Principal's Message 3.16.12

Highlight of the Week
On Tuesday, Mrs. Kim Dahlem, Director of Student Services, and Mrs. Kim Lechner, Assistant Director of Student Services, presented Social and Emotional Learning at Ivy Hall School.  This excellent presentation focused upon the five social emotional learning (SEL) competencies:  self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making.  As SEL committee representatives, Mrs. Dahlem and Mrs. Lechner, were excited to share the District's work thus far along with sharing resources for raising caring, confident, and capable children.  For more information about social and emotional learning, please visit The Illinois Children's Mental Health Partnership at www.icmhp.org and The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning at www.casel.org.

New Laptop Computers
A HUGE thank you goes out to the Prairie PTO for purchasing for our Prairie students 60!!! ByteSpeed laptop computers.  The teachers and students are so excited about this new purchase.  Currently, each grade level homeroom has three laptop computers.  These additional computers will give each class a total of six or seven laptops.  As technology use increases daily in all of our classrooms, this wonderful purchase could not have come at a better time.  Staff training for the new computers will occur after spring break and then the computers will be in the hands of our kids.  Again, THANK YOU to our wonderful PTO.    

Principal Coffee:  Technology at Prairie School

Interactive whiteboards, iPods, document cameras and laptops!   These are a few of the 21st century tools your students are using in their classrooms.  We are very fortunate at Prairie to have so many great technologies to engage our students in learning.  Please join us on Thursday, March 22nd at 9am to take a look at the programs, applications and various technology we use in our school. We will have a presentation and tour of how technology rolls at Prairie School!

PTO Highlight

Learn about the exciting new location for our upcoming Art Auction in Long Grove.

Please go to the  PTO Newsletter to learn more.

Babysitting for Parent Teacher Conferences

Once again, Prairie School's 5th Grade Girl Scout Troop 41416 will be providing babysitting services during the upcoming Parent-Teacher Conferences.  Please help Troop 41416 feed the hungry by utilizing their services. For 1 hour of baby sitting Troop 41416 kindly requests one non-perishable food item or $2 donation per child (for children over one year of age only, please).  All donations, monetary and food items, will be given to the Vernon Township food pantry.  Your support helps the girls of Troop 41416 earn their Silver Award.  This award is the highest Girl Scout service award for Junior Girl Scouts. Locations are as follows:

Wednesday, April 4: 4:45 - 6pm in room 19

Wednesday, April 4: 6 - 7:15pm in the gym

Thursday, April 5: 1:45 - 7:15pm in the gym

Children should be older than one year (we will not be changing diapers), parents cannot leave the school and must provide a cell phone number and a conference room number.

Principal's Message 3.9.12

Highlight of the Week
We had our 2nd and final Professional Learning Community visit this Wednesday. Our visitors were a 6th grade team from Rock River Intermediate School in the Waupun Area School District in Wisconsin. They were excited about all the learning they gained when they were here. Several visitors shared that they could learn so much at Prairie and wished they could spend more time with us. Some other comments were:

• "Hearing the staff talk here, I want to stay and learn more."
• "Your knowledge base was outstanding."
• "I would love to spend a trimester here to truly learn your ways."
• "I am energized to try a few of your ideas."
• "You gave us lots of things to think about."

We thank the Rock River team for coming to Prairie as we learned so much from you as well.

Principal Coffee:  Technology at Prairie School

Interactive whiteboards, iPods, document cameras and laptops!   These are a few of the 21st century tools your students are using in their classrooms.  We are very fortunate at Prairie to have so many great technologies to engage our students in learning.  Please join us on Thursday, March 22nd at 9am to take a look at the programs, applications and various technology we use in our school. We will have a presentation and tour of how technology rolls at Prairie School!


Social Emotional Learning Community Event
Kildeer Countryside School District 96 welcomes you to a community event designed to increase awareness of social and emotional learning.  This event will take place Tuesday, March 13th at 7pm at Ivy Hall School in the MAT Room, which is located on the lower level of the building.  We hope to see you there.   

PTO Highlight

The Art Auction is quickly approaching.  Don't miss this great opportunity to get your hands on our wonderful Prairie students' artwork.  Please go to the  PTO Newsletter to learn more about this exciting adult evening out event.

Candace Fleming, Children's Author, Visiting Soon... Candace Fleming will be visiting Prairie on Thursday, April 26th. She is an Illinois children's author who has written picture and non-fiction books. She worked for several years writing and trying to get her work published. After three years of rejection letters, she found success in getting published. To learn more about Mrs. Fleming and her books, please visit her website.


Mrs. Fleming will be giving presentations to all our students. If you are interested in ordering any of her books, the can be purchased prior to her visit by completing and returning this order form. If you have any questions, please contact our librarian, Mr. Tim Vanderwerff.


Reading Resource for Parents
Building Readers, a resource that helps parents help their child become a better reader, will be available online. To read this valuable resource go to BUILDING READERS March 2012 Newsletter.


Girls on the Run
This Spring, Prairie is home to a program called "Girls on the Run". This international program combines social-emotional learning and physical fitness to help girls in grades 3rd-5th to believe in the power of themselves by belonging to a team. This program currently has 1100 coaches throughout Chicagoland, and nearly 6500 participants!! Two of our staff members, Nicole Nielsen and Erin Sauer, brought the program to Prairie and are working hard and having lots of fun with fourteen girls to prepare for the end-of-season 5K (that's 3.1 miles!) on June 9th.  The girls do lessons, workouts, and team building activities two days each week for 12 weeks.   We would LOVE to expand this program next year to include more girls. If you are interested in having your 3rd, 4th or 5th grade girl participate next year, check out www.girlsontherun.org to learn about the program or e-mail Erin Sauer at esauer@kcsd96.org.  

Positively Prairie
Thank you for your feedback on our recent Positively Prairie survey. The feedback was very positive and also had very good suggestions for consideration. The Positively Prairie Committee will continue to review the data, along with teacher and student input, as we plan our next steps for the upcoming school year. One immediate change that we will implement to keep parents more informed about the Positively Prairie Program, is our new monthly "Positively Prairie" segment in the Principal's Message.


We recently updated the look of our WOW slips. In an effort to save paper and storage space, we have reduced the size of the WOW slip to a quarter page. We we thrilled to learn through the survey results that WOW slips find a prominent place on the refrigerator. We couldn't think of a better place for displaying them at home!  


The Positively Prairie Student Leadership Team (PPSLT) has put into place a "Fill the Bucket" reward program. If you've been at school lately you may have seen this on display in the multi-purpose room. The PPSLT created the idea of the student body earning a reward based upon the number of school-wide WOW slips received. Once the number hits the "meets" level, all Prairie students earn a reward. We have nearly 900 WOW slips earned building-wide and do have a fun reward activity planned for April. More information to come on that soon.  


Finally, we will be having a PP all-school assembly on April 13th. The PPSLT is working hard on planning and preparing for this assembly. We look forward to sharing more about this after the event.

Principal's Message 3.2.12

Highlight of the Week

Fourth grader Drew S. from Mrs. Saltzberg's classroom was surprised on Tuesday by the District 96 Foundation Prize Patrol.  Drew submitted a grant application to the District 96 Foundation KIDS Mini-Grant Program for four flip cameras.  During his acceptance speech, Drew shared that he wants to use the cameras for video projects and the blog that he would like create for teachers to post assignments.  Drew is looking forward to working with his teachers to get this up and running.

Prairie Receives Academic Excellence Award ~ 2011 Honor Roll
Congratulations Prairie students, parents, and teachers! We have once again received the Illinois State Board of Education Academic Excellence Award.  Only 438 schools across Illinois earned this award for 2011.  To earn the award, elementary schools must meet the following criteria:

• Attain Annual Yearly Progress in 2010 and 2011
• 90% of students must meet or exceed state standards in both reading and math for the three most recent school years

To learn more information about the Academic Excellence Award, please visit the Illinois Honor Roll website.
6th Grade Placement Information

Please click here for information about 6th grade placement for the 2012-2013 school year. Please remember to attend Twin Groves night on April 10th.

PTO Highlight

The Art Auction will be coming up quickly on April 20th.  Should you have an opportunity to stop by the school office, please check out the beautiful Art Auction items that are on display.  Please go to the  PTO Newsletter to learn more about this exciting adult evening out event.

ISAT Testing will Start on Wednesday, March 7th
It is always important for our students to have ample rest and healthy nutrition. With ISAT testing starting next Wednesday, the importance of these two healthy life style choices cannot be overstated. ISAT testing can be demanding for students so giving them a head start on the day feeling well rested and energized with a healthy breakfast will certainly put them in the right frame of mind. As always, if you have any questions about ISAT testing, please contact your child's teacher.

Principal's Message 2.24.12

Highlight of the Week
This past Tuesday, Prairie 2nd graders entertained their classmates during the school day and family and friends in the evening with their annual choral concert.  The students did a terrific job.  A huge thank you goes out to Mr. Nagle for creating and directing this performance.

PTO Highlight

The Art Auction will be coming up quickly on April 20th.  Should you have an opportunity to stop by the school office, please check out the beautiful Art Auction items that are on display.  Please go to the  PTO Newsletter to learn more about this exciting adult evening out event.

Pennies for Patients
Today we cashed in the collected coins from the Student Council sponsored Pennies for Patients drive.  Student Council is excited to share that $1,398.02 were collected.  A big thank you goes out to everyone who made a donation.  Student Council will be sending a check to the Leukemia Society next week.


ISAT Testing
ISAT testing will begin on Wednesday, March 7th and continue through Tuesday, March 13th.  The remainder of the week will be used for any students who require a make up test.  All students in grades 3 - 5 will take three reading and math tests.  Students in 4th grade will additionally take two science tests.  Further information regarding the ISAT tests can be found through our grade level links or by contacting your child's teacher.  
Third Grade

Fourth Grade

Fifth Grade

Upcoming Events

* Incoming 6^th Grade Parent Evening * April 10^th * Twin Groves Cafeteria

Reminders

Please remember to register younger siblings for kindergarten.  The deadline for registration is March 1^st and several families still need to complete the online process. Please contact Mrs. Winston at Willow Grove Kindergarten Center if you have additional questions or concerns. 

Principal's Message 2.17.12

NWEA MAP Test Scores 

MAP Test Scores will be coming home today, Friday, February 17th.  Accompanying your child's reading and math scores is a letter explaining the assessment for each grade level.

Students that were identified as needing additional formal intervention based on winter assessment scores also received a letter indicating the type of service recommended. L.E.A.P. and Reading Support are both Tier 2 interventions, or interventions that are provided in addition to classroom instruction.  Based on children’s assessment data, some students qualify for L.E.A.P., a reading intervention offered two days a week, or Reading Support, which is available four days a week.  Educators continue to review students’ assessment data after each testing period to determine if either support is needed.

The children who received formal intervention since the fall will also receive their data and a letter indicating the need to either continue or discontinue the identified service.  If your child did not bring home an additional letter you can assume that he/she did not qualify for additional interventions at this time.  I remind you that even if you child does not qualify for L.E.A.P. or Reading Support he/she continues to have access to daily intervention in the classroom. 

Upcoming Events

* Incoming 6^th Grade Parent Evening * April 10^th * Twin Groves Cafeteria

Reminders

Please remember to register younger siblings for kindergarten.  The deadline for registration is March 1^st and several families still need to complete the online process. Please contact Mrs. Winston at Willow Grove Kindergarten Center if you have additional questions or concerns. 

PTO Highlight

Pizza Bingo will be on Friday, February 24th at 6pm in the MPR & Gym.  Please go to the  PTO Newsletter to learn more about this exciting event.

Principal's Message 2.10.12

Highlight of the Week

This week we held our Principal's Coffee which focused on Developing Positive Relationships and Behaviors in Your Child.  Miss Sauer shared with parent visitors fun ideas to foster responsibility in children, strategies for making friends, various resources to help expand parent knowledge, and activities to do at home with kids.  I would like to thank Miss Sauer for her excellent presentation.  Our next Principal Coffee will be on the topic of  Applying Technology to Enhance Learning which will be held on Thursday, March 22nd at 9am.  More information will be out shortly.   

Willow Grove Kindergarten Registration

Kindergarten registration should be completed by March 1st.  If you know of any families in the area that have a child of kindergarten age, please pass along this information to them.  

PTO Highlight

Pizza Bingo will be on Friday, February 24th.  Please go to the  PTO Newsletter to learn more about this exciting event.  

Keyboarding Program

District 96 students will begin using Custom Typing, a web based software, with all 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students for the remainder of the school year.  This program is a tool that will teach and reinforce keyboarding skills.  Custom Typing focuses on correct finger placement along with increasing speed and accuracy. There is a progression of lessons interspersed with games to encourage practice.  This month, your child will be provided his/her own account and will be able to log in to Custom Typing at school and at home.  Teachers have access to an online resource which will allow them to monitor the progress of each student.


Because Custom Typing is a web based program, there is no software to be installed, and a student can use the program from any computer with an Internet connection.  There will be keyboarding homework.  If you do not have access to the Internet at home, please let your child's classroom teacher know and we will work together to provide your child the practice they need.


Keyboarding skills for all students are increasingly important.  As we increase the amount of technology available to students daily in the classroom, more teachers are using internet and software based vehicles for instruction such as Google Docs, Edmodo, Google Blogger, and Word to name a few.  With this increase in technology use, it only makes sense to increase students' skills in keyboarding.  In the near future, state exams will require students to complete extended writing responses via computer and type their essays in a single sitting.  It is our goal to ensure that the mechanical skills required to do so are not a barrier for students' effective and clear communication.

Parent Opportunities

Incoming 6^th Grade Parent Evening * April 10^th * Twin Groves Cafeteria.  More information to follow.  

Pennies for Patients
Pennies for Patients officially started today.  We've had wonderful donations so far.  The penny drive will continue through February 21st with all donations going to the Leukemia Society.  The Student Council has set a "meets" goal of $750.00 and an "exceeds" goal of $1,000.00  No donation is too small.  Thank you for helping our students contribute to this philanthropic activity and developing their sense of helping others and good citizenship.

Valentine’s Day Parties

Students are looking forward to celebrating Valentine’s Day Tuesday afternoon at 2:00 PM.  While we would like to accommodate everyone, only those parents that have signed up to help at the party through the classroom room parent are able to attend in the afternoon.  If you are signed up to volunteer and you have not already scanned your license through the RAPTOR security system we recommend that you do so before Tuesday.  This will ensure that you badge is printed for you when you arrive on Tuesday.   

2.3.12

Highlight of the Week
This week the Prairie staff hosted two school districts for our February 1st Professional Learning Community (PLC) visit.  School District #1 from Bismarck, North Dakota and The Milton School District from Milton, Wisconsin spent the entire day at Prairie learning about the great work we do every day.  We took them on a virtual tour through data depicting the achievement gains District 96 has made since becoming a PLC.  Our visitors attended two team meetings that were rich in data discussions which informed instructional planning for the upcoming week.  They were also able to tour 1st grade Team Read and 4th grade intervention block time where they learned how our staff flexibly groups students for reteaching and extension teaching for each target.  Our visitors were very enthusiastic about what they saw and learned on Wednesday.  They shared:  

• "I can tell everyone is well invested in making this all work!"
• "You can tell teachers 'walk the talk' and aren't afraid to roll up their sleeves."
• "What a wonderful day.  I learned so much to take back!  Thank you for the opportunity."
• "This visit was fabulous.  Lots of info and materials that are useful!"
• "Obvious how much you all care.  Very impressive group.  Your knowledge is infectious."   

... and many other positive comments.


I would like to thank Mrs. Lanie Spivack, Miss Suzy Cotter, and Miss Stacey Steinberg for being a part of the Prairie PLC presentation team and helping to make this visit such a wonderful success.   


Positively Prairie Program Parent Feedback

We have been working with and growing our Positively Prairie Program for half the school year.  Students have been very excited about the program's focus on expected behaviors and good manners and they most certainly enjoy the WOW slips they receive as positive reinforcement for being kind, respectful, responsible, and ready.  Our Friday announcements are lots of fun listening to our theme song, Who Let the Dogs Out, play over the P.A. as students names are read during announcements.  We have had fun and exciting assemblies this year as well which are conducted by our Positively Prairie Student Leadership Team.  The Positively Prairie Committee would like your feedback regarding the program.  Please take a few minutes to complete the Positively Prairie Parent Survey so your input can be taken into account as we move forward with the program.  Thank you!

Please RSVP

Are you planning on attending the upcoming Principal's Coffee focusing on Developing Positive Relationships and Behaviors in Your Child on Monday, February 6th at 9:00am or 6:30pm?  If so, please respond through our electronic RSVP.  If you are unable to access the RSVP, please email Dr. Pfaff, cpfaff@kcsd96.org, with your reply.  We look forward to seeing you soon. 

PTO Highlight

Pizza Bingo will be on Friday, February 24th.  Please go to the  PTO Newsletter to learn more about this exciting event.  

Thank You to PTO Staff Appreciation Committee

Prairie teachers and staff send out a big thank you to the Staff Appreciation Committee for wonderful luncheon on Thursday.  We appreciate the time and energy that went into preparing this wonderful meal for us!   

Pennies for Patients

This year the Student Council has dedicated its fundraising efforts to the Leukemia Society through the Pennies for Patients Fund Drive.  The Pennies for Patients Fund Drive will officially start on February 10th and end on February 21st.    

Students are asked to bring in change or cash to support this great cause.  Students will be coming home today with a change bank to hold money for the fund drive and may start bringing coins and bills in on February 10^th.  A thoughtful way to help your student raise money for this project is by doing chores.  Looking in couch cushions, cars, dryers, and on the tops of dressers, could produce some loose change too.  Students may wish to ask friends and family for a donation as well.  Do not engage in door-to-door solicitation.  

The Student Council set a "meets" goal, which is to raise $750.00.  Our "exceeds" goal is $1,000.00.  If you would like to give a check from your family or business, please   

make it out to "Prairie Activity Fund" and we will write one check from the school to the Leukemia Foundation.  With your help, this will be a very exciting and rewarding campaign.

New Food Service Options for Elementary Schools

2^nd Entrée

As of February 1^st, students will have the opportunity to purchase a 2^nd entrée (i.e., the main course only) at a price of $1.25.  This option is available only after first purchasing or obtaining a complete Type A Meal (Full price = $2.60).  Students previously had only the option to purchase an entire 2^nd meal (i.e., entrée, sides and beverage) for $2.60.  Just as with the purchase of an entire 2^nd meal, the student will need to return to the serving line to purchase the 2^nd entrée.  The cashier will have the student complete a logbook entry in which he or she will check off the additional item purchased and sign off on the entry.

Limited A la Carte Offerings

Elementary students will also now have a limited a la carte menu available to them for an additional charge starting in February.  Aramark will display a la carte menu signage and work to educate the children, emphasizing that the items on the snack table are considered “extra” and should be purchased only if the child has obtained parent permission to do so.  The items to be offered are shown below.  Students may purchase them through the normal serving line.  If a child who brought lunch from home wishes to supplement his or her meal with an a la carte item, the child may go through the serving line to do so.  As students who bring their own lunch may not have their lunch ID cards available to them once in the cafeteria, those purchasing an a la carte item will also be asked to complete a logbook entry, checking off the extra item(s) purchased and signing off on the entry.

Please discuss these new options with your child and feel free to contact the Food Service Department at 847-325-2592 if you have any questions or concerns.

Elementary a la Carte Items

Teddy Grahams.........................................0.80

Whole Grain Cereal Bars..........................0.50

Mozzarella Cheese Stick...........................0.60

Baked Gold Fish.......................................0.65

Danimals Yogurt.......................................0.65

Red-Fat Otis Muffins (Asst. Flavors)........0.75

Honey Pretzel Twist .................................0.90

Rold Gold Mini Twists..............................0.90