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Renie Petropoulos » Ms. Petropoulos' Biography

Ms. Petropoulos' Biography

Ms. Petropoulos grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and holds her BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago. She earned her MEd in Elementary and Middle-School Education from DePaul University in Chicago. Ms. Petropoulos is endorsed to teach middle-school English Language Arts, French, Social Science, and Science.

 

This is Ms. Petropoulos' ninth year of teaching with Chicago Public Schools and her second year at Decatur. Prior to Decatur, Ms. Petropoulos taught Exploratory Science (STEM Lab) for four years to Pre-K through 8th-grade students at Saucedo Elementary in Little Village. Before that, way back in the ‘90s, she taught Library Media to Pre-K through 8th-grade students and then First Grade. After that, she worked full-time for eighteen years creating K–12 curricula for the Great Books Foundation’s Junior Great Books program, Encyclopædia Britannica, and National Geographic Learning.

 

Being an editor allowed Ms. Petropoulos to work flexibly at home so she could cook healthy, delicious meals for her family and spend time with her two sons as they grew. When her sons reached middle-school and were more independent, Ms. Petropoulos realized she missed exploring this fascinating world with children and missed providing opportunities to help children find their passion in life! So, she returned to teaching.

 

In her spare time, Ms. Petropoulos loves reading, writing poetry, gardening, birdwatching, and thrift shopping. She also enjoys playing the violin, bass guitar, and electric keyboard—while her pet birds sing along.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posts

March 3–7

G4 Homeroom
This week we had a talking circle about how our behaviors affect our learning. We also discussed how we can all help each other learn more by listening and getting our work done before socializing. We are still working on consistency with listening and following directions as a class—so as not to distract ourselves and others from learning. 
 
G4 Mat
Students started their new math Unit 6: More Decimal and Fraction Operations. Students made posters of different ways to represent one trillion. We also practiced representing powers of 10 using exponential form.
 
G4 Science
Students worked in a group to build their eye models from their design plans. They presented their models and explained them to Ms. Petropoulos. Students took their final written exam (focused on using scientific explanations) for Unit 2: Vision and Light. We will begin Unit 3: Earth Structures next week.
 
G5 Math
Students practiced using exponents in order of operations and exponent expressions with variables. They also practiced distinguishing between an independent and dependent variable, wrote equations with two variables to represent a table of data, and how graphs can represent the data and corresponding equation.
 
G5 Science
Students used a SIM to investigate water on a nanoscale, observe water vapor, track water molecules as they move. 

 

 

February 24–28

G4 Homeroom
Students continue to rate how well their class walks in line and listens during their essentials classes. These discussions continue to help the class as a whole be mindful of their behavior and attentiveness.
 
G4 Mat
Students practiced multiplying and dividing decimals. As always, they discuss the different ways that a problem can be solved.
 
G4 Science
Students worked in groups to plan how to build a model of a diurnal or nocturnal eye, showing the parts of the eye that influence how much light enters and is absorbed so that an animal can see in bright or dim lighting. They will finalize design plans and build models next week.
 
G5 Math
Students practiced using the distributive property to find equivalent expressions with unknown variables. After a day of practice, they took a Unit 6 quiz to show how much they understand so far of this unit work.
 
G5 Science
Students practiced writing thorough explanations about how two cities with increasing populations get drinking water. They discussed their hypotheses for why one city has less water than the other and how the city might obtain more drinking water. On Friday, they conducted two experiments with water and ice to observe and explain why cold water inside a glass causes condensation to form on the outside of the glass. Again, the emphasis in these simple experiments is on how thorough and clear students can be in their writing of scientific explanations.

February 18–21

G4 Homeroom
Students rated how well the class walked in line this week through the halls of Decatur on a scale of 1–5, with five being the best score. Students have been discussing the criteria for why they chose the rating they did and how they think the class can improve. And they were able to demonstrate improvement in how they walk in line as a class.
 
G4 Mat
Students practiced multiplying decimals for most of the week. They started dividing decimals on Friday.
 
G4 Science
Students discussed why some animals see better at night. They examined scientific diagrams of different eyes in our science simulations and how particular diurnal and nocturnal animals would see the same scene differently.
 
G5 Math
Students practiced writing expressions and equivalent equations with unknown variables, such as x, to represent different situational word problems. They checked their work by plugging in various numbers for the unknown—to verify that the expression or equation would be true no matter the value for "x."
 
G5 Science
We started Unit 3: Earth Systems by considering why a city on one side of a fictitious island would have much less drinking water than a city on the other side of the island. We discussed where freshwater is found on Earth and compared how much freshwater could be expected from each source. Students also discussed why they think Chicago extracts its drinking water from Lake Michigan far out from its shores.
 
 
 

Week 10: 10/28 - 11/01

G4 Math
Students represented fraction units with diagrams and equations and solved problems in which a unit fraction is multiplied by a non-unit fraction or mixed number. 
 
G4 Science
Students continue to follow the design cycle to build wind turbines. The goal is to have their design spin from any which angle the wind blows at the turbine.
 
G5 Math
Students continued to measure with different units and convert measurements to different units using ratios that do not include 1.
 
G5 Science
Students continue to plan their investigation of a particular constellation throughout the year using our curriculum's online simulation.