Calendar Dates
November 3
-PTC Conference Scheduler opens
November 6
-End of Trimester 1
November 7
-No School (Teacher Institute)
November 10
-Veterans Day Program (9:00 a.m.)
November 12
-PTO Meeting (5:30 p.m.)
November 14
-Kindness Day/Trimester 1 Celebration
-Report cards distributed
-PTC Conference Scheduler closes
November 18
-OES Board Meeting (6:00 p.m.)
November 21
-Half Day (dismissal at 11:30 a.m.)
November 24
-No School
-Parent-Teacher Conferences (11:00 a.m. - 6:15 p.m.)
November 25-28
-No School
-Have a great Thanksgiving Break!
November Breakfast and Lunch Menu
Veterans Day Program
We will be having our Veterans Day Program on Monday, November 10th at 9:00 a.m. and would like to invite veterans who are related to our students. Please call the school office (815-433-1907) by Wednesday, November 5th and give us the name of the veteran attending, the branch of the military he/she served in, and the name(s) of the students at McKinley they are related to. Veterans should plan on arriving at 8:40 a.m. to check in at the office and have their driver’s license scanned. Due to limited space, we can only invite veterans to attend this program as we honor and thank them for their service. All students are invited to wear red, white, and blue on Monday, November 10th to show their support.
Kindness Day/Trimester 1 Celebration
Parent-Teacher Conferences
Parent-teacher conferences will be held on Monday, November 24th from 11:00 a.m. - 6:15 p.m. Included below is McKinley's conference sign-up link that will go live on Monday, November 3rd and will close on Friday, November 14th. Conferences will be held in-person or via google meet. If you would like to meet with your child's teacher via google meet you can request this under the "special request" portion of the sign-up process. Teachers will then send you a google meet link once the conference date gets closer. A parent email must be used when signing up for conferences. Please sign up for a time to meet with your child's classroom teacher and if you have any questions feel free to contact your child's teacher or the school office.
https://ptcfast.com/schools/McKinley_Elementary_School
PTO
Happy November!
We had a wonderful turnout for the 5 B’s BBQ dinner! We made over $3000!
We also had an amazing Boggio’s donut sale! For the first time doing it, we were so happy with how well it did!
This month we will be starting our Tis the Season Raffle. Tickets will be sent home before Thanksgiving break.
On conference day the PTO will be selling tickets to win VIP seats at the winter concert. Be sure to bring some cash. The seats will be marked off for you.
Our next meeting will be on Wednesday November 12th at 5:30 in the gym. Everyone is welcome to attend!
There will be some volunteer opportunities in December so watch for info coming out for that!
We hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!
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!
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!
Student Council
Thank you again to all of the families who sent in socks for Sock-tober! Our student council was able to collect many pairs of new socks to give to the PADS shelter just in time for colder weather. We are McKinley proud to be able to help the community and are looking forward to future projects!
-Student Council
Champion of the Charter
Congratulations to our October Champion of the Charter students! All of our Champions are invited to attend the November board meeting to be recognized. A big thank you to our Ottawa Jimmy John's for their donation of sandwiches to our students!
Kindergarten
Jaclyn J., Lily B., Zeplyn C.
1st Grade
Giovanni K.-S., Jude J., Delilah H.
2nd Grade
Madelyn W., Brinley S., Ryver K.
3rd Grade
Elliot C., Gracen S., Juliette S.
4th Grade
Kylie D., Lily M., Owen K.
Life Skills
Liam D., Thomas J., Ronan M.
Kindergarten
This month in Kindergarten we learned about bats, spiders, and pumpkins. Everyone enjoyed learning about these fun topics and participating in some science and math activities.
In Math we worked on comparing and writing numbers that were less than/greater than/equal to each other. We also practiced our graphing skills, and learned some of our ordinal numbers.
The firefighters were here to observe our October fire drill and also to give a fire prevention presentation. In addition, we were able to visit the fire station. Students learned a lot about staying safe around fire and about what to do in the case of a house fire.
-Kindergarten Team
1st Grade
We can’t believe how quickly the school year is moving along! First graders enjoy earning red tickets by having good behavior to exchange for fun things like a visit with our therapy dog, Daisy! We are researching animals to learn how to write an ‘All About’ book. Students are getting so much better at writing complete sentences. We are looking forward to reading their books. Jacob Grant, an Illinois Author, came and shared how he wrote and illustrated his books. Students enjoyed following his directions to become illustrators themselves. Some of our families were able to also see him at this year’s Literacy Night at Jefferson School.
-1st Grade Team
2nd Grade
2nd Grade has been busy learning so much this past month! In a variety of subjects, our HMH modules focused on solids, liquids, and gases. Students learned the difference among the three, how they related to real-life situations, and how they tie into various things we see daily.
Our focus in math has been working with place value. We have practiced skip counting, comparing numbers, ordering numbers, and showing numbers in expanded form.
We are looking forward to a week of fun activities for Halloween. We will be celebrating Pumpkin Day--a day for second grade to do all sorts of fun things related to pumpkins.
Last but not least, we had our 2nd Friendship Friday, where we learned all about how to make a friendship spell, write pump-UP OTHERS-kin grams, and discussed all sorts of things that relate to a good friend.
-2nd Grade Team
3rd Grade
It has been an exciting month in 3rd grade! In social studies and science, we learned all about why leaves change colors in the fall and even went on a nature walk to find various kinds of leaves. In math, we wrapped up our addition and subtraction units and celebrated how much our math skills have grown. In reading, we explored poetry and realistic fiction stories, discussing what makes each type of writing unique. In writing we finished our writing unit on friendly letters. Overall It’s been a busy and fun month!
-3rd Grade Team
4th Grade
October has been a memorable month in 4th grade! Students enjoyed learning all about pumpkins during our Ag in the Classroom visit and taking a step back in time at the Little Red Schoolhouse. In Social Studies, we began exploring the U.S. regions, starting with the Northeast. In Reading, we’ve been diving into literary elements such as author’s craft, plot, theme, and synthesizing. In Math, we wrapped up our subtraction unit and are gearing up to begin multiplication. In Writing, students have started planning their opinion essays. We’re looking forward to all the fun and learning that November will bring!
-4th Grade Team
Life Skills
McKinley Life Skills classes have been having so much fun exploring all things fall. We've been learning all about pumpkins, nocturnal animals, and how to trick or treat. We cannot wait for Halloween and our end of trimester Core Word celebration. We are looking forward to honoring all that we have learned so far this year!
-Life Skills Team
D/HH
This month we studied Nellie Zabel Willhite, who was the first Deaf pilot. She is our featured person in our newsletter. The students wrote an article discussing Nellie's life and her contributions to Deaf Culture. We went hiking at Matthiessen State Park and found some great examples of Fall changes. We found a caterpillar that will become a moth. We also went for our annual hearing test. The kids were able to learn how the testing is done and even got to test me.
-D/HH Team
P.E.
The K-2 P.E. classes have been learning about bowling. We discuss the importance of proper bowling form such as stepping with the correct foot and changing levels. We eventually turn off the lights and have a pretty awesome time with a light show. The 3-4 classes are participating in cooperative and team-building activities. These activities include rock, paper scissors showdown and tic tac toe relays. The skills used in these games help develop social awareness as well locomotor and eye hand coordination.
-Mr. Ummel
