Closing Out October And Welcoming In 

November With Celebration  And Learning

What a wonderful way to end the month than with some joy and celebration.  The children had a wonderful time celebrating Halloween, while also welcoming in November.  It was also nice to enjoy the beautiful fall colors and the warm weather this week. 

 

 

 

 Our Dual Language classrooms learned about the Day of the Dead or Dia de Muertos , a day to honor their deceased loved ones. Some classrooms compared and contrasted the two holidays to find out how they are similar and different. 

Dual Language Parent Academy

The Dual Language Parent Academy was held on Saturday at Elgin High School.  The academy was a great way to welcome both English and Spanish speaking families together to hear more about the benefits of being bilingual and to learn more about how to support their children in the Dual Language Program. There was live music, dancing, parent sessions and activities for the children.  It was a wonderful event and extremely informative for all.  Below are some pictures from the event. 

While eating breakfast and registering for the day's events, the families were treated to a variety of entertainment from singing to dancing. Students, staff and others gave delightful performances. 

Dr. Annette Acevedo, ELL Program Director at School District U-46, welcomed the guests to the academy and introduced the Keynote speaker Dr. Kim Potowski. 

Dr. Kim Potowski, Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is the Director of the Spanish Heritage Language Program and of the Language in Context Research Group. She is also the author of many articles, chapters and books, including Intra-Latino language and identity: MexiRicans in Chicago and Bilingual youth: Spanish-speakers in English-speaking countries among others.

Several U-46 teachers and teacher mentors presented a variety of sessions in both English and Spanish to parents. This gave parents an opportunity to choose topics of interest which would suit their individual needs.  The sessions provided free resources, ideas and yes, prizes too!

Thank you Elgin School District U-46 Dual Language Department for your efforts in helping all of our children become Bilingual, Bi-literate and Bi-cultural!!!

Glenbrook's making lots of school improvements! 

Have you seen them?

Glenbrook Elementary School is nearly 50 years old but recently we have made some improvements and it's looking sharp!  Take a peek at our "new and updated" look.

What is this students doing drawing on the walls? "Not in my house!" you say! Well, at Glenbrook, it's okay and encouraged on our new "wipe off magnetic walls.  Our old, ugly, 70's orange and yellow curtains that once divided rooms have been replaced with beautiful walls that are perfect for instruction.  The teachers and the students use them to work, display posters, signs and provide instruction. 

Gym class is fun, but now it is much safer.  All walls in the gym are now covered with beautiful mats. These mats protect students as they run and play. Additionally, the classroom teacher can display rules, goals, scores etc... on the wipe off panels that are secured to the walls.  They brighten up the room and provide a safe environment for our students. 

You may have also notice the shiny new tiles down the intermediate wing.  What a difference the tile made to creating a clean look to the 4th through 6th grade hallway. 

A highlight for our students is our beautiful reading nook in the school's library. Thanks to the many parents, students and staff for their wonderful donations, we have a new space for our students to cuddle up with a good book.  The library was dedicated to former teacher Mrs. Janet Heim who recently passed away from ALS.  We are so proud of our space and look forward to many years of enjoyment. 

Both front entry ways have brand new carpet. While this improvement is subtle, it sure has helped to keep the water out of the building and kept the front office from getting muddy and slippery on those few rainy days that we have had!  

Our back hallway bathrooms had old countertops that we in need of repair. We now have bright white counter tops and brand new soap dispensers.  They look nice and are much easier to keep clean. 

With full day, play based kindergarten comes lots of new toys, furniture, games and learning materials. All of it is just the right size for our little ones and each day they can't wait to come in and explore.  They aren't the only ones. I have caught many adults taking a peek inside too!  

The kindergartners aren't the only ones that received new materials. All classrooms received a couple hundred new books.  The students are enjoying the wonderful selection from American Reading Company.

Do you know what all of this is?  Seems like a pile of mess doesn't it?  Well we are becoming quite a group of techies here at Glenbrook. Each teacher has a laptop with a projector, document camera and an ipevo.

The document camera works similar to the old "overheads" that most of you had as children. The difference is that the document camera can project anything, they don't need transparency film.  They can project books, student work, workbooks or any other documents.  The ipevo is another great invention. Ipevo's turn the wipe off board into a "smart board."  Student can manipulate and make the wipe off board come alive!  

We also are receiving more and more classroom technology.  This year we have received 24 new laptops and are waiting on 18 new Ipads.  These are used daily in classrooms which leave us now to over 100 laptops.

We are so proud of Glenbrook Elementary, our school, our students, our parents and our staff, and now we have some lots of new and improved upgrades to our building! We love it!

Annual Halloween Bash

Our annual Halloween Bash is one of the most popular events with  nearly 500 guests joining us for pizza, dancing, pumpkin decorating and costume sharing.  For the second year in a row we held our event at Canton Middle School and had a wonderful time.  Thanks to Christine Bernaden for her hard work in organizing the event. It was a huge success!

What's a celebration without decorations, candy, raffle baskets and some scary jack-o-lanterns?  They are waiting for the guests to arrive.

 The Cafeteria filled up quickly with the smell of pizza wafting into onto the dance floor.  The munchkins and ghouls quickly headed to the pumpkin decorating station too.

 

 

DJ Chuck leads the students and their parents in a wide variety of dances some oldies and some new ones too. He also raffled off the baskets to some really lucky winners!  It was a great night. Thanks for your support DJ Chuck!