Eighth grade has been very busy lately with high school entrance exams and all of their academic work. In English, they are hard at work on their term papers, entering the last phase before turn-in on December 17th. They have found some interesting details about the topics they have chosen! Once that is done they will return to the study of drama. They have also been doing a lot of service work. The students worked the wreath sale, the pancake breakfast, and also helped to cut and tie blankets for a school-wide service project! The eighth graders also enjoyed being able to make and sell their crafts at the holly hobby fair last Friday. Now the students will begin practicing for the Christmas pageant before we go on Christmas break!
Last week, some of our seventh and eighth graders went to the local mall to shop for our Giving Tree families and proved that you are never too old to visit Santa. 🎅
In honor of computer science week and hour of code the students coded their elves to get to the presents!
Our annual Holly Hobby Fair is always a hit with students of all ages! Younger students are paired with their older prayer partners to help shop for their families for Christmas, and on the second day, our junior high students get to sell their own arts and crafts! Thanks to all of our parent helpers who make this event so fun for our Bruins.
Fourth grade had the privilege of welcoming a representative from the Illinois Agriculture Association last week. We learned so much about Illinois soil! Did you know the kind of soil we have here in Illinois is called Drummer soil? We learned about how worms help keep our soil healthy. Worms can push 10X their weight!! Do you know what crop rotation is? Ask a fourth grader, they can tell you.
As part of an all-school service project last week, students and their prayer partners made blankets and cards together for people in need in our community.
We have tons of extracurricular options for students, including Game Club and Art Club. Students love having fun after-school with friends, and parents have extra time before school pickup!
Mrs. Schroeder’s third grade enjoyed a field trip to the Museum of Science and Industry.
Seventh grade has worked hard these first three months of school. Science Fair has dominated a lot of free time with research, experiments, variables, and data collecting. Math class is building a solid foundation in algebraic thinking with rational number operations: adding and subtracting with negative numbers including fractions and decimals. In Social Sciences a major milestone of middle school is underway: the United States Constitution. Exploration and final assessment will be completed before Christmas break.
Spread throughout all the work we do in school, we have some fun, too. Through their hard work, the students earned a break and were able to play games during class. Earlier this year, we joined the eighth grade touring some beautiful churches in Chicago. We also decorated our classroom door for Halloween, created a poster to thank veterans who joined us for mass, and added leaves to our food donation box. Written on the leaves were messages conveying what we are truly thankful for everyday.
Kindergarten students are practicing Latin American dances in their movement class, including the mambo. The mambo is a traditional dance from Cuba, and through it, the children are learning to control their bodies using psychomotor skills. For example, they are learning to recognize the tips of their toes, to move using their heels, and to coordinate the movement of their legs with their arms as they walk.They are also practicing lifting their heads, keeping their bodies upright, and following the basic mambo steps, which follow a “1, 2, 3 — 1, 2, 3” pattern, similar to a waltz. In addition, they are learning to move their arms naturally as they walk, developing coordination. They jump when they need to jump, move their shoulders when the dance requires it, and continue improving their overall motor control. We are also working on five or six other dances, but today we are sending photos of the students practicing the mambo. ¡Buen trabajo, estudiantes!
Our first grade students have learned about farm animals in Spanish. First, they practiced pronouncing the words in Spanish. Then, they learned how to write them, and finally they completed a craft project about that animal from the Spanish book.
Mrs. Kells’s sixth grade is off to an amazing year! So far we have visited Mesopotamia, and while there, we learned how to write in Cuneiform. We have since moved on to Ancient Egypt, where we are experimenting with Hieroglyphics. We have learned some interesting facts about the Nile River, including the fact that it is the only river in the world that runs from South to North. We are making connections to our Religion lessons, too. Students are learning how the stories of Moses and the Ancient Hebrews are connected to the history of Ancient Egypt. This past week we celebrated Veterans Day. We had the opportunity to spend some time with Veterans and heard them tell some of their amazing life stories.
God bless our veterans in our school and parish community, and a special thank you to those who came to our Mass and reception and shared a bit about their time in the service.
After learning how to identify figures of speech, students have cracked the code on what authors are really trying to tell us. They have put on their thinking caps in order to make inferences and use context clues to learn more about characters and a story’s messages. We are beginning a short-answer unit, and I am looking forward to reading their responses after our lively class conversations. It’s been wonderful to see how much their reading and writing capabilities have grown and improved since the very beginning of the year. On top of becoming better readers and writers, students have also been expanding their vocabularies with new spelling words and words picked up while reading our short stories and excerpts in our textbooks. Way to go, sixth grade!
Costume parade and fun with friends on Halloween!
Some of the amazing entries created by our students in the annual pumpkin decorating contest!
For the last three weeks, fifth graders have been tracking the phases of the Moon. One more week until they discover the final stages, before it starts over again. Moon phases are the different ways the moon appears to change shape from Earth as the Sun’s light reflects off it, cycling through eight main phases over about 29.5 days. The cycle progresses from new moon to waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, last quarter, and waning crescent before returning to new moon. “Waxing” means the illuminated portion is growing, while “waning” means it’s shrinking.
Fourth grade has been learning so much! In religion, we are honoring the month of Mary by praying the Rosary as she guides closer to her Son Jesus. We loved meeting with our Pre-K 4 buddies and look forward to meeting with them again soon. In reading, we are enjoying realistic fiction stories. We are also learning about the six types of syllables as well as direct objects and subject compliments. Many fourth graders are continuing to strive for mastery of multiplication and division facts. We are also solving word problems using multiplication and division. In social studies, we are learning about the three levels and three branches of government, our freedoms, and rights and responsibilities as citizens. We also learned about time zones and why they are important. One of our favorites is Friday Fun and our break time where we can chat with our friends, build with Kinex, and collaborate on a beautiful welcome poster. We are looking forward to more learning and fun in fourth grade!
Students enjoy fun with friends in Art and Game Clubs, two of many after-school clubs offered here at SRB!
Wow! It has been a great and busy start to third grade! In religion we are learning about the Sacraments of Christian Initiation, that God wants us to love and help others, and about the four types of prayer. The class is also working on their cursive writing. In social studies we are learning about being good citizens and comparing different communities. In math we are working on our multiplication facts and breaking apart to multiply. In science we are working on activities with magnets, exploring magnetism and gravity. In reading we are working on describing characters in a story, and determining main ideas and supporting details in a text. We are learning about nouns in English. We are looking forward to a great year filled with fun activities! We had a great time at the Run-A-Thon and we can’t wait for Halloween!
The art classroom is getting ready for fall! Younger students have been working on their design skills, decorating jack-o- lanterns, on the look-out for Halloween. Older students have been working on a monster creation exercise that is full of surprises.
Second grade has had a great start to the school year. They have written and mailed letters to friends and family and have also practiced reading with partners and small groups. In math, they are solving addition and subtraction word problems using number bonds, bar models, and other strategies. They have learned about several saints and the Sacrament of Baptism in religion class. Finally, the second graders have been observing the properties of volcanic rocks and river rocks. We are looking forward to a wonderful year ahead!
With this nice weather, first grade is having plenty of fun outdoors during recess and gym class. After all that running around, they also enjoy some cooler, quiet time in the classroom, reading alone or with some friends. Today, with help from the Superkids, we learned all about who, what and where. In math, we are working on fact families. Below is an example of different ways we can make 10. It’s so exciting to be in first grade. We are learning so much and we have so much fun ahead of us!
Wondering what’s new and exciting in Kindergarten? Everything!! How could it not be? There are so many changes from Pre-K and so many new things to learn. Even navigating our lockers is an adventure in learning to open and close them and hang up our new backpacks and jackets. We are learning our new routine and schedule, opening our own snacks and taking care of ourselves all day from 8:00-3:00. Part of that will be learning to tie our own shoes! Beyond all of that, we have met our first two Superkids characters, Cass and Oswald, and are setting off on our literacy adventure with them. Learning to read is lots of fun with the Superkids! We have learned about shapes and the position words above, below, and beside in math class. Religion class is helping us know all about the things that God created. If that is not enough, learning to hold our pencils and crayons properly helps to round out our day. So much to learn everywhere we go, including eating lunch in the lunchroom with the big kids and having fun playing with new friends at recess! Kindergarten is an exciting time for learning many new things.
Preschool is off to an amazing start this year! We are excited to see our returning students and are welcoming new students and families to our SRB community. We are busy getting to know each other, learning routines, and adapting to the daily schedule. Students have been busy with various activities, toys, and playing outdoors. In addition, we are enjoying our special classes, exercising in the gym, learning color words in Spanish, coloring and glueing in art class and storytime in library.
Parents were invited to school to see their child’s classroom and met with teachers on Curriculum Night.
Students are welcomed back to school on their first day – here’s to a great school year, Bruins!
Look out, Kindergarten here we come! Pre-K is wrapping up a fun and formative year. We are learning about our neighborhood and community helpers. In addition, we are learning about measurement, bigger, taller, sizing by height, etc.
Our class has been following the journey of Eagle’s Shadow and Jackie and their eaglets, Sunny and Gizmo. Just as they are getting ready to fly the nest, our class is ready to fly into Kindergarten. We are working on kindergarten skills, such as opening snacks and lunch items. We are also practicing putting on coats, jackets, and buttons, as well as zippers, and independently emptying and packing our backpacks.
Second grade enjoyed a trip to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.
At our last assembly, students and teachers signed shirts for one another – a fun keepsake to take home to remember their school year!
Eighth grade is in the final three weeks of their time here at St. Robert Bellarmine! We are finishing our study of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. We are finishing our study of 8th grade religion to prepare for our religion final, a graduation requirement. All of our other subjects are wrapping up to prepare us for high school. On Friday we will receive our ribbons, and later that day we will enjoy our formal dance. Next week we will start practicing for graduation as well as go on our 8th grade all-day field trip to Camp Timber Lee. After a few more fun-filled moments we will finish our time here with graduation on May 30th. Thank you to all who made our time here memorable!
Photos from May Crowning, a special tradition of honoring Mary, Queen of Peace and featuring our 2nd grade First Communion class and our 8th grade soon-to-be graduates!
In Religion, sixth grade has been learning about Pope Francis and the process of selecting a new pope. They have so many questions about the process and wonder who the next Pope will be. We will be taking the annual Religion Assessment soon. In Social Science, we entered the Renaissance Era. Students are beginning a project on different painters, sculptors, inventors, and writers. I can’t wait to see what they find out and teach the rest of the class. After the Renaissance, we will end the year with the Age of Exploration. This will lead us into the beginning of 7th grade and the founding of the colonies. The students will get to see how ancient history ties to the founding of our country and the modern world. The March assembly included a dance party–the boys really got into dancing the Macarena!
Earlier this month, we hosted families for Legos & Lemonade, a fun event offered by our MDEG Title 1 program and generously supported by ESSA Program Title funds. Thanks to everyone who came to build with us!
Our Spanish teacher, Señor Pachas, organized a wonderful performance of Latin American dance, music, and culture this morning. Congrats to our Kindergarten class who performed two numbers and well done to our dancers in our after-school Latin American dance program. Muy bien!
PreK-4 students hunt for Easter eggs hidden in their classroom.
Mrs. E’s 5th grade completed their science unit on weather. We explored Earth’s atmosphere and the four seasons, as well as different types of natural disasters. Students worked on projects about floods, tornadoes, or hurricanes, where they shared information on how these disasters form, interesting facts, and safety procedures. In reading, we have finished Unit 3, which covered skills on main idea, summarizing, context clues, sequencing, point of view, and figurative language. We are excited to move on to discussions about poetry, drama, and biographies in the upcoming lessons. We look forward to what comes next!
In early April, Student Council hosted an all-school service event with Uncle Pete’s Ministries. Students in preschool through 8th grade plus staff prepared and packed lunches for approximately 500 people in need. Bags, decorated by our students, were filled with water, two sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, fruit, chips, and a treat, and distributed through Uncle Pete’s Ministry to several Chicago area social service agencies. At the close of the event, Carolyn Murphy from the ministry spoke to our students about hunger and thanked them for helping people in need right here in Chicago.
Fourth grade is writing original narrative stories about their lucky day using vocabulary words, lively adjectives and adverbs, as well as figurative language, and doing it all in cursive! In reading, students enjoyed a variety of novels chosen just for them. They completed a novel study packet that helped them dig into their individual novel. Currently, fourth grade is reading poetry about animals, learning about point of view as well as rhythm and meter. In social studies, students are learning about each of the five regions of the United States. Students are choosing a state in each of the five regions of the U.S. to research and then they will make posters to present their findings to class. In math, students are learning how to add and subtract fractions. We are also working on organization, responsibility, independence and preparing for life in the senior building next year. We still have so much to do in fourth grade before the end of the school year!
Congrats to our honor roll students in grades 6-8th!
Third grade has spent time in Religion learning about Lent, which is leading up to our most important church celebration, Easter. We have talked about how much Jesus loved us, and that he gave his life for us. We are attending Stations of the Cross each Friday as well. In Social Studies we have learned about inventors and scientists such as Louis Pateur, Cyrus McCormick, Thomas Edison, Edward Jennings, and Louis Daguerre. We are also going to learn about good citizenship and what is involved in making economic choices. We are continuing with multiplication and division in Math, as well as parts of a whole, and parts of a fraction. In English, we have learned about adverbs that tell when, how, and where, and we’ve enjoyed many new stories in reading. In science we are learning how to measure temperature. We are looking forward to our field trip to the Field Museum. We are also excited for Easter break and all the excitement that the final months of the school year will bring us!
Our recent Bruin Bash auction included many fun experiences dreamed up by our creative teaching staff. Check out these photos from Miss Buckey’s Taylor Swift-themed party where a winner and a few friends gathered to make friendship bracelets, decorate cookies, and dance to part of the Eras tour. We have the coolest teachers! 😎
Also for our Bruin Bash, Mrs. Schroeder donated a after-school craft party to a winner and a few guests. Looks like they had some fun!
Second grade has been working hard on some new skills as we approach the fourth quarter of the school year. They are learning to write in cursive and practicing every day. In math, they have learned to add and subtract three-digit numbers and solve some challenging word problems. They are reading and discussing chapter books in reading class. They are also working on writing book reviews. In religion, we have started to prepare for First Communion! The second graders had a special Mass and retreat on Sunday to help them get ready. We are looking forward to a strong finish to the school year!
The 1st graders are becoming oceanographers! They have been working super hard on an ocean habitat project. They are learning how to research and create. We borrowed amazing informational books from Mrs. Burzynski to read at morning meeting. They all got an ocean animal and used their writing and phonics skills to do an informational writing exploration on that animal. Then, they used recycled material to make their ocean animal. We have been having lots of awesome discussions about how to keep the ocean clean, and how to reduce, reuse, and recycle. They are working hard to decorate the room to look like an ocean and are inviting the school to come see all their awesome research. Even the Shedd Aquarium is going to come to our classroom ocean to teach us all about coral. I can’t wait to see the finished project!
It was a BASH! On March 1, almost 200 school and parish families, staff, alumni, and friends of Bruins came together to celebrate everything we love about SRB. One of the highlights of the night was revealing our 2025 Guardian Angel Award winner, Mrs. Noreen Hester, for her decades of service to our school and parish community. Thanks to all who came out to the Bruin Bash, and the many who donated time, talent, and funds to make this party a success!
Kindergarten has been busy! Since our last update, we went to see the play “Elephant and Piggie” based on the books by Mo Willems, celebrated Catholic Schools Week and the 100th Day of School, then enjoyed our Valentine’s Day with games in the classroom followed by distributing our Valentine’s cards. We have worked hard in reading and math and are learning all about wood in science class. The second semester of reading has begun and we have increased the amount of sight words that we are learning. This is helping us read our Superkids stories better. In math, everyone learned a lot about putting shapes together to make other shapes. We all know that two trapezoids can create one hexagon and that two squares can make a rectangle. One of our favorite projects was creating our shoebox churches. This helped us focus on what can be found in church like the altar, the cross, the chalice and many other holy things. We have also begun attending Mass as a class and were very excited to see what we learned about in church. It is really wonderful to see everyone growing so much in so many ways!
Preschool is learning about dinosaurs! We conducted a survey of who likes dinosaurs and who does not. Eight students like dinosaurs and 4 students do not! We are learning about the characteristics of each dinosaur and how each attribute helps protect them from predators. The preschoolers are also learning about herbivores and carnivores. We are enjoying this prehistoric adventure! We are also cruising through the alphabet and are currently learning about the letter Q. Preschool has grown in many ways this year. It is nice seeing them write their names and learning new skills each day. We definitely are looking forward to Spring and being able to have some adventures outside.
Eighth grade had a great time during Catholic Schools Week from participating in the Wacky Olympics, bowling at Habetler, playing volleyball with the faculty, and just theme dressing. Now it is back to business. In reading we have completed our study of The Diary of Anne Frank for our drama unit. Next we are studying poetry and will be writing original poems to send to the Creative Communications contest. We are continuing our study of grammar so that we are prepared for all of the writing we will be doing in high school. In social studies we have started our study of the Illinois Constitution, another of our graduation requirements. Near the end of February, we will be taking our graduation pictures. Exciting times are ahead for us as we start to hear about our acceptance to our high schools.
Photos from Miss Buckey’s Game Club, one of many after-school programming options available at SRB!
Last week, our seventh graders presented their scientific findings in a culmination of many months of work leading up to the annual school Science Fair. Congrats to all of our scientists, especially our four finalists who will be headed to the Regional Science Fair on March 15.
Sixth grade has been a flurry of activity. The students had their first tastes of entrepreneurship at the Holly Hobby Fair. They were so proud of their products and the profits they made. Since returning from Christmas Break, we have finished our Ancient Greece unit and have moved into Rome. We will be making connections between the beginning of Christianity in both religion and social studies. Catholic schools week has been full of fun activities including bingo and bowling. We worked on cards for our veterans and dressed in our favorite country western attire.
Eighth grade took on the staff in a heated volleyball match this afternoon and came out victorious, 2-1. Their prize? Bragging rights and a future pizza party on Principal Argamaso!
It must be Catholic Schools Week! Students enjoyed a break from their school day to bowl a few frames with friends
St. Robert Bellarmine 