Chelsea Intermediate School

December Newsletter 2024

From the Administration Team

Dear Chelsea Parents and Guardians,

We are excited for you to participate in Parent-Teacher Conferences on November 25 and 26. These conferences highlight something we have always known – your partnership is essential to our students’ success! Thank you for all you do to support your child and to collaborate with us here at school. Although we appreciate collaborating with you through conferences, please know that our partnership extends far beyond the conclusion of those meetings. If there is ever anything we can do to be of assistance, we are happy to help. We always welcome your open and honest communication.

It’s hard to believe that the holiday season is upon us! The beginning of this year has truly flown by. As we enter the holiday season, we would like to take a moment to thank all of you for a successful first quarter of the school year, and for all that you do to support both your child(ren) and our school. We are grateful for your partnership.

We wish everyone a fun and festive holiday season!

Sincerely,

Rachel Newcomb

Principal

Paula Paymaster

Assistant Principal

Ricky Innocenti

Dean of Students

Important Update to Fundraiser Lunch Ordering Deadline

The district continues to partner with our parent organizations to provide fundraiser hot lunches to our school population via MySchoolBucks. In efforts to improve the accuracy of ordering and ensure all students are provided with their accurate order, the monthly deadline will switch to the 10th of each month. As a point of clarification, December 10th will be the deadline for the January lunches. Families will receive a reminder on the 7th of each month.

Chelsea Family Shoutouts

Has your child had a special event or accomplishment outside of school? A performance, competition, or recital? If you would like to have your child's team, troupe, or company celebrated at school, please fill out the form linked below. We are happy to celebrate with you!

We will do our best to be timely in our recognition, but please know there may be a slight delay due to the volume of requests on any given school day.

In addition to appearing below, this "Family Shoutout” link will be posted on the Chelsea webpage so that you can access it at any time. We look forward to celebrating your child’s wonderful accomplishments with our Chelsea learning community!

Chelsea Family Shoutouts

A Note from Nurse Busch

When the holidays become more than you bargained for, the stress can put extra demands on your body — unfortunately making it susceptible to untimely illness. Here are some tips on keeping up with your family’s health during the holiday season:

· Don’t do too much. Give yourself some time to rest, relax and enjoy the season.

· Share the workload. Let everyone in the family play an active role in helping, so parents and caregivers aren’t burdened by all the work.

· Set priorities. There will be a lot of fun celebrations, activities and requests, but try not to overdo it. Say no to some of the demands on your time.

· Simplify your holiday preparations. Consider relaxing your cleaning schedule, cooking demands and decorating. Opt for shortcuts to help you enjoy rather than prepare.

· Continue to exercise. Try not to let your regular routine lapse in the busyness of the season.

Eat healthy foods. Balance out the rich holiday treats with nourishing meals that can fuel your family during the season.

From the Special Education Team

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A Note from Our Librarian, Mrs. Schubert

We are tracking the total number of checkouts for the school year and, so far this year, Chelsea students have checked out over 8,000 times!

The library has a theme section that changes monthly to highlight special subjects. December’s theme shelf will include books about winter holidays.

The Bluestem Reading Challenge has begun! Every year, educators in Illinois nominate 20 books for the Bluestem Award.

What to know about the Bluestem Reading Challenge at Chelsea:

Participation is optional
After reading 4 titles, students are eligible to take part in voting for the book they read on this year's Bluestem nomination list.
Upon completion of 18 books, your student will be invited to the Bluestem Bash in the spring (details TBD).
Chelsea's library has copies of each book available. Public libraries in our area also have copies available.
I encourage you and your child to look at the list together to choose which Bluestem nominated books your child will read this year.
Tracking progress will be done using the Beanstack app on your child's laptop or paper progress sheets are available upon request.

Please contact Mrs. Schubert at kschubert@fsd157c.org to learn more.

PE with Mrs. Jaral, Mr. Klosowski, and Mr. Dykema

November was a fun month in PE! Students worked on their hand eye coordination during our cup stacking unit. We practiced many different cup stacking patterns, including the 3-3-3, 3-6-3, 6-6, and the cycle. All these patterns culminated with our cup stacking relay races.

The Guinness World Record Stack-up Day on November 13th was a success with over 1,000 stackers at Chelsea. In 2023, the record was set at 746,698 stackers around the world. We are waiting to hear the news of – hopefully – setting a new world record this year.

Along with our Guinness Stack Up Day we held our annual “Stack the Stock.” We asked our Chelsea students to bring in canned goods to replenish the stock at the Frankfort Food Pantry. Chelsea collected over 30 full boxes of food for the food pantry. We are so proud of our students who brought in so many items. We want to thank everyone who brought in canned goods and the Frankfort Food Pantry wanted to express their gratitude for our generous donation.

Looking forward to next month, students will have their bowling unit before winter break.

Music Class with Mrs. Zito

3rd graders in Mrs. Magana, Mrs. Pezzuto, and Mrs. Hourigan’s classes have been off to a great start. They have participated in singing and instrument playing activities. We have begun reading rhythmic notation. Students are getting to know quarter note, quarter rest, half note, and barred eighth notes and their respective rhythm syllables.

Third graders will be continuing their study of rhythmic notation and will be introduced to the half rest, whole note, whole rest, and dotted half note. Students will also study bar lines. Third graders will read rhythms of various difficulty as they play unpitched percussion instruments and even compose their own rhythm. Students will also begin studying tone color and the instruments of the orchestra, with a focus on the string and percussion families. They will participate in interactive play along and listening activities.

In November, fourth grade students in Mrs. Averbeck, Mrs. Grage, and Mrs. Williamson’s classes spent class time reviewing time signatures and rhythmic notation patterns. Additionally, students learned the notes of the treble clef staff through interactive presentations and games.

During the month of December, 4th graders will begin using recorders in class. We will focus on playing technique initially and then will learn how to apply our music reading skills to the recorder. The first week, we will be as a whole class. Then students will break into small groups and work with their peers to practice, play and grade one another using a student-created rubric. Students will earn different “belts” for their recorders when they are successful playing songs of various difficulties.

Fifth grade students in Mrs. Vega, Mrs. Pitsoulakis, and Mrs. D’Ambrosio’s classes began the year reviewing rhythmic notation and have participated in singing and movement activities. Students have been introduced to the patterns that music can be organized to and have discussed forms of music such as Call and Response, AB, and ABA. Students are starting to understand how the music can change by simply changing the pattern. Students have learned to perform and read syncopated rhythm patterns. Students reviewed mallet technique and played syncopated rhythm patterns on xylophones, metallophones, and glockenspiels.

We will explore other forms of music in December, such as Rondo, ABC, and Verse and Refrain. Fifth grade students will review rhythmic notation focusing on rhythm patterns with dotted quarter note and barred 16th notes and 16th and 8th note combinations.

STEM with Mrs. Jozaitis

We are halfway through the second quarter already! All STEM classes continue to explore the Engineering Design Process when solving problems. The students practiced the Engineering design process in different ways.

All students are using the Typing Club platform to improve their keyboarding skills and Scratch Coding. Sphero robots and Ozobots allow students to problem solve ways to have their robots follow the commands they give them.

In 5th grade Mrs. Jenkins’, Mrs. Smith’s, and Mr. Becker’s classes just finished engineering ski slopes, roller coasters, and Jet Toy Cars and understanding the study of biomimicry. Working collaboratively is sometimes challenging when you need to compromise and listen to other’s ideas, but I’m so impressed at how they each persevere through those tough points.

In the 4th grade classes of Mr. Zacharias, Mrs. Venable, and Mrs. Campos, the students finished up looking at how matter can go through physical and chemical changes. They moved on to product testing and conducted their own test to determine which diaper brand was the best out there.

In the third grade classes of Mrs. Chronos, Mrs. DeMarchi and Mrs. Davis, the students explored magnets, determined the north and south poles, and engineered a Maglev car. They tested their car for speed and redesigned it to go faster. On to the air powered dragster race cars!

Art with Mrs. Maney

How can it be that it is December already? I never believe how fast time goes by and how amazing our Tigers are doing in the studio! Students have worked hard in drawing, painting, sculpture, and collage boot camps while learning how to care for the studio and the materials properly. Students began their first choice-based project of the quarter, and I can’t wait to share it with you. Be on the lookout through my Instagram page for more updates and projects.

If you’re looking for a way to get your students off their devices and creating at home, challenge them to the Winter Art challenge to see how far they can get. Get them to keep a sketchbook of all their work so they can see how they grow as they draw daily. Collecting work together in one space allows students to see their growth and allows them to share in their pride with you. Have students bring in their sketchbooks to share with me if they take on the challenge once they complete it.

If you’re looking for gift ideas, whether for the holiday or a birthday present, see my list below of my Top 10 Favorite Materials. These are all great materials to help boost creativity and work on fine motor skills as well.

Looking forward to a great rest of the quarter and can’t wait to see all the amazing artwork that is to come.

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A Note from Our Spanish Teacher, Mrs. Smerz

Throughout the month of December, students in Spanish class will be continuing to build their conversational skills. We will be learning about some Christmas traditions in Mexico. Some other topics that will be covered are numbers, colors, seasons, weather, clothing, animals, and sports.