Have a Safe and Pleasant Summer

Thank you students and parents for another great school year. I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching your children. Just a little learning every day in every subject adds up to a lot of learning by the end of the school year. It is fun to think about the growth these students have experienced. I wish for you a happy and safe summer enjoying the delights of warm weather, sun and some good books!

Response to Intervention - For the Week of May 25th

Center Cass School District #66 is in the process of implementing an Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) mandate, Response to Intervention (RTI). RTI is an array of procedures that can be used to determine if and how students respond to specific changes in instruction. RTI provides an improved process and structure for school teams in designing, implementing, and evaluating educational interventions.

Please look for the additional information on RTI, which will be included with your child’s end of the year Report Card.

Pourquoi Tales for the Week of May 17th

Pourquoi tales are oral stories that have been written down. They use animal traits or human customs to help us understand how something came to be the way it is. A few examples of Pourquoi tales you might want to check out from the library are:

Alexander, E. (1989). Llama and the great flood: A foolktale from Peru. New York: Crowell.

Bruchac, J. (1993). The First Strawberries: A Cherokee story.New York: Puffin.

Goble, P. (1983). Star Boy. New York: Bradbury.

Hurston, Z.N. (2004). What's the hurry, fox? And other animal stories.New York: HarperCollins.

Something for Parents - For the Week of May 11TH

An interesting website with all types of parenting issues is www.greatergood.berkeley.edu/half_full/. This site contains a variety of articles, podcasts, videos and comments from readers. A couple of examples of topics are "making dinner time a happy habit," and "raising optimistic kids."

Book Reviews

Another website your children might enjoy is www.bookhooks.com. Students can read book reviews written by other students and write book reviews of their own. Full names are not used so the student will remain anonymous. It can be motivating to students to have the opportunity to write something that the whole world can read.