Volume 1, Issue 13

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• Dear Parents,
• Has the year moved quickly for you? Will you sit
  down to your holiday dinner and marvel that, so
  soon, the New Year is upon you? Or will you
  breathe a sigh of relief and say, At last
• Its strange how time moves at different speeds
  for different people in different years. Of
  course it all has to do with the challenges we
  face. If you have a son or daughter serving
  overseas, perhaps time has slowed to a crawl. If
  he or she is home for the holidays, maybe you
  wonder why time moves so quickly.
• Whatever way time is flying for you this year,
  take time to relax, enjoy your family and
  friends, and remember that the holidays dont
  have to be picture perfect to be warm and
  enjoyable.
• We are planning activities in preparation for the
  holidays. The annual Christmas Program will be
  December 11 beginning at 700 p.m. Santas Secret
  Shop will be set up the evening of December 12th.
  Students will be allowed to shop during the day
  on the 13th. This is always an exciting time for
  the students to shop for gifts for those special
  people. The band and chorus are planning to
  visit Livingston Manor, and perform a few
  Christmas selections on December 20th. We will
  also have Christmas parties on December 21
  starting at 115. We will dismiss at 200 that
  day. School will resume on January 8, 2008.
• In case of inclement weather, make sure you
  listen to the following stations for school
  closings and early dismissals
• WJBC 1230 AM Bloomington
• WTRX 93.7 FM Pontiac
• WBWN B104
• WBNQ 101.5 FM Bloomington
• WEEK TV 25 Peoria, Bloomington
• HOI 19 News
• As the winter weather is quickly approaching, I
  want to remind everyone that our students need to
  make sure they are dressed warm enough for the
  temperatures. Please make sure your children
  have warm coats, hats and gloves to stay warm
  while they are outside during the morning and
  lunch recesses.
• Best wishes during this holiday season,

Volume 1, Issue 13 November 30, 2007
NEWSLETTER December 2007
Graymont Grade School Newsletter
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Student Council The Student Council Pennies War
was a huge success. The school as a whole raised
a total of 219.08 to be donated to Make-A-Wish.
3rd and 4th grade won the competition by raising
61.14!!! Great work ?
Christmas Concert The Christmas Concert will be
Tuesday Dec. 11th at 7pm. All students should be
in their classrooms ready to go by 645pm.
Chorus/Band
Our 5th 8th grade students will be visiting
Evenglow Lodge in Pontiac on Wednesday, Dec.
20th. They will be demonstrating their beautiful
vocal and musical talents as well as warming the
hearts of the elderly.
Most people never run far enough on their first
wind to find out theyve got a second. Give your
dreams all youve got and youll be amazed at the
energy that comes out of you. William James,
American Philosopher, 1842-1910
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Teacher News
Mrs. Erickson
Ms. Myers

Kindergarten is looking more like a holiday
factory during December. Besides all of our
regular work, we are busy making projects,
banners, trees, "keeping secrets" and getting
ready for our Christmas program. We have a
special place to read books called "The Holiday
House". It even has Christmas lights for
decorations.   We are working on our tricky words
and also sounding out words as we go.  We are
able to read more of our Morning Message every
week.  We are using our magnetic letters to work
on new words and help us with the sounds. 
Christmas items help a lot as we work on
addition and subtraction. We have candy canes,
reindeer, santas,  stockings, etc to help us with
our problems.  We also know how many days 'til
Christmas because we each made a countdown chain
and take off a loop every day. We are beginning
a world tour of countries to find out how they
celebrate the holidays.  We are finding out that
there are many different customs around the
world.  We are planning a special surprise
for everyone at Graymont School on Dec.
12th!!!! Christmas is not just about getting,
but also about giving.  We have been sending
cards to soldiers in Iraq.  There is a special
website sponsored by Xerox (www.letssaythanks.com)
that lets us send our special greetings. Kinderg
arten has worked so very hard and read 100 books.
We reported our 100 books to Scholastic and now
Scholastic will donate 100 books to kids that are
in need of books.  WAY TO GO!!!!! We wish
everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New
Year.
Our class is working hard on so many different
projects. First grade is working on finishing up
our third unit in our reading series just in time
for our Winter Break. Our main focus is to
continue working on different phonics sounds and
blends. We read two stories each week to
reinforce these sounds and the reading strategies
we have learned so far. In Language Arts, we are
learning about verbs. We will be practicing
present and past-tense verbs, as well as, the
tricky verbs am, is, and are. For the rest of
this quarter, first graders are going to focus on
addition and subtractions sentences. We are
going to practice related facts and build into
fact families. We are also continuing to
practice our touch point strategy for addition
and subtraction. Second graders are also
working to finish up their third unit in their
reading series. Our focus will continue to be
working on the tricky vowel combinations and the
sounds they make. They also work through two
stories each week and have shown great progress
in their reading skills and use of strategies.
Second graders will also be practicing using and
writing verbs in Language Arts. Furthermore, we
will be learning about quotation marks and its
usage. I hope to have the students write a story
and use actual dialog for their characters.
Writing is a big focus in second grade. It is
important for students to know who to put their
ideas down on paper in a logical order. This is
an extremely hard process to learn but we are
beginning to see the light at the end of the
tunnel. In math, second grade is going to finish
up the quarter working on and mastering two-digit
subtraction. We are going to practice
subtracting using manipulatives and other
approaches. In science, we will be finishing
out the quarter focusing on rainbows. In this
unit, the students learn the basic
characteristics of a rainbow. We also learn
about the rainbow system and what makes people
see them in nature. We will be introduced to a
prism and diffraction glasses. Students will also
do a number of experiments to do with rainbows.
We look forward to all the exciting activities to
come!
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Ms. Rients
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. As
we begin the busy holiday season, its important
to remember that we still have a lot to do in the
classroom. In reading, both grades have
finished unit 2 and have begun unit 3. Unit 3
for 3rd grade is Getting the Job Done. The
skills they will be studying are steps in a
process, summarizing, text structure, and
visualizing. Unit 3 for 4th grade is Keys to
Success. In this unit, they will focus on making
judgments, drawing conclusions, making
generalizations, and making predictions. In
language arts, we will finish up verbs and move
on to pronouns. In writing, our focus is
descriptive writing. The students are learning
how their writing is more interesting when they
can create a picture for their audience. They are
getting much better at using colorful words.
Then, they will write another personal narrative
while practicing being more descriptive in
telling their story. The 3rd graders are
practicing using money in math. They are counting
bills and coins, making equivalent sets, making
change, and adding and subtracting money. This
is a hard concept for some students, so please
work with your child and give them opportunities
to practice with money at home. Have them add the
prices for a couple of things they want for
Christmas, or pretend they get to buy something
from one of the holiday ads and figure out what
change they will get back from 10 or 20. After
learning about money, they will start the chapter
on telling time. 4th grade is finishing their
study of graphs and charts. Then they are going
to do a review of multiplication and division
facts, multiplication properties, order of
operations, and expressions and equations with
variables. The students completed their
Tic-Tac-Toe projects in social studies about the
history of communities. They were very creative.
Now we are switching our focus to science. We are
studying the human body. We will look at each of
the bodys systems and how they work together to
keep us alive. The students will have an
opportunity at the end of the unit to make a life
size drawing to model one of the systems.
Mrs. Hott
5/6 Social Studies - We are currently learning
about the formation of the original 13 colonies
and the various countries that had an interest in
the new world. After Christmas, we will begin
discussions of the American Revolution. 5-8
Science - Look for the pictures of our Voyage to
Mars on the school web site! 7th and 8th We
have been learning about the different types of
cells and what cells are made up of. We have
also learned how they gain energy and multiply.
Next up is heredity and genes/DNA. Ask your
students about the pond critters we saw under
the microscope! 5th and 6th We have been
studying the classification of organisms and have
learned about the six kingdoms of organisms. We
have also learned that each kingdom is further
broken down into phylum, class, order, family,
genus and species. Dichotomous keys were used to
classify fruits, bugs, and Jelly Bellies. Each
of us took off a shoe, lined them up and tried to
create our own dichotomous key to classify them.
Next we will be learning about cells. Math
5th graders are working on multiplying by double
digit numbers. They will be multiplying by
decimals next. 6th graders are working on
ratios, proportions and percents 7th graders
just finished up multiplying and dividing
fractions and are moving on to ratios and
proportions (a little more in depth than what the
6th graders are covering) 8th graders are
finding areas of parallelograms, trapezoids and
circles. They will be moving on soon to
3-dimensional figures.
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Ms. Wilson 5-6 In Reading we have
started Unit 3 What do we learn from our
experiences? and How do people accomplish their
ambitions? During this unit we will focus on the
reading elements cause and effect, summarizing,
theme, plot, and text structure. 7-8 In
Reading we have started Unit 2 on Relationships.
In this unit, students will read selections that
illustrate how people are interconnected and part
of the larger world. The reading selections in
this unit emphasize the importance of people
connecting with one another. This unit will focus
a great deal on reading and understanding
poetry. 5-8 In Language Arts we are finally
done with our Verbs unit and are smoothly sailing
through Chapter 4 Modifiers Adjectives and
Adverbs. 7-8 In Health we are finishing up
Chapter 13 on Tobacco and will begin Chapter 14
Drugs. In this chapter we will focus on drug
misuse and abuse, illegal drugs, narcotics,
stimulants, and depressants, hallucinogens and
inhalants, getting help for drug use, and staying
drug free. 7-8 In Social Studies we are
working on Chapter 6 The Road to Revolution. In
this chapter we will focus on a tighter British
control, Colonial resistance, the Road to
Lexington and Concord, and Declaring
Independence.

• Special Dates to Remember
• Dec. 11th 200 Dismissal
• 700 Christmas Program
• Dec. 13th Secret Santa
• Workshop
• Dec. 19th 2nd Qtr Ends
• Dec. 20th Band to
• Livingston Manor
• Dec. 21st 200 Dismissal
• Dec. 24th 31st Christmas
• Vacation
• School resumes January 8th.