Back to School 2011-2012

Back to School Information for the 2011-2012 School Year

Back to School Night: August 15th

Meet your child's teacher and tour our school!

Kindergarten 5:00

1st - 6th Grade 5:30

First Day of School: August 16th

Early Out, 1:25 for

Teacher Professional Development

August 17th & 18th:

Early Out 1:25 for

Teacher Professional Development

Supply lists will be available in August in our front hallway.  Back to school letters will be mailed to families in August as well. See you then!

Lake Contrary Community Garden

In an effort to bring together schools, the community, and families we recently established a community garden. The garden’s purpose is to enhance the healthy living of communities, reduce family food budgets, teach gardening skills, provide advanced opportunities for inquiry learning in science, and to promote positive community and family engagement. These photographs chronicle our adventure to establish the Lake Contrary Elementary Community Garden.

 

Our school, Lake Contrary Elementary, joined forces with several community agencies to establish our garden such as The Youth Health Partnership, Heartland Hospital, and Chamber of Commerce. Our business partners were a tremendous help, thank you Wyatt Park Christian Church, Walmart, and Omnium.

 

This site was chosen for the community garden because of the access to water and storage.

 

Installation of fencing. Funding for our community garden is made possible by a federal grant.

 

Planting Day begins! We invited community members, parents, and of course students to participate in ourground breaking and planting.

 

Nona Miller, our Family Involvement Coordinator, was the core to our gardening team. She taught students how to map out a garden, how to plant, and provided the experience and knowledge needed to begin a successful garden. Here she joins students in prepping the garden.

 

Dr. Melody Smith, Superintendent of the Saint Joseph School District led the ribbon cutting ceremony for our community garden groundbreaking. She is joined by our Lake Contrary students.

 

The community gathers in our outdoor classroom.

 

The look of learning.

 

Ready to dig!

 

Teachers and students working side-by-side.

 

Being physically active and planting nutritious food.

 

Our amazing parents and families joining in the efforts.

 

Gardeners big and small.

 

Serving healthy refreshments.

 

At the end of the day…

At the end of the day we provided a lifetime of memories, built new partnerships, provided authentic learning experiences, and established a garden sure to grow much more than food!

Dig - Eat - Share

Lake Contrary Community Garden

What is a community garden?

A community garden is a garden that all community members: students, parents, families, clubs, etc. volunteer to grow produce that they share with one another.

Why a community garden?

A community garden improves nutrition by bringing fresh fruits and vegetables to the tables of our community members, reduces family food budgets, and improves the environment.

How will the garden improve the education of Lake Contrary students?

It allows the students of Lake Contrary Elementary to have authentic learning experiences in relation to plant life cycles, food webs, weather cycles, and further develops vocabulary and background knowledge. Because this is true science inquiry, students learn all aspects of planning a garden using their math and critical thinking skills.

Volunteer

Families, organizations, offices, and clubs are welcome to volunteer in our Lake Contrary Community Garden. Simply contact our school to sign up for one week of  “weed and water”. Nona Miller, Family Involvement Coordinator or Jasmine Briedwell, Principal: (816) 671-4240

Will I have enough time to volunteer?

 

Yes! When you sign up with your family or organization, you only commit to one week of weeding and watering. One week of work equals a whole season of fresh food!

 

A Note from Mrs. Collins:

CELEBRATE BETTER HEARING AND SPEECH MONTH

Since 1927, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association has celebrated Better Hearing and Speech Month each May to raise public awareness of speech and language disorders that affect 14 million Americans.

Speech and language disorders can take many forms and can limit academic achievement and social adjustment. An individual may be born with a speech or language disorder, or it may be caused by accidental injury or illness.

Most people with speech and language problems can be helped by a speech-language pathologist (SLP). Even if the problem cannot be eliminated, SLPs can teach people with speech and language problems strategies to help them cope. People may not fully regain their capacity to speak and understand, but a speech-language pathologist can help them achieve their highest potential.

Speech-language pathologists are the professionals who treat all types of speech, language, and related disorders. They hold at least a master’s degree and are certified by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Speech-language pathologists work in schools, private practice, hospitals, clinics, and other health and education settings.

The St. Joseph Public School District has SLPs that evaluate and treat communication disorders that affect academic learning.  This service is offered for children age 3 through high school.  If you have concerns regarding your child’s development, please contact Lake Contrary Elementary’s SLP, Kayla Collins, at (816) 671-4240 or kayla.collins@sjsd.k12.mo.us.

Reminder of PACT meeting:

http://www.pactforsjsd.com/

What are they teaching kids these days?

Have you ever wondered what they are teaching students in schools today? At Lake Contrary we teach students non-fiction writing during writer's workshop. Writer's workshop is a lesson model for teaching students to write. It is made up of three parts: mini-lesson, independent writing, and author share.

The mini-lesson is a 10-20 minute lesson on a specific objective in writing. This may be grammar, the craft of writing, editing skills, or figurative language. There are many objectives a teacher covers and varies with the writing genre (such a poetry, memoir, research report, etc.) Independent writing is when students pre-write, write, research, edit or revise their paper. The teacher conferences with students one-on-one, takes anecdotal notes, or meets with small groups about their drafts. Author share concludes the lessons and provides students time to share and give feedback on the latest version of their writing.

Here is an example of a 1st grade non-fiction writing piece:

This student began by writing a table of contents for her self selected topic, butterflies. Our first graders were encouraged to ask questions about their topic, research using a plethora of resources, and answer the questions in their book.

Here the student writes the heading and sentence to answer her guiding question.

Notice in the picture the use of bolded words, labels, and illustrations. Just like real non-fiction books!

Finally, the student concludes with her glossary.

When completed you will fine finished works along with rough drafts, rubrics, anchor charts, and objectives posted in our hallways. Students love to share their writing with fellow students, teachers, and parents!

Meet Mrs. Gillies

 Mrs. Gillies is our preschool teacher for high intensity/autism students. Mrs. Gillies' classroom is warm, welcoming and safe for all learners. She teaches basic preschool objectives along with learning to learn skills.

Mrs. Gillies graduated from NWMSU in the spring 2009 with a teaching degree in Elementary and Early Childhood Special Education. She is currently enrolled at MWSU in their Masters of Applied ScienceProgram with an emphasis in Autism. Becky has grown up in the St. Joseph Area and plans to raise a family and grow old here.  

We are so very lucky to have Mrs. Gillies teach at Lake Contrary! Her passion for early childhood education and dedication to her students make her a valuable member of our team.

10 Picture Tour of Lake Contrary

Lake Contrary Elementary

Named after the area lake, Lake Contrary Elementary is a Title I elementary school grades pre-K through 6.

Welcome

Each day our students, parents, and staff are greeted by our school district’s mission, Educating Each Child for Success. Our Welcoming Committee shares a good morning, smile, or immediate intervention for students each day. They also welcome visitors, direct them to the office or to their teacher’s classroom.

Wall of Distinguished Alumni

Our school’s motto is, Dream, Believe, Achieve. Through a PTA grant we were able to fund this wall that displays a photo and name plate of some of our most distinguished alumni. The purpose of our wall is to enhance career education for our students by displaying real careers and post-secondary education of our past students. Our wall showcases educators, doctors, police officers, majors in chemistry, physical therapy, finance, and even professional athletes!

Lake's Gym

This is a photo of our gymnasium. Our amazing PE teacher posts student work all around our gym walls and encourages students to set and track goals based on our formative assessment professional development.

Classroom Entrance

This is what an entrance to a typical classroom looks like. You will see an All-About-Me poster from the teacher so that new students and parents can read all about their teacher! The school community also fills classroom buckets with compliments (notice the bucket and bag of shapes). Our entrances are designed to be welcoming and promote our BEARS Expectations: Be responsible, Everyone matters, Achieve success, Respect others, Safety first.

Student Work Displays

Our school posts what we value, student work! In this photo you are seeing how one classroom teacher displays work that incorporates components of balanced literacy with problem and solution. The teacher includes rubrics, reading response journals, guided and independent work, and modeling of read alouds/think alouds with problem and solution. 

Classroom Library

This is an example of a classroom library. We organize them by genre, author, reading levels, featured books, and student or teacher recommendations.

Music Room

Our music room incorporates literacy, cooperative learning, and technology daily.

Playground

Our playground includes equipment that promotes physical health from Project Fit America.

Special Education

This is our classroom for special education. I love the welcoming messages each morning for students. This one says, “We believe in you!”

Outdoor Classroom

Just one more…the outdoor classroom is located next to our future sites for a kickball field and community garden, coming this May!

Music Blog

Check out our classroom blogs below. Our newest is from Mrs. Kikoler! Her music blog is complete with student work, videos, and choir information.

http://lakemusic.blogspot.com/

Our Theater Stars!

Tyler Murphy, Lily Stuck, Melanie Murphy and A'Leah Ross were stars in the Missoula Childrens' Theater Production of Wizard of Oz. Congratulations, you did a wonderful job. You make Lake Contrary proud!

Meet Mrs. Allsbury

Mrs. Allsbury is one of our 5th grade teachers at Lake Contrary. She is well respected for her experience, can do attitude and for having excellent expectations for her students.

Mrs. Allsbury was born in Maryville, Missouri and actually lived on the Northwest Missouri State University Campus until 2nd grade because her dad was the college dairy farmer. Her mother taught school for 34 years, most of which were in a Title I school in St. Joseph, Missouri.

She currently has two sisters that are teachers, her mother, grandmother, aunts, uncle, great uncle, and cousins have all been teachers. Her Great Uncle was a college professor at Graceland University. Mrs. Allsbury's older sister Sharon played so much school her that Mrs. Allsbury could actually read before kindergarten!

After 2nd grade Mrs. Allsbury moved to St. Joseph where she attended Bliss Jr. High and Central High School. She graduated from MWSU with a degree in Elementary Education and an emphasis in math.

Mrs. Allsbury has been married for 26 years, has 2 children, 4 grandchildren and a spoiled dog! Her hobbies include reading, crochet, yard work, and walking her dog. She has been on two mission trips, one to an Indian reservation in Mission, SD (the 2nd poorest county in the United States) and the other in Guadalupe, MX to help build an orphanage. She loves to travel and has been to most of the continental 48 states! Someday she would like to travel and tour lighthouses.

Did you Know?

Volunteers make our school a great place to learn! Our students benefit from the vast experience, knowledge and care that our volunteers bring to Lake Contrary. These are just a few of our volunteers:

• Parents
• PTA
• Health Buddies - Students from MWSU Physcial Health and Education Programs
• Wyatt Park Christian Church - mentors, tutors, and school supporters!
• A+ Students - many amazing and great students (many of which are Lake Contrary Alumni) from Benton High School
• America Reads - reading tutors from MWSU
• Junior Achievement - business members from Nestle-Purina

Our Business Partners make many initiatives possible, we thank them for their kind and generous donations of clothing, time, and recognition for students.

• Wyatt Park Christian Church
• Hoof and Horn - Character Kid Lunches
• Omnium - assisting with the community garden and science club
• Chick-Fil-A - donations of proceeds from Chick-Fli-A nights for student recognition
• Nestle-Purina - sponsor of Back-to-School Night and donations of juice and other food products for family events

We deeply appreciate your partnership with Lake Contrary Elementary. We strongly believe in school, family and community partnerships. Together we CAN educate each child for success!

Great News

Lake Contrary has been awarded a grant through the Youth Health Partnership to promote happy and healthy lives for our students. We will be installing a new kickball field and community garden this spring! This grant will be instrumental in connecting our families, students and school together in new and exciting ways. We look forward to the many great blessing this grant will bring to our school.

We need all types of volunteers including experienced gardeners! If you are interested please contact Nona Miller, our Family Involvement Coordinator at 671-4240.

Meet Mrs. Page

Mrs. Page teaches 2nd grade at Lake Contrary Elementary. She taught one year in the 5th grade and is currently in her second year as a 2nd grade teacher.

Mrs. Page was born in Kansas City, Missouri and has two younger brothers named James and Jarod. Growing up Mrs. Page moved every couple of years because her mom was active military in the Marine Corps. She has lived all over the United States and has a unique understanding of what it is like to be highly mobile while attending school.

Mrs. Page attended Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, majoring in Elementary Education. In 2010 she married her husband, Daren. They love living in St. Joseph with their two dogs!

You can visit Mrs. Page's classroom website at:  http://pageclass.webs.com/

Making a Difference

Years ago, when Mrs. Halloran taught 4th grade her students told her they could never be scientists. Since then she's made it her mission to bring science awareness and scientific careers to Lake Contrary students. Each year she coordinates the Lake Contrary Hometown Science Club. This science club is more than a club it is a state of the art science education opportunity, complete with guest speakers and on-site learning at various locations in St. Joseph.

Speakers include Native American Experts, entomologist, Shelly Cox from the Missouri Department of Conservation, forensic detective Thom Cates, Diane Jurchen from the Beekeeping Federation of America, meterologists Mike Bacciano and Justin Gesling, Susan Fisher geologist from the Environmental Protection Agency and Laurie Salanski the Executive Director of the Humane Society of St. Joseph. This year we will also learn from Dr. David Ashley a biologist at Missouri Western State University with a special visit from Dr. Morgan with the traveling Bio Technology Mobile Laboratory from MWSU as well. This lab is designed to travel to secondary school locations, Lake Contrary is the only elementary school that will get this opportunity!

Mrs. Halloran's Hometown Scientists' Club also tours the Remington Nature Center. There they speak to Mike and Andrea George about Native Americans and use of science in their daily lives.

As you can tell, this is a club unlike any other! Not only in its innovation but because it is coordinated by a dedicated teacher who believes that Lake Contrary students can accomplish anything! I can't wait for Lake Contrary alumni to come back and teach our next generation about careers in science!

PACT Community Engagement

February 7th and 14th from 6:00-8:00 are the Lake Contrary PACT building tours. Please join us!


Next week will also be a community wide PACT meeting at Central. Contact Connie, our secretary, to reserve a spot! See you there.

Destination Kindergarten: Staying Warm: Bring 'Snow Day' Fun Inside!!!

Destination Kindergarten: Staying Warm: Bring 'Snow Day' Fun Inside!!!: "According to WeatherStreet.com, our area has accumulated about 6 inches of snow over the past week. That sure doesn't sound like a lot..."

Destination Kindergarten: Algebra In Kindergarten? You Can't Be Serious!!

Destination Kindergarten: Algebra In Kindergarten? You Can't Be Serious!!: "So, what does math in Kindergarten look like? Parents should know that unlike the developmental stages of writing, math learning does ..."

Did You Know?

Did you know that Lake Contrary is the recipient of a Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Grant? This Missouri state grant is new to our school this year and allows us to offer fresh fruits and vegetables to our students as a snack two times a week. You might see students healthfully snacking during independent reading or while solving a math problem!

 Although our district serves fresh fruits and vegetables daily in school lunches, providing them as a snack allows students to try new foods and incorporate more healthy snacking into their diets. The kids love snacking on baby carrots, fresh pineapple, pears, and even broccoli! The cooks and teachers agree, students are eating foods at snack time they wouldn't even try in the cafeteria. This is great news because healthy eating habits have been linked to improved attention span, memory and academic performance in schools. Be sure to ask your child, "What snack did you have today?" They might just surprise you!

Writing Prompt Scoring

Our staff has completed a school wide scoring of a recent writing prompt. A writing prompt is when a student is asked to write about a given topic complete with quality organization, conventions, ideas, sentence fluency, word choice, and presentation (called the six writing traits.) Unlike when we were in school, teachers now look at various traits of quality writing not just proper spelling.

After teachers complete the scoring they will work in teams to use the data to make instructional decisions, provide interventions for struggling writers and share instructional strategies with other teachers. Our school completes a writing prompt three times per year to track progress of students and to teach each of the six writing traits listed above.

Pictured above is the writing cadre: Emily Auxier, Beth Gregory, Jennifer Duke and Amanda Saxton.

Message from the Nurse

I will be checking 6th grade girls for scoliosis in the the month of February. Letters have already gone home with students.

What is scoliosis? 

It is an abnormal curvature of the spine that can cause permanent health problems if not diagnosed and corrected at an early age. The earlier the diagnosis is made, the easier it is to treat. 

When are boys checked?

The boys will be checked in the 7th grade for this condition. 

Thank you for allowing me to keep your children happy and healthy!  

Jennifer Wineinger RN

Meet Ms. Brandie!

Meet Ms. Brandie! We are excited to introduce one new staff member a week on our new Lake Contrary blog!

This week we are introducing you to Ms. Brandie. She is not only a crossing guard and lunchroom supervisor but is a parent and PTA Secretary. She works hard to make sure our students are safe at lunch, safe crossing Alabama and learn to their most potential through her work with PTA. Just this week she even scooped a snow path for our students to cross Alabama safe and warm. Each year Ms. Brandie and her husband and PTA Treasurer, Brian, provide and work on our trailer for the Lake Contrary float in the Southside Fall Parade. We are so lucky to have caring parents and staff members like Ms. Brandie at Lake Contrary!

Chick-Fil-A Night

Reminder to all staff, students, parents and community members:
Chick-Fil-A Night is Tuesday, January 24th from 5:00 - 8:00. Simply tell the cashier that you are with Lake Contrary and a portion of sales will go to our school!

Congratulations!

Congratulations! Sarah Ryder, our 1st grade teacher was selected as KQ2's Teacher Who Makes a Difference. She is an excellent teacher who inspires her students to learn everyday. Ms. Ryder sends home weekly newsletters, student progress and behavior reports! She is always dedicated to teaching and learning by participating in professional development, tutoring after school and attending parent involvement activities.

She is a member of the vocabulary study team, leads our school's reading cadre, and is an active member of our Leadership Team. We are truly grateful for having such a caring, smart and talented staff member!