Letters from Limestone Walters

May 2nd: D&D Club 2:40pm-3:40pm & PTO Meeting @7pm

May 3rd: House Competition, House Council Meeting 2:40pm-3:40pm & Kiwanis Banquet @6:30pm

May 4th: Spring Band & Choir Concert @6pm

May 5th: House Spirit Day: Hawaiian Day

May 8th: NO SCHOOL!

May 9th: Honor Banquet @5:30pm at American Legion

May 10th: D&D Club 2:40pm-3:40pm

May 12th: Wheel Spin Day and K-4 Grandparents Day 10:30am-12pm

May 15th: NO SCHOOL! Sports Banquet @5:30pm at Raber Packing Co.

May 16th: 8th Grade Class Trip

May 17th: First Grade Pen Pal Trip, Kindergarten & 3rd Grade Buddy Trip & 8th Grade Graduation @6pm

May 19th: End of Quarter 4, 5th Grade AM Field Trip, & K-4th Field Trip

May 21st: LW Cookies and Bookies Book Club @6pm (see below)

May 22nd: NO SCHOOL! Board Meeting @6pm

May 23rd: Field Day

May 24th: Field Day RAIN DATE

May 25th: 1st-7th Awards Day @8:30am & Last Day of School! Students dismissed @11:20am

May 26th: Teacher Institute

May's Cookie and Bookie

Cookie: Top Secret Chocolate Cookie

Bookie: No Monkeys, No Chocolate by Melissa Stewart and Allen Young

Everyone loves chocolate, right? But how many people actually know where chocolate comes from? How it’s made? Or that monkeys do their part to help this delicious sweet exist?

This delectable dessert comes from cocoa beans, which grow on cocoa trees in tropical rain forests. But those trees couldn’t survive without the help of a menagerie of rain forest critters. They all pitch in to help the cocoa tree survive.

ZOOM Read Aloud Event will be Sunday, May 21st @6pm.

Fill out the form below by Monday, May 15th to be emailed the link AND ensure you receive your cookie on Friday, May 19th

Thank you to all of the wonderful teachers here at Limestone Walters. We appreciate all that you do day in and day out to ensure our students are on the path to become life long learners. We are so lucky to have you!

We want to welcome our newest board members who were sworn in at the meeting last night: Casey Ehlers, Erika Neal, Joseph Dicce, and Noah Durham! During the reorganizational meeting they also voted on new officers:

President: Nate Hurn

Secretary: Casey Ehlers

Vice President: Barry Campen

Congratulations and welcome to the LW Board of Education! We are looking forward to partnering with you as we continue to make LW the place to be!

We also want to recognize our retiring board members: Jeff Stear, Ken Herz, Matt Maher, and Shannen Myers. Combined these members had 60 years of service to our Board of Education. Thank you for your dedication to our school and for putting kids at the heart of decisions.

Our awards day will be May 25th at 8:30am. Parents are more than welcome to attend. If you drop off your student in the morning, we ask that you wait until 8:15am before entering the building.

We appreciate your continued efforts with this process. We still need your help with the following:

• Remember you can drop your child off starting at 7:25am and students are considered tardy after 7:55am

• Please continue to follow the cones all the way to back of the lot vs. cutting across the parking lot. This just helps maintain our flow and ensure safety for all.

• Please pull all the way up and/or as close as you can to either first cone and/or next vehicle
  

• Have your child ready to exit the vehicle by the time you enter the white box/drop off zone

• We need to have your child exit the vehicle anywhere within the white box on the arrival map picture vs. waiting to be right up by the main doors.

Please make sure you are communicating transportation changes with your child's classroom teacher AND the office. This makes sure that in case someone is absent more than one person have received the message and we can get your child where they need to be. Calling these in prior to 2pm also helps so we know prior to dismissal.

As a reminder we will not have school on the following Mondays: May 8, 15, & 22. These were originally built in emergency days. Since we did not need to use these enjoy some three day weekends!

We have exciting curriculum news! On Monday, April 24th, the Board of Education approved the following:

• Social Studies curriculum from McGraw Hill for grades 4th-8th
• World Book Research Database for K-8 renewal
• SMARTS Executive Functions Curriculum for 6th Grade

I've included the flyer highlighting these programs below. One of the exciting pieces to our social studies curriculum is that the CASEL Framework for social emotional learning is the same framework that is integrated into our literacy series. This building wide common language is a key piece that will lead to stronger student application. We are also very excited about offering executive functions skills to our 6th graders as they transition to all things junior high and take on new academic challenges.

These opportunities help us to ensure our students leave as kind leaders, deep thinkers, strong communicators, and empowered citizens. LW truly is the place to be and I'm excited for what next year has to offer our students.

Into Reading K-6

This month, K-6 students will be starting/continuing with module 8 and beginning module 9 at various time depending on the class. Below you will find two graphics that share grade levels essential questions and the social emotional/learning mindset focus.

May 2nd: Home Meet @3:30pm

May 6th: Sectionals TBA

May 12th-13th: State Track Meet @Eastside TBA

Summer Food Service Program and Seamless Summer Option sponsors can use No Kid Hungry’s new Summer Meals Outreach to promote meals in their community.

No Kid Hungry’s summer texting hotline has a new number. You can text FOOD or COMIDA to 304-304 during the summer months to find a site near you with free meals for children 18 and younger. The old texting number, 877-877, is being phased out and currently instructs individuals to text 304-304 instead.

To find free meals, families can also call (800) 359-2163, which is staffed by the Illinois Hunger Coalition. Or they can visit SummerMealsIllinois.org, where you can use the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Summer Meals Site Finder.

Lunch time read alouds are one of my favorite ways to build a culture of readers here at LW. On Wednesdays, I read picture books to all K-4th grade students and on Friday's I read the first chapter of a novel to all 5th-8th graders.

Readers thrive when they are surrounded by a supportive reading community which gave me the idea of a Book Wishes Amazon Wish List. This will help with getting even more books into classrooms as well as provide family and friends, who may not live directly within our community, an opportunity to donate as well.

I pour over book blogs and websites, reach out to fellow educators, and grab titles as I read too. I used these resources to carefully curate a selection of books that cover a wide variety of ages, genres, topics, themes, etc. I then added these titles to our #LWRocketsRead book wishes list on Amazon. Your purchase means it will be shipped directly to the school, find its way into the classroom, and have a label with who donated it! Please make sure to include your name when purchasing.

The first 9 books listed are from our Book Club and would go to our school Library. Next are first chapter books and then picture books are more toward the bottom of the wish list.

The number requested lets you know what grades it will be for:

For chapter books:

2: 5th-8th

1: 7th-8th

For picture books:

5: for all classrooms K-4

3: for K-2 classrooms

2: for 3-4 classrooms

1: for our school library (Book Club Books)

If you are interested in donating please click the link below. Please feel free to share our with family and friends! I can't wait to see where our farthest book comes from.

Our PTO will meet Tuesday, May 2nd @7pm. This is a great way to get involved in fundraisers and activities that support our school. If in person doesn't work for you, they also have a virtual Zoom option. The links are always emailed out via TeacherEase closer to the date.

Several volunteers will be needed to help with prep work and installation of our new playground. Installation will be happening in July, on a Saturday, so please try to keep your schedules open. Please also stay tuned as we will be sending out sign ups and an actual firm date soon!

Remember

I remember swinging with 3rd-4th graders at recess, having math conversations with 8th graders in the hallway, and putting things learned at the SEL collaborative into practice.

Gratitude

I'm grateful for sunshine, book chats, and my new corner of calm down tools in my office.

Goals

• prep for end of year banquets and graduation
• work on LW Master schedule for 2023-2024 school year
• soak up and savor the final moments of the 2022-2023 school year

~Mrs. Stefanie Pitzer, Principal

Email: spitzer@limestonewalters.com
Website: https://www.limestonewalters.com/
Location: 8223 West Smithville Road, Peoria, IL, USA
Phone: 309-697-3035
Facebook: facebook.com/LWrockets316
Twitter: @lwrockets