May 2024 IB Connection

• May 1-24, 2024 ~ iReady (K-2); Star360 (3-8) EOY testing window (schedule TBD)
• May 1 ~ Talent Show (6-7:30pm in the Auditorium)
• May 2 ~ 4th Grade Changemaker Fair
• May 3 ~ Q4 Progress Reports
• Week of May 6-10 ~ Staff Appreciation Week
• May 15 ~ PAC/BAC Meeting
• May 27 ~ No School - Memorial Day

• May 23 ~ 8th Grade Boat Trip
• May 29th ~ Last Day for 8th Grade
• May 30 ~ 8th Grade Luncheon (11:30am-4pm)
• May 31 ~ 8th Grade Graduation Practice
• June 3 ~ 8th Grade Graduation @ Dominican University (10am-11:30am)

As an IB School, we value student growth and progress beyond what a letter grade or a standardized test can capture. As such, both programmes utilize additional tools to share a holistic picture of student performance with families.

PYP Parent Reports

In the PYP (grades PK-5), students progress will be reported to families two times per year in an end of unit report. In this report, teachers will report of students progress as it relates to conceptual understanding, the IB Learner Profile attributes, Approaches to Learning Skills (ATLs), and action. In this report you will see both student and teacher reflections, which contain personalized comments specific to the individual student, and their learning progress and processes. Be looking for the final PYP Parent Report to be distributed with the Q4 Report Cards!

MYP IB Report Cards

In the MYP (grades 6-8), student progress must be reported to families at least two times a year in the form of an IB report card. Using objectives (goals) outlined for each subject by the IB, teachers use a variety of evidence (student work samples, checklists, anecdotal records) in combination with their professional judgment to determine a score for each of the 4 criteria for each subject. Teachers will also leave personalized comments for each student, indicating their strengths, challenges, and suggestions for improvement.

IB final grades do not mean the same thing as the A-F letter grade scale reflected in local assessment reporting done through ASPEN. IB grades are NOT based on a percentage or a score out of a total, but rather a number that corresponds to a qualitative description of the student's level of achievement in each criteria of each subject.

Please see the attached documents (in English, Spanish, Arabic, and Ukrainian) to learn more about how scores are determined, what they mean, and how to support your student's continued growth as an IB student.

Please ensure that we have your most up-to-date email address in our school information system to receive your student's IB report card. Translated versions will also be provided for families based on preferred language of communication indicated in our system.

Report cards will be sent out via email as an attachment by end of day (5pm) Friday, June 14th 2024. The email will come from MYP Coordinator, Anna Ziemniak with the subject line: Middle Years Programme (MYP) IB Report Card for (Student's Name) Semester 2, SY23-24.

A Note for 8th Grade Families: Information in IB report cards will be shared with ANY student's high school IB coordinators to support your students continued growth through the programme. This includes students committed to Taft HS, Schurz HS, Prosser HS, or Steinmetz HS.

Should you have any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to the IB Coordinators for more information!

Casey Mcleod - PYP (PK-5) Coordinator - cjmcleod@cps.edu

Anna Ziemniak - MYP (6-8) Coordinator - aziemniak@cps.edu

Direct Line to IB Office: 773-534-3358

Want to send a shout out to a member of Team Locke that has had an positive impact on your child? Please complete this Google Form to pass along notes of appreciation.

Ms. Couty and Ms. Tzakis' Pre-K class (Room 146) created bird feeders from recycled materials to show ways we can SHARE THE PLANET! We also won a grant from the Openlands Foundation entitled BIRDS IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD. It provides us with volunteer bird experts who took us on a walk around the school and are paying for our field trip to the Trailside Museum and Nature Center later this week! They also gave us $500. worth of educational materials! The entire pre-k team is involved and the kids are excited to learn about birds! Finally we made friendship rocks and hid them around the kindergarten building for other children to find and hopefully make them happy.

Locke School is the Haiku fest School of the Year once again! Our Locke poets continue to win at Haiku fest. Each year students from 6th and 7th grade ELA classes compete with students throughout the country. Each year we have at least one winner. This year, Isabella F from 212 will represent Locke as the poet of the school. She will be reading her poem at the Harold Washington Library for a live audience and will be broadcast on NPR.

In Ms. Bloss' class (142), students celebrated Earth Day, and extended their learning about living and non living things. They took a nature walk around the school to collect trash and observe the different types of plants and animals outside!

Our 5th graders performed for our spring themed choir concert on March 21st. Every class was assigned one song that had something to do with spring, whether it be the sun or talking about flowers. My 5th grade class quickly learned their song "My Soul is Alive with Spring" so we decided to add a second song that we created together using Ai, I made up a melody, and students learned to play some instruments. My favorite thing we added was a rain stick that we focused on during a verse about rain.

Students in 147 AM/PM as part of our Sharing the Planet unit discussed how we can reuse newspaper. We reused newspaper to create bookmarks for the Locke Library. Students glued newspaper to cardstock and then painted the newspaper using watercolors. We discussed how the bookmarks would be used over and over again for students to use.

Students in rooms 204 and 206 have been using a Budget Simulation Game to learn about real life economic decisions. In the game, students earn an income, pay monthly bills, have unexpected expenses, and see consequences for their financial choices. They have also learned about economic incentives (positive and negative) and designed incentives to generate sales for their partner created businesses from their technology class.

Kindergarteners in Ms. Staunton's class spends Earth Day cleaning up the garbage around Locke - great job kinder!

Room 144 also won an ice cream party for their attendance! Look at how happy ice cream makes us!

In Mrs. Garcia's Science classes, students completed a comic to showcase their understanding of how a trait becomes more common in a population. They are currently studying the process of Natural Selection.

Students in Ms. Herzog's Art Class (Room 207) are learning about and creating weavings. Students analyzed weavings from different cultures and pondered what each weaving meant to the people that created it. Now students are selecting fabric that represents something about them. They will cut their selected fabric into strips to be used in their weaving.

Students in PreK have been learning about birds and nests. Students created nesting dispensers with a variety of natural materials to hang outside to help the birds have easy and safe access to nesting materials to build their nests!

The cultural iceberg is like an iceberg where most of it is hidden under the water. Similarly, culture has visible parts like food and language, but also hidden parts like beliefs and traditions. Families and schools can use this idea to teach about different cultures. By exploring both the visible and hidden parts of culture, your student learns to respect and understand others better. Parents can do simple things like reading books from different cultures or talking about different customs. This helps your student develop kindness and acceptance towards people from all backgrounds. It's a way to teach your student about the world around them and how to be open-minded.