Lansing Intermediate Roar

School is back in session and it has been a great start to the school year! Our academic screeners have been completed and our students are fully immersed in learning activities. Our beginning of the year school assembly was lots of fun. It started with 5th grade edging out 4th grade in dodgeball and playing our staff team. It was a back and forth match with the staff team pulling out the victory. The games were highlighted by great sportsmanship and a good crowd to cheer on the participants.

Student drop-off and pickup has continuously improved since the start of the year - a big shout out to parents for helping make the process more streamlined. We will continue to refine procedures to ensure that student safety is prioritized while making sure traffic flows smoothly. Looking ahead, fliers are going out that provide students with opportunities outside of the school day. If your child is interested in participating in Junior Guard, Cub Scouts, Loyal Lansingers, or local sports, please contact the office for more information. We are looking forward to making this a grrrr-eat year to be a Lansing Lion!

9/5 - Chiefs first game! 🏈

9/10 - Picture Day

9/11 - Back to School Bash @LES (5-7pm)

9/16 - No School - Professional Development Day

9/26 - PRIDE Assembly - Perseverance

9/29 - Pledge of Allegiance at Kansas Speedway

• We are off to a great start in 4th grade. We welcomed two new teachers to our team and both Ali Black and Jerilyn Eaton are proving to be assets to our team.

• Ali Black also has a student teacher who is a recent Lansing graduate which is exciting to see her starting her career in education.

• Fastbridge testing went very smoothly and we will have intervention groups up and running right after Labor Day.

• Our field trips are booked for the year. We will be going to the Topeka Capital which directly relates to our main social studies standards. Our second field trip will be to go to the Coterie Theater and Mahomes MLK park. We will be seeing a fractured fairy tale and students will be authoring their own fractured fairy tales.

• BIST - since this is a K-8 initiative, we are starting to see the benefits of students having learned the expectations and we are spending less time teaching them how we do business in the building.

• We made a big change in our master schedule to have more time dedicated to science and social studies.

• Huge thank you to the custodial staff and district maintenance. Our building looked amazing when we came back and the grounds have not looked this good in years.

• Gaga Ball! If you have driven by the playground and wondered what that large black circle is for, it is for the playground rage of gaga ball! Easy game but a lot of fun to play.

Math - We are extremely happy with the fluency skills coming to us from using Reflex. We have started our core instruction which starts with Place Value and Addition and Subtraction. At some point in the first semester we will be piloting a couple of math resources to see if we want to adopt a different resource.

ELA:

Writing - We have implemented daily writing practice with a vocabulary word of the day and it is going very well. We will continue with teaching the Lion Paragraph.

Reading - DIRT continues to show so many positive effects and it already is most of our classes favorite parts of our days. We started Unit 1 in Wonders which centers around national disasters.

Social Studies/Science - Our team worked on both our science and social studies scope and sequences over the summer and updated them. We will start with Earth’s Systems in science and geography in social studies.

Fifth Grade has started the 2024-2025 school year with much success!! Students are doing a great job throughout the day and following expectations in the classrooms and hallway. Many relationship building activities were completed during the first few days. Students worked in groups to Save Fred, build Spaghetti towers, complete All About Me Newspapers, Brain Quest, and journal writing to get to know each other.

Fastbridge testing was completed the first full week of school. We now know areas of strengths and needs for our students. We can’t wait to work on individual needs and see amazing improvements this year.

Reading started off this year with a narrative non-fiction story called Camping with the President. Our main skill was cause and effect. Students worked through IXL, completed cause and effect activities, and completed graphic organizers. In grammar we worked on different types of sentences and punctuation. Next week, we will begin working on realistic fiction. Students will be focusing on character, setting, plot, and sequence.

Areas of focus for math have been place value and multiplication. Students are refreshing their basic fact skills by working on Reflex. Math manipulatives were used to discuss place value.

Science-In Mystery Science, students have been talking about the food chain. After following the lesson, students completed an activity that caused them to try and put together the longest food chain possible using cards. Next week we will continue with the next Mystery Science lesson – Matter and Plant Growth.

In Social Studies we have been discussing the Ancient American Indian Civilizations. Students discussed how needs changed based on their regions.

We are very excited to have the new swing going in on the playground. Students have been watching the daily progress and steps in completing the project.

To start off the 2024-2025 school year in STEM the 5th graders have been reviewing Growth Mindset and classroom expectations. The 5th graders learned about Temple Grandin, a scientist that created inventions that helped in the agricultural field. We followed that up with learning about the Scientific Method. 5th graders conducted their first science experiment by observing what happens when yeast, sugar and water react. The 5th graders really enjoyed it.

After reviewing having a Growth Mindset and classroom expectations our 4th graders focused on what to do with an idea and to grow an idea you may have instead of giving up on it. They learned some strategies to develop ideas: make a list, map it out, draw a picture, or create a model., The 4th graders' first challenge was to create a name tag with 3D lettering.

Fourth and fifth grade students at LIS are creating collages in the style of artist Derek Gores. Students are using old issues of the University Daily Kansan, KU’s daily newspaper, to create a photo collage of their favorite food. The newspapers are older issues donated by KU’s journalism department.

In fourth and fifth grade PE, we’ve had a good month of August! We started off with some team games, Ga Ga Ball and Magic ball. Each PE class with a 3-4 minute locomotor warm up, then we jog, do high skips, and butt kickers. We just started volleyball skills this week.

4th and 5th grade have both been reviewing note values, identifying notes and rests, and working on reading rhythms.

Welcome back! The beginning of a new school year is always busy and challenging for everyone. It is also fun seeing our new students and former students' growth over the summer. The first month we reviewed what we learned the year before and reminded ourselves of the expectations while in the library. Students also began checking out books. I like to remind students ‘to step outside their reading box’. Try a different kind of book and see if it appeals to them.

We started a new ‘Reading Chain’ this year. The idea is to get students to read more. Each student has an opportunity to add to our chain and see how many books we can read before the end of the school year. Encourage your child to read new books and add to our chain. Last year we reached 1350 links. Maybe we can pass that amount this year?! We shall see.

Keep reading!!

Mrs. Kowalewski joined the LIS team this year after 13 years at LES. Students are excited to see a familiar face in fifth grade and she has hit the ground running, providing a great environment for learning. We are thankful for the contributions she has made and we look forward to great things in the future!

LIS has implemented many new procedures allowing students to participate in the upkeep of their school and provide incentives for students to do well in and out of the classroom. Teachers nominate students in their classrooms who demonstrate responsibility for our weekly pickup patrol. These students, along with Mr. Altieri and Mrs. Settles, walk the school grounds and help pick up trash. It is a great way to keep our school clean, enjoy a sunny day with friends, and have a role in maintaining our school. In addition, students receive a prize and the opportunity to hold Mufasa, our school mascot. Here are some pictures from our first one of the year!