Introducing our new novel…

Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan is a gentle, heartfelt story about a widowed farmer named Jacob who lives on the prairie with his two children, Anna and Caleb. To help care for them, he places an ad for a wife, and Sarah, a woman from Maine, comes to stay.

Sarah is very different from what the children expect—she misses the sea and finds prairie life unfamiliar—but she forms a close bond with the family. Anna and Caleb grow to love her and worry she might leave. In the end, Sarah chooses to stay, bringing hope, love, and a sense of family back into their lives.

We read one chapter a day then I ask the children questions to check their comprehension of the details in the story. We then practice putting events in order from beginning to end and we learn new vocabulary words.

The students are enjoying the story so far!

Math- This week we began learning multiplication! Many students now know their fast doubles, such as 4×4 and 8×8. A few of the older students have moved on to division. Our math time for the next few weeks will be filled with games meant to help the students memorize their facts.

Math Centers…

Ms. Georgia’s Visit- Introducing Math Games

Centers/Free Choice…

Recess…

Mythology Play…

To wrap up the week, I read the students a picture book called, Miss Rumphius.

Miss Rumphius is a classic children’s book by Barbara Cooney about a woman who fulfills her childhood dreams of traveling the world, living by the sea, and doing something to make the world more beautiful, inspired by the real-life “Lupine Lady” who scattered lupine seeds along the coast of Maine. The story follows Alice Rumphius as she grows from a girl hearing tales of faraway lands to an old woman who finds her purpose in planting flowers, creating a legacy of beauty. The book won the American Book Award in 1982 and is celebrated for its timeless message and exquisite illustrations. 

To honor the theme of the book, went around to each student and they shared what they would do to make the world a better place. Some of their answers were planting trees, planting flowers, helping people and animals, don’t litter, and pick up litter.

Have a great long weekend!

Love,

Ms. Melissa

Good evening, families and friends!

It was so great catching up with everyone at conferences! Here is what we have been up to this week!

Dalmatians as firehouse mascots…

Since we are reading about the Chicago fire and talking about firefighters, we wondered why the Dalmatian became the mascot for firefighters… Dalmatians became closely associated with firefighters because of their unique abilities and historical role alongside early fire brigades—especially in the days of horse-drawn fire engines.

Here’s how that connection developed:

🐎 1. Natural partners for horses

Dalmatian dogs were known for their calm temperament around horses and even had a natural affinity for running alongside carriages. In the 18th and 19th centuries, fire engines were pulled by horses, and Dalmatians were used to:

• Run ahead of the engines to help clear the الطريق
• Guide and protect the horses during chaotic emergencies
• Keep the horses calm amid loud noises and crowds

🔥 2. Firehouse guardians

Once at the firehouse, Dalmatians served as watchdogs. They protected valuable equipment and the horses themselves from theft or harm.

🚒 3. Symbol of tradition

Even after motorized fire trucks replaced horse-drawn engines, the image stuck. Fire departments—especially in the United States—kept Dalmatians as mascots to honor that history and tradition.

🧯 4. Cultural icon

Over time, Dalmatians became a recognizable symbol of firefighting, reinforced by media, parades, and even movies like 101 Dalmatians.

Centers/ Choice Time

Practicing reading our poetry for conferences…

Ms. Georgia’s Math Games

Playing “Heads Up, Seven Up”

Building Leprechaun Traps…

Art Class…

Multiplicity Lab… How Could You Organize the Dice?

Heggerty…

Reading “I Survived the Chicago Fire”

Recess…

Have a wonderful Spring break!

Love,

Ms. Melissa

Good afternoon, friends and families of room 120!

We had another fabulous week together!

On Monday we journaled about the three places we’d like to visit.

We took a trip to the Des Plaines Library!

We continued reading our novel, “I Survived the Chicago Fire” and answered comprehension questions about the story…

Centers/Choice Time-

We read two poems by Shel Silverstein chorally in preparation for conferences. We plan to read them to you to showcase our fluent reading with expression in our voices!

Chess Class…

Story Writing…

This week we spent a few days practicing the writing process which included Prewriting (Planning), Drafting, Revising, Editing, and we will Publish (Share) our pieces at conferences! Our story prompt was… While I was sleeping, Marshmallow went on an adventure…

We also illustrated our Marshmallow stories. This student drew his portrait…

Math- Along with playing math games, we talked about fractions and and how the represent part of a whole. This activity allowed students to see that a fraction shows something that is divided into equal parts. Next week we will discuss more info about fractions like the numerator and the denominator. We will also go over other types of fractions such as proper, improper, and mixed number.

Our Greek Show…

Have a great weekend!!

Love,

Ms. Melissa

Hello Room 120 Families and Friends!

This week we continued reading our “I Survived the Chicago Fire” novel and in honor of our gorgeous Chicago Skyline, we created our own cities and tied in multiplication while we were at it! We practiced making arrays, using them as windows for the buildings…

Math- This week we focused on Geometry. We worked on naming shapes by the number of sides and angles, identifying the triangle, quadrilateral, pentagon, and hexagon.

Centers/Choice Time

Math Games- Pig

“I Survived the Great Chicago Fire”

Art- In art class with Ms. Andrea, the students created pottery inspired by our Greek Mythology unit. They then wrote a myth about their creations. We are going to edit their writing and share it with you at conferences in a couple of weeks.

Visiting Ms. Demetra’s Class to see their presentations on Emus and Ostriches…

Multiplicity Lab…

How Many are Missing?

More Math Games… “Fill the Stairs,” “Guess My Number,” and “Guess Odd, Guess Even”

Have a great weekend!

Love,

Ms. Melissa

Good evening, room 120 families and friends!

We are excited to share that we have begun a new exploration in class! Our learning journey started with a chapter book titled “I Survived…The Great Chicago Fire, 1871, which introduces students to an important moment in history through engaging storytelling.

Along with our reading, we are learning more about the city of Chicago. Students are exploring the symbolism found in the Chicago flag and discovering what the stars and stripes represents. We have also been viewing slides showcasing Chicago’s famous buildings and unique architecture, helping students see how history, design, and culture come together to shape the city.

Comprehension Questions about I Survived…

Journaling…

If I could have any animal as a pet, I would have…

The best day ever would be…

When I grow up, I want to be…

One morning I opened the door and saw a box. Inside it was a…

Lent…

Centers/ Choice Time

Drop Everything And Read…

Math…

Learning how to fill out a Venn Diagram…

Math Games…

Listening and reading along to stories on the I Pads…

Learning about greater than and less than comparison symbols by drawing a monster who wants to eat the greater of the two numbers…

Our Dream Gardens…

Our entire school participated in Read for the Record, a national initiative that encourages kids and adults to read together. We read the book “See Marcus Grow” and then dreamt of the gardens we would like to grow one day.

Multiplicity Lab

Recess…

Have a great weekend!!

Love,
Ms. Melissa

We finished our book, “Greeking Out” this week and had a celebratory discussion with donuts. We went around the circle and shared our favorite Greek myth and told why it stands out to us. The students loved these stories about gods, heroes, monsters, and magical creatures. Their favorite characters were…

• Zues- ruler of the gods
• Athena- goddess of wisdom
• Heracles- the super strong hero
• Pegasus-the flying horse

The action and drama made reading feel like watching a fantasy movie in your hear.

Stories read this week…

1. Arachne the Weaver
2. The Moon Falls in Love
3. The Giant Problem
4. Till Death do us Part and Then Some

Journaling…

1. Where is your favorite place to go and why?

Write about a time you laughed really hard…

Multiplicity Lab…

Choice Time/ Centers…

Practicing Yoga

Building a Robot…

Building a House…

Designing a Chess Board…

Holding Marshmallow…

Our trip to the Des Plaines Library…

Math Games…

This week in math we introduced more graph types that help them organize and understand data. These graphs focus on counting, comparing, and answering basic questions. The graphs we explored include picture graphs, bar graphs, tally charts, and line plots. We learned the following skills- Reading titles and labels, counting accurately, comparing categories, answering word problems, and explaining their thinking.

Chess Class…

Have a great weekend!

Love,

Ms. Melissa

Happy Valentine’s Day! This week we had a wonderful time learning and celebrating together. We read more Greek myths and discovered heroes, gods, and adventures. We spent time writing in our journals and sharing our ideas, and we practiced our skills be playing fun math games. To celebrate Valentine’s Day, we enjoyed pizza, exchanged cards, and played games together- like their favorite “Heads Up 7 Up.” It was a week full of learning, creativity, and fun!

Valentine’s Day Fun!

Happy 1st Birthday, Marshmallow!!

Candy Hearts Graph-

Morning Journaling…

Heart Art…

Valentine’s Day Word Search…

Crack the Valentine’s Day Code…

Math Games…

Making Posters for our Olympic Celebration

Making Mail Boxes for Valentines…

Watching Ms. Anna feed our snake, Cornflake!

Watching our daily Heggerty reading program…

Have a nice and relaxing long weekend!!

Love,

Ms. Melissa

Hello, families and friends!

We had a busy and exciting week in our classroom! We celebrated the 100th day of school on Friday and with that we were excited about the fun challenges that went with it! In teams we put together 100 piece puzzles, licked our tootsie pop 100 times to see if we could get to the center, assembled Lego structures using 100 pieces, filled out a 100 Day fun packet with mazes and word searches, and of course completed Day 100 in our math journals- (5 number sentences that equal 100).

Oh- and we had a dance party while putting together puzzles… 🙂

On Friday we also came together for a special all-school opening ceremony in honor of the Winter Olympics, which was a great way to build school spirit and learn about teamwork and perseverance. Our class chose to represent Argentina. Argentina will compete in events like slalom, giant slalom, and other downhill races, cross country skiing, and Luge.

In reading, we continued enjoying more myths from our Greeking Out book- students are especially lovingthe stories- especially the ones with monsters.

Greek mythology is packed with wild monsters. Here are some famous ones that have popped up in our stories.

Medusa- A Gorgon with snakes for hair; anyone who looked at her turned to stone.

Minotaur- Half man, half bull, trapped in the Labyrinth on Crete.

Hydra- A many headed serpent; when one head was cut off, more grew back.

Cerberus- A three-headed dog that guarded the entrance to the Underworld.

Chimera- A fire-breathing creature made of parts of a lion, goat, and snake.

The students drew their own monster and wrote a creative writing piece about that creature…

We had a great time creating our own Mythical, Magical Monsters…

Researching Mythical Monsters

Drawing and Coloring our Monsters…

Centers/ Choice Time

Presenting our Dioramas

Multiplicity Lab

In math, we practiced measurement using both centimeters and inches on a ruler, and we also learned about perimeter by adding the side lengths of different shapes.

Field Trip to see the “Fractured Fairytales” Play

Presentations by 3-8th graders about the Winter Olympics…

Ms. Stephanie from the Des Plaines Library visited our classroom to read an adorable story about aliens and lead a spaceship craft…

Have a joyful weekend!

Love, Ms. Melissa

We had a great week in room 120! Here is what we’ve been up to…

This week we read the Greek myth about the attack of the Aloadae. The Aloadae were two giant brothers names Otus and Ephialtes. They were sons of a god, Poseidon, and a mortal woman which made them incredibly strong and fast-growing. Every year they got bigger and more powerful.

As they grew the brothers became arrogant and decided they were strong enough to challenge the Olympian gods themselves. They planned an attack on Olympus by doing something outrageous: they tried to stack mountains on top of each other so that they could climb up to the gods’ home. They also said they would take Hera and Artemis.

At first the gods were alarmed by the brothers’ strength. But the Aloadae had a weakness: they were overconfident and not very wise.

The goddess Artemis tricked them. She turned herself into a deer and ran between the two brothers. As they tried to kill the animal, they threw their spears at the same time and accidentally kiddled each other.

So the attack failed, and the gods remained in control.

The students made dioramas showing a scene from the myth. They also wrote a paragraph explaining the scene they chose to create. Please ask your child to tell you about their scene!

Happy Birthday, Christian! We hope all your wishes come true!

Centers/Choice Time

Math Games…

20/20

Touchdown

4 in a Row-

Art with Ms. Andrea

School Choice Celebration!

Hanging Out in our School Library

Watching Percy Jackson: Lightening Thief

Wednesday Wonders…

Phonics- Writing -or words

Chess Class with Mr. Leo-

Good evening, families and friends of room 120!

We had a short but busy week. Here is what we’ve been up to…

Math with Ms. Georgia…

We love when Ms. Georgia comes in to teach us new math games or in this case, a new way to play an old game. She took the cards away from our “Sorry” games and gave us 12 sided dice. Instead of drawing cards, we rolled the die and doubled it. It was a great way to practice fast doubles! She also told the students they could make up their own new rules for the game. It was great fun to see the rules each group came up with!

Choice Time/Centers…

Multiplicity Lab…

Greek Mythology…

This week in Greek Mythology we read the following stories…

1. Daughter of the Seasons – the story of Demeter and Persephone
2. The Golden Touch- the story of King Midas
3. Attack of Aloadae

After reading the myth of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, grain, and harvest, we had a sampling of Greek foods. We tasted olives, chickpeas, hummus, pita bread, grapes, fig, pomegranate seeds, and plums. We also made all of these foods out of clay…

Our Greek Feast…

Wednesday Wonders…

Indoor Recess with Ms. Lisa’s Class…

Have a great weekend!

Love,

Ms. Melissa