Grand Prairie

Principal

Happy March, Grand Prairie Families! We are excited to welcome warmer weather, longer days, and a month full of engaging learning experiences and fun school events. During March, Grand Prairie will proudly celebrate Women’s History Month as students learn about and honor the countless women who have courageously worked for equality, justice, and opportunity in our nation.

Ramadan will continue through Thursday, March 19th. As a reminder to families, if your child will be fasting and you feel they would benefit from an alternate location during lunch, please let us know. Grand Prairie is happy to provide a comfortable setting outside of the lunchroom for students observing Ramadan.

We are looking forward to hosting some exciting assemblies this month. On Friday, March 6th, students will enjoy a morning performance by the Lincoln-Way East Children’s Show featuring Aesop’s (Oh So Slightly) Updated Fables. Later in the month, on Monday, March 9th, the Lincolnway Special Recreation Association (LWSRA) will bring their amazing wheelchair athletes to Grand Prairie for an afternoon assembly. Students will have the opportunity to watch the athletes showcase their skills and even see them play against members of our own staff. Families are also invited to attend a community night game on Thursday, March 12th at 6:30 PM at Hickory Creek Middle School to support LWSRA.

Our second-grade students will also be heading to Pilcher Park for their annual field trip to learn about the process of making maple syrup. Classes visiting include Mellon, Elia, Brannigan, and Milosovic on March 9th; L. Kelly, Placzkowski, Gillen, and Curran on March 10th; and Malone, Ladalski, Kora, and Major on March 11th.

There will be two popsicle sale days this month; students are able to bring one dollar to support great causes. The Education Foundation sale will take place on Friday, March 6th, and the LWSRA sale will be held on Friday, March 20th.

In recognition of World Down Syndrome Day, we invite all students and staff to “Rock Your Socks” by wearing fun, colorful, or mismatched socks on Friday, March 20th. We look forward to seeing everyone’s creative sock choices as we celebrate inclusion and kindness.

Friday, March 20th also marks the end of the third quarter for the school year. Report cards will be sent home on Friday, March 20th, which is also an early dismissal day. Students will be dismissed one hour early at 1:50 PM.

Finally, we are so close to reaching our goal for the Illinois 5Essentials Parent Survey! Currently, 18% of our families have participated, and we need just a little more support to reach the 20% participation threshold required for our school to receive a valuable Parent Report. Your feedback truly helps guide our school improvement efforts and ensures we continue to grow in ways that best support our students and families. If you have a few minutes, we would greatly appreciate you sharing your voice by completing the survey here:

http://survey.5-essentials.org/illinois/survey/parent/ Thank you for partnering with us

and for all you do to support Grand Prairie!

We wish all of our families a wonderful and relaxing Spring Break from Monday, March 30th through Monday, April 6th. We look forward to welcoming students and staff back to school on Tuesday, April 7th.

Thank you for your continued partnership in making Grand Prairie a warm, supportive, and joyful place for students to learn and grow. We wish you a fantastic month of March!

Cast Members of the Month:

Second Grade

2nd Grade students are enjoying their fable and fairy tale unit of study. The students have read a variety of fables and fairytales from diverse cultures and determined their morals. Some of our favorites included Hat Seller and the Monkeys, Baboon’s Umbrella, as well as Anansi the Spider. The Second Graders have done a fantastic job comparing different versions of the same story. For instance, Korean Cinderella and Egyptian Cinderella. Lastly, the students are becoming expert writers when responding to text and giving evidence as to how the characters have responded to major events and challenges in the text. Keep reading and writing 2nd Graders!

First Grade

One small step for first graders! One giant step for learning about our mysterious sky!! March will bring out the Scientist in all of us! First graders will be exploring the sun, moon, and stars! Some important phrases we will explore are phases of the moon, position of the sun, shadows, patterns in the sky and constellations! By the end of the unit, we will understand the amount of daylight changes throughout the year, and that seasons have patterns that can be observed, described, and predicted. There are some fun family activities you can do at home, too! You can observe the moon every night. What does the moon look like? Where in the sky is the moon? What are the different names of the moon’s phases? You can record the sunrise and sunset, too!

Kindergarten

Kindergarten has been busy in the month of February.

Kindergarten celebrated their 100th day of school on February 4th. Classes spent time making necklaces with 100 fruit loops, building towers with 100 items, and of course, making a 100th day crown.

In math, students have been working hard learning about part, part, whole with number bonds and transitioning that into addition and subtraction sentences. Students will listen to story problems to help them build addition and subtraction number sentences.

In reading and writing, student have been learning about Penguins. Kindergarten students in February and March will be having their Penguin Presentations where they present to their families all they have learned about penguins. Students not only learn facts about Penguins, but they also get to conduct fun experiments like seeing how a penguin is waterproof or seeing how blubber keeps them warm.

Always something fun going on in Kindergarten!

Preschool

Friendship was in the air this February! Our entire preschool program had a blast during our Friendship Party. A huge thank you to the parent volunteers who joined us—the students were overjoyed playing games and creating crafts together. Seeing those smiles was the highlight of our month!

Looking ahead, the excitement continues as we prepare for our "Make and Take" event in March. We also have a special opportunity to get involved: Ms. Kelsey (Project Begin) is looking for guest readers! If you’d like to share a story in your child’s Project Begin classroom on a Thursday or Friday, we would love to have you.