Leawood Holiday Support and Opportunities to Give
Leawood has several resources during the holidays for families experiencing financial hardship. If you're family would benefit from this support, please complete this confidential form: Leawood Holiday Support Form
If you or your family is in a position to give, please stop by Leawood between December 1st and December 10th and take an ornament off of our Giving Tree in the front lobby. Please return all gift cards and unwrapped gifts, with the ornament you took attached, to the Leawood Office by December 13th. Your contributions are appreciated greatly by our Leawood community!
For questions, please contact Jennifer Magri at (303) 982-4765 or jennifer.magri@jeffco.k12.co.us
Thanks to everyone who so generously donated to the Action Center Toy Drive. They collected over 300 toys!
We hear more and more from parents requesting support with social-emotional and behavioral issues with their children. We are thankful at Leawood to have 2 social workers, Mrs Magri and Miss Chloe. They have created this amazing website to support our families. Check it out using the link to the right or at the bottom of each newsletter page.
Why do we have assessment day in December?
The beginning of December provides an opportunity for teachers to pause and assess what students have mastered. After finishing the first trimester, teachers provide students opportunities to demonstrate how their skills have grown since the beginning of the year. Assessments like Acadience (Dibels) and MAP provide individual and whole class data shortly after administration. This quick turnaround allows teachers to plan timely whole group and small group lessons based on student growth and achievement. At Leawood, since we only have one day in December, we're not able to assess all students on that day. Many times, some students are able to complete the assessment during the regular school day. If your teacher requests your student to sing up for a time on Monday, December 13, please make sure your student comes to their assessment time rested and ready to show their learning. Carefully read teacher communication about additional testing that might occur during the regular school days. If you have any additional questions feel free to reach out to me, Jamie Kelley-instructional coach, at jakelley@jeffco.k12.co.us.
Hour of Code December 6-12
In the month of December, all Leawood students will engage in some activities connected to Hour of Code, but it does not have to stop there. Introduce your child to computer science by trying an Hour of Code! Studies show- children who study computer science perform better in other subjects, excel at problem-solving, and are 17% more likely to enroll in college. Together, we can inspire kids to learn, break stereotypes, and help children discover a newfound interest. Best of all, it’s simple to do the Hour of Code - even for beginners. Here is a link to activities that you as a family can engage in for fun.
CogAT Family Information Night
The district is offering a webinar about understanding the CogAT Assessment for Families on Wednesday, December 8, 2021. It will be virtual from 6:30-8:30.
For more information and to RSVP see this webpage: https://tinyurl.com/uwj72yzz
Jamie Kelley
Instructional Coach
"Discover, Inspire, and Grow Together" Leawood Elementary
Pop Tops
5th grade will once again start collecting pop tops after the first of the year. All the pop tops are given to the Ronald McDonald House to help support their monthly overhead expenses. During this holiday season, please start a jar to collect them in, and I will let you know when to start sending them into school. Thank you, Mrs. Story
Garden Update
The Columbine Roots Garden is looking for help! Leawood still has all the custom bricks that were purchased by our community, and we intend to build a round tree ring in the west area by the stage. Anyone with masonry experience, we need your help on a warm December day. Lots of other projects and ideas for the spring. We will also be starting a garden art club, so look out for information on that. The Green Team is looking for teachers and parents who would like to be involved in the garden. Only small amounts of time are needed plus a few meetings a year to brainstorm. If you are interested, please contact Kelsey Leu at Kelsey.Leu@jeffco.k12.co.us
From the Library
Dear Families,
For the past year and a half, Jefferson County Schools has provided families with the ability to monitor and control their student’s internet and app activity on district devices at home using the free SecurlyHome app.
Once you create a parent account, you will have a real-time view of your child's activity on their school device. You will also get a weekly email from Securly with a snapshot report of that activity and will be able to check your student’s internet activity anytime during the day.
Keep in mind that no web filter is perfect and there is the risk of inappropriate content making its way through the filter. Securly does catch and filter a majority of traffic categorized as pornography, drugs, and gambling. However, active monitoring while communicating your expectations and boundaries clearly with your children is the best way to keep them safe online. Our hope is that the SecurlyHome app will help you in this process.
For more information, visit our district website page, read the SecurlyHome App Getting Started Guide, or watch this SecurlyHome for Families slide presentation. If you have questions, please contact our TechForEd School Lead, Lisa Pepper. lisa.pepper@jeffco.k12.co.us .
SEL News
This month while students finish the bullying prevention unit of second step we will also be examining social thinking using a game called “Should I? or Shouldn’t I?”
Should I? or Shouldn’t I? is a game which utilizes perspective taking and explores social behaviors form different peoples viewpoints. Perspective taking is the ability to consider the thoughts, feelings, and reactions of others as well as one’s self. It means you can think about others and then control your behavior so that others maintain a positive or neutral thoughts about you.
The basic component of this game is a social behavior scale, a tool that helps us all to have a common language around social thinking. The behavior scale has a five component format which is intended to be used ages 8 and older.
5- Behaviors that are against the rules
4- Behaviors that make others feel annoyed
3- Behaviors that make others have weird thoughts
2-Behaviors that are fine or okay
1-Behaviors that make others have good thoughts
This game is advanced for students ages 4-7 and therefore will be utilized only if there is extra time during SEL lessons. Though this is advanced for younger students you may be surprised at how many students are able to pick this up. Try this with your younger students to help begin to develop social thinking as a skill.
For more information, feel free to reach out to me, Chloe Shaw, at Chloe.Shaw@jeffco.k12.co.us
ART NEWS
Thank you for your support of Leawood’s Night of the Arts
Wow! What a fantastic night - Thank you for your support! The best part of the night was seeing the kids light up with pride, showing off their artwork to their friends and family. I am proud to be a part of a school that models to our kids that we value their creativity and artistic risk-taking. Elliot Eisner said in his book, Arts and the Creation of the Mind, “The arts' position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young what adults BELIEVE is IMPORTANT”. None of this would be possible without the support from the whole Leawood community. Thank you to all the parents who came to help mat and hang artwork - especially Amy Buteyn, Deborah Martinez, Jamie Pallas and Amber Martin. Thank you to all the teachers that let me into their classrooms, keep their students a little longer or allow them to finish their work in their classrooms and even lend me students to help out. Finally, thank you to our fearless leader, Martha, who said yes and let me run with all my crazy ideas!
