Hawk Talk
Half Day School Weekly Newsletter - November 9, 2020
Spelling Bee Competition
This year, the Scripps National Spelling Bee has developed an online testing platform that will allow Half Day and Daniel Wright (students in grades fourth through eighth) to host a school spelling bee program, whether your children are learning in classrooms or remotely from your homes.
In place of our traditional spelling bee program, round one will be a grade-level competition through the online spelling and vocabulary tests. The first step to the Spelling Bee participation is for you to register for the Scripps National Spelling Bee's online testing platform.
We encourage you to watch this video tutorial that will walk you through the registration process.
Once you have registered, the Spelling Bee coordinator, Mrs. Sotos, will be able to assign the appropriate grade-level test to your child. The first round (grade-level) competition test will be available the week of Dec. 7-11. Your child must complete the test before the given deadline, and these tests can be taken on any device with a web browser, including desktop computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
The top five students from grades fourth through eighth with the highest scores will move on to compete at the school level.
This year, our school-level competition will be administered in person on Saturday, Jan. 23, 2021 at Daniel Wright Jr. High School, while we attend to all safety COVID-19 protocols. This competition will also be administered through the online program. While we are prepared to provide an in-person experience, we also understand that we may need to move to a remote competition if necessary.
The District champion will then move on to represent District 103 in the Lake County regional spelling bee program, which also may include online tests in lieu of in-person spelling bee events.
The first step to spelling bee participation is to register at Scripps National Spelling Bee's online testing platform. Please register before Wednesday, Dec. 2. If you have already registered in the online testing platform for another child, you can log in to your account and add an additional child to that same parent account. There is no need to register a different email address for each child in your household.
Please check the district extracurricular pages if you have any questions about our school spelling bee program.
Other School News
Parent Teacher Conference (PTC Wizard) Log In Information
Our Fall Remote Parent-Teacher Conferences via Zoom are scheduled for 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19 and Monday, Nov. 23 from (Session #1) 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. and (Session #2) from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Conference scheduling in our new PTC Wizard system will open Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2020, at 10:00 a.m. and close on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020, at 11:59 p.m.
Please refer to the recent newsletter for more details.
Book Bus
Students can now check out books from the Half Day library. Students search for books on the Half Day Destiny site. Students can find Destiny on a D103 iPad.
Once students select their books, they fill out a Book Request Form. On this form, students must indicate whether they are remote or in-person learners.
Remote learners will include their home address on the Book Request Form and their books will be delivered via our D103 bus system. Books will be delivered Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Due to COVID-19 protocol, books cannot be returned on the book buses. Remote learners can drop their books off in the front entrance of Half Day during school hours.
Students can have three books checked out at a time for up to two weeks. All books will be quarantined for seven days before reentering circulation. Questions? Please email Becky Morgan at rmorgan@d103.org.
Bernie's Book Bank Receives 500 Books
Remote Lunch Program
The national Summer Food Service Program, offered by the USDA, funds D103’s free lunch program. D103 is reimbursed for all meals taken by students. D103 is serving about 4,500 meals weekly to about 900 families through the remote and in-person lunch program. Please sign up to participate in the free remote lunch program.
Community News
ELC Food Pantry Open to D103 Families
D103 families are invited to participate in the Exceptional Learners Collaborative breakfast and lunch program open daily from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Pick up meals at the ELC site, 990 Corporate Woods Parkway, Vernon Hills. The collaborative is also seeking the following food pantry items:
- paper bags
- hamburger helper
- canned chicken/tuna
- Pasta
- Pasta sauce
- canned pasta (chef boyardee)
- cereal
- canned veggies
- rice
- soup
- oatmeal
- dried beans
- canned fruit
For questions, please reach out to the ELC Director Kristen Bordonaro at kbordonaro@elced.org.
SHS Musical
Stevenson High School invites you to enjoy Disney's Newsies, a musical performance featuring the talents and hard work of over 120 students as cast, pit orchestra, and production crew in a 2.5 hour+ performance. The performance is available after Nov. 19.
Upcoming Events
Half Day School
Assistant Principal Laura Delagrange
Email: ask103@d103.org
Website: www.d103.org/halfday
Location: 239 Olde Half Day Road Lincolnshire, IL 60069
Phone: 847-634-6463
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HalfDaySchool/?ref=bookmarks