Dieterich Community Unit #30 Newsletter MISSION STATEMENT Dieterich Community Unit #30 is an Early Childhood through twelfth grade facility. Our Mission is to provide the highest quality education, with the support and resources from the Community, which meets the needs of all students. The featured artist of the month of February is Whitley Schwengel. Whitley is the daughter of Michelle & Wyatt Schwengel of Dieterich. Whitley is in the 7th Grade at Dieterich Jr. High School. Congratulations on a job well done! Spring Concert Dates 2015 “On Stage” Variety Show Acts All K-12 students are invited to audition for the annual Variety Show scheduled for 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 14. The show features all types of talent. Interested students please contact Mrs. Cekander asap. Vocal acts requiring tracks must be reported to Mrs. Cekander by Jan. 31. Monday, April 13, 7 pm: JH/HS Choral/Band Concert in DHS Gym /Art Fair Attire for all JH/HS Band/Choral Members 7 grade through Junior in HS: Blue Jean Bottom and White Tops (Girls & Boys). Please No obvious writing on Tops. HS Seniors: Outfit of their choice that meets school dress code. Tuesday, April 14, 7 pm: K-6 Music/Band Concert “In the Jungle” in DHS Gym Art Fair/PTO Meeting/Book Fair/Supper Students may dress up for the Jungle or as a Jungle Animal Phantom of the Opera Tickets Feb. 14 is the deadline for music, art and theatre students to turn in the balance for their tickets. A HS group of music, art and theatre students (with chaperons) will travel to St. Louis to experience the musical production, “Phantom of the Opera,” at the Fox Theatre on March. 5, 2015. ILMEA/MENC All State Choirs Dieterich senior, Jodi Thoele, participated in the ILMEA/MENC All State Choir in Peoria at the end of January. She is the daughter of Susan and Tony Thoele and is very active in band, choir, dance team, FFA, FCA, FCCLA, and Spanish Club. Dieterich junior, Faith Boerngen, participated in the ILMEA/MENC All State Honors Choir at the end of January. She is the daughter of Brian and Jennifer Boerngen and is very active in band, choir, dance team, Volley Ball Team, FCA, Spanish Club, Student Council, Athletic Club, National Honor Society and Business Club. High school junior and senior Illinois musicians qualify from stringent auditions to be chosen as a member in the All State premier choral, orchestral and band groups. Each musical organization rehearses several prepared selections for two days and presents a concert on the final conference day. The All State Conference offers hundreds of music workshops over a wide array of topics, issues and age groups to music teachers and specialists. Classroom News Kindergarten: The Kindergarten students are growing as readers by leaps and bounds! We are very proud of them and hard work is paying off! Please read with your children as often as possible and review the phonics words. Remember to give them lots of praise and encouragement. The cold and flu season has been particularly tough on our classes this year. We would greatly appreciate any help at home reinforcing how to stay healthy. Help your children remember to keep fingers out of mouths and noses, cough into elbows and wash hands thoroughly. We are running low on tissues and Clorox wipes! Hopefully spring is just around the corner! Mrs. Zane & Mrs. Zimmerman First Grade: February brings a lot of exciting events for first grade. The students are beginning to write entire paragraphs in Language Arts! We are continuing to learn new facts in Math class. We are currently practicing doubles plus one facts and adding two digit numbers. Students need to use the strategy taught in class to solve the problems at home. Ask them what the strategies are for the different facts. In Science, we are discussing animals and the different habitats they live in. Students are becoming better readers and are showing their knowledge by reading more independently. Keep reading and practicing Math facts! Mrs. Hann & Mrs. Field Second Grade: After an enjoyable holiday break, second grade is back hard at work. It is so amazing to see the level of books many of the students are reading compared to the books they were reading at the beginning of the year. Many of the boys and girls are so excited to start reading chapter books. We look forward to seeing where they will end up in AR in May. In Reading, we have been working on dictionary skills as well as focusing on cause and effect. In Math, we have been introducing our subtraction facts and are continuing to review addition facts. We are also focusing on counting change, telling time, and solving a 2-digit plus 2-digit addition problems. We have been practicing lowercase letters in cursive. Here before long we will begin writing out spelling words in cursive. In Science, we are currently talking about the six simple machines. When we returned from break, we refreshed ourselves with our PBIS expectations. The students are very knowledgeable on how to be RESPONSIBLE, RESPECTFUL, and SAFE, here at school and at school functions. We are working on making sure we remember these expectations in all of our actions. Mr. McManaway & Mrs. Niemerg Third Grade: Our kids are sweet as honey. (idiom) We’ve been making our writing interesting by adding idioms and similes. The kids are getting really good at using them. While talking at home, use idioms to see if your son/daughter catches them in your speech. During Reading we have been tying our stories into Social Studies. One story “Yonder Mountain” taught us about the Cherokee Indians. We learned about the Trail of Tears. The kids really liked learning about our past. I think they might like to give a piece of their mind to the leaders of long ago. After reading “Aero and Officer Mike” the Effingham County K-9 Unit presented us with information about partners in law enforcement and gave demonstrations. We really appreciated the program and enjoyed seeing the dog in action. We will be taking the PARCC test beginning March 9th, so the kids are working hard on writing responses for Math and Reading. We’re also working on test taking strategies. We feel our third graders will do great! Our Valentine’s party will be on Friday, Feb.13th. We’d like to thank parents in advance for the treats. Happy Valentine’s Day. Mrs. Niemerg & Mrs. Mammoser Fourth Grade: Love is in the air. Fourth Grader’s love for learning is taking their knowledge to new heights. “Nature Can Amaze Us” is still our continuing theme in Reading. We have explored different cultures, and different ways to describe nature. We will continue to explore nature through our new stories, along with reviewing skills from previous lessons to prepare for the upcoming ISAT test. In Science students have been exploring the world of physical and chemical changes to matter. They look at matter before and after a change has occurred to determine the type of change that is taking place. Social Studies will be wrapping up the Northeast region and moving into the Middle West. Here students will explore life on the plains, inland climate, and life on the hills. They will also investigate the features that make up the Middle West. With so much love for learning in our classroom, we are excited to see what the future will bring. Mrs. Ogdon & Mrs. Worman Fifth Grade: What has many creepy critters and appears swampy??? It’s the Everglades! After reading both fictional and nonfictional stories about the Everglades, students in each Reading class made posters showcasing the unique plants and animals that live in the Everglades, and then we even watched a movie about the Everglades! These fun and great activities were educational yet amazing! In Science, we are learning about plants’ seeds and flowers. We just dissected corn and bean seeds to determine the difference between a monocot and a dicot. The fifth graders could identify the seed coat, cotyledon, and embryo of their seeds! If you walk in our hallway, you can see the penguins we made that have our New Year Resolutions written on their bellies as complex sentences (which we learned about in English). In addition, we have finally found out who our Presidents will be for the Fifth Grade Presidential Wax Museum, so now the research begins! With Presidents Day coming up in February, it will be the perfect time for us to have the Presidential Wax Museum. Mrs. Pals and Mrs. May would like to remind all the 5th graders to be working on their costumes for this memorable event! By: Jozlyn Haycraft and Alli Schmidt Sixth Grade: Wow! Can you believe how awesome 6th grade is? We are learning about Greek culture and the rulers. In Reading we are reading a novel called Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry. Did you know Alexander the Great was leading the Peloponnesian War when he was eighteen years old? Well it was true. He became ruler for 9 years, but Alexander is not the only person we learned about. In the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, Sparta was in warfare with Athens. Then from Macedonia, Alexander’s father, Phillip II, decided he was going to take over the two city-states. Alexander was sent to lead the army again at age eighteen. When his father was assassinated at Alexander’s sister’s wedding, Alexander had to take over, and he constructed a plethora of cities-states. He only ruled for 9 years because he died from the malaria, and typhoid fever that later killed thousands. Although, Alexander had no children to pass the kingdom onto, he ruled as best as could when he was there... You would think that this stuff is really boring, but it is not. Our favorite gods are Cerberus and Cupid. The Greek God project was like creating a character in a movie. Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry is a spectacular novel so far. We cannot wait to finish it and find out what happens next. Well, we don’t want to spoil it all so we decided that we would just tell you a summary of our own: Humiliation and fear seems to rule Big Ma, Pa, Mama, Stacey, Christopher-John, Cassie, and Little Man’s (the Logan family) life. They are one of the few colored people that own land. The one thing that nobody can take away, their land. That seems like the one thing that holds them together, nothing can tear them apart. We hope that when you read this book, you will like it as much as we do! By: Gabi Hardiek and Jade Tipsword