Volume 1, Issue 20

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Lots of things have been going on here at
Graymont Grade School during the last few weeks.
We finished out September with STS Testing for
1st 8th grade students and will use the results
when we get them back later this fall to gauge
where the students are academically at the start
of this school year. We also had our PTO Pork
Chop Dinner and Silent Auction on September 26th.
It was well attended and very successful.
Thanks so much to all those who donated items and
put in time to make the event so valuable for the
school children. The Pontiac High School Chorus
and Marching Band also visited Graymont on
September 23rd. They presented a nice program
for our students and gave them an opportunity to
see the fun they might have if they pursue music
at the high school level. We have several
important events coming up in October. Picture
day is on October 2nd. This is always a day that
the students look forward to. We also have two
field trips scheduled. The 1st 6th grade will
attend the Conservation and Agriculture Expo at
the Livingston County fairgrounds on October 9th.
In addition, the 5th 8th grade will travel to
Funks Grove Gem and Mineral Museum on October
17th. Im sure both of these trips will be fun
and educational for the students. We also have
the end of the first nine weeks on October 17th,
followed by Parent Teacher Conferences on October
23rd and 24th. Please contact the school office
to set up a conference. At the end of the month,
we will celebrate Red Ribbon week. This years
theme is Dont Let Drugs Haunt Your Life.
Several fun activities are being scheduled which
will remind the students to abstain from using
drugs and alcohol. The school district budget
for the FY 2009 school year was approved at the
last school Board meeting. Projections indicate
that revenues will exceed expenditures overall
and this position, along with the fund balances
from prior years, puts the school district in a
very favorable financial position. The budget is
posted on the school website at
www.rookscreek.k12.il.us. One expenditure for
the district that the district will incur, will
take place at the school in October. It is an
upgrade of the computer wiring in the building,
as well as setting up a wireless network. This
should make the computer network in the school
much more effective for the students and
teachers. On a final note, there will be a
School Board election in April 2007. Four
positions will be voted on at that time. Rusty
Rich, Matt Jacobs, Matt Dewald, and Stephanie
Robinson hold those positions currently.
Nominating petitions for the election can be
picked up at the school office starting on
October 28th. They will need to be turned in on
school days between January 20th and January
26th. More details will be shared, as well as,
announcements regarding incumbents who plan to
run for the Board as the election date moves
closer. I hope you have a great fall season.
Nice weather, leaves changing color, football,
bonfires, wiener roasts, hay rack rides and other
activities make the fall a wonderful time of
year. Rest assured that we are making the most
of this great season at Graymont School to keep
our students working hard at their educational
pursuits. Thank you for your encouragement and
support in this effort. Bill James
Volume 1, Issue 20 September 30, 2008
NEWSLETTER October 2008
Graymont Grade School Newsletter
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Student Council

• The student council will be having a Fall dance
  on Friday, October 24 from 700 900 pm.
  Students 5-8 grade are welcome to attend. Each
  Graymont student is allowed to bring two guests
  who must also be in grades 5-8. Tickets to the
  dance are 3 a piece.
• Student council is in charge this year of
  decorating the school for Red Ribbon Week which
  is October 27th through October 31st. We have
  come up with some great ideas.
• Student Council Up and Coming Activities
• Penny Wars will be held in November. The money
  collected will be donated to Hunter Gerdess
  family. Hunter was recently diagnosed with
  Leukemia and is currently in Memphis Tennessee at
  the St. Judes Hospital.
• Graymont Warrior T-Shirts/Sweatshirt sales will
  also be held in November. Look for future
  communication on that closer to November.

Speech Team
Speech Team competition this year will be held on
Saturday, November 8th at Prairie Central Jr.
High in Forest. Students have had their selected
speeches since the beginning of September and
should be working to memorize their parts. I
will be starting after school speech practice
starting the first week in October. I will put a
sign up sheet in the classroom for student to
choose a time that is convenient for them. Please
make sure your child has a ride when practice is
over. A speech team t-shirt order form has been
sent home. If your student would like to order a
t-shirt, please return the form and money back to
me by Friday, October 3rd. If you have any
questions, please give me a call at the school
743-5346. Ms. Wilson
Athletics
Our boys made it to Regionals, but unfortunatley
lost to St. Anthony. We are very proud of their
hard work and efforts throughout the season.
Girls softball has also come to a conclusion.
After several rain dates, they played Regionals
against Indian Creek and were not victorious.
Girls, great effort this season, you really put
your hearts into it. Basketball season has
already started for the girls. Our only girl
player this year is ABBY LEGNER!!! Basketball
for the boys is just around the corner. The
players this year include Dallas Burns, Stevie
Carroll, Justin Rich, Shane Burns, and Matt
Elliott. Please come out to support our players ?
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Teacher News
Extra, Extra, Read All About It!!!
Mrs. Erickson - Kindergarten

October will be an exciting month for our class.
We will be doing a great deal of hands-on
learning as we work with pumpkins and spiders and
other scary things! The class will finish all of
the letter/letter combinations during the month
of October. We will then move on to creating
and reading 3 and 4 letter words. We will be
using a new CD-Rom created by Jolly Phonics to
help each child continue to review and work on
all letters and words. Pumpkin Math will be
going on all during the month of October. We
will be doing a great deal of predicting and
checking our predictions against the actual
measurements. We will talking about
circumference, diameter, and weight in pounds.
There will be lots of counting, comparing, and
sorting. We will also be roasting our pumpkin
seeds. Science will also involve the pumpkin.
We will be doing the life cycle of the pumpkin
and doing several activities that help us
remember all of the steps in the life cycle. We
will actually have pumpkins in our room and will
have a surprise activity at the end of the
unit. We have several new phonics puzzles and
stencilets that go with our Jolly Phonics
program. Thanks to parents who attended the
August PTO and help our room win the Classroom
Attendance prize of 25.00. Our October book
order will be a special one. For every book that
our class purchases, a book will be donated to a
classroom that is in need due to the recent
hurricanes. This program is sponsored by
Scholastic Book Clubs ClassroomsCare. Thanks for
ordering to help others! Report cards and
parent-teacher conference are coming up in
October. I look forward to spending a bit of
time with each childs parents.
Mrs. Hinz 1st/2nd
Reading is of continuing importance in 1st and
2nd grade. Both grades are reviewing letter
sounds and combinations. In October, 1st grade
will be working on the literary elements
predicting, setting, authors purpose, and cause
and effect. While the 2nd grade is working on
compare and contrast, steps in a process, graphic
sources, and sequence. We will be looking at a
number of stories and discussing these elements.
Keep practicing and rereading those books. Just
a reminder that I only change the book buddy
books on Tuesday and Friday. Please make sure
that your student has it at school on these days.
In math, we are joining grades and working
with graphs. The 1st and 2nd graders will learn
how to read and create concrete graphs,
pictographs, and bar graphs, as well as, tally
tables. Toward the end of the month, the grades
will split again. 1st graders will move on to
place value and understanding numbers. 2nd
graders will review addition and subtractions
facts in preparation for double digit addition
and subtraction.
Cont
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Mrs. Hinz cont
Both grades will be working on a new social
studies unit for November. We are starting with
Communities. We will discuss and learn about
cities, suburban areas, and rural part of
Illinois. We will also integrate map reading
skills and communities in other countries. Both
1st and 2nd graders are studying types of
sentences in language arts. We are discussing
statements, questions, exclamations, and command
sentences and the proper punctuation for each.
We are having fun and learning tons! ?
Ms. Rients 3rd/4th
Reading, Language, Writing In reading we will
discuss how setting influences a story. We will
also compare and contrast characters, use graphic
sources, and distinguish between realism and
fantasy. We are having great discussions about
the stories we read and connecting them to our
own lives. In language arts, we are studying
nouns. We have identified common and proper
nouns, so now we move onto possessive nouns.
After nouns, we will study verbs. In writing, we
are the authors and illustrators of personal
narratives. Math 3rd graders are reviewing
adding. Even though they only have to add 4-digit
numbers, they like to be challenged by adding
numbers in the millions, and they can do it! Next
we will do subtraction with regrouping, rounding,
and using front-end estimation. 4th graders are
working on the difference between expressions and
equations. Then they will move onto understanding
time to the nearest hour, minute, and second.
They will also find elapsed time with clocks and
the calendar. Both grades are practicing their
Rocket Math and are zooming right
along! Science/Social Studies We have started
our unit on rocks and minerals. Students will
learn how sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic
rocks are made, as well as, act as scientists as
they explore different rocks and identify their
properties. There will be many experiments and
activities with this unit, including making
edible rocks! We will also study the rock cycle.
After rocks and minerals, we will start Social
Studies again where we will visit the Northeast
region of the United States. We have a field
trip to the Livingston County Conservation Ag
Expo on October 9th. More information will be
sent home about this event.
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Mrs. Hott 5th 8th
We have finished our STS testing!! Everyone did
a good job during our testing and we are all
ready to get back to our regular schedule. 5/6
Social Studies We have moved through
Mesopotamia and are now learning about ancient
Egypt both through our textbook and using the
History Channels Engineering an Empire video.
As we watch, the students are tracking the
succession of Pharaohs which they will need to
know for their chapter test. 5-6 Science In
our second section, we have been studying rocks
and minerals. We met the rock group Sed
(sedimentary), Iggy (Igneous), and Morph
(metamorphic) as well as making our own
sedimentary rocks (which are still drying).
Check out the pictures on the web site of our
class discovering the difference in crystal sizes
with slow and fast cooling (relating to magma
cooling). 7-8 Science Weve moved on through a
study of vertebrates and are starting to learn
about birds and mammals. Once we finish this
last chapter we will move on to Inside the
Restless Earth where we will join the 5/6
graders in the study of rocks, minerals, plate
tectonics, earthquakes and volcanoes (although a
more in-depth study than 5/6 grade) Math
Math for all grades is going well. We are moving
at a good pace and although we took a little bit
of break for STS testing, we will be right back
on track. Heres what were currently learning
about 5th grade some algebra concepts using
their addition/subtraction skills to write and
solve expressions and equations 6th grade
adding/subtracting fractions and mixed numbers as
well as measures of time such as elapsed time 7th
grade adding/subtracting fractions and mixed
numbers and multiplying/dividing fractions and
mixed numbers 8th grade Using our equation
writing and solving with geometric formulas as
well as solving inequalities
Ms. Wilson 5th 8th
5th/6th Reading We have finished Unit 1 and have
moved right into Unit 2 My World and Yours and
The Living Earth. We will be focusing on the
reading elements authors viewpoint,
cause/effect, generalizing, character, steps in a
process, graphic sources, fact/opinion, and
drawing conclusions. Remember that spelling tests
are Friday morning of every week. Each students
is also given at least 20 minutes of quiet
reading time to work towards their quarterly AR
goal. 7th/8th Reading We will be finishing Unit
3 on Science Fiction and Fantasy by focusing on
author, Ray Bradbury. Bradbury is a very
influential writer of science fiction and fantasy
inspiring many movie directions, such as, Steven
Spielberg and Gary Kurtz.. We will then focus our
attention to Unit 4 titled Learning the Hard Way.
The literature in this unit will explore the ways
that painful or embarrassing events can lead to
growth. As usual, the students will have
vocabulary words to learn and will be faced with
thinking critically when answering questions from
each story. Please check with your student
periodically to see how they are progressing on
their quarterly AR goal. 1st quarter ends October
17th. 5th-8th Language Arts Everyone is
working very hard on Chapter 3 Verbs. Verbs is
one of our more lengthy units focusing on verb
phrases, verb tenses, irregular verbs,
direct/indirect objects, verbs in active/passive
voice, subject/verb agreement and verbs in
inverted/interrupted order. 7th/8th Social
Studies We are wrapping up Chapter 3 on Canada
and the United States. We did several activities
including a water color painting of North America
before and after glaciers. Students did an
awesome job, with their water colors turning out
very beautiful. Chapter 4 is on the United States
today with emphasis on We the People, a
Constitutional Democracy, the US Economy, and the
US Culture Crossing Borders. Accelerated
Reader Congratulations to Madison Jeziorski for
meeting her first 1st quarter AR goal. Excellent
Job!
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Ms. Ores 5th-8th Health
The 7th 8th grade health class has just
recently started a new chapter on mental and
emotional health. The students will be able to
continue to develop good mental and emotional
health habits. We have been doing activities to
work on avoiding conflicts and resolving them.
The 5th 6th grade health classes have also been
learning about their mental and emotional health.
They have been reviewing for their second test.
The test will be given on September 29th. I
wanted to let you all know that Red Ribbon Week
will be held October 23rd-31st. The theme for
this years Red Ribbon Week is Dont haunt your
future with drugs. The eighth graders have come
up with the theme and are in the process of
coming up with the planned events for the week.
They have a special treat for the last day of the
week. The kindergarteners have continued to work
on locomotor skills but we have also added
manipulative skills. We have been practicing
rolling, tossing, and catching. We have rolled
and thrown to targets, partners and ourselves.
Since we have been continuing to work on our
locomotor movements, we have improved
tremendously! 1st-8th grade students in PE have
been working on softball. We started off with
catching and throwing in the lower grades, and we
worked on special situations and rules in the
older grades. The students were tested on their
throwing accuracy by throwing to a target. All of
the students at Graymont started physical fitness
testing the last weeks of September. The
students will be tested on cardiovascular
endurance, flexibility, muscular strength and
endurance, and agility. If a student
accomplishes a certain goal on all of the events
he/she will earn Presidential status. This means
that they are above average in their physical
fitness. If they make it on some but not all, a
National status will be given for their excellent
performance. Once physical fitness testing is
over, we will begin flag football as long as our
weather stays nice.

• Special Dates to Remember
• Oct. 9 1-6 grade Ag Expo field trip
• Oct. 10 1115 dismissal
• Oct. 13 No school
• Oct. 17 1st quarter ends 5/8 grade Funks
  Grove field trip
• Oct. 22 Report cards
• Oct. 23 Parent/teacher conferences 4-8pm
• Oct. 24 No school parent/teacher conferences
  8am-12pm. Student Council Dance 7-9pm

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Mrs. Sullan - Art
The year started out with 2nd grade - 8th
memorizing with the Kindergarten and 1st grade
exposed to the sentence Little Silly Squirrels
Climb Trees Very Fast. Each of the beginning
letters stands for an element of art Line,
Space, Shape, Color, Texture, Value and Form.
These seven words pretty much cover the language
of the visual arts and so it is good for the art
students to have the basic foundation. We are
learning that ART TALKS and that we can
understand and interpret it when we know the
language. Each grade has been creating
projects for each of the elements. It is
rewarding for me as a teacher to hear
kindergartners talk about texture! cool. With
this school wide curriculum, the accomplishments
in creating art will increase with every passing
year. When this years kindergarten is in 8th, I
will be able to cover more advanced information.
That is one of the more exciting goals for me as
an educator. I enjoy writing the art curriculum
for Cornell, Graymont, Pontiac Christian and
Odell and customizing when needed. Kindergarten
through 4th grade have explored Vincent Van
Goghs lines in his paintings. K - 2nd made
bookmarks with lines and shapes, and 3rd and 4th
created squirrels in swirly landscapes using
lines that are expressive like Van Goghs Starry
Night. They then painted with watercolors over
the lines and ended up with very dramatic scenes.
5th 6th grade started this year with form and
designed 3-D dinosaurs. The 5th grade are doing a
project exploring oology which is the science of
an egg looking like the creature that is inside.
The 5 6th grade students also had the option of
creating dinosaur skulls, leg bones, and
vertebrae and water coloring them in neutrals.
They had the excitement of having several real
skulls, leg bones and other bones to examine.
So, the students drew sketches and are now
finishing up bringing their ideas to life in
model magic clay, and watercolors. 7th and 8th
graders took the longer route with additional
study of the elements, creating posters, and just
now completing written quizzes. All did well.
They also have on display in the hallway their
ideas for decorating the paper mache bowls they
have started. Each bowl is to reflect their
interests and personality. There are many
seasonal projects coming up involving the fall
leaves, colors and textures. It is so much fun to
hear the ideas of your children as they explore
their world of art. Please give me a call if you
have any questions.
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The Flanagan-Cornell High School Volleyball
Teams would like to invite you to our Volley For
the Cure Match This game and fund raising
activities are totally devoted to raising money
for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer foundation.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and we
are teaming up with Susan G. Komen and the IHSA
to share in this worthwhile cause. Date
Volleyball Match on Thursday, October 9th at 600
PM The Lady Falcons will take on Fisher in an HOI
Conference match up. Prize Raffles There will
be baskets of goodies for raffle. Purchase as
many raffle tickets as you wish to try to win the
prize baskets. Tickets are 1 ea. Survivors get
in free All proceeds from all activities will
be donated to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer
Foundation. Baskets for Raffle 1. Halloween
Party y Basket Halloween plates, napkins, door
décor, Halloween candy, a 6 inch light up plastic
pumpkin Cupcake kit (cake mix, cupcake papers and
picks, frosting, and sprinkles) all in a black
Trick or Treat tub. 2. Volleyball Lovers
Basket A volleyball scrapbook (12x12), a
volleyball scrapbook kit (paper, stickers, cut
outs) a small volleyball pillow, a stadium cup
(filled with a sticker, key chain, pen, magnet,
and a puzzle), a sports beads jewelry making kit
and a volleyball t-shirt. (Size small) 3.
Swimming Fun Basket This basket has an inflatable
tire float and a flip-flop float, a kids lobster
float, a large Falcon orange towel, a pair of
youth goggles, a small inflatable volleyball
beach ball, and a one month free pass to the
Flanagan Memorial Pool and Cardio room. 4.
Booster Club Basket This basket has a certificate
for a free Gondola and 2 free bags of popcorn, an
FCHS t-shirt, and a variety of concession stand
candy and drink. 5. Survivor Basket This basket
is designed in honor of the Survivors in
attendance. There is pink Bath and Body lotion,
shower gel, a body sponge, and a pink candle,
slippers, and bath towel. Come join us in the
fight against Breast Cancer!!