Reed School's March Newsletter
Spring Break is Right Around the Corner!
Mark Your Calendars: Spring Break is Quickly Approaching!
Guardian Angel's Bullying Assemblies on March 15th
Staff from Guardian Angels will be out on March 15th to provide 45 minute bullying presentations called "Good Friends Against Bullying". During these presentations, they will help the students answer the following questions:
- What is a good friend? How do we feel when we're with good friends?
- What is bullying? What are the different types of bullying?
- How does it make someone feel? Why might someone bully?
- What can we do if we are being bullied, if we see bullying, or if we have been a bully?
- Who can we tell about bullying?
As part of the presentation, they also read the book Always Anjali by Sheetal Sheth. This book explores a girl's journey to loving herself and responding to bullies who mock her name. Time permitting, they will use scenarios to help the students think about what is and isn't bullying.
2nd Grade CogAT Testing
During the week of March 13th, students in 2nd grade will take the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT). Here is some information that can help you understand this assessment.
What does CogAT measure?
CogAT measures learned reasoning and problem-solving skills in three different areas: verbal, quantitative, and nonverbal. Reasoning skills develop gradually throughout a person’s lifetime, and at different rates for different individuals. Reasoning abilities are good predictors of success in school and are important outcomes of good schooling. CogAT does not measure such factors as effort, attention, motivation, and work habits, which contribute to school achievement as well.
Why is the CogAT administered?
Teachers use CogAT scores to help students learn more effectively. For example, if a child’s score profile shows an uneven pattern of relative strengths and weaknesses, teachers can provide challenging opportunities for the child to do the kind of thinking he/she does best (building on the student’s strengths). Teachers can support aspects of new tasks that rely on a student’s relative weaknesses. When the child has established a foothold in an area, teachers can guide her/him to develop the relatively weaker reasoning skills by applying these skills to the familiar task (strengthening the student’s weaknesses). Such interventions are much more likely to be successful at younger ages. Interventions at early ages can also help reduce the probability of a student developing learning problems later.
Our school district will also use the CogAT test results to help identify academically gifted students for enrichment and honors programs.
How do the three batteries of CogAT differ?
Verbal Battery measures a child’s ability to remember and transform sequences of English words, to understand them, and to make inferences and judgments about them. These reasoning abilities play an important role in reading comprehension, critical thinking, writing, and virtually all verbal learning tasks.
The Quantitative Battery tests the child’s understanding of basic quantitative concepts and relationships that are essential for learning mathematics. Tasks measure both the understanding of relational concepts and the student’s ability to discover relationships and figure out a rule or principle that explains them. These reasoning skills are significantly related to problem-solving in mathematics and other disciplines.
The Nonverbal Battery measures reasoning using pictures and geometric shapes. This reduces the impact of language on the student’s score. These reasoning skills also appraise the student’s ability to use her/his cognitive resources in new situations.
2nd Grade students will be taking a paper-pencil version of the assessment.
March's SEL Focus: Listening
These competencies will help our friends as they learn to express and understand emotions, calm down when they're upset, use a variety of breathing strategies, and helping and connecting with others.
March's Character Education Focus: Fairness
-How was _____ feeling in that part of the story?
-How do you know that?
-Have you ever felt that way? When? What emotions were you feeling?
-What did you do to feel better?
-What calming strategies did you use?
March is National Reading Month
A Friendly Reminder from the Nurse
What's For Lunch?
News from the Music Room
Many students from the Reed School Third Grade Choir will be singing at the Chicago Wolves game on Sunday, March 19! They will be singing a fun song called Keep the Beat by Lin Manuel Miranda during the first intermission of the 3:00 game. Tickets will be sent home in the next week to those who purchased them.
March in the Music Room will feature Composer of the Month, Florence Price. We will also be learning and moving to some festive songs for St. Patrick’s Day!
News from the Art Room
The 3rd grade will be making seashell collages. They'll be splatter painting a sandy beach, using watercolors to create ocean waves, then using a combination of Sharpies and watercolor colored pencils to draw and color a variety of seashells, coral, and starfish.
News from Physical Education
Everyone has been doing a great job remembering their shoes for PE. We haven't had too many students sitting out of PE. Keep it up. Don’t forget that you need a note to sit out of class. You have 2 days with a parent note and then you need a doctors note.
Keep up the good work!
Mrs. Kolcz and Miss T
News from the LMC
In the library, we enjoyed some read alouds of winter classics, such as "The Mitten" and "Except Antarctica". Students are enjoying the new flexible seating purchased for the library too!
During power time, our 2nd graders have finished reading "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". They have been working on a Harry Potter crossword puzzle creating alternate characters for the story, and designing their own Harry Potter theme parks! The math group has been building our first 1,000 piece puzzle together! Our 3rd graders have been reading the "Who Was" biography series and created a "Who Was" guessing game activity.
Congratulations to our 3rd grade math team for taking 6th place in the state during our 2nd math competition of the year! We are proud of you Emma, Brielle, Julia, Elie, Ross, Timmy, Brendan, Ethan, Bradley, and Logan!
My LMC club of the month has been chess club! Emmett, Reese, Mia, Easton, Kayden, Jax, Brennan, and Hunter have done a great job using their critical thinking and spatial reasoning skills to improve their chess game!
March is Severe Weather Preparedness Month
February Students of the Month
Reed students who demonstrated responsible citizenship throughout February were celebrated in a very special way. Students selected from each classroom were recognized for their outstanding efforts. Students nominated for this prestigious honor demonstrated the 3 B's (Be Respectful, Be Responsible, and Be Peaceful) consistently throughout the month.
All students nominated for the monthly award were recognized and celebrated at the school. The District 92 Foundation for Educational Excellence generously funded the lawn signs for this school-wide project. Look for Student of the Month signs soon in your neighborhood!
Reminder to Complete the 5Essentials Parent Survey
As you know, parents, students and teachers across Illinois will have an opportunity to participate in the tenth annual statewide Illinois 5Essentials Survey. This survey is designed to generate a detailed picture of the inner workings of your child’s school. As a parent, this opportunity will allow you to share your thoughts on the important elements of school effectiveness in a survey about your child’s school.
On behalf of the Illinois State Board of Education, the Illinois 5Essentials Survey will be administered online by UChicago Impact at the University of Chicago. The survey gathers data related to five indicators that can predict important student outcomes, including improved attendance and larger test score gains. These five indicators that affect and predict school success are:
Effective Leaders
Collaborative Teachers
Involved Families
Supportive Environments
Ambitious Instruction
Prior research in more than 400 schools has shown that schools that were strong on at least three of these “5Essential” indicators were 10 times more likely to improve student learning gains in math and reading than those that were weak on three or more Essentials.
All teachers and 4th through 12th grade students will be responding to this survey. 5Essentials Reports will be generated for schools if their teachers and/or students meet the response rate threshold of 50 percent. These reports will be sent to schools and districts in April 2023 and will also be included in the State School Report Card.
Your participation in the parent portion of the survey will help us understand the conditions at your child’s school and guide improvement. Your identity and survey responses will be kept completely confidential and will never be connected to you or your child.
The Illinois 5Essentials Survey for students and teachers will be conducted January 24, 2023 through March 31, 2023. To take the survey please visit http://survey.5essentials.org/illinois/survey/parent/ and select the appropriate survey to begin.
For more information about the Illinois 5Essentials Survey, or to view previous years’ Reports, please visit https://www.5-essentials.org/illinois. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact 5Essentials Client Services at 1-866-440-1874 or impact-surveys@uchicago.edu.