Monthly Newsletter - Indian Creek Community School District 425

Waterman Elementary School
December 2014
Waterman Elementary
Honors Local Veterans
Waterman Elementary School
honored the local Veterans with a
luncheon.
Inviting the Veterans to our
school allowed us to personally thank
them for their service and enjoy getting
to know them during the luncheon. 18
Veterans attended.
Pancake Breakfast
The Lions Club and Boy Scout
Troup 39 of Waterman are hosting an
ALL YOU CAN EAT Pancake
Breakfast fundraiser on Saturday,
December 13th, from 7:00 to 11:00 am
at Indian Creek Middle School.
Holiday Program
Special thanks go out to the
following 5th grade students who
helped with the event by greeting
Veterans at the door or helping in the
cafeteria. They are: Anna Cox, Bethany
Simpson, Blake Simonson, Ivan Ibarra,
and Kaity Miller.
Veterans’ Day Committee,
Mrs. Witzig and Mrs. Anderson
The Waterman Elementary
Christmas program is Wednesday,
December 17th, in the Indian Creek
High School gym. The music
performance begins at 7:00 p.m. All
students in grades K-5 are involved. The
program is open to the public.
For parents and guardians,
children should arrive by 6:45. Please
keep your child with you until their
teacher has arrived and then keep your
child’s coat and leave him/her with their
teacher. Safety is important. The gym is
a large, open area and students are
tempted to run around upon arrival. Due
to the amount of cords and equipment
this is not safe. We ask for all students
and pre-school aged siblings or relatives
to walk and behave safely in the gym
before and after the performance. Please
have your student(s) dress up for this
special evening! It is their night to shine
and feel special as they share holiday
cheer.
Thank You Reader Leaders
Thank you to the following
Reader Leaders who read with the
Waterman Elementary students this
past semester:
Carol Bend
Robin Bosworth
Roger Bosworth Fred Vandre
Betty Olson
Velma Nix
Marilyn Ryen
Darryl Kupecz
Bev Larson
Gary Lintereur
Helen Hill
Leona Thompson
Judy Hogan
Jeannie Johnson
Carol Vaupel
Pam Mitchell
Paul Lee
Stephanie Sylvester
Rosa Lee
The school staff and students all
greatly appreciate the time the Reader
Leaders dedicated to be with the students
each week. We look forward to seeing
them again starting the week of
January 6, 2015.
Notice of Students Off-Campus During
School Day
In connection with the festiveness
of the upcoming holiday season there is a
portions of one day when the entire WES
student body will be bussed off-campus,
but will remain in-district:
We will transport all K – 5th grade
students to Indian Creek High School in
Shabbona on Wednesday, Dec. 17, from
approximately 12:45-3:10 p.m. All
students will be involved in a final
rehearsal for the holiday program in the
Indian Creek High School gymnasium in
Shabbona.
W.E.Smiles Club Update
Waterman Elementary Smiles Club
combines fitness and literacy into a fun
program for kindergarten through fifth
grades. Students have an opportunity to
walk/run before school on Tuesday and
Thursday mornings. Each student who
makes the grade-level assigned
walking/running goal gets to choose a
brand new book. On Fridays, the laps are
tallied, the winners are announced and the
students pick out their book. As of
November 21, we have completed 1439
laps, 359.75 miles, and presented 96
books. Congratulations to all those who
participate! There are many students close
to qualifying and it is never too late to join.
“ART”icle
Fifth grade begin warping their
cardboard loom this week after creating
their weaving design. Fourth grade is
finishing up their beautiful fall watercolor
paintings. Third grade should also be
finishing up their project, Harvest
Drawings, done in colored pencils. Our
patriotic weavings by second grade should
be hanging in the hallway soon. First
graders are having fun with a very colorful
shape painting, and kindergarteners are
creating a building collage with
construction paper.
Continue sending those plastic
caps, the brightly colored caps are getting
glued to form core. The mural is starting
to take shape!
Mrs. Thuestad
Happy Anniversary
Clinton Township
Public Library!
This month we will be celebrating
our 100th anniversary. Come to the library
on December 22nd and take part in our day
of celebration. During the day we will
have goodies available to be enjoyed. At
7pm we will have a short program
followed by special music and cutting of
the cake. We would love to have as many
as possible to come and celebrate with us.
There are a number of other things
to be aware of this month. Bookworms
for the 3-5 year olds will meet on
December 3,10, and 17th. There will be
NO WHAT'S UP WEDNESDAY during
the month of December. Clinton Chats
book group will meet on December 8th at
7:30 and will be discussing "Whistling
Past the Graveyard" by Susan Crandall.
There will not be a Middle School
book discussion this month.
Please note that the library will be
CLOSED on December 24 and 31 due to
the holiday. The Library Board and Staff
would like to wish everyone Happy
Holidays!
WES Library News
Students @ WES, you’re invited
to earn FREE TICKETS to Magic
Waters Waterpark and/or Six Flags Great
America, with your parent’s permission.
A flyer explaining both reading programs
and their dates was sent home in
November with each student. If you would
like your child/ren to participate you can
still send in the request for a reading log
permission slip at the bottom of the flyer
that was sent home.
Start dates are flexible and
programs will run back to back this year,
not simultaneously, but, reading log due
dates are final. No late forms will be
accepted.
1. Magic Waters “Books for Fun” ~
December 1, 2014 to January 12, 2015.
2. Six Flags “Read to Succeed” ~
January 12, 2015 to February 23, 2015.
New AR Up & Running!
Students have successfully
transitioned to Renaissance Learning
Accelerated Reader (AR) Enterprise! The
students really are excited about the
expanded selection of quizzes available.
They no longer are limited to reading and
testing on books just from the school
library. With this new version, there are
over 156,000 AR quizzes available! You
can find out if books your child has at
home or checks out from a public library
are at their reading level and if there are
AR tests for them by going to
www.arbookfind.com. If your student
wants to test on a book not from the school
library, be sure to have them bring it to
school OR bring in a slip of paper with the
complete title and author, on the day they
want to test.
Coming soon… Renaissance
Home Connect. It will improve the schoolto-home connection by allowing parents
and students to log in to a website and
view the student’s reading progress
towards their goal. Access to online results
promotes discussion between parents and
students, which motivates students and can
make reading practice even more effective.
In addition, parents can specify up to six
email addresses to receive automatic
updates in English or Spanish on their
student’s reading progress.
Vacation Game Day
Mr. Olive will be hosting a
game day for the 4th & 5th graders
on Monday, December 22, in the gym.
The schedule is as follows:
5th graders: Noon-1:30 p.m.
4th graders: 1:30-3:00 p.m.
Students will need to be dropped off and
picked up in the bus circle; entrance will
be available through the gym door only.
EPC Community Project
This holiday season, the EPC’s Community Project will be the DeKalb
County Animal Shelter. The animal shelter is located on Baseline Road in
Genoa.
About the animal shelter…
We help dogs and cats that have no one else. It takes a lot to run and
maintain an animal shelter.
Our staff works 365 days a year. That includes Memorial Day, 4th of July,
Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. It takes dedication to care for more
than 120 animals every single day of the year.
We were lucky to start our shelter back in 1975 and we've been able to
successfully keep our doors open for well over 35 years now. It's taken a lot of
love, hard work and dedication, but the animals make every day a joy for us!
The EPC will be collecting from December 1st - December 12th.
Items needed:
Cat food (canned and dry)
Dog food (canned and dry)
Cat litter
33 gallon trash bags
Cloth towels
Small rugs
Paper towels
Lint rollers
Laundry detergent
Dish soap
Gift cards to Wal-Mart, Menard’s,
Lowe’s, and Ace Hardware
If you have any questions, please call Julie McRoberts at 815-264-3636.
Wolf Wear Logo Contest:
The three finalists for the Wolf
Wear Logo contest were 4th grader, Joey
Wilson, 4th grader, Madison Bogle, and 1st
grader, Cooper Rissman. Cooper’s design
was chosen as the winning logo by the
students. Congratulations to the students
for their creative designs!
EPC News
WES EPC would like to Thank
Jamey Schuett, Julie Wilson, Mike and
Alison Genslinger, Jen Ross, Nicole
Sessler, Tiffany Shotsberger, Nicole
Nelson, and Mary Smith for helping with
activities during American Education
week.
The children enjoyed a great
assembly by the Magic Storyteller, Chris
McBrien. We thank him for coming to our
school.
We will be updating the EPC website
over the winter. We have already posted
current minutes and agendas. We hope to
have this completed by February.
***Please note a change to our meeting
schedule. All meetings will meet on the
second Thursday of the month, with the
exception of December. We are sorry for
any inconvenience. There will be no
meeting in December. The next meeting
will be Thursday, January 8th at 6:30 p.m.
in the Waterman Elementary Library.
We are still looking for a Treasurer.
If you are interested in the position please
contact Kim Rissman (630) 327-6739
or bkrissman@smitco.com
PreK Screenings
Indian Creek School District will
be conducting screenings for children birth
through 5 years old that are not currently in
kindergarten. The screening process
should take about 45 minutes and parents
should expect to complete a questionnaire
on their child’s health and social
development. In addition to screening preacademic ability, a vision and hearing
screening will also be done for children 35 years old.
Screening dates are as follows:
Monday, January 26, 2015 at
Shabbona Elementary from 8:30 a.m. to
3:00 p.m. for 3-5 years
Monday, April 27, 2015 at
Waterman Elementary from 8:30 a.m. to
3:00 p.m. for birth – 5 years
Please call 815-824-8257 to
schedule an appointment. All screenings
are done by appointment only. Don’t wait;
appointments fill up fast!