A Word From The Office Hello and Welcome to Fall!

At Grand Prairie learning and growing is in full swing! The students have settled into the daily

school routines and are busy showing us that they are ready to grow as readers, writers, math-

ematicians, and friends. The Grand Prairie staff continues to celebrate our wonderful student

-centered learning environment. Our focus is on providing each and every learner with the

opportunity to achieve his or her maximum academic and social potential.

Teachers have completed the fall reading, writing, word analysis, and math benchmark assess-

ments and are actively using the information gathered to tailor individual instruction, to in-

form classroom instruction, and to target and develop school goals. Per state law, the assess-

ments will be repeated in winter and spring. Our goal is to continuously reflect and refine the

educational opportunities that we offer, knowing that these opportunities fulfill our goal of

providing the academic foundation for all our students in the 157c progression of learning.

Children grow and develop to their highest potential when a strong relationship is built be-

tween the home and school. The Grand Prairie staff values each other’s collective knowledge

base regarding the PreK-2 learner and works to collaboratively develop enriching instructional

opportunities. We encourage our families to join us as we focus on the District’s mission “to

prepare students to be confident, life-long learners and productive citizens by challenging

them to reach their fullest potential and by providing a quality educational environment in

partnership with family and community.” We hope to see you soon!

If you have any questions please feel comfortable in calling our friendly office staff or teach-

ers for help @ 815-469-3366.

Enjoy this beautiful Autumn weather!

Mrs. Nelson, Principal Mr. Rhoads, Assistant Principal

Sept 28th-Oct 9th—TERRA

NOVA Testing for 2nd Grad-

ers

October 1st—Band Boosters

Hot Lunch

October 2nd—FSP Smoothies

October 5th—FSP General

Meeting at GP 7:30 p.m.

October 8th—FSP Hot Lunch

@ GP

October 9th—Teacher Insti-

tute (No School)

October 12th—Columbus Day

(No School)

October 13th—FSP Book Fair

October 13th—FSP Family

Night 5:30—7:30 p.m.

October 15th—Athletic

Boosters Hot Lunch

October 16th—Picture Re-

take Day

October 21st—End of 1st

Quarter

October 26th—30th Red

Ribbon Week

October 30th—Halloween

Parade 9:30 am. Halloween

Parties follow parade!

Interested in a

Volunteering

Opportunity?

Our lunchrooms are still in need of parent volunteers at

every grade level in both communities!

Anyone interested please contact Venus Shelton @

fspshelton@gmail.com

Grand Prairie Tiger Tales

October 2015

SNEAKER SPOT!! We have introduced our new “Energizers” (exercises) for the month; we learned

how to move our bodies in different ways while working on gymnastic and tum-

bling skills.

We introduced guest instructors Master Kwon and Master Lim from Tiger Kwon to demonstrate

their skills and allow our students to experience beginning skills of Tae Kwon Do.

The construction of your child’s “Sportfolio” has begun! The PE staff will be collecting data and

student work all year round so your child will be able to send home a portfolio of some of the great

skills we worked on and mastered throughout the year.

Our Tiger running club started September 15th and it was a huge success with over 250 students!

We meet every Tuesday and Thursday morning and run for 20 minutes. Our students combined,

have already ran over 600 miles!

This month in PE, we will be working with various manipulatives, ball skills, team building activi-

ties and we will be introducing our Health curriculum. Happy October! Your GP PE staff!

October 2015 Page 2

News You Need to Know for October!

Dressing for the Weather Just a reminder…. Cooler weather is here and the children will be outside for morning recess and a 20

minute afternoon recess, weather permitting (no rain/snow) and the temperature is 20 degrees

(including wind chill) or above. Please make sure your child is dressed appropriately for the weather

conditions.

On another note, our lost and found is growing because of the weather! We would love to find the owners but are

only able to return those that have names on the tags! Please place your child’s name on all articles including

lunchboxes and water bottles! Feel free to stop in and check out the table whenever you are near Grand Prairie!

Picture Retakes— Thursday, October 16, 2015

Don't let the flu stand in your way of school, work, sports, extracurricular activities. Follow these tips to protect yourself.

COMMON SENSE CAN HELP YOU AVOID THE FLU:

Group gatherings like school, football games, dances, are ideal places for the flu bug to spread. Protect yourself and others by following these

simple steps:

Practice Healthy Habits-Wash your hands often with soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds to help prevent germs from spread-

ing. Also, avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth, because the virus can spread when your hands touch surfaces that are infested with

germs.

Mind your manners-Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or your arm when coughing and sneezing, and throw the tissue away.

What's Mine is Mine, What's Yours is Yours-Don't share drinks, water bottles, eating utensils or cell phones with friends.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a child not return to school until they are fever-free for 24 hours without medicine, no

vomiting or diarrhea for 24 hours. For more information from the nurse, please check out her web staff page at www.fsd157c.org

ALLERGY ALERT—YOUR HELP IS NEEDED: Many students have severe allergies to peanuts and nuts. Please be aware of this and when

packing your students snack avoid items that may contain nut products. A list of “nut free” snack options can be found on Nurse Jean’s site.

Notes from Nurse Jean

Please Consider… Grand Prairie has many students with varied types of food allergies! Many of you are thankful that your child is allergy free! For those of you who are allergy free please consider doing your best to eliminate snacks with peanuts. Snack time in the room is tricky for the allergy student. If children are eating snacks with nuts around the room, it can be dangerous for children with allergies. It would be so helpful if your child would save that favorite nut snack for lunch! Here are some safe ideas!

Fresh fruit and vegetables Fruit Snacks Rold Gold Pretzels Pepperidge Farm Goldfish (pretzel or cheddar – no cinnamon) Cheese Keebler Vanilla Wafers Teddy Grahams Nutri Grain bars

We All Fit Together In Preschool

Ms. Dziedzic’s class is getting to know about one another and building friend-ships! We have been learning about our friends through various activities and crafts. We have been making classroom graphs and charts that focus on specific topics and questions that help us get to know each other. We have learned about our favorite colors, if we are a girl or a boy, what color is our hair, how many letters are in our names, and much more. We have been exploring our classroom and centers together. We have been reading many fiction and non-fiction books that relate to families, ourselves, what we like, what we don’t like, how we are the same and different, and much more! We are very excited to not only get to know everyone in our class, but as well as, all the children in the preschool program. As a preschool program, we have created a puzzle piece to represent that we all are a special piece of the preschool puzzle

and it continues to grow throughout the year as students continue to join the program!

October 2015

All Pre-K—Second grade students are invited to participate in the Halloween activi-

ties including an all school parade! Parent parking will be available after 9:00 on both

lots and the playground behind the school on this day for parade observers and our

party volunteers. NOTE: we are unable to allow parking along the curb in front of the building because

it is a FIRE ZONE.

Indoor All School Costume Parade 9:30 a.m.

Students will participate in an all school costume parade with an indoor route encompassing both gyms

as was utilized last year. All parents just interested in viewing the parade are invited in through the

gym doors to stand behind the cones on the parade route to view this event. To ensure student

safety, we will block off the academic wings and require all adults to remain in the gym and exit

through the gym or back doors. After the parade, if you have a badge you will be allowed into the

academic wings. We must strictly request that all adults remain until the end of the parade and stu-

dents are back in the academic wings prior to movement to exit. This again is a safety measure for all

students.

Costumes— Exciting change this year! Due to the 11:20 dismissal, costumes may be worn to school!

Naturally, costumes must not depict any form of violence or gore that may scare other children. To

ensure any enhancements, especially any masks that may impede vision, to your child’s costume are not

lost or misplaced consider leaving these at home. Yearly we have tears because pieces are left behind

or lost. Props that resembles a weapon cannot be allowed on school property per district policy.

Party Times

Kindergarten, first and second grade students will have their parties following the parade. Thank you

to the parent helpers who have signed up to assist with this party! The office has been given a list of

those parents participating by the classroom teacher.

Volunteer Information

Parent volunteers remember to enter through the main entrance and to check in and receive your

badge. Volunteers will be welcomed into the classrooms 15 minutes prior to the parties for set-up and

then requested to move quickly to the gym for the parade. Parents will not be allowed to remain in the

classroom during the parade time. Parents taking their students home after the parties/parade need

to sign out their child.

FOOD/CANDY POLICY

Our students’ safety and health are our main concern therefore, edible treats will NOT be allowed

in the classroom. We thank you for your cooperation and appreciate your understanding!

Halloween Celebration Time!!

Page 3

Privacy Please!! Due to privacy laws, we ask that you only take pictures of your own child when you are here at

school. Please respect the privacy of those families that wish not to have their children photo-

graphed. We realize that capturing those memories are important and we truly appreciate your co-

operation and understanding of this policy.

Pumpkin Farm, we love you! Kindergarten explored the farm life at Doll-inger's Pumpkin Farm this month. We were lucky to see a sleepy calf, some playful ducks, a busy hen, a feisty rooster, and some laidback goats! The newest addition to the farm, the piglets were just born so they were snug-gling with their mommy! We also learned about the wildlife that we would find in the area. The kids were able to feel some fur of a rabbit, skunk, deer, raccoon, beaver, and coyote. Kindergar-ten even relaxed on a fun hay ride to view the farm land and went on an adventurous train ride! What a better way to begin the study of the pumpkin lifecycle than to take home a pumpkin of your own! We collected pumpkins of all shapes and sizes.

What’s Happening in the Classrooms?

October 2015 Page 5

We Are Writers! Did you know all first graders do Writing Workshop? Our teacher teaches us

things about writing during a mini-lesson. Then we go off to WRITE, WRITE,

WRITE! We are writing true stories about us. First, we think of an idea. Then,

we touch and tell our story. Next, we sketch the pictures. Finally, we are ready

to WRITE, WRITE, WRITE the words to the story. We are learning how to make

our characters move, talk, feel, and think. Our mentor text is Night of the Veg-

gie Monster by George McClements. We use this story to see what he does and

then we try it in our own stories. Our lives are full of stories to tell, and we

can’t WAIT to tell them all!

Kindergarten—Mrs. Kelly’s Class

First Grade—Mrs. McKurus’ Class

Second Grade—Mrs. Aranowski’s Class

This month Mrs. Aranowski’s class had a visitor from one of our class-room parents. Mrs. Roche, an art teacher, came to our classroom to teach us about the artist Joan Miro. Miro was a painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona, Spain. His work has been interpreted as Surrealism. In our classroom, we rolled dice to choose the different shapes we would put together to form the head, body, legs, arms, and eyes of our abstract work. Using mostly primary colors, we painted our drawings to create our own masterpiece.

Testing for second graders will be on the following dates: Tuesday, September 29 – R Day In View Wednesday, September 30 – T Day In View Thursday, October 1 – I Day Terra Nova Mathematics Friday, October 2 – G Day No Testing – Make up day Monday, October 5 – E Day No Testing Tuesday, October 6 – R Day Terra Nova Reading Wednesday, October 7 – T Day Terra Nova Reading Thursday, October 8 – I Day No Testing – Make up day

Some testing sessions may take place in the mornings. Please

make sure that child arrives to school on time. Classes will be

going to their Specials/Encore during testing week. Parents often ask what can be done to get my child ready for this test. The best things you can do are: Please remind your child to write in their best printing or handwriting and proofread their answers.

Remind students to fill in answer bubbles completely.

Students benefit from a healthy breakfast for morning tests.

Remember your healthy snack.

Be sure to have extra sharpened pencils.

Wear comfortable clothes.

Get a good night's sleep.

Relax... it's only a test!

Once the tests have been scored and the results are returned to the school, there will be a

parent letter with information on how your child scored.

Thank you for your ongoing support and cooperation!

Have a wonderful October!

Second Graders and Their First Standardized Test

Every grade is an exciting time of first experiences: a first time reading a whole book, a first

time writing a full sentence or paragraph and for second grade it is the opportunity to experience

taking their first standardized test! The test they will be taking is called Terra Nova. Below is some

information about how to prepare your child for the testing, the dates that the tests will be adminis-

tered, and materials that the students will need for the testing.