Calendar Dates
October 3
-BBQ Tickets and money due back to school
-PTO Dueling Pianos Night at Pine Hills (7:00-11:00 p.m.)
October 7
-BBQ Fundraiser Drive-thru (4:00-6:30 p.m.)
October 8
-PTO Meeting (5:30 p.m.)
October 10
-Teacher Institute Day (No School)
October 13
-Columbus Day (No School)
October 17
-Champion of the Charter Lunches
October 21
-Picture Retakes
-OES Board Meeting (6:00 p.m.)
October 28
-Fire Safety Presentations (during the school day)
October 31
-Half Day (dismissal at 11:30 a.m.)
-Parade (10:00 a.m.)
-Classroom parties immediately following the parade
Classroom Coin Challenge
Special Guest Lunches
McKinley School invites your child to have a special lunch guest join them during an assigned week of the month that is reserved for each grade level. If your child will have a lunch guest joining them to eat in the lunchroom, please call the school or send a note in the morning. Due to limited space in some lunches, we ask that only one guest at a time join the student for lunch. Lunch guests are welcome to eat the school lunch of the day or bring a sack lunch from home for themselves and your child. If the guest chooses to eat a school lunch, the cost of the meal will be $3.60 and can be paid to the office by cash or a check payable to OES. Please notify the office by 8:30 a.m. if the lunch guest plans to eat a school lunch that day. While in the lunchroom please do not share food as some students have food allergies. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding.
Please note that students are allowed 20 minutes in the lunchroom. Lunch guests are welcome to join the child during lunch, but will be dismissed once students go outside for recess. If a guest will be joining your child in the lunchroom they will be required to sign in at the office and present a photo ID. Alternatively, lunch guests may sign their child out at the office for the 40 minutes that combines lunch and recess, but the teacher or office must be notified if this individual does not have “pick-up” permissions in TeacherEase. Lunch guests will only be allowed to sign out their own child. If students leave the building with guests it is expected that they return from lunch on time.
Please observe the schedule listed below as lunch time at school is very busy. Your child’s classroom teacher will share more information/reminders as their assigned week gets closer.
October
10/20-10/24 - Holbert(10:55 a.m.), Baxter(11:25 a.m.), Jett(11:50 a.m.)
10/27-10/30 - Stewart(10:55 a.m.), A. Johnson(11:25 a.m.), Vincent(11:50 a.m.)
November
11/3-11/6 - Walker(10:55 a.m.), Munz(11:25 a.m.), K. Johnson(11:50 a.m.)
11/10-11/14 - Medina(10:55 a.m.), Bradish(11:25 a.m.), Buckingham(11:50 a.m.)
11/17-11/20 - Berryman(10:55 a.m.), Ferguson(11:25 a.m.), Elleson(11:50 a.m.)
December
12/1-12/5 - Sullivan(10:55 a.m.), Sauter(11:50 a.m.)
Halloween Day Information
On Halloween Day we will have students parade around the school in their costumes beginning at 10:00 a.m. (weather permitting). Parents are welcome to spread around the outside of the school along the sidewalks to view the parade. We ask that students adhere to the following guidelines with their costume: no make-up, no violence, no weapons, no blood/gore. Also, for safety reasons costumes should not be worn to school or on the bus. Please plan accordingly by sending costumes with your child in a separate bag or in their book bag. Classroom parties will begin immediately following the parade.
Also, for any classroom holiday parties we ask that you refrain from having any candy or food items in individual student treat bags. We appreciate your support and understanding.
Parent-Teacher Conferences
Parent-teacher conferences will be held on November 24 from 11:00 a.m. - 6:15 p.m. We will once again be using PTC Fast Conference Scheduler for online sign-ups. Online sign-ups be open from November 3-14. Additional information and the sign-up link will be shared with families as the date gets closer.
October Lunch Menu
PTO
We want to thank everyone for their support with the book fair! The kids had a lot of fun picking out their books and goodies. A huge thank you to the parent volunteers. We cannot do anything without you all!
Our Spirit wear sale is over. Hopefully everyone grabbed their gear for the school year.
COMING UP:
*Our Dueling Pianos night is Oct 3. You can still purchase tickets online or at the door the night of. It will be such a fun night out for the parents.
*We have our 5B’s BBQ drive thru on Oct 7th. If you haven’t purchased your tickets, there is still time.
*We are trying out something new! We will be selling Boggio’s donuts. The cost will be $15 per dozen and our PTO will receive $5 for each pack sold! Be on the lookout for a flyer to come home with your kids.
*Our next meeting we will begin talking about our Tis the Season raffle we hold every year.
*The PTO purchased gift cards for Mrs. Jett to use as raffles for the kids in the library at the end of each trimester. Make sure you bring your book back every week to get a chance at that.
We have plenty more to come and a lot of volunteer opportunities so be on the lookout for the google forms sent by the office.
Just a reminder…we want to make all of our events fun and a lot of them we cannot do without the wonderful families. We know things happen, so if you sign up to help and cannot make it, please let us know as soon as you can so we can so we can try and get someone to fill in. Also, the daddy/daughter dance and the mother/son game night are just that. We kindly ask that you refrain from bringing your entire family to these events. Thank you for your understanding!
We are ready to get this year going!
Our next PTO meeting of the school year will be held on Wednesday October 8th at 5:30 in the gym! Anyone is welcome to attend. This is where we keep everyone updated on the events coming up and you’re the first to know when we need volunteers!
We hope everyone has had a great start to the school year!
If you have any questions you can reach out to any of our board members or send us a message to the McKinley PTO Facebook page
DON’T FORGET…
-Like our Facebook page McKinley School PTO
-Save your Handy Foods receipts and send them into school. We can redeem these for gift cards to use for school events
-Join Kroger Community Rewards if you haven’t already. Select McKinley school as your organization to support and you can help our school just by grocery shopping!
-Download the box tops app and you can choose McKinley to be the recipient. It’s very easy!
Champion of the Charter
Congratulations to our September Champion of the Charter students! All of our Champions are invited to attend the October board meeting to be recognized. A big thank you to our Ottawa Jimmy John's for their donation of sandwiches to our students!
Kindergarten
Harry T., Karson K., Penelope W.
1st Grade
Fauna N., Stella S., Miles D.
2nd Grade
Charlotte W., Vivianna G-O., Moriah A.
3rd Grade
Trevor Y., Symone W., Josias T-T.
4th Grade
Ellie H., Raelynn H., Evelyne O.
Life Skills
Christian C., Ladanniale R., Vincent T.
Kindergarten
In Kindergarten, we are continuing to become more familiar with McKinley School and our routines. We are doing a great job following the rules for the hallway and also at finding our tables in the lunchroom.
In Reading, we are learning all of our letters and the sounds that they make. We are becoming familiar with a variety of activities geared towards helping students become awesome readers and writers. Some examples are letter matching activities, word puzzles, and listening to stories.
We are incredibly impressed with how well our students are catching on to story elements, such as characters, setting, plot, and tracking print. They are also becoming experts in understanding what nouns are and that not only that some are singular and some are plural, but that there are also common and proper nouns.
In Math, we are learning how to count, recognize and write numbers, sort, make patterns, and identify shapes. Our students are practicing manners, sharing, and cooperation while using all of the math manipulatives.
-Kindergarten Team
1st Grade
1st grade is in full swing! The students know the routine and we are able to see lots of learning happening. In math class, we are learning many strategies for addition facts. Students are choosing what works best for them and are practicing math facts for fluency on Extra Math on their iPads. We look forward to seeing their math fact fluency improve. Our new reading series is guiding us through interesting stories where we are learning all about reading comprehension skills. Our main focus is improving our reading skills through phonics instruction and practice. Our Social Studies unit has us learning about being a good citizen at home, at school, and in the community. Of course we are fitting in a lot of fun and are making good friends in our classrooms.
-1st Grade Team
2nd Grade
Second grade has been very busy getting into our curriculum, remembering our routines, and working hard to be respectful students! Our September is full of exciting events! We had our Rockstar Day. Students wrote a 'rocking' goal for the year, rock and rolled dice with friends, and created their own rockstar profile!
Within our read alouds, we discussed how to turn mistakes into something new, how to use a growth mindset to practice things we cannot do just 'yet', and how to include others who may feel left out. Students have learned power words, discussed the author's purpose and central ideas, and have practiced all the strategies to add and subtract.
Students will be wrapping up the month with their first "Friendship Friday" of the year! We can't wait to continue this fun event that 2nd graders do all together.
-2nd Grade Team
3rd Grade
It has been a busy month in 3rd grade! We are settling into our classroom routines. We did puzzles together as a team building activity. We have been reading some fun stories in our new reading series. We also introduced the students to "Flashlight Friday" reading with finger flashlights. In math, we began switching for instruction and are focusing on place value. Students are working hard with these new concepts. All third grade classes have unlocked their "Super Improver" wall and students are earning stickers to level up on the wall based on individual improvements that we notice throughout the school day. We have also had some fun with our Star Students and their guest readers!
-3rd Grade Team
4th Grade
September has been a busy month for 4th Grade. In Science, we are learning how to identify rocks and minerals. In reading, we are finishing reading a realistic fiction story called Fourth Grade Rats. We also started our new ELA series. We have read the stories "Flora and Ulysses" and "The Year of the Rat". We have also been working on many skills using ClassCraft. In math, we are finished learning about place value and have begun addition. We will begin switching math classes. In writing, we have been working hard on our narrative stories. Finally, we ended the month with a visit from Ameren.
-4th Grade Team
Life Skills
We're having a great month in Life Skills! We have been enjoying the beautiful weather, perfecting our schedule and routines and exploring new specials. We have been learning all about different animals, numbers, letters and shapes this year. We love Core Time with our wonderful Speech Pathologist too! The 2025-2026 School Year is off to a great start!
-Life Skills Team
D/HH
Deaf and Hard of Hearing month has been fantastic for us. We decorated the school with sign language posters and signs. We taught several classes about Deaf people and sign language. The kids are great teachers. We had visitors come and do presentations with us about hearing loss and Deafness. Our Fingerspelling game was such a big hit we decided to continue it for next month. We also went to the Book Fair. Our person of the month was Helen Keller. The kids loved learning about her and trying out tactile signing. They worked very hard on the first edition of the D/HH Times, which features a report about Miss Keller written by the students.
-D/HH Team
STEM
Kindergarteners have been learning about Simple Machine that is used in engineering and about apples so far within STEM class.
First Graders have been learning to tie their shoes and about bubbles so far within STEM class.
Second Graders have been learning about freezing and melting processes. Second graders have been learning to make popsicle soup, and will later learn to make homemade ice cream.
McKinley Third Graders have been learning about how to engineer different types of structures based off of the Three Little Pigs story.
McKinley Fourth Graders have been learning about different types of rocks and will later make their own pet rock.
-Mr. Grommon
