Elementary Essentials

We had great things planned for you on January 6th, but the weather had different ideas about where we should be on that day. The ELA portion of the day would’ve focused on Wit & Wisdom, providing time to reflect on the first semester using these new materials for teaching comprehension. In addition, we wanted to share some tips and tricks for timing. We plan to provide reflection time during the March 24th Professional Learning session to replace our lost time from January 6th.

GRADES K-2 TEACHERS ONLY

Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade teachers were supposed to receive information regarding teaching small group reading. We will present the information at our March Professional Learning; however, if you would like to receive this information earlier, we have created other opportunities.

Below are the options for kindergarten and 1st grade teachers to receive Differentiated Reading Instruction information.

Option #1: Morning Zoom sessions from 8:15 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. on three days in January and February (K&1 only).

• Monday, January 27
• Wednesday, January 29
• Wednesday, February 12
• Registration Link

Option #2 – If you do not select option #1, you will attend the Differentiated Reading Instruction or Geodes information during the March 24th Professional Learning. If you cannot attend on March 24th, you will receive the information on April 24th. (K-2)

Pacing Guides for the third quarter are available from your Instructional Coach or the ELA website.

Have you visited The Rabbit Hole? They describe this as “A new museum experience...that celebrates and brings to life a century of American children's literature for visitors of all ages. The Rabbit Hole is the first museum of its kind in the United States. Spanning three floors, the Rabbit Hole brings countless works of children’s literature to life.

Visitors become explorers in an immersive, multi-sensory narrative landscape filled with discoverable environments. Within this radical literary wonderland, you can catch a ride with Nana and CJ on the bus to the Last Stop on Market Street, whisper “Goodnight Moon” in the quiet dark of the great green room, outshine Mr. Sun with Sam and the Tigers; feed jum-jills to The Funny Thing, or find yourself scaling the cliffs of My Father’s Dragon.”

Did you ever visit the Reading Reptile in Brookside? This was a bookstore owned by Deb Pettid and Pete Cowdin, the originators of this new concept. Even in their bookstore, there were lots of replicas of books and book worlds. They closed the bookstore and worked to make The Rabbit Hole come to life, and it finally has. I was able to go to the Rabbit Hole last weekend for the first time, and it was fantastic!

If you haven’t visited it yet, I highly encourage you to do so. If you love children’s books, you will love this place!

While snow days are always a delight, I am genuinely disappointed that we missed the opportunity to come together for our Differentiated Professional Development focused on Schema-Based Instruction (SBI). Our Instructional Coaches and Title Math Teachers were eager and prepared to meet you where you are in your SBI journey.

For some, this meant exploring the educational science behind SBI and providing resources and dedicated time to plan for implementation. For others further along, it involved deepening the integration of SBI into daily instruction, leveraging scaffolding strategies for application problems, and making meaningful connections to QBA results. Together, we were set to analyze how these insights could strengthen our system—supporting both our students and colleagues in building capacity and maximizing the benefits of Schema-Based Instruction.

Although we couldn’t meet as planned in January, I’m pleased to share that this professional development opportunity will now be included in our District Professional Learning time in March.

During the session, we will emphasize that while the implementation of Schema-Based Instruction (SBI) has varied across buildings and classrooms in the past, the expectation for this school year is that all K-5 students will be taught and apply SBI models aligned to their grade level by the end of the year.

As a vertically progressing model, SBI requires consistent and consecutive implementation across grade levels to be effective. This consistency is crucial to ensuring students build upon their knowledge year after year.

I’m sharing this with you now to give you the option of getting a head start. Whether you’re just beginning to explore the foundational concepts of SBI (Knowledge Level) or are in the early stages of daily implementation (Application Level), your Instructional Coach is available to provide additional support between now and March.

To better tailor our March session to your needs, we’ll re-send the form prior to the PD Day for you to update your current level of understanding and application. This will help us ensure that the session meets you where you are and provides meaningful, actionable support.

Thank you for your commitment to this important learning and to each other as we strive to enhance outcomes for all.

Following Module 5 and prior to Module 7, second graders learn about coins and their values (2.MD.8, 2.MD.9). These lessons were an addition in recent years and are indicated as "supplemental" rather than specific to a module.

The ordering process has not been set up to include the copies required for these lessons (which we have made arrangements to remedy for next year).

For this year we have two solutions to offer you:

1) Log in to the Olathe Digital StoreFront to order these resources at no cost to you, by proceeding as follows, by NO LATER THAN FRIDAY, JANUARY 24:

• Log in using the beginning of your email address and your district password.

• If you do not already have the teacher edition pages, you may order one set for your personal use.
• Enter quantity of student pages needed.
• The only option for these lessons are collated, 2-sided, and 3-hole punched at this time.
• Enter the temporary code to pay for these specific copies (at no cost to you). Code will expire after January 24
• Code: 4444-4444-444444-444-44444-4444-444-444444-444444

2) Access the resources on the Math SharePoint OR by clicking the links below and print the resources locally at your building.

Student pages: Supplemental Coins Resources- SE.pdf

Teacher pages: Supplemental Coins Resources- TE.pdf

IF you would also like the Supplemental Cyclic Review pages which accompany these lessons, please send an email (preferably 1 email per building) with the total number of copies you need to Kelly Ulmer and Kathy Brewer, and we will send those copies directly to you via interschool mail.

Again, we have made arrangements so that the resources to teach these standards will be included with next year's copies and we hope this temporary solution is helpful for the time being.

The Kiewit Engineering Group has donated plant seed kits to 2nd graders to engage in a hands-on plant lab! Each kit has two dirt disks, two containers, pea seeds and full instructions to observe and record how the pea seeds grow in light vs darkness – see photo attached. These kits will have everything needed for the seed growing experience, except for the water!

This aligns well with Module 6: Plants and Their Needs, which includes the Performance Expectation 2LS2-1: Plan and conduct an investigation to determine if plants need sunlight and water to grow. These kits could be used now or saved for Module 6, as this would be an activity where students may wonder, ask questions, and collect data via measurement, photos, draw pictures, etc., that could be discussed in your classes. The data collected could then be revisited when doing Module 6.

There are still plants available! If you are interested in receiving these, please email Julie Miller with the number of students in your class.

I hope each of you has had a great day. Please check out the 2024-25 social studies newsletter for important social studies related items.

Elementary Social Studies Curriculum Revision:

If you are interested in serving on the curriculum revision committee for elementary social studies, please fill out this form. We will be working to update the curriculum and align the standards with each grade level as well as reviewing new resources. This process will continue next year, with full implementation slated for the fall of 2026. This opportunity will also include high-quality instructional activities and practices that will engage your students in "doing" social studies! Committee members will be notified of selection after winter break.

Social Studies Assessment for 4th Grade:

Please check the newsletter for more information about the 2024-25 HGSS Assessment.

3rd Grade Teachers:

If your class is not attending the 3rd grade City of Olathe field trip, but you would still like to request Learning About Olathe books, please email Alice Miller, amillerirc@olatheschools.org with your building and quantity needed.

Thank you for all you do!