cheetah chatter

VOLUME 9, ISSUE 1 OCTOBER 2014
CHEETAH CHATTER
A quarterly publication for students, parents, family and staff at Chapel Lakes Elementary
Family Fun at our PTA sponsored events!!
Clockwise from top left: Family Fun Night, Walk to School Day, Donuts with Dads, Special Person’s Day
PRINCIPAL’S POST
CHEETAH CHATTER | Page 2 | OCTOBER 2014
Chapel Lakes Families,
We have had a great first quarter here at CLE and I want to send out a special thank you to
CLE PTA for organizing so many fun events. We are very fortunate to have such a supportive
PTA and so many parents engaged in their child’s learning. As we head into Parent-Teacher
Conferences I encourage everyone to take advantage of the opportunity to meet with your
child’s teacher. Conferences are a great time to discuss individual goals for your children. We
appreciate your partnership as we work to meet the needs of each CLE student.
As we head into colder weather, I would like to review the arrival and dismissal routine. Please
remember the North driveway is for dropping off and picking up students who are car riders
and the West driveway/parking lot is reserved for our buses. We appreciate your help in keeping our West bus lane free from cars during dismissal. Also, we do not have staff members to
supervise students prior to 9:00 a.m. so please plan accordingly. This is especially important for
our students who walk to school. Please make sure to coordinate arriving no sooner than 9:00
a.m.
As we progress through this school year, do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher, Mrs.
White, or myself with any questions, concerns, or suggestions. Together, we will make this a
terrific school for all Chapel Lakes students.
Sincerely,
Bryce Johnson, Principal
Calling all Cheetahs!
The PTA Reflections Program is a
wonderful opportunity for students
to show off their creative talents and
to be recognized locally and nationally. The 2014 Reflections theme is
“The world would be a better place
if...” There are six categories: dance
choreography, musical composition,
film production, photography, visual
arts and literature. Entries are due to
Mrs. Poff on or before Fri, Nov. 7.
Annual Fund Update
On behalf of Dr. Johnson, Mrs. White, teachers, support staff and the PTA, we sould like
to give a huge THANK YOU to everyone that
contributed to our Annual Fund! Because of
you, we have exceeded our goal of $18,000.
This money will be allocated towards various
needs, activities and grants throughout the
2014-2015 school year. We could not have
done it without our amazing CLE families!
In November, 4th graders will take a day trip
to visit our state capitol, Jefferson City. They
will take a tour of the capitol, and see how
government works, and learn a bit of history.
The children at CLE have already benefited
from your contributions to the Annual
Fund. They’ve been busy celebrating the fall
season, being exposed to cultural arts, learning our American history, and even learning
how to manage money.
Along with the field trips, the fund also supports our Carnival, teacher luncheons, Family Fun Night, Special Persons’ Day, Fall Party,
Donuts with Dad, Red Ribbon Week, and
Trunk or Treat.
In the month of September, our 4th grade
class went on a trip to visit the American
Jazz Museum where they learned about the
origins of jazz, instruments and famous jazz
musicians. In addition, they also toured the
Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, where
they weren’t just exposed to the history of
baseball, but also the trials and conflicts the
league overcame.
For rules or more info, contact Becky
Lisner at [email protected].
“KIND” CLASSY
CATS FOR
SEPTEMBER
K
2nd grade recently spent a fun filled day at
the Kansas City Zoo exploring and learning
about amazing animals!
Thank you again for all your support. We
look forward to sharing about future events
that your children will be attending this year
through the Annual Fund.
Jaime Shamo
CLE PTA Fundraising Chair
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
Sydney Neff
Kylahna Smith
Darryl Wesley
Bailey Baier
Ava Goeckler
Dimerra Adams
Maloree Huckaby
Charley Bellamy
Benjamin Neece
Ava Jenkins
Emma Corbett
Emma Polen
Onjale Circuitt
Violetta Lamb
Alex Tripp
Ashlen Roberts
Meredith Flynn
Aidan Thompson
Daniel Carmack
Joe Corbett
Jordan Riley
Jack Brewer
Dilynn Jones
Ashely Cooper
CHEETAH CHATTER | Page 3 | OCTOBER 2014
PTA CALENDAR
PRESIDENT’S REPORT
Dear Parents, Teachers and
Students,
School is off to a great start so far
this year! I am happy to be your
new PTA President at Chapel
Lakes. I would like to give a
heartfelt “Thank You” to everyone
that participated in this year’s PTA
Annual Fund. I am thrilled to announce that we have met our
goal for this year. Because of
your generous donations to this
fund, we will be able to continue
to provide activities such as Carnival, Trunk or Treat, Donuts with
Dads and Muffins with Moms, as
well as field trips, technology and
grants for our teachers to purchase items for their classrooms.
greatly appreciated
for all of
your efforts!
I am excited for the
many upcoming events that our
students continually look forward
to each year including, Trunk or
Treat, Fall Classroom Parties, and
Santa Secret Shop.
I look forward to getting the opportunity to visit and work with
you all over the next few months
and to another successful school
year at Chapel Lakes!
Have a wonderful holiday seaI have enjoyed getting to meet so son!
many of our families at school
and having the opportunity to
Sincerely,
work with all of you that have
Kristen Svoboda
taken time to volunteer for the
PTA President
PTA events we have held so far.
[email protected]
It has been a very busy beginning
of the year at school for PTA and
we could not do it without the
support from all of you. Your
time is very valuable and you are
November
7— Fall Party
19— Teacher Appreciation
Luncheon, 1st Grade
20— PTA Board Meeting,
6 p.m./Unit Meeting 7 p.m.
26-28—No School,
Thanksgiving Holiday
December
11-12—Santa Shop
17— Teacher Appreciation
Luncheon, Kindergarten
19— PTA Board Meeting,
6 p.m./ Unit Meeting & 7 p.m.
22-31—No School, Winter Break begins
January
1-3—No School
15— Math and Science Night, 6pm
19—No School
21—Teacher Appreciation
Luncheon, 5th grade
Congrats to our Great Bus
Riders for the 1st Quarter!
Gannon Grieb
Grace Johnson
Alaina McClanahan
Kendall Morris
Ellie Price
Rylee Reece
Paige Thielen
Bus #30
Bus #50
Bus #126
Bus #61
Bus #68
Bus #34
Bus #37
Remember to save your
Box Tops!
Staff, parents and students from the CLE Cheetahs on the Run Club participated
in the KC Hunger Run 5K held at Unity Village. Congrats to them on a win over
Voy Spears! A donation was made to our PTA on behalf of the KC Hunger Run!
Here’s an easy way to raise funds for
our school! Earn cash for CLE by clipping Box Tops coupons from hundreds
of participating products from cereal to
Ziploc bags. Simply send them in to
your child’s teacher. It’s that easy!
CHEETAH CHATTER | Page 4 | OCTOBER 2014
Kindergarten
We are off to a GREAT start in Kindergarten! We are really enjoying being a
bid kid and going to school all day!
In Pathways, we have worked hard to
learn all of our upper and lowercase
letters. We also have learned two vowel sounds and ten consonant sounds.
We will continue working hard to learn
the rest of our vowel and consonant
sounds!
own books already and look forward
to making more. We enjoyed doing
an author study and learning about
Kevin Henkes.
We have covered many math topics
already this year. Rote counting,
counting with 1-1 correspondence,
writing numbers to 10, 2-D shape
identification, and composing shapes.
We are busy becoming mathematicians!
In science we have discussed the life
cycle of a butterfly, and were able to
watch life science happen right before
our eyes. We have talked a little bit
about plants through our study of apples. We are always trying to be inquis-
In reading we have set up our Reader’s
Kindergarteners made these fun hats as part of
Workshop routines and are learning
what good readers do. We have intro- their lesson on Johnny Appleseed this fall.
duced the reading strategy, schema
and the kids have done a great job making connections to text
itive, just like a scientist!
and themselves. We are excited to learn to read!
In social studies we have talked about ourselves, our families, and
Writing can be tricky at times, but we are having so much fun
even our community. We have talked about citizenship and how
learning what, how, and why writers write. We have made our
important it is to be a good citizen at school and in our classroom!
1st Grade
Starting our year was exciting! Thanks to PTA for such great beginning of the year events such as Donuts with Dads, book fair and the
tailgating celebration. We all spent a large portion of 1st quarter getting to know each other and learning expectations for first grade.
Writing sentences has been top priority in our classrooms. Understanding that a sentence always needs a capital letter, spaces, and
punctuation is a concept we are working hard at. We have created a few books and have been focusing on our illustrations, since we
have been doing an illustration study.
In reading we have started our set up of reader’s workshop and are learning what good readers do. We are also stretching our brains to
learn all about letters and sounds and putting them altogether to form words. Learning how to read is hard work! We have also begun
studying all the story elements.
We are busy becoming mathematicians! We have been working on reading numbers to 120, writing numbers to 120, and ordering
numbers to 120. First grade has studied place value and are learning all about how and why digits have a value.
In social studies we have learned about citizenship and democracy in the set up of our classrooms. Citizenship is a skill that we will discuss all school year.
We are looking forward to a great 2nd quarter in first grade!
CHEETAH CHATTER | Page 5 | OCTOBER 2014
2nd Grade
The second graders have really started off with a blast! We
have been learning about fables and folktales and have moved
on to studying non-fiction texts. We created our own animal
projects and had a wonderful field trip to the zoo! We got to
interview our fourth grade buddies and have several activities
planned throughout the year. Grandparent/Special Person’s
Day was really exciting and we got to share our student
books and stories with our Special visitor.
We are looking forward to showing what we have learned in
our classrooms in our first quarter assessments!
3rd Grade
We cannot believe how quickly this year is flying by. It must be
true, “Time flies when you are having fun!”
Third grade ended 1st quarter with their Disney Dazzle program.
Mrs. Price complimented them on how well they performed. We
all agreed, after watching them perform, they truly were DAZZLING! The kids loved performing their favorite Disney songs for
the audience.
We enjoyed Special Person’s Day and Donuts with Dads at CLE. It
was wonderful to meet all the families and get to know our 3rd
graders a little bit better.
PTA helped the third grade teachers purchase a subscription to
Raz-Kids. It is a site that allows students to practice their reading
skills on line. We are incorporating these lessons in our classroom,
but encourage them to use this site at home too.
We have enjoyed getting together with our First Grade Buddies.
We interviewed each other to learn more about one another and
also made jack-o-lanterns. We look forward to our projects with
them each month.
As the students grow this year as readers and writers and we reflect back on first quarter, it is amazing how much they have
changed and grown.
CHEETAH CHATTER | Page 6 | OCTOBER 2014
Fourth Grade Students put
business practices to work as
part of their field trip to the
Blue Springs School of Economics. They also visited the
American Jazz Museum and
Negro League Baseball Museum.
4th Grade
Fourth Graders culminated their economics unit of study by putting business practices in place during their field trip to the Blue
Springs School of Economics. Students wrote loans to the BSSE
bank, designed business banners, determined food and craft ship
supply lists while working within a budget and received a salary
for their hard work. Students learned about the planning involved in running a business as well as what it takes to earn a
profit after paying off the loan. Each business and the City Hall
were named after famous Missourians to coincide with our Famous Missourian unit of study.
Students also toured the American Jazz Museum and Negro
Leagues Baseball Museum. Fourth graders learned the origins of
jazz, instruments and about famous jazz musicians like Ella Fitzgerald and Charlie Bird Parker. During the tour of the baseball museum, students saw Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige and Buck O’Neill
were not only great baseball players but also men who overcame
obstacles to achieve many things in the Negro Leagues and Major
League Baseball as well as to carve paths for future players by
breaking barriers.
5th Grade
5th Grade had a great start to their last year in elementary school. In Science,
they completed their Egg Drop Projects. For this project, they had to design
a contraption to protect a raw egg from breaking, when dropped from the
rooftop. The students worked hard on their projects. This was a great way
for students to practice following the scientific method when doing an experiment. We enjoyed watching Dr. Johnson and Mrs. White drop them from
the building.
First quarter is flying by in 5th grade but we still have so much more to look
forward to! Next quarter we will take a field trip to the Nelson-Atkins and
Kemper Museums, exploring historic and modern art. We are also looking
forward to our Fall and Winter Parties, rotating classes for Science class, and
many more exciting things!
CHEETAH CHATTER | Page 7 | OCTOBER 2014
The art part
Making Tracks
2nd Grade
CHAPEL LAKES ELEMENTARY | 3701 NE Independence Ave. | Lee’s Summit, MO 64064 | (816) 525-9100 | Bryce Johnson, Principal | Brenda Franks, Secretary