AROUND THE DISTRICT Island Lake author visit Students at Island Lake Elementary School spent time with award-winning author Grace Lin in January to learn more about how to write, illustrate and publish books.
LEGO League Junior New this year, kindergarten students were given an opportunity to participate in LEGO League Junior. More than 60 students from the two District kindergarten centers participated in the program. Weekly meetings used LEGOs to introduce students to engineering, computer coding, research and teamwork skills.
In anticipation of Grace Lin’s visit, second-graders read Grace Lin’s The Year of the Dog and Bringing in the New Year. The books inspired conversations about holiday traditions and the Chinese New Year. Students especially enjoyed learning about the Dragon Parade. This learning inspired students to create a 15-foot dragon mural to brighten the hallway and wish everyone good luck and happiness in the coming year.
Practicing strategies that support success Area Learning Center (ALC) students were introduced to a new 80-minute class this year that focuses on the District’s 12 Habits of Mind. The class, known as 3Plus, is an activity-based class framed around the application of Habits of Mind using real-life situations. Off-site field trips, college campus tours, career fairs and speaker events encourage students to learn and practice the strategies that best support success.
Habits of Mind The 12 Habits of Mind include persisting, managing impulsivity, listening with understanding, thinking flexibly, striving for accuracy, questioning and problem posing, applying past knowledge to new situations, thinking and communicating with clarity, creating/imagining/ innovating, engagement, teamwork, and continuous learning. These habits are encouraged in elementary school and continue to be a focus throughout high school.
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School Talk
SPRING 2017
Mercedes Wiler and her classmates visited the Science Museum to engage in hands-on learning.
Snail Lake kindergarten students Kyle Norell, Logan Mckee, Axel Erickson, Tony Gu and Evan Luke participated in an exhibition in January to show judges what they had created.
Students experiment with oobleck Island Lake second-graders got messy in MaryAnn Bergantine science class during lessons about solids vs. liquids. In preparation for the school’s science fair, students experimented with oobleck, a non-newtonian fluid which is nontoxic and safe to handle.
Pictured: Andrew Dittberner, Whitney Sotanski, Carter Thompson and Ella Grant-O’Meara.