November Newsletter 2023

November 2023

The Steward Signal

“Steward school continues to offer high quality education with a small town approach.”

Teaching and Practicing Gratitude with America’s Youth

Cornucopia Vector Icon, Thanksgiving Day Symbol

by Superintendent Steven Simpson

“Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November next as a day which I desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever they may then be, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe. And I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the Great Disposer of Events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union, and harmony throughout the land which it has pleased Him to assign as a dwelling place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all generations.” Excerpt of Presidential Declaration, 10/20/1864

cont...

Each November provides all of us who have the blessings of young people in our lives an opportunity to emphasize and explain the historical significance of our Thanksgiving holiday. The familiar story of the pilgrims seeking freedom from religious persecution coming over on the Mayflower and braving that first harsh winter when many of them died from sickness, malnutrition and the bitter cold. Followed by their renewed hope in the spring when fresh friendships with local natives brought them agricultural, hunting and fishing knowledge applicable to their new homeland. The pilgrims that had survived saw the fruits of their labor flourish with their newly acquired skills and, after a bountiful harvest, sought to thank their Native American teachers to a three-day festival of prayers, meals and games. In spite of their suffering and hardship, our founding ancestors of this great nation sought neither self pity or anger. Displaying faithful openness to learning new skills from unfamiliar people, they applied that knowledge with grit, determination, and back-breaking hard work. Then, after reaping the benefits of their labor, they did not revel in self-congratulatory pride. Rather, they humbly gave credit to others by offering prayers of thanks to God and extending an invitation of gratitude to the Wampanoag tribe. Retelling this story to our youth and practicing that same sort of gratitude for all those who help us throughout each day is a beautiful and key way of building a key foundational aspect of core American values: faith, humility, love of learning, and gratitude. These are the same values President Lincoln had in mind when he formalized our Thanksgiving tradition into an official annual holiday during the depths of our Civil War. Hopefully, our young people will never grow weary of hearing this great American story of the first Thanksgiving as long as we, as adults, never tire in passionately and joyously telling it while recounting the many reasons we ourselves, as Americans, should practice thankfulness every day not just once a year.

Kindergarten

by Mrs. Esposito

social emotional learning

Kindergarten has been working so hard on their social emotional learning. We are currently learning our eight gifts: time, energy, possessions, money, talents, thoughts, feelings, and actions. We even earned money to purchase items at Mrs. Esposito's Market. They learned the value of money, how to make smart decisions, and how to save. They were so adorable purchasing their items at my store.

rEading and language arts

In reading and language arts we are working really hard on sounding out three letter words. I am excited to announce the students are starting to see the link between sounds and how they create words.

Math

ag in the classroom

For math, we just finished a unit on shapes and are starting to learn about addition. The students have had a blast using manipulatives to create their own addition problems for the others to solve.

This year we have ag. in the classroom. The students have learned about apples, popcorn, and seasons.

dupage Children’s museum K-3 Field Trip

On October 27th the kindergarten through third grade classes went to the DuPage Children’s Museum. Some favorite activities of the students were the bubble center, the shadow room and the woodworking shop. The students had so much fun exploring and learning new things. I am pretty sure that all the students were exhausted by the time they came home!

1st Grade

by Mrs. Hayes

Sight Words

The first graders have really been progressing quite nicely with their learning over the past several months. In reading, students have been working their way through the 1,000 sight words. As they continue to learn new sight words and phonics sounds, they get to choose new books that are “just right” for their reading level. This is always exciting for them. The students have also been learning about cause and effect, summarizing fiction, and author’s purpose for writing a story.

math

The students have been working hard in math. The whole class is working on learning their addition facts by using 2-minute tests called Rocket Math. The first graders are also continuing to work on both subtraction and addition using touch point math. They have started seeing how subtraction and addition relate to each other while creating fact families.

social studies

In social studies we just finished up a unit on landforms and different bodies of water on our Earth. We also covered important ideas like using the 3R’s (recycle, reuse, and reduce) to protect our natural resources. The students all did very well and are excited to jump into our next unit. This next unit will cover topics like being a citizen, who our president is, and voting in an election.

1st Grade

by Mrs. Hayes

Flat stanley

At the end of October, we read the book Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. In the story Stanley gets flattened by a bulletin board and then travels by mail to visit some friends because it was much cheaper than a plane ticket. We sent out our Flat Stanleys to friends and family around the country and have started to receive mail back! It is so fun to see where Stanley ended up and what adventures he had while he was on his trip. Just like Stanley, we will continue to have fun and pursue adventures while learning together through the end of the school year!

handwriting

In handwriting the 1 st graders have finished lower-case letters and are beginning capital letters. The students try to use their neat handwriting as they learn how to use good word choice in their writing. This includes using specific nouns, descriptive adjectives, exciting verbs, as well as adverbs in their writing. Using these extra details in their writing has really helped them become better writers.

Fire Station Field Trip

On October 25th we took a school wide trip down to the fire station in Steward where the students learned all about fire safety.

2nd/3rd Grade

by Mrs. Rod

reading

SALUTATIONS from the 2nd and 3rd grade class! We are halfway through reading aloud the classic book titled Charlotte’s Web by E.B.White. We find it fun to use new vocabulary like glutton, sedentary, and loathed in our everyday conversations. Students are learning how to summarize each chapter as we go. We also read the adorable story Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano They wrote these extended responses by revising and editing their writing which can be challenging as they learn to keep trying to improve their writing. It was a bonus to design a disguise for a large turkey during our Math block time.

positive Action

The 2nd and 3rd grade class continues to grow in kind acts and good listening skills. Recently the class met the goal of filing the ‘bean bucket’ in order to make slime. The class enjoyed mixing their favorite color and ounces of glue to make their own personal slime. The next ‘bucket list’ goal is to make slushies in class. We are also striving to do positive acts which cause positive feelings and positive thoughts. Positive behaviors and the student’s name are displayed on a circle and displayed in the room.

outdoor stewardship days

On October 5th our class attended the annual Outdoor Stewardship Days sponsored by the Lee County Soil and Water Conservation District held at Lowell Park in Dixon. There were 14 schools at Stewardship Days with 431 students. Students enjoyed workshops about prairies, wonderful rain, bees, flower parts, recycling, nature crafts and animal defenses. The favorite spot was the prairie display with bison hide and bones. Of course they won’t forget the ride on the zipline at the playground.

2nd/3rd Grade

by Mrs. Rod

social studies

reading

Students practiced finding the main idea by selecting the “meat” of the story

to successfully make a sandwich in

an interactive game. Students summarize a nonfiction story by completing the SWBST (Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then) chart.

The Social Studies text has taken us through a unit about our Earth and its resources to a unit about working together in our community. Students learned that a farmer is a producer as well as a consumer and that a

teacher is an example of a service. With the age of technology our students need extra practice using a map and the compass rose to give and receive directions.

language arts

Students have started a Super Sentence Notebook. They can identify a complete sentence. They reviewed capitals and punctuations. The goal is that with repetition it will carry over to their daily writing. Next, we are identifying parts of the sentence with the goal of writing better sentences.

ag in the classroom

Students look forward to having Miss Dana visit every other Wednesday to share something about agriculture. Students were proud to know that illinois is the top producer of pumpkins. They learned the life cycle of a pumpkin, made a gum drop from jello and planted seeds in a glove.

2nd grade math

3rd grade math

3rd graders demonstrate showing division as grouping the total number of objects. They drew arrays to represent the equations. The current unit will teach using patterns when multiplying by 2, 5, and 10.

2nd graders learned that a part/part/whole mat helps represent word problems so we can solve for the unknown and write the equations for both addition and subtraction. Students are starting to learn multiplication songs for 2s and 3s, and 5’s. The 5’s should be easy since the classroom clock has been marked by the 5 minutes intervals.

Fundations

Fundations (Phonics) Students love to take turns demonstrating spelling and phonetic skills by writing on the whiteboard or by playing teacher by creating a word with the magnetic letters. It's always a race to see who can correctly form the words first. They continue to learn that trick words aren’t spelled like they sound and that the suffix ed makes multiple sounds at the end of a base word. They demonstrate knowledge of closed and closed exception syllables.

4th/5th Grade

by Mrs. Deitze

Natural History Museum

Happy Thanksgiving! The fourth and fifth graders have had a great start to their second semester. At the end of October we went on a class trip to the Burpee Natural History Museum. We had a fantastic time learning about the rock cycle and how different kinds of rocks are formed. We also had a lot of fun exploring the museum and seeing the exhibits.

reading

In reading we have just finished learning about cause and effect, summarizing, and author's purpose. In our final weeks before winter break we will be learning about theme, comparing and contrasting, and point of view.

ag in the classroom

We have been having a great time with our biweekly Ag in the Class visit from Mrs. Pratt. We’ve discussed pumpkins, apples, and different crops. Our most recent visit had the students attempting to save a pardoned turkey through an escape room game. They learned a lot and had a blast solving the clues!

math

In math we have been working multiplication and division. The fifth graders have just finished their unit on multiplying decimals. The fourth graders have been tackling long division. The fifth graders will transition to working on long division as well in the upcoming weeks to prepare for dividing decimals. The fourth graders will start tackling fractions when we finish the current unit.

science

As for science, we are learning about waves. The class has been busy attempting to make their own codes using images, letters, numbers, and sound. We will be focusing on how light waves travel in the upcoming weeks.

social studies

In social studies we began by learning about the Ice Age, before moving to very early cultures in North, Central, and South America. We are currently learning about the various Native tribes that lived throughout the regions of the United States. We also made corn husk dolls that resemble toys made by some of the groups we have discussed in class.

6th-8th Grade

by Mrs. Odle & Mrs. Stroh

lorado Taft trip

In October, Mrs. Odle and Mrs. Stroh took the entire 6th, 7th, and 8th grade to an outdoor education retreat at Lorado Taft in Oregon, IL. Students were able to take advantage of the terrific weather to learn and explore the outdoors. They were able to do some team building games, shelter building, wilderness survival, and learned to build a fire with what was available. Shout out goes to Ephraim and Ryker who successfully built their fire with only flint and a steel striker. We had some incredible fires going that day. Overnight, we took a night hike, played some camouflage, watched the stars, and enjoyed some s’mores by the campfire. Before coming back to school, students were immersed in a game called Instincts with herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores. Votes for the best parts of Taft were the food, staying overnight, making shelters, and the Instincts game.

6th-8th Grade

by Mrs. Odle & Mrs. Stroh

Art Class

by Mrs. Loeffelholz

Kindergarten/1st grade

Hello, friends and families! Kindergarten and 1st grade scholars and I read Perfectly Norman and imagined what it might be like to grow wings! The kids made their very own wings from cardboard and paper, focusing on line and pattern. Next, they painted paper “feathers” for our wall collaboration, where students can measure their wingspan with Norman!

2nd/3rd grade

2nd grade and 3rd grade artists incorporated some music, too! First, they watched how our online friend, Mr. Boom Boom, played an authentic djembe drum. Next, they hollowed out cups and used paper mache on the outside. The top was covered with plastic, so keep a listening ear out for these when they come home; the drums will really make noise!

4th-5th grade

Our 4th and 5th graders were on a “roll” as they discovered marbles could make artwork! Students tilted marbles in a box, running them across paint back and forth, creating a specific marbling style. The second technique for marbling used shaving cream and food coloring. Kids pressed paper into colored shaving cream, peeled them back, and scraped the extra mixture off to reveal gorgeous designs hidden beneath!

Art Class

by Mrs. Loeffelholz

6th/7th Grade

6th and 7th grade exercised careful planning and repetition as they mimicked the art style of Chuck Close. These creative kids used self-made grids to center images of their faces. They began the patient practice of filling in the background with color, using Chuck Close’s quote for inspiration: “little by little, square by square, mark by mark.” The process can be slow, but I am proud of the students for displaying their talents and letting the art room become a serene environment (if only for a 45 minute stretch!)

8th grade

8th graders studied celebrity Tim Burton’s art style for their ghastly portraits and mini monster plushies! Featuring exaggerated details such as large, white eyes and sickly thin necks, our young scholars demonstrated spot-on methods for their charcoal drawings. Mini monster plushies are in progress as kids experiment with needles, thread, and fabric. Ending results will be 3D stuffed creatures to compete with the best of Burton’s films and animations!