My Blog is Back

For those of you who religiously check for my Blog each we, my apologies for not posting last week. I guess I took an extended spring break. The truth is it has been an incredibly busy couple of weeks and it will remain this way through the month of April and probably May. We have a few important events coming up.

Thursday, April 21st 9:00-11:30 - Leadership Day This is during the school day and is for invited community members and school officials in and around District 109. 

Thursday, April 21st 5:30-7:30 - Portfolio Night

This is during in the evening for parents only.

Tuesday, April 26th 6:30 - 1st Grade Music/Art Show

Friday, April 29th 9:00-11:30 -  Field Trip

Mariott Lincolnshire Theater to see Cinderella after the Ball  

Outside of planning and teaching my students, a big focus for me and the Kipling teachers in recent weeks has been to make some improvements to our school. I am beyond excited with some of the changes we have made. Main Street is slowly being transformed into a welcoming cheerful Hallway that makes me smile every time I walk in in the building in the morning. I can't wait for you all to see. Here is one small peek. It is not quite finish.

The Week Before Break

As you know the week before spring break, I was gone most of the week at a Leader in me Symposium. It was an amazing three days. I got to see two schools that have been doing Leader in Me for two years to 6 years and I attended several breakout sessions where I got to learn first hand some of the wonderful things that other Leader in Me Schools are doing. Leader in Me is a process. With Kipling being in the first year of this process, it was exciting to see where we will a few years from now.

Some of the Kipling Krew with Sean Covey, author of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens,"and son of Stephen Covey, author of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" and
"The Leader and Me."

Catching Up on Some Pictures

Star Leader of the Week

We have had two more Star Leaders in the last couple of weeks. Each brought their own leadership to the Star Leader activities for the week.

Performing Magic

This Week

April 11th - April 15th

ELA

Grammar 

• Phoneme Manipulation
• Compound Nouns - i.e. mailbox, firefly, whiteboard

Reading

This week begins our final quarter. This quarter's theme is "Around the World With a Glass Slipper." We will be reading a variety of Cinderella books from countries all around the world. Students will learn about the cultures and heritage of these countries as they compare and contrast the different elements in each of the these different versions.

This week we will begin with:

• Cinderella by Marcia Brown - European version
• Irish Cinderlad by Shirley Climo

Students will ask and answer questions, explain major differences between books, and ask and answer questions to clarify the meaning of words in a story.

Math

This week we will be spiraling back to some previous concepts.

Students will. . .

• use the commutative and associative properties of addition and subtraction.
• understanding subtraction as an unknown addend. For example to find 10-8 you can find what number you need to add to 8 to get to 10.

Science

Students will explore how sound travels. Students will utilize different materials to listen how sound travels differently through them.

Leader and Me

This week students will finish writing their best example of how they use each of the seven habits. Students will also write final goals they hope to achieve in in reading, writing, math and their personal life.

Specials Schedule

Monday - Day 3 - PE and Spanish 
Tuesday - Day 4 - LMC - Remember your books

Wednesday - Day 5 - Art and Music

Thursday - Day 1 - PE and Spanish

Friday - Day 2 - Music and Art

Just a note, for the next two weeks all specials will take place in the morning from 8:50-9:50 due to the Parcc testing.