News from Fieldcrest East

 Sixth Graders Write About Person of the Year

6th grade students recently wrote persuasive essays, explaining why they would choose an individual as the Person-of-the-Year.  After the identities of the nominees and essayists were concealed, 8th grade English students judged the papers and chose the Person-of-the-Year winners.  In 6A, Person-of-the Year winners included: Darin Klendworth, nominated by Reed Klendworth, Joe Healy, nominated by Mollie Healy, and Darrin Jenkins, nominated by Christalynn Jenkins.  6B winners included Terry Ready, nominated by Greg Wolf, Alan Stremlau, nominated by Austin Stremlau, and Luke Rogers, nominated by Tyreece McIntosh.  All students put a lot of effort into writing about many wonderful people, including parents, grandparents, best friends, and more. 

News from Fieldcrest South

Thanks for a Great Book Fair!

The annual Scholastic Book Fair was a great success!  We were able to get a lot of new books for the library and each classroom.  We appreciate your support so that we can add to our classroom libraries.  A big thank you also to families that bought books from the Teacher's Wish List.

We also would like to give a special thanks to the many volunteers that made the Book Fair possible.  We couldn't do it without you.  Thank you to the following people: Christy, Ben and Liz Kline, Kim and Taylor Sullivan, Sonja Ruestman, Sandi Long, Gerri Sue Moline, Anita Holland, Amy Rossman, Leslie Ludwig, Alisa Morse, Kim McGuane, Melinda Szynalski, Jeanne Novak, Mrs. Longman, Mrs. Kennel, Mrs. Klendworth, Mrs. Seggerman, Mrs. Tjaden and Lauren Tjaden.

Third Grade Reads for Needy Children

Third grade has joined forces with Scholastic Book Clubs ClassroomsCare, which is a program dedicated to helping children in need, including victims of Hurricane Katrina.  Our class promised to read a class total of 100 books.  We have reached our goal!!!  Scholastic Book Clubs will now donate 100 books in our honor to children in need through a variety of charities.  These charities include First Book, Save the Children, and Reach Out and Read.  The third grade has been recognized in the "ClassroomsCare Readers' Hall of Fame" on the ClassroomsCare Web site, which is www.scholastic.com/classroomscare.

Third Grade News

 
By Courtney McGuane

Lately our class has been learning about Pilgrims and the Mayflower.  We read Sarah Morton’s Day.  We learned that she had to polish the brass, so we polished pennies with vinegar.  We also made a quilt.  We drew pictures of what we were thankful for on pieces of cloth.  We also have been grinding spices like cinnamon, nutmeg.  We made apple butter, butter, and cracked wheat bread.  We tried it all together and ate it.  I like everything except the bread because the wheat in it was too hard.  We measured out the Mayflower on our playground.  First, we measured everything in the classroom with adding machine tape.  Then we went to the playground and we had to draw the trunks inside the Mayflower.  We also drew some people to make it exact.  There were one hundred and two people on board the ship and the ship was only ninety feet long.  It would have been very crowded on that ship for three months.  I think the Pilgrims are cool.  Do you?

 
By Tessa Holland and Wesley Kingen

For Thanksgiving Miss Strack’s 3^rd grade class made butter by putting whipped milk in 2 different jars and then we shook it until it became a ball. We also made apple butter. The apple butter took 48 hours to cook. We put in 30 apples, cinnamon nutmeg, and cloves in this delicious recipe. We read these exciting books called Sarah Morton’s Day, Molly’s Pilgrim and Let’s Be Thankful. We made turkeys out of potatoes.  We glued feathers on to toothpicks and then we put the toothpicks in the potato. Then, we put eyes and a waddle on. We also watched a movie called The Mayflower. We learned the captain’s name and it is Christopher Jones. The Mayflower carried 102 passengers. They went to the bathroom in a pot called chamber pots. We learned what they slept in hammocks and on the floor. We shared traditions on what we all planned to do for Thanksgiving.

It’s that time of year again…the second grade classes at Fieldcrest South will be having their Christmas feast in addition to classroom festivities on Wednesday, December 21^st . The children will enjoy a scrumptious ham, along with creamy mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, hot rolls, a variety of yummy desserts, as well as an atmosphere of Christmas in the air. Each student will invite a special guest to share in this memorable experience. Thanks to the help and volunteers of the wonderful parents at South. We couldn’t do it without you. Happy Holidays!

News from Fieldcrest West

Fieldcrest West Annual 8th Grade Greek Unit

The 8th graders are once again studying Greek mythology!  They are divided up into three groups.  Each group is studying several Greek Gods and Goddesses, studying Greek myths, and getting ready to present a Greek play to the rest of the middle school students.  Ms. Bauer's group is doing the Trojan War, Mrs. Kroeschen's group is doing the story of Cupid and Psyche, and Mrs. Kindig's group is doing the Odyssey.  The 8th graders have recently been constructing Greek temples and presenting Greek God/Goddess speeches. Each group had done a great job so far in working with this Greek unit and having a great time doing various activities with it!

Mrs. Kindig - Fieldcrest West Language Arts Teacher

Picture Person at Fieldcrest West

What do Pablo Picasso, Grant Wood, and Charles Russell all have in common besides being famous artists?  The answer would be Deb Leigh.  Mrs. Leigh has been introducing the Elementary West students to these artists and more this year and last.  She starts out her lessons with a brief biography of the artist.  Then one of the artist’s works is displayed as an example of the type of work the children are going to be producing.  The students then use the technique to produce an original piece of artwork.  Students and staff would like to say Thank You to Mrs. Leigh for all her hard work and dedication.  She has enriched our lives with these insightful lessons.  

News from Fieldcrest High School

News from Fieldcrest Unit Office

Inclement Weather Procedures

School Closings

Decisions to close school will be made no later than 5:45 a.m.  School closings will be communicated to TV stations WHOI and WEEK in addition to WJBC -1230 AM, WBNQ-101.5 FM, B104 – 104.1 FM, Thunder 93.7 FM and Lite Rock 98.9 FM. 

 Standards Aligned Classrooms

As a result of goals set and adopted in October the Board expects student achievement to demonstrate continuous improvement and to be better than the state average and surrounding schools.  To that end Fieldcrest schools are proud to announce participation in the Standards Aligned Classroom Project (SAC).  Fieldcrest will be the first district in this area to train teams of teachers and administrator in SAC.  One goal of SAC is to fully align instruction and assessment with the Illinois standards for learning.  Another equally important goal is to make the Illinois standards for learning clear to all students regardless of grade level.  Full implementation of SAC will not only improve student achievement but will enable Fieldcrest to take a leadership role in this area. 

“New” Achievement and Financial Data