Brian Kenney, Principal563-243-0474 ext. [email protected]
Whittier From the Desk of Mr.
Kenney……………………………We have had a great end to summer and beginning of fall! All things considered, it has really been a great first couple of months! Our attendance, both staff and students, is very strong-similar to previous years. We’ve had our share of quarantines, a few cases, and we put a lot of time into communicating to our families if you’ve somehow been affected. On the flipside of this is the awesome communication YOU have each shown when you have issues regarding sickness (and other challenges as well!) We appreciate you keeping us informed, and our goal is to be as transparent with you as possible within the parameters of the laws we are required to follow!
Thank you to our wonderful PTA and all of you for supporting our coin drive. Who wants to join me for the hair coloring fun? The kids have MANY ideas of what that might look like. It has created a lot of fun, energy, and most importantly, a great lesson in giving back to one’s school community. All proceeds are going towards our new playground, which is set to be in place during the summer of 2022. That sounds like a long time…..trust me, it is right around the corner. Even if your child will be at CMS within two years, our playground is a great gathering place for our neighbors to play, socialize, and get fresh air. We love that our families enjoy it!
If you have not joined PTA yet, please do so! Your nominal $5 membership helps PTA help kids. Our wonderful members provide many supports. Examples this year include helping at Book Fairs, night events, Flu Shots, Picture Days, reading to kids, helping with our Clinton Homecoming Float, and other supports too numerous to mention. While we would love for you each to attend PTA monthly meetings, we realize everyone has busy lives. Attending meetings is NOT necessary to belong to PTA. If you can make it, GREAT!
Though they are not until November, I want to share with you that we DO plan to have parent-teacher conferences in person (face coverings and distancing, of course). We will provide updated information as things evolve, but I want you to have an early heads up!
Finally, if we do not have your email please get that to us. We created a “Whittier Parent Email List” so that we can send you weekly announcements and other important information!
I look forward to meeting with you during the school year. If you’d like to meet with me for any reason, please call me at 243-3230. You can also reach me via email at [email protected]. See you soon!
October 2020
Important District Dates:
Oct. 15-Make Up day for Aug. 17
Oct. 16-Make up day for Aug. 18
Oct. 19-NO SCHOOL-Teacher Professional Development
In This Issue:Principal News 1Counselor’s Corner/PTA 2News from Nurse/Misc, 3Classroom News 4-6
Important Whittier Dates:
Oct. 1-Fall Picture Day
Oct. 6-PTA Meeting 6:30 pm-Whittier LRC
Oct. 9-Flu Clinic
*Looking Ahead*Nov.3-PTA Meeting 6:30 pm-Whittier LRC
Nov.10-Fall Picture Re-Take Day
C O U N S E L O R ‘S
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Resilience is the ability of a child to recover and adapt following a potentially traumatic event. Traumatic events can include witnessing domestic or community violence (riots), abuse, being in a natural disaster (like a derecho and resulting extended time without power), and even living during a pandemic. These can often cause children to have strong, upsetting feelings and can potentially disrupt their daily life, development, and ability to function. The effect of a traumatic event depends in part on the severity of a child’s experience.
All children have some strengths to help them adjust and recover following a traumatic event. At the same time, some children who experience a traumatic event may be significantly more affected than others. This depends on their capacity to adapt to them, which affects their ability to recover.
What makes some children more resilient than others? It depends on a multitude of factors, including support from parents, friends, family, school, and community, especially after a traumatic event. The school community helps, too, by providing a positive social environment, developing cognitive skills, promoting student safety and belonging through support of school counselors, nurses, school resource officers, teachers, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, etc.
What can you do to help your child with resilience after a traumatic event? Spend time together, help them resolve problems and conflicts positively, celebrate successes, and have predictable routines. As a parent, focusing on your child’s strengths is important. Talk with them after an event about what they achieved and even learned from it. Instill hope and encouragement, and let them know you believe in them and their abilities. This empowers them to realize they can rise above problems, and handle the next one that comes their way, big or small.
Information adapted from The National Child Traumatic Stress Network
Karla Unke, School Counselor
Resilience in [email protected] 563.243.0474 ext. 1002
News From Nurse Megan….The Genesis Flu-Free Quad Cities program will once again be providing free flu shots for our students. The flu clinic will be held Friday, October 9 th . K-3 will be at Whittier in the morning and 4-5 students at CMS will be in the afternoon.
This year the consent forms are online. If you would like your child to get a flu shot, please fill out the consent form at http://www.genesishealth.com/flu-consent. Remember to put that your student is at Whittier and their teacher’s name. The form will then go to directly to Genesis so there will be no need to send forms to and from school. There will be a note going home as a reminder.
If you have any questions regarding the flu shot or need help filling out the form, please contact Nurse Megan at school.
Megan Herrig, RN, BSNWhittier Elementary School Nurse
Clinton, Iowa
563-243-3230
Kindergarten NewsKindergarten is working on writing and reading numbers from 0-20. We are also reading sight words (can, I, the, we). Students are logging into computers using their user id and password to access Google Classroom activities. As the weather is changing, we want to remind families to send a jacket or sweatshirt and shoes that students can independently tie or do slip-on or Velcro to limit germs. All students have adjusted well to being at school even with the addition of masks/shield and sanitation.
First Grade NewsFirst grade continues to work hard throughout the curriculum. Here are some “highlights.”
Math: Decomposing numbers 5, 6, and 7. Counting to 120 forwards and backwards by 1’s. Balancing equations and stating if the equation is true or false. Comparing two numbers and stating which is the greater, less and/or same number.
Reading: Mastery of Wonder’s words stapled inside of your child’s folder. Blending sounds to make a word, reading on-level texts, identify features of a sentence, explaining differences between books that tell stories and books that give information. Writing and retelling stories with 3 key details.
Word Work Patterns: Currently we are working on short vowel sounds. We are establishing a pattern throughout the week to practice on these word work strategies. We are also integrating them in daily reading.
Routines/Relationships: By now, we should be able to be organized. Bringing back library books each day or every other day, SOAR folder and SOAR notebook. Keeping an organized workspace, ready with supplies including a sharp pencils, crayons, glue and scissors.
Science/Social Studies: Using observations of the sun, moon, and stars to describe patterns that can be predicted. Discussing nonfiction texts about seasons and apples.
Coding: We are beginning to use proper language for computer technology. Hands-on coding, Bee bots, computer activities will be in our classrooms once per week.
Googledocs: We are teaching students how to login to their Google accounts for CCSD. Students will become familiar with Google Classroom activities, and have time to explore and complete some activities at least once/week in the classroom or the computer lab.
Thanks for your support! Continue to call, email or write notes with questions, concerns or just compliments about your student. Together we can reach first grade goals and beyond!
Second Grade NewsWow! Where did the summer go? Time really does fly. We are off and running in 2nd grade and diving right into many important math and reading skills.
Reading fluency is our first huge push in 2nd grade. Please encourage your child to develop a regular reading routine at home. The time allotted does not need to be much. Even 10 minutes most nights moves your child towards being a fluent reader. At this time of year, the reading goal is 56 words per minute. Take a moment to read with your student and listen to how fluent they are or are not. In class right now, your reader is working on both asking and answering questions about what they’ve read. In second grade, we promote answering questions with complete sentences and we look for the mechanics to be in place such as capitals and punctuation. Please look at your student’s work coming home. How are they mastering these skills?
In math, we are focused on multiple skills. Skip counting is one. In second grade skip counting may be counting by 5s, 10s or 100s and the pattern may begin with any given number. See examples below:
16, 26, ___, ___, ___, 66, 76, ___, 96
____, 300, 400, ___, 600, ____, _____, ____
Your student is also working on reading and writing numbers up to 1000! Writing these numbers in expanded form is a skill we are working on too. See examples:
900 + 20 + 4 = _____ 375 = _____ + _____ + _____ 90 + 7 = _____
In addition, we are talking about how many hundreds, tens and ones are in each number. For example, second graders should be able to fill in these blanks: 268 = ___hundreds ___tens ___ones
As mentioned before, time is flying and time is valuable. Please, if you see your child struggling, take some time to work with them. Let them read to you. Practice math flashcards for a few minutes together. This also communicates that you and your child’s teacher are a team. We are a team working with and for your student’s best interest.
Your 2nd grade team,
Mrs. Lueders, Mrs. Dehner and Mrs. Dolan
Third Grade NewsThird grade is off to a great start! We have an awesome group of enthusiastic third graders. The beginning of the year is always very busy. We have completed many assessments including our FAST fluency test, our I-Ready math test, and other pretests to see what we already know. In reading, we are learning how to ask and answer questions to demonstrate our understanding of a text. We love using our magazine, Storyworks Jr. and our reading series, Wonders, to help us achieve this goal. It is great to be able to highlight and underline answers in our story to prove we have found the answers. In math, we have completed rounding
to the nearest 10 and 100 and will be working on addition and creating bar graphs and pictographs. We look forward to an exciting rest of the year!!
Fourth Grade NewsSeptember is going by so fast. The students are really into their schoolwork and seem to be
doing well.
In reading, we are working hard reading fiction and nonfiction texts to answer comprehension
questions with complete sentences. We are also working on text structure, main idea, theme, and
summarizing the text. Fourth graders are expected to cite evidence from story/text to support their
thinking. They enjoy being able to work with others and support each other. Nice job 4th grade!
In math, we are working on the 4 NBT. 4 standard which involves adding and subtracting
numbers up to a million using standard algorithm. They have also been working on standard,
expanded, and word form of numbers. We will be testing soon over the above skills. The 4th grade
team would like to thank all of our parents for any additional help you’re giving at home to support the
learning at school. Please be sure your child is reading at least 20 minutes every night! TOGETHER
we can make a positive impact on all children.
Fifth Grade NewsThe fifth graders have done a great job adjusting to the new changes this school year has brought on, especially adjusting to school routines and procedures at the middle
school. It’s safe to say that this is definitely preparing our 5th graders for middle school here next year!
Google classroom is still something that is being implemented most days at school. This is a great tool for your child to use if they are not at school so they can catch up on their assignments at home! We also post websites that provide learning extensions and skill
practice on google classroom that we encourage your child to log into at home! Fifth grade has finished multiplication and moving on to long division. In language arts,
fifth grade has been writing summaries, reading stories, answering comprehension questions and proving their answer with text evidence.
Thank you for all of your support so far during this unique school year.
