Welcome to OSC!
Below you will find a snapshot of the 2022-2023 school year.
What Will My Child Be Learning?
The Ouisconsing School of Collaboration (OSC) is a multi-age, project based school composed of 80 students in third, fourth and fifth grade. OSC curriculum follows Lodi School District adopted standards taught at each grade level. Some learning takes place on a three year rotation because of our multi-age setting. While others occur yearly based on the student grade-level. CLICK HERE to view our yearly rotation cycles for each grade level.
Morning Meeting
OSC Students are divided into homeroom groups that are composed of third, fourth and fifth grade students. They are led by an Advisor (Mrs. Schirra, Mrs. Stone, Mrs. Zick or Mrs. Zauche). Every morning the official start of the school bell rings at 8:05 am. Mr. Scheunemann begins our day with morning announcements and the Pledge of Allegiance. Then homerooms sit in their circle for their morning meeting. The goal of Morning Meeting is to kick off our day connecting with one another and addressing some of our social-emotional needs. Morning Meeting may include a morning greeting, a community building activity, and going over our upcoming day, allowing students an opportunity to ask questions of clarity about what is to come. On Friday, we meet as an all OSC community for our Morning Meeting. It is a time we can celebrate the week’s accomplishments and wrap up any important information from the week.
Sharing during Morning Meeting Circle
ALL OSC Morning Meeting to celebrate our week together!
Homerooms do daily activities to kick off our day!
Literacy Block!
We have three Literacy Block chunks in our day (8:20, 11:00 and 11:25). Each block is about 20-25 minutes long. During this time, students are doing one of three activities:
Reading & Writing Groups
Groups meet 4-5 times each week. When in Reading group, students are reading leveled books based on district assessments and Advisor observation. Students will do a variety of activities including reading to the Advisor, group discussion, word work, and writing responses. Several different strategies are learned during this time like paraphrasing, retelling, prefixes/suffixes, opinion writing, etc. Our writing curriculum is based on the Ready Writing program. When in Writing group, students meet by grade level and practice guided writing that meets their grade level needs.
iReady Lesson
Students will venture down one of two paths during their iReady Reading lessons. First, iReady creates “My Path” lessons that are designed specifically based on your child’s most recent iReady test results. The program recognizes what your child is ready to learn and automatically assigns those lessons to your child. Second, a Teacher Assigned lesson is designed to ensure students are still practicing grade-level material. This lesson is intentionally assigned by the Advisor and connects to the whole group literacy lesson for their grade level.
DEAR
Drop Everything And Read! It’s an important time in our day where students can read books of their choosing! Students have access to hundreds of fiction and nonfiction books to choose from in OSC, they can bring books from home or read a book checked out from the school or public library!
Building a stamina for reading indepentenly.
Working in a guided reading group to craft a writing response using the author's words to support thinking.
Working through iReady Instruction lessons.
Grade Level Literacy Class!
Each morning from 9:00-9:35 our students are divided into their grade level for our whole group Ready Literacy Lessons. During this time all students are exposed to their grade level literacy standards. Each lesson is divided into 4-5 days with a focused Learning Target. Lessons are designed to incorporate a gradual release of responsibility to the student. We start with a shared group reading, move to partner reading, then finish the week with independent reading. Infused within the process is practice answering multiple choice questions, writing responses, underlining key details to support comprehension, and whole group and partner discussions. Additionally, iReady Instruction Lessons are assigned to students each week and are directly related to what we are learning during this time.
Students meet in grade levels for Literacy.
We have increased our focus on writing strong responses to text questions.
Ready Literacy provides a variety of relevant text to engage students in their learning.
Math!
Each morning from 10:05-10:55 our students are divided into their grade level for whole group Math Lessons. During this time all students are exposed to their grade level math standards. This time is divided into three 20-minute chunks of time: Lesson, small group with an Advisor, and independent practice.
Math Lesson
Advisors lead a whole group math lesson for the day! Each Advisor takes the lead for our different grade levels: 3rd grade is led by Mrs. Stone and Mrs. Zick, 4th grade is led by Mrs. Schirra, and 5th grade is led by Mrs. Zauche.
Small math group with an Advisor
Students work more closely with the Advisor to complete the day’s lesson workbook page. This is an opportunity for your child to ask questions and gain a better understanding of the concept being taught that day. During this time, Mrs. Zick is rotating to each grade level to work with an additional small group of students. Her ability to pivot during this time allows for our groups to remain small!
Independent Math Practice
While the Advisors are working with small groups of students, the rest of the class is working on independent activities including:
Xtramath
This is an online math fact program that is specifically tailored to your child’s current level of math fact knowledge. The program automatically adjusts to your child’s performance during practice, continually moving them along throughout each operation. Your child can access Xtramath at home if you’d like to build it into your homework routine. They are familiar with how to login.
iReady Math Lessons
Students will venture down one of two paths during their iReady Math lessons. First, iReady creates “My Path” lessons that are designed specifically based on your child’s most recent iReady test results. The program recognizes what your child is ready to learn and automatically assigns those lessons to your child. Second, a Teacher Assigned lesson is designed to ensure students are still practicing grade-level material. This lesson is intentionally assigned by the Advisor to either review something being taught in class or to expose your child to a concept not yet covered in class. Your child can access iReady Lessons at home if you’d like to build it into your homework routine. They are familiar with how to login.
Math Boxes
Math Boxes are the true spiral of the Everyday Math Program. They are intended to provide continual practice of concepts taught throughout the entire school year.
Working in small group after the lesson to practice identify prime and composite numbers.
Completing Math Boxes during independent work time.
Whole group Math Lesson.
Project Time!
It’s finally time for projects! Project time is 4-5 days a week from 11:45-12:15. Our focus during this time is to navigate our way through the Project Process. Although it may vary depending on the length of the project or our intended outcome of the project, typically students move through 6 Phases in the Project Process. Click Here to see each phase.
Field Studies
A field study is an opportunity for your child to take their learning outside of the classroom and learn from an expert in regards to any aspect of their project. When going on a field study students are encouraged to ask questions, take pictures to document their learning (and hopefully display during their presentation), and then reflect on their experience. Students take field studies in a variety of ways. It may happen individually, as an all OSC, a small group of students, or even with a family member. We even find creative ways like utilizing Google Meet or conference calls to connect students with an expert on their topic!
Interactive Components
The Interactive component of the project is a hands-on learning activity that students create to teach people about several aspects of their topic. People viewing a project presentation should DO something to “interact” with the project in order to learn about the topic. OSC Students typically present two “mini” projects to either their fellow classmates or peers in the Elementary School classrooms. Once a school year, we hold a project presentation night in the evening to a larger audience. We typically host about 500 family, friends, neighbors, etc.
Completing a KWL Chart to jumpstart a new project!
A completed mini project to teach people about Sugar Maple Trees!
A field study at the Mackenzie Center!
Lunch and Recess!
OSC Students eat lunch and go out to recess together. During the 2022-23 school year, we are finding various opportunities throughout the school year to have lunch and/or recess with our LES peers!
Specials!
OSC Students go to each special with their homeroom peers.
PE
Students go to PE class with Mr. Endres for four 30-minute classes in the six day cycle. Students learn skills in various "units" such as basketball, football, wrestling, baseball, frisbee, bowling, etc. Each class period students enter the Gym and get moving right away before the activity and skills are taught and practiced.
Art
Students have one 55-minute Art class in the six-day cycle with Mrs. Nimmow, who shares her time with LES and the Primary School, too. Throughout the year students learn about the elements and principles of art. They also get the opportunity to work with paint, clay, printmaking and more!
Music
Students attend Music class with Mrs. Weber for three 30-minute classes in the six day cycle. Mrs. Weber is also vital in helping to put on our annual OSC Musical that is held every spring. This school year it will be held in the evening on Friday, May 05.
STEAM
The Technology Team has worked hard to create a space where students can tap into their creativity through Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Music. Students visit the STEAM lab once in the 6 Day cycle to work in the following stations: Structures & Machines, Coding & Computers, Circuitry, Robotics, Digital Communications, and Digital Design. They spend about 5 weeks in each station where they explore resources on the STEAM website to guide their learning and work together as a team to problem solve Key Projects at each station. Students keep a reflection log to report out on their learning.
SEL
Ms. Mikeala holds Social Emotional Learning lessons for one 30-minute class in the six day cycle. Students learn about recognizing and managing their own emotions through a common language to help support the skills of problem-solving, being assertive, and being good listeners.
Library Lesson
Ms. Good has Library class lessons for one 30-minute class in the six day cycle. She incorporates many read-alouds in class. Students learn library skills, including how to be good digital citizens and how to use different online resources, including Destiny, our online library catalog. We also learn about different authors and how and where to find books in the library.
Collaborating together to complete a circuitry project in the STEAM lab.
Always moving in PE!
New books from the library to read for the week!
Homeroom!
After lunch we have Homeroom time for 30-90 minutes, depending on our Specials schedule for the day. We do a variety of activities including:
Read-Aloud
Students have an opportunity to listen to a book that homeroom Advisors select. Students enjoy these engaging books. Listening to books read in this matter helps students engage in the book, and increase their vocabulary and overall comprehension skills.
Handwriting
Each grade works through their own grade level pages. These cursive handwriting booklets ensure students are practicing upper and lower case letters and spacing with words. Each quarter we set a goal of completing 25 pages.
Edutyping
Edutyping is utilized to help introduce your child to home row and proper typing technique. The program recognizes accuracy along with speed as they progress through each activity. It is an online program that can be accessed at home.
Mystery Science
We are on a three year rotation that determines what grade-level science concepts we will cover throughout the year. During the 2022-23 school year, we are focusing on 5th grade topics around Web of Life, Watery Planet, Spaceship Earth and Chemical Magic.
Studies Weekly
We utilize the Studies Weekly newspapers for teaching Social Studies. Once we have completed reading an article, it gets sent home for students to share with families. Many times there are fun craft activities or crossword puzzles that can be completed at home.We are on a three year rotation that determines what grade-level social studies concepts we will cover throughout the year. During the 2022-23 School we are focusing on the 4th grade topic of Wisconsin. This cycle also determines our project theme for the school year.
Making scientific observations.
Practicing cursive writing.
Partnering to read and complete an activity in the Studies Weekly article.
Community Connections and Volunteering!
Community Connections are important to our school! We’ve had opportunities to partner with businesses like Kingfisher Yoga for lessons, visit and donate to Reach Out Lodi, and collaborate with the High School Health class for Blue Devil Buddies! We value partnerships with parent volunteers that are able to come into the classroom to work with students on various academic tasks. We also have volunteer opportunities like the one we have with Occupaws. Occupaws is a non-profit organization that trains guide dogs. Our students always look forward to reading with the Occupaws dogs!