Skokie Home Scoop

Field Day Lunch

Field Day will be held on Monday, June 10th (date correction). We will be providing lunch for students, using the menu below. Advisors will be taking lunch order from students. Please talk with your child about the menu. If there are dietary restrictions and your child will not have lunch from Little Honeycomb, please complete this form (Field Day Lunch and Popsicle Opt Out) and return it to your child’s advisor. You do not need to complete this form if your child will be ordering from the Little Honeycomb menu.

Climbing Club

The last sessions for the year are live on the District Web Store and registration is open. There are still a couple spots available for sessions starting on May 21st and May 23rd.

Exploring Skokie

Spanish: Sixth graders continued working through their class novel, Brandon Brown Versus Yucatan, and have approached the text using different strategies to maximize comprehension. Students have listened, acted, drawn, and engaged with digital tools to make our novel come to life. A class favorite scene was at the cenote (a sinkhole), where our main characters go swimming and come face to face with a large, inflatable crocodile! To further our students' cultural understanding, we’ve seen several clips about Mayan architecture, Mayan beliefs, and explored using Google Earth and Google Street View. In April, our students put aside their class novel for a story about an adventurous archaeologist and his troublesome camel in a story we called Pirámides Egipcias (Egyptian Pyramids). Students acted, read, drew, wrote about, and some even retold this story at home.

Spanish: Fifth graders worked diligently to complete our class novel Isabela Captura un congo. They’ve read, acted, summarized, illustrated, and played a few digital review games to maximize comprehension. Some classes even got a bit damp during our beach scene where our characters get completely wet.They were particularly interested in the “trial” activity, where they had to defend one character over the other to decide responsibility for a mid-book event. A few classes were able to contribute to the Literary Parade and created a float, signs, and a banner that highlighted the motifs of our novel.

Lions of Leadership Pop Tabs Update

Thank you all so much for saving and bringing in your pop tabs all year! We have collected 82.52 pounds of pop tabs to donate to Ronald McDonald House, with all the proceeds from the aluminum going to support families in need. We appreciate everyone’s participation.

Parents and 5th Grade Students’ Family Math Night

Please join us on Thursday evening, May 23rd, for an evening of fun and math at the 5th Grade Family Math Night! Come to the Skokie lunchroom to play some of the math games and card sorts that the students have done this year in fifth grade. Enjoy some time together as a family and be dazzled by your child's math thinking! This is a drop in event, though a suggested arrival time is as follows:

5:30 Arrival: Last names A-E

6:00 Arrival: Last names F-L

6:30 Arrival: Last names M-R

7:00 Arrival: Last names S-Z

Please enter the building from the blacktop at the back of the school by the basketball courts. Looking forward to seeing you there!

“Coffee with Kelly”: Creating a Balanced Summer

Dr. Kelly Tess, Superintendent of Schools, invites you to our final “Coffee with Kelly” of the school year, a community conversation hosted at our schools! Staff, families and community members are welcome to join Dr. Tess and staff members from our social work and kinetic wellness teams for co-facilitated discussions on creating a balanced summer for your family. This is an opportunity to converse, connect, learn, and grow together!

Guests are invited to:

• Read either of these two articles on the benefits of reading aloud:

• How Parents and Employers Can Put Some “Break” Back Into Summer

• The Benefits of Boredom

• and/or come as you are, excited to engage with your childrens’ teachers, your neighbors, and your school leaders!

Wednesday, May 22 from 9:30am to 10:30am

The Skokie School Community Room,

520 Glendale Ave., Winnetka

Please RSVP by Monday, May 20.

All staff and parents (including grandparents!) are welcome. You do not need to be a Skokie family or staff member to attend. Coffee will be served!

Winnetka Parents Institute

The District offers regular sessions for families to learn more about a variety of topics.

Click here for the Spring 2024 schedule.

If you missed our spring sessions, watch the videos here:

From Washburne to New Trier: (with Paul Waechtler, Principal)

A D36 Parent's Guide to the New Trier Transition

Not Quite Little Kid, Not Quite Teenager: The Developmental Progression of the Middle School Child

Digital Citizenship in Winnetka (with SEL Coaches and Technology Integration Specialists)

Spring Benchmarking

Benchmark assessments are valuable tools that provide a snapshot of student progress at a point in time. These assessments help teachers to identify areas where students are excelling and where they may need additional support. They can also inform instructional decisions by providing data that can be used to tailor teaching to meet each student's unique needs and strengths. Benchmark assessments are an important component of progressive education, which recognizes that students learn in different ways and at different rates. By using benchmark assessments to inform instruction, teachers can provide a more individualized approach to learning that supports each student's academic growth and personal development.

Academic benchmark assessments for literacy and math will occur three times this year for students in grades K-8. The Spring Benchmark Assessments start on April 29th and conclude on May 17th. There are three platforms the district utilizes to gather student learning information; aimswebPlus, mCLASS, and NWEA MAP. Benchmarking reports will be mailed home on Wednesday, May 29th.

Assessment may be found on our district website in the Benchmark Assessment Section of ITL under Parent Communication on Student Learning. If you need further information on your child’s testing session, please contact your building principal.

Health Forms for the 2024/2025 School Year

This is a friendly reminder that all medical forms required by the State of Illinois are due before the first day of school. You can find additional copies of the forms on the district website here.

Please see the information below:

State of Illinois Health Examination:

Kindergarten & Grade 6

Eye Examination:

Kindergarten

Dental Examination:

Kindergarten, Grade 2 & Grade 6

Please use the links on the district’s health page to upload your child’s completed forms.

Sincerely,

Michelle Cooney and Larry Joynt

Principal and Assistant Principal

The Skokie School