Cougar Bites
The Great News from St. Odilo School First Quarter, 2009-2010
© This school year started with a wonderful international visit. Sister Concepta, of the Martyrs of Uganda Prep School in Kumasi, Uganda came to visit with our school children and teachers. The current 5th grade class has been corresponding with the African students so it was great for them to actually meet someone from the school.
© This year's Oktoberfest saw hundreds of parishioners and school families take advantage of the glorious weather to spend an evening together listening to German music, feasting on brats and enjoying the fun. It was a wonderful night and a great kick-off to a year's worth of parish-wide events.
© This quarter, 2nd Grade social studies lessons focused on traditions - both family and cultural. In an environment of respect, children could talk about their own family's traditions while learning that immigrants from all over the world have brought the traditions of many countries to America.
© Students in PreK through 2nd Grade took a trip to Brookfield Zoo this fall to see the wonderful exhibit, "Dinosaurs Alive." There they watched life-size creatures roar and move while they learned fun facts.
© The four year-olds in PreK have used pumpkins in every subject. In art, they finger-painted jack-o-lanterns and carved their own classroom pumpkin. They even put on a play based on the poem, "Five Little Pumpkins." In science and math, they predicted pumpkin weights and estimated the number of pumpkin seeds they'd find. They even baked a pumpkin pie. What fun!
© The 3 year-old class created their own Sponge Bobs to study squares and spent all of October looking for examples of the color of the month (orange, of course). They also made scarecrows, ghosts and skeletons, even carving their own pumpkins before the highlight of the month, the Halloween Party.
© The fifth grade continues corresponding with their Pen Pals in Uganda and were fortunate enough to meet the Principal of the school their Pen Pals attend. They have also been learning (through books and film) about powerful black women in history including Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks.
© The Fall Candy sale was another great success. Congratulations to the top selling students, all of whom received Gift Certificates for Best Buy: Tim Benjamin, Gr. 8, Sarah Cwick, Gr. 6, Sophia Pacheco, K, Andrea Crews, Gr. 6, Juliana Reyes, Gr. 6, Mya Frank, Gr. 3, Nathan Rodriguez, Gr. 2.
© The 5th Annual Hustle Up the Hallway will be November 11th. Grades 4-8 will hustle up and down 4 flights of stairs for 30 minutes. Student have contacted over 100 Berwyn businesses for sponsorships. Sponsors donate money which will be used to purchase more flat screen monitors in the computer lab. Last year's Hustle Up the Hallway raised enough money to buy 8 monitors ($120 each).
© In conjunction
with
the science unit on the life cycles of plants and animals, the students
in 3rd
Grade witnessed
the actual metamorphosis of the mealworm. They had a bumper crop of at
least 40
beetles. Then they wrote a "personification" narrative. They
pretended they were a butterfly which went through its metamorphosis
and flew
to Mexico for the winter. Some even encountered adventures along the
way.
They're now on to studying seeds of various sizes, shapes and colors.
© Do you know your math facts? The Math Resource Room is a busy place as students problem solve, memorize and figure sums. It's not just addition and subtraction facts...they're talking ordinal numbers, place values, inverse operations and regrouping.
© First grade began their Spider unit in Science with the introduction of a new class pet, a real, live tarantula named Rosie. It will remain in the classroom for the rest of the year and has already molted, so students are able to examine its shed skin. This unit leads right into the class' next field trip as "Insect Investigators" at the Chicago Children's Museum.
© In October, the St. Odilo Children's Choir traveled to the Berwyn Recreation Center to sing for its Senior Group. From patriotic tunes, to religious hymns and even some classic rock, the 20 minute concert was a big hit. The children were rewarded with juice and treats.
© The Kindergarten Kids started their "Child of the Week" program. They celebrate one child each week and have lots of fun learning all about each other. Each day there is a special activity for the special child that week. When finished, they will write a class book about each child. Child of the Week posters will be displayed at Kindergarten Graduation.
© Looking for the Odilo Millennium News? The first issue of the school year will be ready to view on our school site just before Christmas Break. The students involved with the on-line paper also sponsored a Halloween Costume Contest. Congratulations to all the winners.
© 7th & 8th Grade students are reading novels to reinforce vocabulary and composition. The 8th Grade is reading The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak ahd the 7th Grade is reading Lord of the Flies, by William Golding. Through reading and class discussions, students learn to organize their thoughts and write reaction papers, ultimately producing a well-written thesis paper analyzing the main characters and the main theme of the book.
© The fourth grade has just completed a unit about Christopher Columbus. Through a combination of reading, discussion and art projects, they've studied his trip and its ramifications. They'll even watch a movie about Columbus after their test.
© Grades 4 and 5 attended a performance of the play "Holes" at the Theatre School of DePaul University on November 5. This popular book and movie have been adapted for the stage, which makes for a great opportunity to expose our students to continued fine arts education.
© Students in music class have been studying about the music, culture and geography of the Silk Road, a name given to the trading routes between China and Europe and the Middle East. While traveling along this trading route, traders from the other countries exchanged ideas, religion, music, foods, and technologies with the people along the way. They've listened to instruments and music from Armenia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, and China. Younger grades have also learned about the invention of the piano (once called the pianoforte) in the 1700s as an alternative to the harpsichord that could play both loud and soft.
© 6th & 7th
Grade students enjoyed a trip to Fair Oaks Farm, located just 75 miles
away
from Chicago in Fair
Oaks, Indiana. The family friendly environment houses 30,000 cows and
sees the birth of anywhere from 80 to 100 calves every day. Kids got
the
opportunity to try their hand at attaching the milking machines to cow
statues.
Afterward, they saw the real thing in the official milking barn. They
toured
the feed facility where a total diet is prepared for the cows and
calves and
saw the baby calf section of the barnyard.