Don't forget that parent-teacher conferences are this Wednesday and Thursday, February 16th and 17th. They are by appointment only. If you have not heard anything from your teacher, then chances are you do not need a conference. If you have not heard from your teacher and still would like a conference, please do contact them to set up a time.
In addition, the book fair is this whole week and the science fair has been rescheduled to Tuesday, February 15th. Third grade reading CSAP will be on Wednesday and Thursday, February 16th and 17th. There will be no school for students on Friday, February 18th and Monday, February 21st.
Have a great February Leawood Lions!
Monday, February 14, 2011
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
January 2011
Welcome Back Leawood Lions!
I hope that everyone had a safe, restful, and fulfilling winter vacation.
I am so excited for the second half of this school year. The teachers and staff have enjoyed two days of professional development as we continue to support the wonderful teaching and learning that we do at Leawood. I hope everyone enjoys January!
Have a great day!
Monday, October 4, 2010
Dear Leawood Families,
We are ending our fifth week back at school this year and wow all the things that have happened this year. I want to start off with a special thank you to Eric Orton the Carnival Chairperson, PTSA, and all of our parents who helped put on and support a great welcome back carnival. It is such a great time to see all the students and parents running around having a blast. This year, after the school year started, we were granted an additional second grade teacher through the EduFunds grant from the Federal government. This is a one year opportunity for Leawood which resulted in smaller class sizes for our second graders. Also, since Leawood has increased in enrollment, our enrollment numbers qualified us to have full-time Art, Music, and PE teachers for this year. So lots of quick changes happened early on this year. I am pretty sure that the rest of the year should be smooth sailing!!!
I want to highlight a few upcoming events. On Monday we will host the Ovation Company to hold an all day intensive bully-prevention seminar for our 5th and 6th grade students. This opportunity will allow our students to learn to accept others for who they are. It is a powerful day and I invite parents to drop by to see what it looks like. Wednesday, September 29th we will have our first School Accountability meeting. At this meeting we will highlight last year’s CSAP scores, the new state accreditation process, and redefine what the Leawood accountability committee roles will be to support our school. After Accountability, we will have our PTSA meeting. I encourage you to join us for both of these great committee meetings. These meetings really are the root of what supports the Leawood community and environment. On the same Wednesday we have our first early release day. Students will be released at 1:15pm. All of our magnets and calendars say 1:45pm and that is wrong, students will be released at 1:15pm. Sorry for the confusion. On Tuesday October 3rd we will have our annual track meet for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders at the Jeffco stadium. We will host parent-teacher conferences the week of October 11th. You must sign up for these conferences. The fall conferences are required for all families. Please help us out by making sure to sign up for a time so we do not have to call you! At these conferences, grades 3-6 will receive last year’s individual CSAP results. All sixth graders will be attending outdoor lab school the week of October 18th. Columbine High School will host a Columbine Area School accountability meeting on Monday October 18th. And our reflections reception will be on Thursday, October 18th. Finally, I want to highlight our Silent Auction Fundraiser. It will be on Friday, November 5th. I hope that all parents can attend this fun night out. This opportunity raises tons of money for the Leawood kids. This great night helps us support all the great activities and resources that Leawood provides for your students.
Within our classrooms, students and teachers are finally getting into solid routines with teaching and learning. The first month of school is always a challenge as we begin the year with our assessments days to identify starting points and skills for our students and reading. During the first 6 weeks of school, we fit in multiple first benchmark assessments. Our K-3 students are measured on the Dynamic Indicator of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS). This is an assessment which identifies early skills for successful reading. In addition, in grades 3-6, we administer the Acuity assessment. This assessment is a beginning of the year benchmark that identifies math and language arts skills. These first benchmark assessments help our teacher identify where each student is and help us plan individualized learning targets and goals.
Finally, I wanted to focus attention on before school. I cannot stress enough to parents and families that we do not have any outside supervision until 8:50 AM. I am asking you please do not drop off your students before this time. With our increased enrollment and large number of students, I feel that it is not safe for our kids to be dropped off without supervision and boundaries. We have had numerous accidents among students running into each other and getting hurt while playing around this year. If you have to drop your child off before this time, we have a before and after school care center that is flexible and inexpensive. Please use this resource if our school start hours do not fit your schedule. In addition, I would like to highlight a change in our morning line up procedures. When we have an inside morning, we will not be using the gym. Again, we now have too many students and it is not safe to have all the kids line up in the gym prior to the bell ringing. On mornings when it is raining or below 20 degrees, students will be let into their classrooms at 8:45 am. Prior to 8:45, students will be outside. So please do not drop them off early on days with inclement weather.
It has been a great year so far. Have a great October Leawood Lions!
Ari Goldberg
We are ending our fifth week back at school this year and wow all the things that have happened this year. I want to start off with a special thank you to Eric Orton the Carnival Chairperson, PTSA, and all of our parents who helped put on and support a great welcome back carnival. It is such a great time to see all the students and parents running around having a blast. This year, after the school year started, we were granted an additional second grade teacher through the EduFunds grant from the Federal government. This is a one year opportunity for Leawood which resulted in smaller class sizes for our second graders. Also, since Leawood has increased in enrollment, our enrollment numbers qualified us to have full-time Art, Music, and PE teachers for this year. So lots of quick changes happened early on this year. I am pretty sure that the rest of the year should be smooth sailing!!!
I want to highlight a few upcoming events. On Monday we will host the Ovation Company to hold an all day intensive bully-prevention seminar for our 5th and 6th grade students. This opportunity will allow our students to learn to accept others for who they are. It is a powerful day and I invite parents to drop by to see what it looks like. Wednesday, September 29th we will have our first School Accountability meeting. At this meeting we will highlight last year’s CSAP scores, the new state accreditation process, and redefine what the Leawood accountability committee roles will be to support our school. After Accountability, we will have our PTSA meeting. I encourage you to join us for both of these great committee meetings. These meetings really are the root of what supports the Leawood community and environment. On the same Wednesday we have our first early release day. Students will be released at 1:15pm. All of our magnets and calendars say 1:45pm and that is wrong, students will be released at 1:15pm. Sorry for the confusion. On Tuesday October 3rd we will have our annual track meet for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders at the Jeffco stadium. We will host parent-teacher conferences the week of October 11th. You must sign up for these conferences. The fall conferences are required for all families. Please help us out by making sure to sign up for a time so we do not have to call you! At these conferences, grades 3-6 will receive last year’s individual CSAP results. All sixth graders will be attending outdoor lab school the week of October 18th. Columbine High School will host a Columbine Area School accountability meeting on Monday October 18th. And our reflections reception will be on Thursday, October 18th. Finally, I want to highlight our Silent Auction Fundraiser. It will be on Friday, November 5th. I hope that all parents can attend this fun night out. This opportunity raises tons of money for the Leawood kids. This great night helps us support all the great activities and resources that Leawood provides for your students.
Within our classrooms, students and teachers are finally getting into solid routines with teaching and learning. The first month of school is always a challenge as we begin the year with our assessments days to identify starting points and skills for our students and reading. During the first 6 weeks of school, we fit in multiple first benchmark assessments. Our K-3 students are measured on the Dynamic Indicator of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS). This is an assessment which identifies early skills for successful reading. In addition, in grades 3-6, we administer the Acuity assessment. This assessment is a beginning of the year benchmark that identifies math and language arts skills. These first benchmark assessments help our teacher identify where each student is and help us plan individualized learning targets and goals.
Finally, I wanted to focus attention on before school. I cannot stress enough to parents and families that we do not have any outside supervision until 8:50 AM. I am asking you please do not drop off your students before this time. With our increased enrollment and large number of students, I feel that it is not safe for our kids to be dropped off without supervision and boundaries. We have had numerous accidents among students running into each other and getting hurt while playing around this year. If you have to drop your child off before this time, we have a before and after school care center that is flexible and inexpensive. Please use this resource if our school start hours do not fit your schedule. In addition, I would like to highlight a change in our morning line up procedures. When we have an inside morning, we will not be using the gym. Again, we now have too many students and it is not safe to have all the kids line up in the gym prior to the bell ringing. On mornings when it is raining or below 20 degrees, students will be let into their classrooms at 8:45 am. Prior to 8:45, students will be outside. So please do not drop them off early on days with inclement weather.
It has been a great year so far. Have a great October Leawood Lions!
Ari Goldberg
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Welcome Back!
Dear Leawood Families,
Welcome to the 2010-2011 school year. I am so excited to start this school year. It is so exciting to reflect on all the wonderful things that Leawood offers students and families. I know that Leawood is doing something right. Over the past three years that I have been at Leawood our enrollment has continually increased every year. This year we are starting off the school year with 406 K-6 grade students. We ended last year with 389 students. This does not include any preschool numbers.
I am so excited for our students to begin another year of learning and education. We have a ton of exciting things planned for this year. One of the things I hope to do more often is update my blog site. I do plan to have at least a monthly topic to bring to parents.
As I typically do, I always like to ask about fun summer vacations. Please feel free to let me know about anything fun that you did over the summer vacation. For my family, we took a trip to San Diego. We got to experience Lego Land. Wow what an awesome place for kids. We also took two shorter trips to Grand Lake and Glenwood Springs.
Please check back to this site often as I will try to have more meaningful post more often.
See everyone on Monday!
Welcome to the 2010-2011 school year. I am so excited to start this school year. It is so exciting to reflect on all the wonderful things that Leawood offers students and families. I know that Leawood is doing something right. Over the past three years that I have been at Leawood our enrollment has continually increased every year. This year we are starting off the school year with 406 K-6 grade students. We ended last year with 389 students. This does not include any preschool numbers.
I am so excited for our students to begin another year of learning and education. We have a ton of exciting things planned for this year. One of the things I hope to do more often is update my blog site. I do plan to have at least a monthly topic to bring to parents.
As I typically do, I always like to ask about fun summer vacations. Please feel free to let me know about anything fun that you did over the summer vacation. For my family, we took a trip to San Diego. We got to experience Lego Land. Wow what an awesome place for kids. We also took two shorter trips to Grand Lake and Glenwood Springs.
Please check back to this site often as I will try to have more meaningful post more often.
See everyone on Monday!
Monday, February 1, 2010
Pennies for Patients School & Youth Program
The Leawood Lions have joined the Pennies for Patients School & Youth Program. We will be collecting pennies for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS). If the students of Leawood reach their goal of over 1400 dollars, I promised the students I will kiss a pig. The challenge is on.
I hope that everyone can be a part of this great event. Visit our website at http://www.leawoodlions.us/ or http://www.schoolandyouth.org/ for more details.
I hope that everyone can be a part of this great event. Visit our website at http://www.leawoodlions.us/ or http://www.schoolandyouth.org/ for more details.
Monday, October 5, 2009
End Homework Battles
Attached is an article from USA Weekend by Allyson Dickman, talking about what you as parents and guardians can be doing to help your student be successful with homework.
End homework battles
Hating homework is usually the kid's job. But when keeping a child's focus on his books rather than the TV becomes a nightly struggle, parents can wind up hating homework, too.
"Most parents, especially those who work outside the home, dread all the homework and pressure that the school year brings," says Jamie Woolf, author of "Mom-in-Chief: How Wisdom From the Workplace Can Save Your Family From Chaos." She recommends using the following strategies to end homework battles.
Set big-picture goals together. Ask your child to write out homework goals, such as, "I will not turn on the TV until my homework is finished."
Assess your child. Decide whether she's struggling because she lacks motivation or just doesn't understand the work. Then decide the best approach to help her do better.
Make room. Encourage neatness and organization by giving your child a study area that he can use routinely and maintain on his own.
Teach accountability. Don't blame the teacher for what your child doesn't understand. Instead, teach your child how to get answers. For example, tell him to ask the teacher to explain any unclear assignments.
Don't give up if bad habits return. Refocus on those big-picture goals you set together, and remind your child to stick with his commitments.
Connect success with effort. Remind your child that effort and perseverance -- not just innate talent -- will lead to success.
-- Allyson Dickman
Click here to link to the article: http://www.usaweekend.com/09_issues/091004/091004thinksmart-parent-homework.html
End homework battles
Hating homework is usually the kid's job. But when keeping a child's focus on his books rather than the TV becomes a nightly struggle, parents can wind up hating homework, too.
"Most parents, especially those who work outside the home, dread all the homework and pressure that the school year brings," says Jamie Woolf, author of "Mom-in-Chief: How Wisdom From the Workplace Can Save Your Family From Chaos." She recommends using the following strategies to end homework battles.
Set big-picture goals together. Ask your child to write out homework goals, such as, "I will not turn on the TV until my homework is finished."
Assess your child. Decide whether she's struggling because she lacks motivation or just doesn't understand the work. Then decide the best approach to help her do better.
Make room. Encourage neatness and organization by giving your child a study area that he can use routinely and maintain on his own.
Teach accountability. Don't blame the teacher for what your child doesn't understand. Instead, teach your child how to get answers. For example, tell him to ask the teacher to explain any unclear assignments.
Don't give up if bad habits return. Refocus on those big-picture goals you set together, and remind your child to stick with his commitments.
Connect success with effort. Remind your child that effort and perseverance -- not just innate talent -- will lead to success.
-- Allyson Dickman
Click here to link to the article: http://www.usaweekend.com/09_issues/091004/091004thinksmart-parent-homework.html
Friday, August 28, 2009
Welcome Back
August 2009
Welcome Leawood Families,
I am so excited to welcome our new families as well as our returning families to the 2009-2010 school year. This is my third year here at Leawood and I continue to be impressed with the students, families, and community members and how great they make this school. As always, my summer was filled by revealing various connections to Leawood through friends of friends, and random connections through other people. It really states how strong the Leawood community ties are beyond the neighborhood boundaries.
We started this year off great with our open-house and two assessment days. These assessment days really help our teachers get to know your kids before school starts, and they help us identify where the students are instructionally so that we can work to meet every child’s instructional need. Our welcome Back Carnival is Friday, August 28th and Back to School Night will be Thursday, September 3rd. Back to school night will be an opportunity for you as parents to get a brief picture of what the instructional day looks like and any other important information from the classroom teachers. In addition, this year we will be offering curriculum nights. These nights will allow you as parents to understand better the resources that we use at Leawood to support the expected learning of our students. In addition, you will get to sit through an actual lesson so that you can better understand what your students experience here at Leawood. Our first curriculum night will be in math and how we use Every Day Math as resource to teach math. This night is scheduled for Thursday, September 24th. We will do a night for our writing approach Every Child a Writer in October, Fundations and word-work in December, and reading with MONDO Reading in the spring. We look forward to helping parents better understand the resources that we use at Leawood.
Our school is filled with so many opportunities for your students and you as a family. As always, I want to personally invite you to attend our PTSA meetings which are scheduled the 3rd Wednesday of the month starting at 6:00pm. Our school accountability meetings will be the 3rd Monday of the month starting at 4:15pm. These are two great opportunities to support all of the great things that happen at Leawood. In addition, as many of you have experienced, before and after school get very busy and our number one priority is the safety of EVERY student. We are always looking for parents that are here before and after school to volunteer to help us at our cross walks and to ensure that we are all looking out for the safety of our children. Stop by the office if you are interested. We will always welcome parents to volunteer at various levels of interest, such as in the work room to do busy stuff for teachers, in the library to help our kids develop the love of books, and at all of our activities.
You may have heard or will hear the term 21st century learner. This is a common term used to describe our current students and the learning that they are surrounded by every day. We as parents have to remember that our world is so different for our kids as compared to when we grew up. Our kids are living in a digital era where communication, skill sets, and expectations are so drastically different from our expectations as a student, that we can no longer predict what our students’ future holds. We cannot predict what new jobs will be available, the technology that will be available, and the simple things that we most often take for granted. We live in an era of immediate communication, instant gratification, multiple opportunities, and technology and expectations that change daily. As you will experience at Leawood, we will do our very best to insure that we are supporting all students with these opportunities to be independent and lifelong 21st century learners. What we need from you as parents is to support the learning at home. Ask questions and be involved in helping your students understand what they are learning. This partnership will ensure our students to be successful.
And finally, a few reminders that Leawood does our best to be environmentally conscious as we try to keep a paperless trail whenever possible. This means that our website at www.leawoodlions.us is our central location for information and communication regarding Leawood information, class and teacher news, school events, the calendar, the lunch menu, and anything else we need to let you know about. In addition, we send out our newsletters and information via email. If you do not have internet access, make sure to fill out the attached form on this newsletter to let us know. And at last, remember to schedule a night out for our one and only fundraiser, the silent auction. This event will be on Friday, November 6th at the Columbine Country Club. Tickets will go on sale soon. We hope everyone can join us to help make this night a huge success!
Have a great Year Leawood Lions,
Ari Goldberg
Welcome Leawood Families,
I am so excited to welcome our new families as well as our returning families to the 2009-2010 school year. This is my third year here at Leawood and I continue to be impressed with the students, families, and community members and how great they make this school. As always, my summer was filled by revealing various connections to Leawood through friends of friends, and random connections through other people. It really states how strong the Leawood community ties are beyond the neighborhood boundaries.
We started this year off great with our open-house and two assessment days. These assessment days really help our teachers get to know your kids before school starts, and they help us identify where the students are instructionally so that we can work to meet every child’s instructional need. Our welcome Back Carnival is Friday, August 28th and Back to School Night will be Thursday, September 3rd. Back to school night will be an opportunity for you as parents to get a brief picture of what the instructional day looks like and any other important information from the classroom teachers. In addition, this year we will be offering curriculum nights. These nights will allow you as parents to understand better the resources that we use at Leawood to support the expected learning of our students. In addition, you will get to sit through an actual lesson so that you can better understand what your students experience here at Leawood. Our first curriculum night will be in math and how we use Every Day Math as resource to teach math. This night is scheduled for Thursday, September 24th. We will do a night for our writing approach Every Child a Writer in October, Fundations and word-work in December, and reading with MONDO Reading in the spring. We look forward to helping parents better understand the resources that we use at Leawood.
Our school is filled with so many opportunities for your students and you as a family. As always, I want to personally invite you to attend our PTSA meetings which are scheduled the 3rd Wednesday of the month starting at 6:00pm. Our school accountability meetings will be the 3rd Monday of the month starting at 4:15pm. These are two great opportunities to support all of the great things that happen at Leawood. In addition, as many of you have experienced, before and after school get very busy and our number one priority is the safety of EVERY student. We are always looking for parents that are here before and after school to volunteer to help us at our cross walks and to ensure that we are all looking out for the safety of our children. Stop by the office if you are interested. We will always welcome parents to volunteer at various levels of interest, such as in the work room to do busy stuff for teachers, in the library to help our kids develop the love of books, and at all of our activities.
You may have heard or will hear the term 21st century learner. This is a common term used to describe our current students and the learning that they are surrounded by every day. We as parents have to remember that our world is so different for our kids as compared to when we grew up. Our kids are living in a digital era where communication, skill sets, and expectations are so drastically different from our expectations as a student, that we can no longer predict what our students’ future holds. We cannot predict what new jobs will be available, the technology that will be available, and the simple things that we most often take for granted. We live in an era of immediate communication, instant gratification, multiple opportunities, and technology and expectations that change daily. As you will experience at Leawood, we will do our very best to insure that we are supporting all students with these opportunities to be independent and lifelong 21st century learners. What we need from you as parents is to support the learning at home. Ask questions and be involved in helping your students understand what they are learning. This partnership will ensure our students to be successful.
And finally, a few reminders that Leawood does our best to be environmentally conscious as we try to keep a paperless trail whenever possible. This means that our website at www.leawoodlions.us is our central location for information and communication regarding Leawood information, class and teacher news, school events, the calendar, the lunch menu, and anything else we need to let you know about. In addition, we send out our newsletters and information via email. If you do not have internet access, make sure to fill out the attached form on this newsletter to let us know. And at last, remember to schedule a night out for our one and only fundraiser, the silent auction. This event will be on Friday, November 6th at the Columbine Country Club. Tickets will go on sale soon. We hope everyone can join us to help make this night a huge success!
Have a great Year Leawood Lions,
Ari Goldberg
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)