Mrs. Julie Smith » Mrs. Smith's Class-Let the Adventure Begin!

Mrs. Smith's Class-Let the Adventure Begin!

Welcome to Our Class Page
To all Tiger families, welcome to Chelsea! I am excited to start the 2024-2025 school year with "Adventure Awaits" as our school theme.
 
At Chelsea School, we want each and every student to know they are valued and that they hold tremendous worth. Our school is built on the foundation of our three core values~ Respect, Responsibility, and Caring. Both students and teachers work towards these values daily. We also believe in fresh-starts and new beginnings. Let's make this school year special by believing in a growth mindset and by unlocking your child's true potential. We can accomplish this by working together. This school year will be a success on their educational journey! 
 
Use this class page as an extension of our classroom to stay informed. It contains important dates, reminders, homework, the quarterly curriculum standards, links, and other essential information about what's happening in our classroom, school, and district.
 
Please check back often! Each school day's activities and homework assignments will be featured in the "Week at a Glance." The standard ELA homework is to read for a minimum of 20 minutes per day at home. Please encourage reading! We will also have occasional reading response homework. 

 

Family Shout Outs

We are offering parents the opportunity to complete a "Shout Out" form to celebrate students' accomplishments outside of the school day that can include events such as team competitions, recitals, etc.
This form is linked to the Chelsea e-newsletter. It is also posted on our Chelsea page. Depending on the number of "shout outs" we receive, we will recognize students either on the morning announcements or on the monitors throughout the school.
We are looking forward to acknowledging achievements by our students! 
 
 
E-Learning Plan
The purpose of an emergency E-Learning plan is to provide for a continuation of learning and engagement for all students when conditions require that school cannot be in the building.  Students will receive instruction through digital resources, and it would count as attendance days without the need to add emergency days to the end of our school year.
 If an E-Learning Day is necessary, we will be utilizing the fifth-grade schedule. 
See E-Learning attachment at the bottom of this page.
 
Important Days
May 6th: Math Fastbridge Testing
May 8th: Reading Fastbridge Testing
Thursday, May 15th: 5th Grade Step-Up Day 
Friday, May 16th: Team 5A Field Trip to the Field Museum
Friday, May 23rd: 12:05 Dismissal-School Improvement Day
Monday, May 26th: Memorial Day-No School
 
CHELSEA Countdown to Summer
Friday, May 23: Colors and Crazy Hair Day (5th Graders wear blue!)
Tuesday, May 27: Hat Day 
Wednesday, May 28: Exercise Day
Thursday, May 29: Field Day!
Friday, May 30: Sunglasses Day!
Monday, June 2: Extra Day! (Extra Recess)
Tuesday, June 3: Last Day of School! (12:05 Dismissal) All Ready for Summer! (Wear summer attire.)
 
 
Theme Thursdays at Chelsea
Thursday, May 1st: May the 4th be with you! Wear your favorite Star Wars shirt for an early May 4th celebration.
Thursday, May 8th: Bust out those bright clothes! This day was selected by Chelsea Tiger Riley  Mitchell, who won the day through the Education Foundation.
Thursday, May 15th: Step-Up Day! We will wear our Hickory Creek shirts.
Thursday, May 22: Patriotic Day! Wear red, white and/or blue in honor of Memorial Day.
Thursday, May 29th: Field Day! Wear the 2025 Field Day shirt.
 
Show your Chelsea pride and wear our school colors of maroon and gold on Fridays!
 
 
 
 
Encore Schedule
Students will have P.E. class every morning. Students will also have the opportunity to enrich their learning in the following encore classes: 
Quarter 1 Spanish with Mrs. Smerz
Quarter 2 STEM with Mrs. Jozaitis
Quarter 3 Music with Mrs. Zito
Quarter 4 Art with Mrs. Maney
 
Library on MONDAYS
My ELA classes will be going to the library on Mondays. My homeroom class will be going from 10:25-10:50 and the afternoon ELA Block 2 will be from 2:40-3:05.
 
Every year our school librarian, Mrs. Schubert, has the opportunity to add new books! We can always ask her for book recommendations. There are even audio books! We always look forward to this time period to grab a book and read to our heart's content! We are so fortunate to have an abundance of books to choose from in our school library.
 
Volunteers needed! Parents are invited to volunteer in the library this school year! If you are interested in volunteering, then please contact [email protected] to schedule a time to come in.
 
Erin's Law Presentations
Governor Pat Quinn signed Erin's Law in January of 2013, which requires all schools in the state of Illinois to provide age-appropriate sexual abuse and assault awareness and prevention education programs for students in grades Pre-K through 12.   The Chelsea Intermediate School social workers will be teaching each lesson in the child’s classroom. The "Think First and Stay Safe" program will be the curriculum utilized for these lessons with a focus on Child Lures.
 
ClassLink at Home
Students can access ClassLink from their home computers!  Directions for how to access the ClassLink launchpad from home are in the downloads section of this page. In order for students to not have to reenter usernames and passwords they will need to add an extension to their web browser. Directions for how to do that are also linked to this page. If the extension is not added, then login credentials will have to be entered each time.
 
This information can also be found on the district website under "Student/Parent Technology Tutorials."
 
Communicating with Students and Families
I am committed to establishing a strong parent-teacher relationship. I will be using this teacher webpage, email blasts, and the Remind app to communicate on a regular basis. You will be able to find the homework assignments in the "Week at a Glance" tab.  The quarterly standards are listed in the "ELA Curriculum" tab. 
 
If you would like to receive text notifications about your child's ELA class with information on homework and general reminders or announcements, then please select the Remind link that corresponds to your child's ELA block.
 
To sign up for Mrs. Smith's Homeroom and ELA Block 1 notifications, click the link below:
 
To sign up for Mrs. Smith's ELA Block 2 notifications, click the link below:
 
Please consider following us on social media to see photos and updates from our classroom, other teachers and our administrators. Follow Chelsea School on Twitter by adding @Chelsea_Tigers. We tag all of our school happenings with #WeAreChelsea. 
 
Birthday Reminder
Birthdays are definitely a special day for students. It is a time to celebrate! That being said, per our district policy, we highly discourage the passing out of invitations at school. The only exception is if the entire class is being invited. However, you are more than welcome to send a non-food item (pen, pencil, etc.) for each student in class. We have 23 students in our homeroom (ELA Block 1) and 22 students in my afternoon ELA Block 2. Thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation.