalk, kickball games and much more.  It was a great day to be a Husky!  Our next goal is to reach 800 tickets before November 1st. Stay tuned to see how we do earning our next reward during October!

The Husky Store is Open!

     We have been earning blue tickets for a few years at Hiawatha, but this is the first year that the students can save them up and spend them at the Husky Store!  Every other week, students will be given an opportunity to "spend" their blue tickets on little prizes and items that range in different blue ticket values.  Students earn blue tickets for being ready, responsible, and respectful in class and around the building.  

     Has your child visited the Husky Store yet?  Ask them about their blue ticket earnings so far this year, and tell them how proud you are of them for taking their learning seriously. 

PBIS

PBIS has been off to a great start this year!!! We have spent time teaching and modeling our school-wide expectations and how to earn all the different tickets.  Our first cool tool... "how to be kind" was taught by 5-DEAV and those students did an awesome job modeling the tool for the school.  I am excited to see so many students earning tickets and showing Husky Pride.  The Husky Store is having their grand opening soon to allow students to redeem all their blue tickets. KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK HUSKIES!!!!!

Why the Huskies?

     This is the first year that we are the Huskies at Hiawatha.   We officially changed our mascot at the May Board meeting last spring.  A group of our Accelerated Learning students were participating in OAV (Our American Voice) and were trying to complete a civic minded service learning project.  They decided to have a school wide vote on a new mascot for the following reasons:

     The possible candidates were the Firehawks, Huskies, Buffalo, Phoenix, and Wolves.  After the school wide vote, the Huskies were the winner!  Here are the videos for all the candidates:
https://sites.google.com/a/bsd100.org/new_hiawatha_mascot/

     Once the vote was final and the Hiawatha Huskies were created, the OAV students had a contest to design a new image for our mascot.  Here are pictures of the students at the May Board meeting proposing the mascot change to the South Berwyn Board of Education.

     Thank you, Danny, Naomi, Rebecca, Silas, Steve, Juan, Alice, Angela, Angel, Jose, Sebastian, Ivan, Juan and Martha for your part in creating a new path for Hiawatha.  A big Husky High Five to Ms. Sabri for leading the team.  

#hiawathapride

#hiawathahuskies

Our First Husky Assembly!

 

We are the Huskies!

     Mr. Davini and Ms. McCloskey held our first PBIS assembly on Friday.  The students learned some PBIS expectations for behavior, and found out some of the great incentives we have to be respectful, responsible, and ready this year.  Thanks to Mrs. Meyer and the PBIS Universal team for organizing these incentives for us.

This year, we will be giving out three different tickets for various things.

Yellow tickets:  Students will get one for being on time to school, and will be placed in a weekly raffle!

Blue tickets:  Students will earn these for individual good choices, and will collect and save them to spend in the Husky Store!

Pink Tickets:  These Husky Paws are given to an entire class for being ready, respectful or responsible.   Each class can earn rewards for collecting them, but we will also be counting them for the school as well!

     It's going to be a great year!  Stay tuned for more PBIS news.  

Anchor Charts

     Our classrooms are always filled with new learning, so we need a way to help our students remember what our learning goals are.  One way to help our students is to create anchor charts about what we are learning.  Anchor charts are posters that we create with our students while we teach them new skills or strategies.  We then hang them on the wall, so that they have something to look at when they are working independently.  It helps the students be able to practice the new skills all by themselves.

     This week, I walked around the building and took pictures of some of our current anchor charts.  This will give you a glimpse of what the students at Hiawatha are currently working on.  There are some charts for math, writing, and reading included.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6nSB6nXSloXV0lrckxIcXBJb00&usp=sharing

     Your children are learning some great things.  Thanks for getting them to school on time and ready to learn!

Parent University Resources

     Thank you so much for coming to our Literacy Night for Parent University!  We hope you had a nice time reading with your child, working on character traits, and seeing some of the projects that some kindergarten, first grade, and accelerated learning are working on!

     As promised, here are some resources to help you while you read with your child at home.  As we discussed today, there are incredible benefits to reading for 20 minutes at home each night.  Here is the graphic that we showed:

     The Common Core standards have set some new expectations for our students.  The standards combine reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language skills to really challenge the students and help them go deeper than ever before.  We shared a tip sheet for parents to help incorporate the Common Core at home.  The best thing that you can is talk more with your child at home about everything...  Reading, writing, cleaning their room, choosing a type of cereal at the store... Everything!      The more that our children use language and vocabulary to express themselves, the more they will be able to do the same things with books in the classroom.  Here are some more suggestions about incorporating the Common Core.

English Common Core Tips
Spanish Common Core Tips

     Finally, our reading teachers compiled some resources to give you idea about what you can do at home with their child while reading.  Take a moment to read them and get some new strategies to practice while reading at home.

Reading at Home Handouts

     Thanks for coming and reading with your child!

Winter Books for a Snowy Day

     Here we are, in 2014, and it occurred to me that I never posted about the Polar Express happenings at Hiawatha the week before break.  A bunch of grade levels used the classic children's book by Chris Van Allsburg to ring in the holiday season.  They did a variety of different things using the text, including reading aloud, visualizing images, close reading excerpts, and discussing some important themes.  They also had a little fun with the book, including turning 1izfa into the Polar Express for the day!

     I was reminded of this today as all the winter storm warnings came rolling in.  I thought to myself that the Polar Express might be the perfect way to travel in Chicago over the next few days.  That, or we should all just stay home and read some great books with our families.  Here are some suggestions!

    If you are looking for a book to read that has to do with snow, I would highly suggest the book Snowflakes Fall by Patricia MacLachlan and Steven Kellogg.  It is a book that is about snowflakes, but it really a tribute to the children of Sandy Hook.  

"A Snowflake.

A Child.
No two the same--all beautiful."

The book has the most beautiful illustrations, including the final page where there's a line of snow angels that begins to fly.  The kids listening the the story have no idea the touching significance that the authors really intended.  Just beautiful.  

     If I am talking about great winter books, another favorite (also by Steven Kellogg) is The Missing Mitten Mystery.  It is about a little girl who loses a mitten while building a snowman.  It is, in fact, the 5th mitten that she has lost.  Once again, the illustrations are amazing, and the story is very relevant to our young students who love winter fun.

     Because of our 1:1 program, many families have their devices at home with them.  Try myON!  A few nights ago, I was reading to my kids with the fairy tales that we found on myON.  The kids really liked listening to the books with me (my kids are only 5 and 3, so we listened to them read aloud) and we talked about the books as we listened.  On a side note, I quickly learned that my kids are very trusting and that they did indeed think that the sky was falling.  Login and see if your family finds a book to discuss together.  

Here is a link to login:

http://www.myon.com/

**If your child doesn't know their login, please ask their teacher when they return to school in a few days.  It is a great resource to use at home!

     We will see you in a few days!  Stay warm until we see you on Tuesday!