Walk-a-thon 2013

Today's first annual St. Sylvester Walk-a-thon was a huge success! The second graders joined the first, third, and fourth grade classes to walk around half of Palmer Park for an hour this morning. The weather could not have been more perfect for the event. The students started with a warm-up lap around the park. After that, they were free to continue around the park at their own pace. As they came back through the starting point, I put a tally mark on their name tag. Every student in the class was able to walk/run at least two miles in the hour we were out there (five tally marks equals one mile)! Our fastest runner was McKayla, who completed eighteen laps equaling more than three and a half miles per hour! Everyone did a great job keeping their bodies moving and getting great exercise. Afterwards, we were able to enjoy a picnic style lunch in the shade of the trees! Congratulations to everyone on competing the 2013 Walk-a-thon!

Science Discovery Fair 2013

The second grade class did a wonderful job of studying the solar system for this year's science fair! This week each student will present their planet, sun, or moon in the classroom. They each became the expert for their project topic. The other students will have time to ask each child questions about their subject as well as their model. Overall, I think everyone learned a lot.

By this morning, everyone's projects were displayed in the lobby of the school. The second grade class first visited the junior high projects in the basement. Then they stood by their own projects while other classes walked around and observed their work. While they were standing near their projects, many junior high students and teachers came around to ask questions and take a look at their creative work. The second grade will be able to visit first, third, and fourth grade science projects tomorrow as well as watch the preschool and kindergarten presentations. We are so busy this week! Ask your child which was their favorite at the end of the week. 

        

Please come see the wonderful work of the St. Sylvester Science Discovery Fair! The school will be open to families on the evening of Wednesday, May 1st from 5:30 -7:30 PM. All are welcome!

Welcome Ariel Luisa De La Fuente!

Room 205 received such happy news when Ms. Lara delivered a happy and healthy baby girl this past Friday, April 26th. We cannot wait to meet her! Congratulations to Ms. Lara and her growing family!

Down in the Sea: Jellyfish!

The second grade class read the story Down in the Sea: The Jellyfish last week. Before we read, the students were able to listen to an interview with an aquarist at Chicago's own Shedd Aquarium. It was very exciting for them since that aquarium is in our city! There were several facts given in the interview that we listed on a large poster board after listening. For example, there are 500-700 different species of jellyfish, moon jellies are the most common species, and most jellyfish are translucent. After reading Down in the Sea: The Jellyfish, every students picked one of their favorite facts from the story. Each child wrote the fact on another large sheet of paper entitled What We Learned from Reading. These poster-sized papers are hanging in the hallway outside of the second grade classroom. Surrounding the posters is a large school of second grade made jellyfish! The students were able to choose how many tentacles to attach to their jellyfish, but they had to include one fact on each of the tentacles. Real jellyfish can have just a few tentacles and up to as many as eight hundred! This was just one of the many many things we learned this week from heading under the sea! Ask your son or daughter to tell you about their favorite jellyfish facts!

Native American Shelters

Today the second grade students started to present their projects on different Native American shelters and their cultures. Everyone has done such a wonderful job so far and I have loved getting to see how creative their projects are and listening to all of the interesting facts they learned. Thank you for all the help with these projects at home and feel free to stop by our classroom to see the projects before Easter break.

Career Week

Last week, St. Sylvester School held its first ever career week. There were many different activities throughout the week to get students thinking about what they might want to be when they grow up. First, the students each wrote an essay completing the sentence, "When I grow up, I want to be..." There were so many awesome answers and great explanations of why they chose that career. The top three essay prizes went to:
1. Sophia A. - Scientist
2. Ezekiel G. - Farmer
3. Marisol R. - Dentist

All of the students also filled out a foldable with a picture of what they wanted to be along with ideas of what they might need to do in order to enter that profession. These were then hung up in Schwinn Hall for all of the classes to come around and read. You can see the display in the above pictures.
The teachers even got into the spirit by filling out "Teacher Talk" questionnaires about what they wanted to be when they were children and why they became teachers.

On Thursday and Friday, we had several visitors come into our classrooms to tell us all about their jobs. From nuns to firefighters and scientists to graphic designers, we had so may different careers to hear about and ask questions about. The week ended up being a huge success. Ask your son or daughter which presentation was the most interesting to them and what they want to be when they grow up!

Lenten Journey

On Ash Wednesday, the second grade class began to mark the path of "Our Lenten Journey" in the hallway outside of our classroom. We started that day by answering the prompt: " For Lent, I am giving up..." Each of the student had to write down a food, game, or bad behavior that they would give up for the forty days of Lent. This is one way to show God that we can make a sacrifice for Him in preparation for Easter. Everyday we have added one rock to the path, marking each day. On Sundays, there is a purple cross instead of the rock. On these days, the students must finish another sentence. The last three Sundays have dealt with how them will be kind to someone else, how they will make sure to say extra prayers, and how they will give something to someone. 

Now we are almost through the Lenten season! Discuss with your son or daughter what they wrote on the purple sheets that are along the Lenten Journey path and make sure they are sticking to those promises!

Last week the students also went to the live Stations of the Cross hosted by their seventh grade buddiies. The seventh graders read through the stations as their classmates acted out each one. Later, we met up with our buddies to put together a Stations of the Cross booklet. These are helpful in discussing the Triduum with your son or daughter. 

St. Sylvester Says Farewell and Welcome

Last Friday the St. Sylvester school children said a sad goodbye to Fr. Paul Stein. He visited one last time before he left the school campus. Fr. Paul has been here at St. Sylvester for five years and has done so much for our school including classroom visits and special Masses geared towards children. His work here will not be forgotten and we will keep him in our prayers as he transitions into his new full-time position at Loyola University. Above is a picture of the farewell poster the second grade class made for him with each of the children's fingerprints as leaves.

Today we also had an exciting surprise visitor - Fr. Sam! Fr. Sam is the new pastor at St. Sylvester parish and we are so very excited to get to know him. He will be saying the children's Masses starting this week. He promised to start learning the students' names one at a time starting today! We look forward to having him in the classroom more frequently as he settles in!

100th Day of School

Today, February 4th, is the one hundredth day of school here at St. Sylvester School. To celebrate this accomplishment, each of the students brought in their own collection of one hundred objects. During math class, we took a break from telling time and used our one hundred collections to see how many ways we could get to one hundred. The students made five groups of twenty, twenty five groups of four, and fifty groups of two! Each child made these and more groups with objects such as toothpicks, cottton balls, and even rocks! Thank you for assisting your son or daughter in collecting their one hundred objects. Ask them which other equal groups they made with their one hundred collection.

Catholic Schools Week

The second graders kicked off Catholic Schools Week with a pajama party! Everyone was able to wear their pajamas to school and enjoy an extended D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) time. They shared blankets, pillows, and books! We talked about how fun it can be to get cozy with a book, especially during these winter months.


On Thursday the students attended All-School Mass followed by our biannual awards ceremony. It was a tough choice, but some of the second graders really shined this past semester and received recognition for their hard work in second grade. The winners from Room 205 were:

Peacemaker Award: Ezekiel
Effort Award: Giselle
Poster Contest: Sydney
Handwriting Contest: McKayla

Congratulations to the winners and keep up the great work! The final day of Catholic Schools Week was most of the students' favorite one. That is because we celebrated the All-School Olympics. The second graders were split up among twelve different teams and worked along with students from every grade level to compete in different events. Below is a video showing all of the fun we had at the Catholic Schools Week Olympics!