For the Week of November 11th

Monday, November 14th - Veteran's Day - No School!

Chess Club

Wednesday Chess Club and Thursday Chess Club will meet this week. Thank you to all of the parents who have volunteered to help. You have been great!

Community Service Project

Prairieview School-Community Service Project

Animal Assisted Therapy Program-Edward Hospital

Prairieview School, in Downers Grove, (3^rd, 4^th and 5^th Graders) is proud to have an opportunity to sponsor an Edward Hospital therapy dog.  The students are looking forward to sponsoring, Kodi.

Prairieview School will take donations until November 19^th!

If you want to learn more about this Animal Assisted Therapy Program go the the following link:  httpwww.edward.org/animalassistedtherapy

Reading at Home

Many parents ask me for tips on what they can do at home to help their child with his/her reading. The best advise I can give is to read! Just like practicing an instrument or an athletic skill, practicing helps. The student should spend time reading to themselves, reading to a parent/guardian and listening to reading. Discussing what the student read will also help them build their comprehension skills. The books your child reads to themselves should be very easy for them to read. They should be able to read almost all of the words on each page and understand what they are reading. Those books that he/she reads to you can be a little bit harder (but not too discouraging) because you can help him/her with some words. The books that you read to him/her can be even harder, because that will increase vocabulary and help him/her to understand the way good writing sounds. Please do not underestimate how important reading with your child is for improving your child's reading skills.

Gifts

There are many fun ideas to help parents incorporate reading into their holidays.

One great idea is to wrap a book to read together for each day counting down to your holiday. The child then opens the book and you read it together as a family. As the book pile dwindles, your child anticipates the coming holiday. These could be new books, or books from the library.

Another idea is to purchase games that have to do with reading. Some examples are Scrabble, Boggle, Apples-to-Apples or a trivia game where the participants have to read what is on the cards.

Baking holiday treats together is a great way to learn to read, follow directions and work on math all at the same time.

As we get even closer to the holidays, I will be sharing more ideas with you.