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From the Principal's Desk
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Dear Roosevelt Families, 
The month of May at Roosevelt represents the beginning-of-the-end of the school year. Graduation preparation will be underway soon and next year's schedules are already being constructed. The process for welcoming next year's 5th grade students and parents has started with the Incoming 5th grade parent meeting, and will continue through the month of May. The 4th graders will be visiting Roosevelt and Mrs. Steketee and I will be visiting both Lincoln and Willard to talk to the 4th graders.
The end of the school year is an exciting time. The weather is improving everyday and is a constant reminder of the approaching summer vacation, which means warm weather for outdoor activities, planned vacations, and a slower lifestyle. I'd like to take this opportunity to remind students who ride their bike, to please wear their helmets and abide by all of the traffic safety rules. To help reinforce these practices, our PE classes this month will feature a bike safety review with demonstrations and practice for the students.
Principal Larry Garstki
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Important Dates
May 3, Friday - PIMA, A Little Night Music, 6:30 pm
May 6, Monday -D90 Cmte of the Whole Mtg, LLC 7pm
May 7, Tuesday -7th Grade Field Trip to Lyric Opera House, 12-4pm
May 14, Tuesday - Band and Orchestra Concert, Dominican 7pm
May 15, Wednesday - Advanced Differentiated Learning, Parent Mtg 7pm
May 20, Monday -D90 Board Mtg, Roosevelt 7pm
May 21, Tuesday -PTO Meeting 9:15am
-Junior Band/Jazz Band Concerts 7pm
May 28, Tuesday -All Orchestras Concert 7pm
No School Days
May 27, Monday - Memorial Day
For the full Roosevelt Middle School Calendar, please click here. |
Band and Orchestra News
For all of the LATEST Band and Orchestra news, including information about A Little Night Music, go to our Instrumental Music Website.
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LLC News
Birthday Books
Birthday Book Program! Thank you to the following students and their families for their generous book donations to the Roosevelt LLC!
Liam B.
November 29
Wild Boy
By Mary Losure
Lindsay H.
November 19
The Dreamer
By Pam Munoz Ryan
Nick H.
March 22
Shooting Kabul
By N.H. Senzai
Evan H.
March 11
The Hobbit
By J.R.R. Tolkien
Hope Ruth D.
April 3
Playing Favorites
By Trevor Kew
Braydon G.
April 12
Case File 13
By J. Scott Savage
Eliot M.
April 17
The Crossing: How George Washington Saved the American Revolution
By Jim Murphy
Jacob S.
April 17
Spaceheadz
By Jon Scieszka
Congratulations to 5th Graders Declan C., Chris M. and Owen O. for representing Roosevelt in the All Area Reading Olympics Extreme Competition at the Oak Park Public Library in April. They were great competitors.
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Notes from the Music Room!
Tour Chorus, Barbershop, and our two Jazz Bands performed at Lincoln and Willard on April 29th. The fourth graders enjoyed the show, as did our performers. Great Job, Everybody!
Coming up on May 7th is the seventh grade class trip to the Lyric Opera's Student Matinee at the Civic Opera House. This year's show is "Oklahoma!" The 1906 Oklahoma Territory setting weaves in nicely with our units in reading and social studies.
Eight Graders will be voting on their choice for graduation song soon. Fourth quarter music students narrow the list of student nominated songs from about 20 to the top five songs based on criterion they agree upon in class. Every 8th grader will vote. It is always nostalgic to hear them sing together one last time in their ceremony.
(They sound a little older now than when they sang "Tony Chestnut" with Mrs. Halter in Kindergarten.)
If you'd like to be kept apprised of our happenings, please visit our music website by clicking here.
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Core
Mann, Joy, Kruezer, and Wille:
LA: Students will continue navigating through our Word Wisdom books. Every Monday, the students will take their spelling and vocabulary pre-tests, and throughout the week we will discuss the definitions and how we can use the words in sentences with context clues. Make sure that your children study for the Friday post-tests. We also will continue doing analogies, proof reading, as well as reviewing the different parts of speech throughout each week.
Reading & Writing: We finished up the iMovies which will be shown to the fourth graders when they visit this month. This group of visitors will leave with brochures covering the important aspects of each major topic: Lunch/Before/After School, Organization, High 5 Goals, People and Places, 3 Day Rotation/Exploratories/PE, Clubs/Activities, Passing Periods, Homework.
During our next unit of study, we will be reading a version of The Adventures of Ulysses and studying Greek mythology. Students will learn characteristics of a myth, as well as study some famous Greek characters. Finally, they will create an ad which uses their knowledge of mythology as the focus.
Flynn, Emanoil, and Whitlock:
In Language Arts: We continue with Word Wisdom words, parts of speech, and creative writing projects.
Reading & Writing: In writing, we begin planning, storyboarding, filming, and editing our iMovies for the 4th grade visits. Parents, thank you for volunteering to help during this project. iMovies will be shown to the fourth graders when they visit next month. This group of visitors will leave with brochures covering the important aspects of each major topic: Lunch/Before/After School, Organization, High 5 Goals, People and Places, 3 Day Rotation/Exploratories/PE, Clubs/Activities, Passing Periods, Homework.
During our next unit of study, we will be reading a version of The Adventures of Ulysses and studying Greek mythology. Students will learn characteristics of a myth, as well as study some famous Greek characters. Finally, they will create an ad which uses their knowledge of mythology as the focus.
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French
The fifth graders will each choose a French speaking country to research. They will create a travel brochure to present to the class. In addition to France, there are many fascinating countries where French is spoken.
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Math
In Math, students will focus on adding and subtracting mixed numbers, multiplying and dividing fractions, as well as converting percentages to fractions and decimals. The probability unit will end with a Probability Fair. Students will create a carnival game, in which the theoretical probability of the vendor winning must be greater than the customer's probability of winning. Students will then get to go around and play each other's games to see which vendor and customer can take/win the most tickets.
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Science
In Science, we just finished voting in the finals in The Flame Challenge, coming to the realization that the six finalists were MUCH better explanations of the question "What is Time?" The Microworlds unit, during which observation skills will be the focus, will be the final major unit of the year. After starting with hand lenses, during May, we will use microscopes to see both non-living and living organisms.
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Social Studies
In Social Studies, we will be continuing our study of Ancient Greece. While our last unit focused on the beginning of city-states and governmental development, during May we will be looking at some famous leaders, wars, and accomplishments. In addition, we'll begin our study of Ancient Rome. A new note-taking skill we've started using is writing the important facts on post-its, which allows students to mark the important points "in" the book for future reference.
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Spanish
Fifth grade Spanish students finished their study of body parts and concluded with a puppet dialogue in which a doctor is questioning two patients about what is wrong with them. Each of the "patients" uses the expression me duele to indicate that a certain body part hurts. The doctor has some interesting advice such as "eat more chocolate" or "eat three pizzas" to "cure" his patients. Students are also studying classroom objects and, in connection with them, learning about which nouns are masculine and which are feminine so that they can use the correct word for "the".
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PLEASE MARK YOUR CALENDARS
Spring Field Trip: Medieval Times is coming!
Wednesday, June 5th
The cost is $38 per student.
The permission slip and payment form will be posted on the District 90 website and are DUE Friday, May 17th!!!
Core
Locigno: A new group of students has embarked on the journey of recording important moments in their lives. Their memoirs will come to life as we study how other authors record their moments.
Casaccio: Students are reading Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry, and learning about the Great Depression and segregation through reading and writing. We will be starting our Nonfiction Page Project research.
Hendrickson: Students are working on the CRAFTS projects and exploring their topics through various texts.
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French
The sixth graders are working on prepositions, the weather expressions, and the seasons.
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Humanities
Sixth grade Humanities students have finished reading Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and they are memorizing lines and blocking for their scene performances.
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Math
In ATP Math, students will continue working on the concepts in Chapter 3. They will be solving and graphing multi-step inequalities, incorporating the distributive property into proportions, finding complementary and supplementary angles, and using algebraic equations to find missing angle measurements.
In Math Connects, students are finishing up their unit on adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing fractions and mixed numbers. Students will then move on to a unit on integers and will learn how to compare, order, add, subtract, multiply, and divide different integer problems.
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Science
This month in science, the students will build on the previous ideas they learned about earthquakes. They will take their knowledge of plate tectonics and the movement of the mantle and crust to explore new ideas about magma and lava movement, volcanic eruptions, the types of volcanoes, and the rocks and minerals formed from cooling magma and lava.
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Social Studies
Hear Ye, Hear Ye!
Sixth grade Social Studies will journey through Medieval Europe in May. |
Spanish
Sixth grade Spanish students have been learning descriptive adjectives that they can use to describe themselves and others. They are also learning how to say "I am", "you are", "he is", and "she is" so that they combine the verb with the adjective to speak in a complete sentence. They are also making posters with their pictures on them in which they portray an adjective. Some of the pictures exemplify "athletic", "daring", "blonde", "bored", "tall" and many others. They will be on display outside of Room 251 for all to enjoy.
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7th Grade Field Trip
May 7th to the Lyric Opera of Chicago's production of "Oklahoma"
To permit your 7th grader to go on this trip, please use a credit card to pay the $10 Field Trip fee.
Go to www.district90.org
click on Web Pay in the left hand menu;
then on District Store (NOT Roosevelt PTO Store);
then on Roosevelt;
then on Grade 7 Field Trip-Oklahoma |
French
The seventh graders are working on a Regions of France project. They will research and present a keynote to the class about a region of France. Every region of France has a lot to offer: historical sites, charming villages, natural beauty, and delicious cuisine.
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Math
ATP: Students will be solving linear systems by graphing and substitution using addition, subtraction, and multiplication. They will also learn how to solve systems of linear inequalities.
Pre-Algebra: Students will be designing an African Zoo Exhibit including calculating for perimeter and area and following a budget to make purchases for their exhibit. After the zoo project, students will solve and graph linear equations with two variables. They will also use slope and y-intercept to write and graph linear equations.
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Science
Thanks very much to Dr. Nye for her generous gifts of time and expertise as we have concluded Health Education.
All 7th grade students benefitted from presentations by Dr. Weinstein on Genetics and Dr. Hammernik on Gender differences. Thanks!
Green 4 Good representatives, Ms. Berin and Ms. Cragan, have skillfully worked with students as the 7th grade garden has been planted. Thanks, we look forward to a June harvest.
After the study of genetics concludes, 7th grade science students will explore evolutionary science. We will learn about the history of life and the mechanisms of evolution before we model life's 3.5 billion years and present the evolutionary trajectory for the species of our choice.
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Social Studies
In Social Studies, we will be studying the first presidents, the establishment of the institutions of the U.S., the problems facing the new nation, expanding the nation, and how perilous that time was for the survival of our new country.
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Spanish
Seventh graders are concluding their unit on food vocabulary by writing and acting out a dialogue which takes place in a restaurant with several customers ordering food and discussing their likes and dislikes about what the waiter brings them. They are trying to incorporate all that they have learned this year about conjugating verbs, both regular and irregular, in the present, past, and present progressive tenses. They are beginning to work on a new unit which focuses on vocabulary for places in the city and leisure activities.
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French
The eighth graders have completed their iMovie projects about Paris. They wrote and recorded a script to describe a five day trip to Paris. We will begin May with a review to prepare for the final on May 10.
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Language Arts
In Reading, 8th grade students are nearing the end of Harper Lee's classic, coming-of-age novel, To Kill A Mockingbird. The students are engaged in class discussions and activities intended to give both a deep understanding and a deep appreciation of the work. In LA, 8th grade students are nearing the end of their research papers and are beginning a human rights project which will culminate with the students filming short documentary films. |
Humanities
Eighth Grade Humanities students have begun their nonfiction unit on sustainability. The unit examines sustainability as a general concept and explores the specific case of sustainable food production and consumption. Throughout the unit, the students will examine different points of view on this important issue, reading, writing, and debating to determine the strengths of each perspective.
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Math
ATP Algebra
We have now changed over to the Algebra 2 books and are currently studying Chapter 2 which reviews Linear Equations and Functions. This includes relations, functions, slope, direct variations, scatterplots, and graphing inequalities.
Algebra
We are beginning Chapter 8 in our textbooks. This is the study of factoring and quadratic equations. It includes applying the distributive property to solve quadratic equations.
Algebra 2: Algebra 2 students are studying the Rational Root Theorem and solving complex equations.
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Science
The students have turned in their Physical Science books and are working out of the Light books here at school. All the work will be done in class, unless the student is absent and needs to make up a lab. There are only experiments and some reading done here at school. Their grades are based on their Lab Sheets done here at school. |
Social Studies
We are finishing our study of the Civil Rights Movement. Students have been researching their topics and will present their projects to their classmates to teach us how their topic had an impact on the Civil Rights Movement. Next, we'll discuss the Vietnam War and the United States's foreign policy post-Vietnam.
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Spanish
Students will be preparing for the Spanish final taking place on Friday, May 10th and Monday, May 13th. Students are delivering home an informational letter regarding the final. Parents should sign and return the attached slip. Once finished with the final exam, we will be spending the remainder of the school year on cultural research projects to further explore the Hispanic culture.
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Activity & Club Announcements
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Diversity Club
Diversity Club members enjoyed participating in the Cultural Extravaganza. They loved the costumes they wore for the evening and enjoyed selling churros and crafts items from their Mexican market booth. To celebrate Cinco de Mayo they are having a churro sale on May 2nd. Plain and chocolate churros will be sold before school and at lunch. They are also looking forward to two wonderful guest speakers who will talk about Sweden, Russia, and Ghana. The ice-cream social at the end of the month will be their final meeting of this school year. |
May Announcers
Suleyman A., Aidan A., Javion B., Veronica B., Declan C., Lauren D., Raven F., David G., Anna G., Taylor J., Allison L., Andrew M., Kaya O., Cade O., Cynthia R., Madison R., Maxwell S., Lauren W., Olivia Z.
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A 2012 National
Blue Ribbon School
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River Forest Public School District 90
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Our Mission
To deliver excellence in education through an unwavering commitment to the whole child.
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