MARCH From Our Teachers
Leawood Elementary School
Valentines Sales were a ginormous success! 3rd Grade is proud to announce that we have raised $724 in the two weeks that we were open! None of this would have happened without the support of the amazing families across the school so from all of Third Grade... THANK YOU!
Plans are being in place for ordering a Giant Jenga, Giant Checkers, Outdoor Giant Legos, and a nice chair for the library. Again, many thanks for the support.
Ryan Boogert & Ashley Bole, 3rd Grade Teachers
Art News
JEFFCO ELEMENTARY ART SHOW
Congratulations to the students who represented Leawood at the Annual Jeffco Elementary Art Show at Red Rocks Community College! These students demonstrated creativity, craftsmanship and a strong understanding of our learning targets, well done!
CLICK HERE to see the names of the students who represented Leawood.
Social-Emotional Learning:
Happy March! Once again, my name is Melissa Bushmann, and I am Leawood’s Social Emotional Learning Specialist. I teach as well as collaborate with classroom teachers and Leawood’s full-time Social Worker, Jennifer Magri, to implement Second Step, our school’s social-emotional curriculum that builds skills for learning, empathy, emotion management, and problem solving.
Here are the most recent skills your child has been working on:
Preschool: Calming down strong feelings with belly breathing (Put your hands on your belly saying stop, name your feeling, slow belly breathing)
Kindergarten: Solving Problems with the Problem Solving Steps (1. Say the problem, 2. Think of Solutions, 3. Explore Consequences, 4. Pick the best solution)
First: Identifying Feelings in your Body by looking for physical clues you might have
Second: Calming down strong feelings with strategies (slow belly breathing, counting, or positive self-talk)
Third: Calming down strong feelings with strategies (slow belly breathing, counting, or positive self-talk)
Fourth: Using three-step plans to solve problems with complicated solutions
Fifth: Calming down strong feelings with strategies (slow belly breathing, counting, or positive self-talk)
A great way to learn more about what your child is learning in Second Step is to ask them questions about what skills they are learning, why they might be important, and create some open space for both of you to share your thoughts with each other. You might ask, “Why or when might this skill be important at school? at home?” Or you could ask, “How could this skill help you learn and/or make friends?” If you have any questions about your child’s social-emotional learning, please feel free to reach out to your child’s classroom teacher or myself.
Thanks for all you do to support your child’s social-emotional wellness!
Melissa Bushmann (Ms. Melissa)
Social Emotional Learning Specialist
From the Library
Thank you to the many families who visited our spring book fair. It was nice to see so many children excited about reading! We had a great turnout, and were able to purchase many new books for our library with the proceeds.
Mrs. Pepper, lisa.pepper@jeffco.k12.co.us
The 5th grade Pop Top Club is in full swing. Please send in your pop tops to your student’s class, as there is a contest again this year. All pop tops are donated to The Ronald McDonald House in Denver to continue their great work of helping children and families.
From the Instructional Coach
Hello Leawood Elementary! My name is Jamie Kelley and I joined Leawood this fall as the part-time instructional coach. I was a classroom teacher for almost ten years and a coach for over five years. My main role this year has been working teachers during extended planning to develop a school wide professional learning community or PLC.
This year, the Leawood professional learning community (PLC) has been focusing on reading instruction. Teachers are using the extended planning time to dig into standards to ensure all students are learning the priority standards. As teams, teachers are creating and using grade level common assessments. Then as a team, we are analyzing the data to design additional support or extensions for students as necessary.
Please do not hesitate to reach out to me if you have questions about curriculum or resources we use in the building. I look forward to hearing from you! Jamie.Kelley@jeffco.k12.co.us
From the 4th Grade
Fourth graders have had fun in 2 interactive in-school field trips in January and February. Colorado History was the focus for both of these programs. The first, Building Colorado, had students help create new towns in Colorado through making important decisions that had many rewards and consequences. The 2nd program, Exploration and Survival, had students use primary and secondary sources, along with artifacts/replicas, to explore the lives of miners, indigenous people, fur trappers, and pioneers. This helped students to gain a greater understanding of what life was like in early Colorado.