Mokena Elementary School

December 2014 / January 2015

Mrs. Anna Kirchner

Principal

Mrs. Judy Splayt

Assistant Principal

School Office:

708/342-4850

Absentee Line:

708/478-4212

On the Web:

http://mokena159.org

School Closing Information Mokena Parent Academy

2

FISH

Santa’s Secret Workshop

2

Preschool Screening

Cold Weather Recess

3

Nurses office

Basket Raffle

4

What’s happening at

MES?

5

December Assets 6

Calendars 7-8

Inside this issue:

To Our MES Family,

Let me start off with a big THANK YOU to all of our MES families for your continued support and dedication to your child’s education. Our families have supported the school is so many ways this past month.

The Fall Fling was a great success. Thank you to the PTA

and the MEF for organizing this event to benefit our students. A special thank you to all our families who made this Fall Fling a success!

Our first MES Fall Fling student basket raffle was a great success. Thank you to the PTA Officers for organizing the raffle for the MES students. Forty-one families donated baskets to the raffle – thank you for helping us raise money for our district!

Our Second Annual Stuff The Turkey Food Drive was plentiful. All of the MES families were so generous with their donations. The Frankfort Food Pantry is grateful. Thank you to the MES Student Council for helping with the drive.

Our Parent/Teacher conferences were well attended. Hope-fully all of our parents left their conference confident in their child’s education here at MES.

American Education Week was a great opportunity for the students to celebrate education in different ways. We appreciated all of our parents who stopped by to visit as well.

Parents and staff working together equals a wonderful learning

environment at MES for all our students!

Wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday season!

Anna Kirchner Judy Splayt

Principal Asst. Principal

~ FISH ~

The Mokena organization known as “FISH” will be collecting items for

needy families in the community this holiday season. We are inviting

MES students to spread the holiday cheer by bringing in particular items

of need.

All items should be brought to school on

Wednesday, December 3rd

Students wishing to participate in the FISH drive can bring in the

following items according to their grade level:

PreK, Kindergarten : Tissue (Kleenex) and Toilet Paper (in original

plastic wrap/container)

First Grade: Boxed food items (cereal, macaroni and cheese, rice,

prepared dinners, etc., no canned foods please)

Second Grade: Wrapping Paper, Ribbon, Bows & Tape

Third Grade: Paper Towels, Napkins and Disposable Diapers (in

original plastic wrap/container)

Thank you for your generosity this holiday season!!

School Closing

Information

Families can find out if school is

closed via any of the following:

www.Mokena159.org Announcements will be made

between 6:30 and 8:00 a.m. on

WJOL (AM-1340), WBBM (AM-

780) and Channel 9 television

A Connect Ed message will be sent

by District Office to all parents/

guardians

Early Dismissal Day

December 10th 12 Noon

Page 2

PTA News

Santa’s Secret Workshop

Saturday, December 6th 10 am to 1pm

MES Commons

Bake Sale, Crafters, Shopping,

Drawings, and more!

MOKENA PARENT ACADEMY WORKSHOP

Thursday, January 8, 2015 Creating a Digital Culture Within Our Communities

While Technology continues to evolve, the need to instill and reinforce the concepts of digital citizenship remains constant. This session will emphasize the need for creating a digital culture within a household and you community, while highlighting current trends and digital platforms. The following topics will be specifically addressed:

Cyber bullying

Digital citizenship

Privacy

Sites/apps most used by youth/teens

Self-representation

Sexting and online predation This workshop will also highlight available resources that will assist parents in facilitating digital safety conversations with their children.

Presented by: Melissa Hemzacek, LSW, Internet Safety Specialist

Illinois Attorney General’s Office—High Tech Crimes Bureau

Page 3

Cold Weather Recess Each day, we evaluate the weather conditions and determine if the weather allows for our children to go outside. Our policy is if the temperature is below 20 degrees with the wind chill factor, the children will remain inside. On those borderline days when the temperature and wind chill combine to make it cold, but not unbearable, our building aides will take children outdoors for no more than 10 minutes. This allows the students to run off excess energy and catch a breath of fresh air. Please be assured, our first concern is the well-being of our students. Students should come to school expecting to go outdoors unless the weather conditions make it unsafe to do so. Warm coats, hats and gloves should provide plenty of protection for the days we go outdoors for recess.

The holidays are just around the corner! Who wants gift cards? Everyone… teachers, kids, neighbors, family and friends! Plan ahead, get the holiday shopping done early and help out Mokena PTA at the same time!

Orders Due: Delivered By: Friday, December 5th Friday, December 12th Friday, December 12th Friday, December 19th

For a complete listing of gift cards available go to www.glscrip.com. Order envelopes are available in the MES office

All orders directly benefit your children. Thank you in advance!

DUAL LANGUAGE PARENT NIGHT

Mokena Elementary Pre-School Screening

Our next preschool screening is Wednesday, Dec. 10th from 9am through 11:30am. This is an At-Risk program for children who may have concerns in speech & language skills, large and small muscle coordination skills, cognitive skills, or social/emotional growth. If you are interested in having your child screened, please call the Mokena Elementary School office @ 708-342-4850.

December 3, 2014

MES—Room S105

6:00—7:00 pm

How has the Dual language class evolved so far this year?

Come and learn more about:

How is the day structured?

What does the work load look like in comparison to the

other kindergarten classroom?

Translation packet—How’s that working?

What to look for in the upcoming weeks.

Input on information for future meetings.

Presented by:

Dr. Kathleen Wilkey, Assistant Superintendent of Instruction

&

Mrs. Martha Kadan, Kindergarten Dual Language Teacher

FALL FLING STUDENT BASKET RAFFLE Thank you to everyone who helped and donated to make our Student Basket Raffle a huge success! This raffle raised over $2,250.00 which will directly benefit the activities and needs of our schools. All families who donated a basket were entered to win a pizza lunch party with friends at school. The winner of the pizza party is Katie Andresen! Individual basket winners were:

Alexandria Anaya—Board Games Angelina Baratta—Frozen Ava Basolo—Just Add Ice Cream

Ava Beyler—Treasure Chest Samantha Brudd—Frozen Gregory Cesta—Ninja Turtles

Violet Dydo—Pickle Nickolas Farkas—Movie Night Natalie Fitzgibbons—Monster Popper

Brook Frodin—Avengers Torree Garcia—Christmas Art Olivia Gehrke—Splat/Voice Changer

Michael Henschel—Candy Rebecca Hrabe—Tangled Lorenz Hunter—Battleship

Sydney Kane—Friendship Bracelet Gus Klein—Frog Pail Lucy Laurinaitis—Gummy Bear

Grace Lee—Justice Caitlin Lim—Frozen Meleena Lopez—Movie Night

Reagan Malecki—Spiderman Flynn Meyer—Nail Polish Ty O’Leary—Lego/Pick up sticks

Ryan Rafa—Spiderman & Art Grace Rhodes—Jenga Mike Roussakis—After School Fun

Austin Ruzich—Lego Evan Sherrick—Science Noah Sloan—Nerf

Andrew Staley—Soccer goal Alyssa Teske—Face Paint Emily Tichicak—Lego Friends

Eddie Villagomez—Art Ava Weber—Baking Jaden Wegner—Ninja Turtles

Austin Welsh—Ninja Turtles Tripp Whittingham—Pillow Pet Violet Wilson—Nail Art

Eman Yassin—Kite Zoe Ziesmer—Shine Time Leah Zimmer—Art

Winter Season Greetings from Nurse Therese & Miss Denise…..

Cold weather brings snow and that means fun times outdoors on sleds, snowboards or ice skates.

So, we must remember to dress appropriately, especially keeping our hands and face protected. We

don’t want Jack Frost nippin’ at our nose or fingers.

We’ve noticed a lot of chapped lips lately. Please remember to pack a chap stick or lip balm in

your child’s backpack.

We are still in need of pants in our office. If you have any items you’d like to donate, feel free to drop

them off anytime or send them with your child to school. We appreciate any donations.

Let’s keep up the good work on our hand washing. Remembering to cover coughs and sneezes. We

know this is the season of sharing, but we don’t want to share our germs!

Denise and I wish you and your families a very Merry Christmas. Enjoy your time off with family and

friends. See you next year!

Mrs. Lark’s class had power point presentations to their parents in our new Learning Center.

Mrs. Conroy’s class had fun on PJ day!

Mrs. Neff’s students are working together using shapes to create a group picture in math. Also, students are partner reading and discussing books during Reader's Workshop.

3rd Grade Student Council Mrs. Arduino’s class Crazy Socks Day!

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Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1

2 3 Fish Drive Dual Language Night 6-7:00 pm Rm S105

4 5 Crazy Hair Day Dippin Dots

6 Santa’s Secret Shop @MES 10:00am-1:00pm

7 8 9 PTA Meeting MES 3:30 pm

Enrichment Advisory Meeting 4-5pm MES Board room

10 Early Dismissal

12 Noon

Pre School Screening

11

12

13

14 15 16 17 Board of Ed.

Meeting, 7:00 pm at MES

Market Day Pickup MJH 4:30-5:30 pm

18 1st Grade

KISS Gingerbread

House Activity

19

Make Everyone Shine Holiday Parties at

1:00 pm

Early Dismissal at 2:15

20

21 22

23

24

25

26

27

28 29

30 31

December 2014

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 3

4 5 Classes Resume

6

7

8 Parent Workshop 6:30 pm MES

9

10

11 12

13 PTA Meeting MES 3:30 pm

14 Board of Education Meeting, 7:00 pm at MES

15

16

End of 2nd Quarter

Crazy Hat Day

17

18 19

No School Martin Luther King Day

20 No School Teacher Institute

21

22 Aurielo’s Fundraiser

23

General Report Card Day

Dippin Dots MES

24

25 26 27

28 Market Day Pick Up 4:30-5:30 @ MJH

29 30 Make Everyone Shine

31

January 2015