February Steeby Star

February 3: WEPA meeing, 6:30 Steeby Media Center

February 10: School Board Meeting held at Steeby, 6pm

February 12: Winter Count Day

February 14 and 17: No school, Mid-winter Break

February 27: Steeby Literacy Night! 6-7pm at Steeby

February 28: Last day of second trimester

Here is you chance to nominate anyone at school for their excellence! Submissions are due by February 28. Click the link below to fill out a nomination form:

https://forms.gle/NfwFqyoWsLb29z3W6

Dear Steeby families,

I'm excited to share that we've successfully completed the winter session of NWEA testing. I want to thank our students, teachers, and families for their hard work, flexibility, and encouragement during this important time. NWEA provides valuable insights into your child's academic progress and growth in key areas like math and reading. These results help our teachers tailor instruction to meet individual student needs, develop future whole group instruction, and reflect on the instruction already taught.

Our entire team wanted to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to the multiple community volunteers, college students, and high school volunteers who have dedicated their time at Steeby Elementary. Their support providing individualized reading assistance, math practice, and other areas of need has made a meaningful difference for our students. It truly takes a village, and we are so fortunate to have such caring and committed individuals investing in our school community.

We look forward to a strong and successful second half of the year, continuing to work together to support our students' growth and achievements!

Sincerely,

Karri Bailey, Principal

Steeby Elementary

The first day of the month we are in session, we hold our CKH assembly near the end of that day to award those students who excelled in exemplifying the monthly trait from the previous month. We also launch into the next month's theme, which is highlighted above, and celebrate achievements earned together!

At the end of each week at lunch, SuperCat tickets are drawn and winners choose from a list of special jobs they get to do the following week!

Second Grade:

Second graders had fun designing their own snowflakes with metallic markers. Then we learned a marker rubbing technique to make them super colorful and unique. Finally they put it all together with a cute winter themed poster. Ask your child how they got the color on their snowflake!

Third Grade:

Third graders worked on their drawing skills this month. They drew themselves in a cozy winter jacket enjoying some delicious hot chocolate.

Mrs. Spicer

Happy February!

We have been busy in media class. All second and third grade classes made snowflakes in media class and printed them out! Students can visit https://dangries.com/rectangleworld/PaperSnowflake/ to make them at home. We are starting our digital citizenship unit. Students are learning how to keep safe online by not sharing personal information. Second grade students are doing digital citizenship lessons on learning.com and also visiting Ruff Ruffman Humble Media Genius on PBS kids. Third graders are also learning about digital citizenship. They are doing lessons on learning.com and also Cyber Surf Island. All the educational websites can be found on Information Place: https://sites.google.com/waylandunion.org/libraries/home.

Our Tech Wizards this month are Olivia and Colton! Congratulations!

Happy Reading and Learning!

Mrs. Barnes

Greetings from the Music Room! January went by fast and we have been working hard in music. 2nd grade has been learning new songs, moving to music and reviewing rhythms and solfege. We learned about the song "Lift Every Voice and Sing" by reading the book - Sing a Song. We celebrated January by learning a snow song and doing the Snow Day Dance. 3rd grade is learning and reviewing songs for their music program coming up in March. We read the book "We Shall Overcome" about the song of the same name. We celebrated January by learning a snow song and doing the Snow Day Dance!

Thank you!

Mrs. Bailey

Click below for the PE Newsletter from

Once a month, Miss M our School Social Worker goes into classrooms and teaches different Social Emotional Skills. For the month of January, our Social Skills Lessons focused on Thoughts and how thoughts affect our feelings. As a group, we practiced our “Think-Feel-Do Locomotion” , which explains how our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are connected. We then learned that thoughts are what we say to ourselves in our head or out loud, and can impact how we feel. We then practiced ways that we can change our thoughts from negative to positive, such as imagining what we are grateful for, or thinking about things that make us happy! Below is a copy of our think, feel, and locomotion if you want to practice at home!

As we near the beginning of February and we long for the sunshine and the good moods it provides, I want to share about a book that I have read and continue to read. The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon. It explores how positive energy fuels and energizes all of us. “Every morning you have a choice. Are you going to be a positive thinker or a negative thinker? Positive thinking will energize you.”

This isn’t only for our students, it's for us as a staff as well. We are a wonderful group of educators, keep your light shining bright even when it is dark and cold outside. This book and its ideas and quotes help remind me to keep positive and give off the good vibes!

Mr. Brott

Behavior Inventionist

Vocabulary (word knowledge) plays such a huge role in a child's reading process. Every child needs strong reading vocabulary to become a strong reader. Here are ten fun tips to help your child strengthen their listening, speaking, reading and writing vocabulary.

From: Title 1 Teacher Mrs. Terrell terrellj@waylandunion.org !

Steeby Elementary is looking for caring adults to mentor and volunteer with our 2nd and 3rd graders in reading and math. Please see the image for more information about volunteering and contact baileyk@waylandunion.org if you would like to volunteer or with questions. Feel free to share this with grandparents, college students, businesses, and community representatives.

Steeby Elementary is looking for volunteers for our School Supercat Store! Once a month, students get a chance to spend their supercat tickets that they earn for good behavior at our store. There are many different prizes that they get to choose from! We need parent and family volunteers to assist with helping students shop, counting their tickets, and setup/clean up. Please sign up for a day or time, we would love to have you! Any questions feel free to email Ms. M at millermadaje@waylandunion.org or Mrs. Bailey at baileyk@waylandunion.org

We are looking to welcome in parents, grandparents, relatives, community members to volunteer in our cafeteria during breakfast or lunch, and on our playground to help out! See the flyer. You can also find the form to fill out if you are interested.

Parents who wish to enter the school for any activities, volunteer opportunities, or field trips, must have an active ICHAT background check on file. ICHAT background checks are good for 1 year from submission date and cover schools in the entire district. That means if you have students in multiple buildings across the district, you only need to fill out ONE ICHAT form. ICHAT request forms can be filled out on our website, www.waylandunion.org. Click Parents/Students > Parent Quick Links > ICHAT Request Form, or simply click the button below to get started!

Follow us online to see the fun things we share each week!

Please note that comments and questions may not be answered. Please direct questions to the appropriate areas - teachers, principal, or office. Thank you!

PLEASE start using the tags that were sent with students in October. If you need replacement or additional tags, please email your student's teacher and we can get those tags. These tags will help the line keep moving and help when inclement weather arises. Thank you for helping with the pick up process!

Morning Drop Off is from 8:35 to 8:45, with students needing breakfast entering at 8:35 and the other students lining up until 8:40 when classrooms open. Please DO NOT drop off students in the morning and drive away until a staff member appears at the door at 8:35. Drop off doors close at 8:45.

End of the day pick up is between 3:45 and 3:55. Please display pick up tags! For safety reasons, please commit to staying in your vehicles and using the drive up process. We want to avoid students and parents walking all around and through our vehicle line. After 3:55, any late pick ups will be walked back to the office to await their pick up.

We understand that schedules change and you student may need to be picked up early. All requests for end of day pick up must be made to the office NO LATER THAN 3:15pm. Requests made after this time may not be able to be accommodated.

Our school day schedule runs from 8:45am to 3:45pm daily*. Students are expected to be in class by 8:45am each day.

*The half day schedule runs from 8:45am to 11:45am, first day and last day of school.

Students are expected to be in class by 8:45am each day. Students will be marked tardy if they arrive after this time. PLEASE NOTE: Students who arrive to school AFTER 9:00am are marked HALF DAY ABSENT.

Students are expected to complete the school day which ends are 3:45pm. If the need arises for a student to leave BEFORE 3:30pm, they will be marked HALF DAY ABSENT. Students who leave between 3:30pm and 3:45pm will be marked AFTERNOON TARDY.

If your student needs to miss school because of illness, or necessary appointment, please contact the office at (269) 792-2281. If you call outside of normal business hours there will be an option to leave a message. If we don't hear from you, your student will be marked unknown and you will receive a follow-up call from the school.

Did you know that Steeby Paper Gator gets funding for the paper that we collect for our school? Please start saving your paper at home and bring it in to the Gator, it will help us to earn money for Steeby!! Anyone in the community can deposit the items listed below in the Paper Gator. The Paper Gator is located behind Steeby in the wooden fenced in area. The Paper Gator will be the green dumpster.

Here is a list of what we CAN take in the Paper Gator:

-Newsprint
-Catalogs/Magazines
-Junk Mail
-Phone Books
-Office/School paper
-Hard and soft cover books
-Paperboard (Grocery Item boxes, NOT cardboard)
-Standard staples & paperclips are ok
-Shredded paper (preferred in CLEAR plastic bags)

Here are some of the community flyers. See more information at https://wayland.revtrak.net/

Steeby Elementary

435 E. Superior St.

Wayland, Mi 49348

(269) 792-2281

Principal: Karri Bailey

baileyk@waylandunion.org

Secretary: Amy Mohr

mohras@waylandunion.org