Mr. Cherry Bio

Ryan Cherry is from Brooklyn, Michigan and attended Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. He is a highly qualified educator who spent the last 17 years working in various educational settings around the Midwest. After seeing his high school soccer coach be an influential role model in the lives of his elementary students, he studied elementary education in college as he sought to also positively impact the lives of students. This is his 10th year at Decatur. He did his student teaching in 5th grade at Cleveland School in Chicago. He taught Language Arts and Math in a 5th grade classroom in Brookfield, IL, all subjects in a 4th through 6th grade room at a public Montessori school in Indiana and at Hibbard Elementary in CPS before coming to Decatur in 2017.

Mr. Cherry is inquisitive and curious about the people and world around him. He enjoys reading as it a great avenue to better understand people and our world. He is filled with immense excitement about the chance to teach physical education, as it combines his passion for physical activity and sports with the joy of engaging with students and supporting them enthusiastically. He is fascinated by neuroscience and its intersection with physical activity and is grateful for the chance to have students four days each week to encourage their physical activity.

Coach Cherry is passionate about seeing students gain confidence in their abilities to be successful in both the classroom and the world and become well rounded individuals who care for others as they care for themselves. In his free time, he enjoys playing sports, spending time with friends and family and enjoying a delicious slice of pie with some strong coffee.

Posts

Students are learning about how to find the theme of a story so they looked at multiple common topics in literature and connected them to books we read this year in class.

This week 4th graders learned about how other characters and settings can influence characters in a story. Then we analyzed how those other elements influenced primary characters.

4th Grade Personal Narrative Brainstorming

Students are working on creating their own personal narratives where they take a moment in their lives and bring it to life for their reader.

In Social Studies in 3rd grade we are learning about microfinance and entrepreneurship through the non fiction text of One Hen.

As part of a recent socials studies assignment, we learned about positive projects that were being done around the country to bring encouragement and support others during this difficult Covid season. Then students chose or created a community service project to do. Here are some of the images.

This student created a posted to put up in their neighborhood to remind people about social distancing.

One student donated supplies to a local community center

One student collected books from their home to donate to local charity.

The Remote students also tuned into the Google Meet

Students watching the Championships Match up on Friday!

Here is a slide from our lesson on how Non fiction texts can be organized by categories using the model text Eye to Eye.

One of our March Madness Book Championship Matchups

Here is the road trip project we are working on for social studies!

Here is the SEL book we read this week about 5 different voice levels that would be a great book to check out from your local library and read with your child.

2021 Decatur March Madness Book Championship Bracket

Here is a list of the things we need as a class to make our community a place where all students can be successful and feel valued