Lansing Intermediate Roar

In typical Kansas fashion, it went from summer to winter in the blink of an eye! The new HVAC system is almost fully installed and our staff is thankful for the stability it has provided in regards to classroom temperatures. We will continue to work with our staff and maintenance department to optimize the system and fix any kinks that arise.

This month we hosted our LIS Specials Night and it was a major hit! Students were able to do fun, Halloween themed activities in art, music, PE, and STEM. Specials teachers did a great job hosting our families and our concessions and raffle prizes raised nearly four hundred dollars for our LIS Student Activity Fund.

Halloween Parties rounded out the month with students, parents, and staff enjoying the holiday with games, treats, and lots of fun.

We are always striving to make our newsletter, and all information we put out to parents, more useful and engaging. If you have feedback or ideas that you would like to see, please email me at martin.altieri@usd469.net

Thank you and we appreciate your support making this a grrrr-eat year to be a Lansing Lion!

Ride Changes: We will not send students home a different way than normal without hearing from parents/guardians BEFORE 2:45 p.m.

Attendance: If your student is going to be absent, please notify the office before 9am on the day of the absence. Office staff arrive at 730am, but the building opens at 8am. Absences can be reported by calling 913-297-0990 or by emailing lisattendance@usd469.net.

Fees: Please check your Skyward account and pay fees that are due. If you feel you may qualify for free/reduced and have not already applied, please do that. You can find the application on our website:

https://usd469.socs.net/vnews/display.v/SEC/FAMILY%20%26%20STUDENTS%7CNutrition%20Services%3E%3EFree%20%26%20Reduced%20Lunch%20Application

You can also come into our office and fill one out in person. If you have any questions please contact Jennifer Grant, bookkeeper at 913-297-0990, option 3.

Giving Thanks

Dear Families,

Thank you for the privilege of caring for your students at Lansing Intermediate School.

I appreciate your effective communication, kindness & honesty that facilitate meeting your student's health care needs.

Wishing everyone a Wonderful Thanksgiving filled with family, friends, favorite foods and FUN!

TIME CHANGE & SLEEP

Daylight Savings Time ends Sunday November 5th when clocks fall back 1 hour.

1. Make sufficient sleep a family priority

2. Keep a regular daily routine

3. Be active during the day

4. Monitor screen time (turn off 1 hour prior to bed)

5. Create a sleep supportive environment

6. Avoid over scheduling

**The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends 9-12 hours of sleep for Gradeschoolers: 6 to 12 years old.

Health Effects of Inadequate Sleep:

Behavioral Problems

Academic Difficulty

Impaired decision making

Impacts Mood

Reduces the body's ability to fight illness

Shortened attention span

Decreased memory function

Health complications

Better Health, Better Learning~

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nurse Chris

Hello parents,

In our counseling lessons we are learning Bully Prevention strategies from Second Step. Please see my recent email for the Parent Links for 4th and 5th grade and let me know if you have any questions. There is a code you can enter on the website to gain family access.

Kindness Club is organizing a Holiday Food Drive to support our District Food Bank that helps families in our school district. We will be counting food items for each classroom, and the top class for 4th grade and 5th grade will get an ice cream party! This food drive will take place now until November 6th. Please see the flyer on the website for items needed for our holiday meals. Thank you in advance for your support!

We are encouraging kids to participate in Motivational Mondays and Tie Dye Thursdays here at LIS. Motivational Monday is where we encourage students to wear shirts with kind or motivational messages. Please encourage your child to participate!

It is not too late to join Kindness Club! Our next meetings are Monday, November 6th for 5th grade, and Tuesday, November 7th for 4th grade. Here is the parent permission slip if you have not filled it out yet.

https://forms.gle/ojvFGVdGSqD3xmmDA

Please reach out if you have any questions. Thank you!

PRIDE assembly was held last week and we honored those students who show respect on a consistent basis.

Theme Day - It is hard to describe how difficult it is to teach 9/10 year olds on party days! We embrace this by planning a thematic day where we switch classes and each teacher plans something educational but fun and we rotate during the day. We look forward to these days and are less frustrated in trying to hold their attention.

Math - We are moving right along with our scope and sequence. We have finished multi digit multiplication and area and perimeter. We tested over area and perimeter this week and will be analyzing the CFA later this week at our Thursday PLC. We take common formative assessments for every chapter and analyze the data to see if we need to make adjustments to our core instruction. In doing this over the last couple of years, we have been able to streamline the resource so that we teach the most effective strategies presented in the GO Math curriculum. We will be moving on to division and expanding from basic facts to division with remainders, learning how to interpret remainders, and the dreaded LONG division.

ELA:

Writing - for every unit in our Wonders curriculum, we have a major writing assignment that takes us through the entire writing process. We have just completed a persuasive argumentative essay on What is the best item at the Thanksgiving feast.

Reading - We will complete Unit 2 next week and have our unit CFA which we will repeat the process of analyzing the data at an upcoming PLC. We will start Unit 3 which focuses on realistic fiction, biographies, inferencing, characters, plot, setting, and our personal narrative writing project.

Science - Our animal adaptation projects turned out amazing. Pictures are attached. We will be teaching human systems right before Thanksgiving.

Social Studies - We completed the Southwest region and are currently working on the West region. Our units focus on state locations, capitals, important cities of each state, postal abbreviations, natural resources, products, climate, and travel destinations.

SEL & BIST - We are still in Unit 1 for Second Step which is Empathy and Skills for Learning and we will be finishing it in the next couple of weeks.We will then move onto Unit 2: Emotion Management. Skills covered in this unit are: introduction to emotion management, managing strong emotions, calming down anger, managing anxiety, avoiding jumping to conclusions, and handling put downs.

Fifth grade enjoyed visiting with all the families at Parent Teacher Conferences.

In ELA, we are finishing up the unit on Expository Writing. Students had the opportunity to read several expository texts. The students identified problems and solutions through the author’s writing. We will begin reading folktales next week. The Magical Lost Brocade and Blancaflor are two of the folktales to be read. Throughout these stories, students will cite relevant evidence from text, make inferences to support understanding, and infer multiple themes.

Students finished up Chapter 3 this week in Math – Adding and Subtracting Decimals. We will begin Chapter 11 next week – Geometry and Volume. At the end of the chapter students will complete a STEM challenge. If you have any small boxes, send them our way! We need all shapes and sizes – from small pudding boxes to medium size Amazon boxes.

We are finishing the first Mystery Science Unit. Students have explored food webs making hands-on food web for extra unit review.

Students will be writing an informational report about animals. Students will need to decide on an animal, research, and write the informational report. Before starting the informational piece, several classes wrote Halloween/Autumn stories. Several students chose to share them with the class.

Social Studies - Mrs. Rothmeyer’s class wrote letters to both our senators and our representative thanking them for voting to fund Starbase. This was a great writing project that they truly put their all into.

At LIS our 4th and 5th grade classes started a Project Lead the Way Module called Organisms Structure and Function. The students are learning about what makes living things living. Students will be learning about all of the structures and functions of living things. The final project will be to create a prosthesis to help an animal eat or move again.

We also had the Specials Open House Night and in STEM the parents and children were challenged to create a cauldron made out of 5 straws, one foot of string, tape and a Dixie cup to hold the most candy corn. We loved seeing parents and children working together on this project. Not sure who was more into the kids or the adults!!!

The 4th and 5th grade Physical Education Students have been playing Ghostbuster Tag and learning to play badminton this month. We also get our cardio in by doing some Just Dance videos related to Halloween. Our

Halloween themed specials night on 10/18 was a huge success. We probably had over 100 kids and parents attend.

Starting 11/2 we will be doing our roller skating unit which will last until Christmas Break. Seems like a long time I know, but we will only see the kids 5 times between now and then.

Students are finishing their clay tik tac toe boards and felt game bags. They have finished their Yayoi Kusama pumpkin. We are beginning a project based on Yayoi's mentor, Georgia O'Keefe. We used tempera paint to create a south west inspired blanket, then drew bones from still life. We used observation skills and charcoal.

4th grade is learning how to identify notes on the treble clef staff.

5th grade is finishing preparations for their upcoming musical, Rock and Roll Forever. It will be performed on November 16th at the district auditorium. If you like to rock out, and would like to attend, there will be a 6:30 p.m. performance and another at 7:30 p.m.

Library has been busy with our ever growing ‘Reading Book Chain”. Our students are doing an awesome job of adding a link every day. Some have added 2 a day or more in a week. Very proud of ALL our readers. We currently have over 500 links in our chain.

October we are focusing on library skills. Why authors write what they write and how to tell the difference.

Students are creating their own fictional character and giving us details about the characteristics of their character. What kind of story would they use their character for? What would be the story line? Creativity is wonderful for writing as is imagination.

Our book fair was a success! Thank you to all who stopped by and made a purchase and/or donated a book to a classroom or library.

With the holidays just around the corner, you can still purchase a book using the link below.

https://shop.scholastic.com/parent-ecommerce/parent-store-2.html?fairId=5394064

Keep reading!

Mrs. Oberg joined our team as a building sub this year. She helps support students when their normal teacher is absent and their position has not been filled through our sub system. When she is not subbing, she is working with students in their classrooms, cafeteria, recess, or even at the crosswalk! Having Mrs. Oberg at LIS this year has been an immense help to our students and staff and we appreciate having her!

We have received questions about the standards-based grading system we adopted this year. While you can find lots of information on the grading system through this article, we included a graphic below to help focus on the main ideas. In the past, the overall grade has been an aggregate of assessed skills in classrooms. Our new system merely breaks it down so parents can see how well their child is performing in those specific skills.

LIS Parents,

We want to ensure our students arrive at school safely. Please help us by reviewing our car drop off procedures.

1. Do not back up traffic by turning left from Ida. Cars have been swerving around backed up traffic and it is dangerous for everyone involved.

2. If you plan to sit in the car with your child, and not immediately drop off, pull forward to the end of the cones to prevent traffic backing up to Ida.

3. Circle around the parking lot back to Ida after dropping off.

4. Be patient. Saving thirty seconds of time is not worth endangering our students.

5. Reach out to school staff if there are issues you see that need to be addressed. We are always looking to make drop off more efficient and streamlined.

Cell phone use is not allowed at LIS during school hours. Research shows schools that allow cell phone usage during school have higher rates of disciplinary action, bullying (especially cyberbullying), and violations of privacy. In addition, use of personal electronics correlates to lower student academic achievement. We want to give our students the best environment to succeed as learners and grow as future citizens.

If you need to get a message to your child, please contact the office and we can make sure your message is passed along to them. Students caught using their phone will receive a warning the first time. Future violations may result in a discipline referral for inappropriate use of technology.

Thank you for doing your part to help foster a strong learning environment at LIS!

The following is information put out from the district earlier this month, regarding fans/spectators for high school events --

"We're excited for the community to come out and support our band, cheerleaders, and athletes. We have a few reminders for Lansing High School events:

• Student performances are the focus of the event. No one should be on the practice football field, soccer fields, or other areas away from the stadium
• All elementary, intermediate, and middle school aged students attending this season's high school home sporting events and activities must have a parent or guardian with them for the entirety of the event.
• The middle school cheering section is on the south side of the stadium near the concession stand
• Students cannot enter the stadium from the tailgate area
• Please do not bring balls, frisbees, or other items to the game
• Spectators who are disruptive will be asked to leave.

Thank you, and we look forward to a fantastic year!"

https://usd469.socs.net/vnews/display.v/ART/6310fd6b46368?in_archive=1

11/1 - No School - Professional Development

11/7 - 4th Grade field trip to Mahaffie Farmstead

11/10 - No School - Veterans Day (observed)

11/15 - Picture retakes

11/16 - BIST Representative on-site

11/22 - 11/24 - No School - Thanksgiving Break

November

6 (to 12/8) - Spirit Wear Sale 20% off sitewide and free shipping over $75 (Shop online at https://1stplace.sale/36621)

8 - Cookie Dough Fundraiser Pickup (3:45-6:00 pm @ LES K/1 Cafeteria - Please park in the north east (rear) parking lot and enter the cafeteria through door 16/17)
8 - Papa John's Fundraiser (use promo code KSL003 to support Lansing PTA K-5)

15 - LIS Photo Retakes
16 - PTA Meeting (6:30pm @ LES Library)
29 - K-5 Winter Family Event (details to follow)

We need volunteers! Please consider joining PTA to make our events successful! Many hands make light work!

Email : LansingPTA.K5@gmail.com

Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lansing469pta/
View our webpage: https://lansingpta.blogspot.com/

Website: https://www.usd469.net/vnews/display.v/SEC/Lansing%20Intermediate%20School%20%28Grades%204-5%29
Location: 509 Ida Street, Lansing, KS, USA
Phone: (913) 297-0990
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisusd469