Great Weekend for KES Girls

This past Friday started a wonderful string of events for Kennedy Elementary School girls. First Beverly A. won the 2012 Barrow County Spelling Bee. Beverly is the first Kennedy student to ever win the County title. This was followed by three of our young ladies, Isabell B., Kailey W. and Shannen R., participating in the Big Hearts Pageant in Athens, GA. Shannen was the winner of her division. It just goes to show you that Kennedy Elementary students are Ready, Respectful, and Responsible and SUCCESSFUL!

Get your yearbook

Yearbooks are now on sale at school and on-line for $30.00. You may purchase through www.jostens.com or by sending $30.00 cash to school in an envelope marked for the yearbook with your child's name and your child's teacher's name. Don't miss out on your 2011-2012 yearbook! This price will not be around long, so please take advantage of the low, low price!

Reading Eggs, Study Island and Georgiaoas.org

Recently KES has purchased online materials that will help our students with Reading, Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies.

Reading Eggs is a comprehensive, online supplemental literacy program for early learners ages 4 through 8. Grounded in extensive educational research, Reading Eggs builds on and reinforces the five key reading pillars: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Reading Eggs is available to all Kindergarten through 2nd Grade.

The Study Island CRCT/GHSGT/EOCT Preparation Program is specifically designed to help students master the content specified in the Georgia Performance Standards (GPS). Study Island's focus on the Georgia Performance Standards enables students to improve their performance in all skill areas tested on the CRCT/GHSGT/EOCT in grades 2 through 8 and high school. Study Island also offers Math and Reading Skills for Kindergarten and 1st Grade, Fine Arts, Health, and Technology for Elementary and Middle School, and High School Algebra II Skills Mastery products. Study Island is available for all students in grades Kindergarten through Fifth.

Georgiaoas.org is provided by The Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE). The OAS represents a dedicated resource for schools, districts, classroom teachers, students and parents that allows for ongoing classroom instruction and student learning. This site allows educators to have access to test items aligned to the state mandated curriculum to develop assessments that inform teaching and learning. It allows students and parents transparency on the expectations placed on students relative to improving student achievement. This system is another resource available and designed to help all Georgia educators, students and parents as part of our common goal to lead the nation in improving student achievement. Georgiaoas.org is available to all students in grades 1st - 5th.

Rockin and Rollin in 2012

As we start our first full week of school in 2012, KES has a lot to be excited about. As of today, our 3rd - 5th Graders are only 58 more school days until the Rock the CRCT and our 5th Graders are only 38 more school days until the Georgia Writing Assessment. While these tests don't define who we are as students or a school, they are extremely important in giving us feedback about how successful we have been and the potential that we have within us. These results also get publicized as they are THE MAJOR indicator in determining our school's AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) scores. As always, our teachers do an amazing job of preparing all of our students for their academic needs but as these tests come closer, we also add some additional support to assist with this preparation.


This year we will once again utilize http://www.georgiaoas.org/ as a resource to familiarize our students with the format of the questions they will be asked on the CRCT. We encourage each student to take at least one of these tests (there are 50 available for 3rd-5th graders and 30 available for 1st & 2nd Graders) each night until they have passed all 50 with at least a 70% accuracy rate (preferably 85%). These tests take around 10-20 minutes each and are extremely effective at getting students used to the format of the test.


Another resource that we will have available is http://www.studyisland.com/ . This is another online resource that is designed to give additional support for all Georgia Performance Standards (GPS) in a fun interactive way. This site provides lessons, tests, and games that reinforce, remediate, and challenge students on each standard. This site is available to ALL KES students in grades Kindergarten through 5th.


We have an additional resource for our Kindergarten through 2nd Graders as well. This resource is http://www.readingeggs.com/. This online resource is extremely successful in preparing our younger students to become more successful readers. It works on phonics, spelling, reading fluency, and comprehension. This is another fun and interactive website that our students in Kindergarten through 2nd grade can use to continue to grow as strong and effective readers.


We will be using these resources at school and encourage all students to be using them at home as well. Usage of these resources will be our basis for incentives as we get our theme of Rockin' the CRCT! The last week in January will start our drive to really make sure that we are ready to ROCK The CRCT! Each class will get earn guitars on their chart for completion with accuracy using these resources. The class with the most guitars each week will get the "Rockin' the CRCT" Golden Guitar to hold for the week, and students with the highest accuracy will get a chance to perform an air guitar concert on the morning announcements. This will continue for the 9 weeks leading up to the CRCT pep rally on April the 3rd.


Then the next day, April 4th will be when we really perform and Rock the CRCT!!!

December Has Started

It is really hard to believe that it is December 6th. Time has gotten away from me and I have not posted since before Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving week off and got right back in the swing of things. On Tuesday the 29th, we hosted a community day and our 4th Grade did their Literacy Day by performing The Legend of Slappy Hooper a tall-tale. It was a great day. This week is also filled with excitement. Sonic night is Tuesday, December 6th. The Santa Shop is open Tuesday through Friday. Our 4th Graders do their holiday performance on Thursday the 8th, and the Dragon Dollar store will deliver product this Friday. That does not even take into account what the teachers and students are doing in the classroom to prepare for the benchmark assessments and writing samples. It is a crazy, busy week and next week will be even more exciting.

Bags & Turkey Ready

The bags are all packed full of stuffing, potatoes, sweet potatoes, veggies and cranberry sauce, and the turkeys have all been delivered. Now it just time for them to be picked up. Thank you Ms. Bachman, PTO, teachers, students, STEPAN and Publix at Winder Crossing for working together to supply Thanksgiving Dinner to over 45 families. It was truly KES being Ready, Respectful, and Responsible!

Kennedy Gives Thanks by Giving Back

This week we have started our Thanksgiving meal drive. Our Habit from the book 7 Habits of Happy Kids by Sean Covey this week is: Begin with the end in mind or have a plan. At Kennedy, we decided to look at how many families we have that will need some assistance over the Thanksgiving holiday and have identified 45 different families that will need help. By beginning with that number, we knew just what our goal was and then we took the next step. That next step was to have a plan to get to our goal. Our plan was to assign each grade level a different food to bring in to help us reach our goal.

• Pre-k brought in Gravy




• Kindergarten brought in Mashed potato mix




• 1st grade brought in Stuffing




• 2nd grade brought in Corn bread/muffin mix




• 3rd grade brought in Canned veggies (green beans or carrots)




• 4th grade brought in Canned yams




• 5th grade brought in Marshmallows




• teachers brought in cranberry sauce




• Our business partners are helping with the turkeys

With our plan in place, we have already provided enough meals for over 50 families and we have not even gotten to our November 11th deadline.

I guess beginning with the end in mind and creating a plan really works! Great Job Kennedy

Vocabulary Parade 2011

Monday, Halloween Day, KES did its 3rd annual vocabulary parade. Students and teachers were encouraged to dress as their favorite vocabulary word. The parade had to be moved inside due to some cold temperatures, but it did not simmer the heat from the competition for the best vocabulary word costume. The winners were Cayden as "Scrumptious" in Pre-K, Ella as "Monochromatic" in Kindergarten, Dayla as "Neon" in 1st Grade, Anna as "Historical" in 2nd Grade, Luke as "Monumental" in 3rd Grade, Brett as "Asymmetrical" in 4th Grade, Ariel as "Flashback" in 5th Grade, Eddy as "Love" in our Special Friends, and Ms. Liptak as "Country Bumpkin" for the teachers. It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed having our parents and our new business partner, Chick-fil-a, here. The Chick-fil-a cow came as "Mascot" and "Bovine". Thanks for participating.

Red Ribbon Week

This week is Red Ribbon Week for Barrow County. Red Ribbon Week is the nation's largest and most successful drug awareness and prevention program done in educational facilities. Students will be educated on the dangers of drugs and encouraged to make healthy choices that will help them be successful. We will celebrate each day in a different way.
Monday is wear Red Day
Tuesday we will sock it to drugs by wearing crazy socks.
Wednesday is use your head and don't do drugs crazy hair day.
Thursday is give drugs the boot and wear boots and western wear.
Friday we will follow our dreams and not use drugs by wearing pajamas.

Friday will also be our costume dance from 5:00-7:00 pm and then we encourage everyone to cheer on the Chee as they battle Winder Barrow at 7:30pm.
It should be a great week.

Thank You Barrow County Fire Department

I would like to thank the BCFD for coming out and doing a fire safety presentation with our Pre-K through 3rd graders. Our students were given a chance to talk about what to do when the smoke detector goes off in their house, how firefighters use tools to protect people, and the importance of having a fire safety plan for their homes. They also got to see all the really "COOL" firefighter equipment. Thank you to Scott Dakin of Barrow County Fire Department for coming out and sharing with our kids.

Fabulously Fun Figurative language Fridays!!!

October marked KES's Love of Literacy push for the school year. Each Friday in October, teachers will be dressing up to represent different examples of figurative language. This week we had representation of idioms (an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made.); similes (a figure of speech that directly compares two different things, usually by employing the words "like", "as", or "than".); metaphors (literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea); Onomatopoeia (refers to the property of such words. Common occurrences of onomatopoeias include animal noises, such as "oink" or "meow" or "roar".) and alliteration (the repetition of a particular sound in the first syllables of a series of words and/or phrases.) Look at the following pictures to see if you can come up with each one?

Using Video Conferencing To do Book Reports

Fourth and fifth grade SCOPE students at Kennedy, Holsenbeck, and Yargo Elementary schools met using video conferencing technology as a getting to know you activity for their upcoming collaboration project. The book project focuses on the classic work entitled, From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankwieler, by E.L. Knoigsburg. The classes will work together using Web 2.0 tools, specifically Edmodo, WallWisher, Animoto, and Voicethread. The setting of the story is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the students are looking forward to studying many artists and recreating their works of art. All in all, the first meeting was a hit with the students. SCOPE teachers Kellie Ouzts, Jodi Sorrells, Tiffany Pilgrim, and Megaan McNally are all excited to begin this fabulous project!

Fundraiser extenstion

The fundraiser money was due today. If you have not sent it in to the school, please do so NO LATER than Wednesday. We have already collected $7,000. Our goal is $10,000. If we meet our goal, we will have an ice-cream party for all classes and the highest sellers will get to turn Mr. Butcher into a human banana split. Make sure your money is in by Wednesday, September 28th.

Tumble Books Subscription

One of the big focuses of KES this year is to attempt to create a love of literature. We want our students to want to read, read, and read. Our media center has thousands of books of all ranges and levels, and Mr. Frame has just gotten more new books from the Target Books grant that are ready to be checked out of the media center. Our PTO has also helped us to purchase 10 ipads that are available in the media center. These ipads are slowly but surely being filled up with some e-books and applications that encourage a love for reading. Another thing that we have available for students (We have had this for many years!) is a subscription to TumbleBooks ( www.tumblebooks.com ) is a site that has hundreds of animated books that children can read or have read to them. The books range in reading level (grade level and lexile level) as well as interest level. Students can also take practice quizzes on the book or write a book report on it using the book report template. This is a great site to have your students go to if they want a book to read that will also allow them to hear it and possible see the pictures come to life. Kennedy's login is kennedyga and the password is books.
Happy Reading

Grandparents' Breakfast

Last week we had over 400 grandparents and students eat breakfast with us. It was a fantastic turnout. It was great to see so many people enjoying breakfast and then spending time in our book fair. The book fair will run until Monday; so if you have not purchased a book you can still do it tomorrow.

School Governance Teams

Now that we have been in school for 20 days, some questions about Kennedy's Charter have been coming up. Questions like what is a School Governance team?; When do they meet?; and What is the team's authority? have been heard. Well I guess it is now time to answer some of those questions in the blog.
The School Governance Team is a group of 9 individuals (3 teachers, 4 parents, 1 business partner, and myself) who follow the Open Records Act to "steer the ship". That means that this team meets regularly (once a month) to discuss the direction of the school and make decisions that will improve the educational process at the school.
The team will meet on the second Monday of each month at 5:00pm in the media center of the school. These meetings are open to the public and are advertised on the website, school marquee, and the Kennedy Connection.
This year the team will be doing mostly training on effective school governance, but will also make decisions on approval of fundraisers and field trips. The team could also discuss discipline above and beyond the county's policy. As years go on, the authority of the School Governance Team will be broadened.
This just a quick answer to some of the most pressing questions. If you are still wondering about it, you can go to the following sites and find out more: http://charterexploration.barrow.wikispaces.net/home or http://www.barrow.k12.ga.us/html/charter_faq.html both of these sites have great information.

Pre-K and Kindergarten Family Fun Night

Friday night was a great night to be a Pre-K or Kindergarten Dragon. For the 5th consecutive year Kennedy Kindergarten and Pre-k teachers put on a Family Fun night for all the new dragons (Classes of 2024 and 2025). It is always great to see all the new faces having fun with the parents and teachers. A big thanks goes out to Jungle Jumpers in Winder for donating the bounce house; Apalachee JV cheerleaders for their face painting and cheers, Stephanie Waters and the rest of the PTO, Chris Greene of Liberty Mutual, and the Kennedy Pre-K and Kindergarten teachers and instructional assistants for putting on a great night. I also would like to thank all the parents and students who came out and had fun. It was a great time for all. Pictures coming soon!

2 weeks in and 2 new things

We have now been in school for 2 whole weeks. The students are doing a wonderful of learning the ropes and getting into the swing of things. Our teachers have done a great job of establishing rules and procedures to help students to make good choices that will help them to be ready, respectful, and responsible leaders. Our Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS) program has also started and students are earning Dragon Dollars for being ready, respectful or responsible. We also had our first PBIS hero drawings with Alena, Preston, Ryan, Anijah, Tony, Scott and Sierra. Sierra was the Super Hero (Luck number 7) and gets her picture on the school website and name on the school Marquee. You can see the other Heroes pictures on the bulletin board outside the media center.
We also spent our first week in the book, 7 Habits of Happy Kids, by Sean Covey. Last week's habit was Be Proactive- You are in charge. We talked with our students about how they are in charge of their decisions each and every day. They choose to be ready by having their books and homework; they choose to be respectful by being quiet in the hall and listening to their teacher; and they choose to be responsible by completing their work and cleaning up after themselves. Being Proactive means that THEY make the choice to do right or wrong and no one can control themselves but themselves. The story talked about Sammy the Squirrel choosing to find his own fun. When he chose to make a present for his sick friend, he was no longer bored! The same hold true for KES students, they choose how their day is going to go. They are in charge of their choices! We hope parents can reinforce this at home. I know I am trying to do the same with my own personal children. That is me being proactive!!!

Title I information and Curriculum Night

Tonight is our annual Title I information and Curriculum night. This is a great opportunity for parents to learn about Title funding, our parental engagement plan, and the standards that your child will be learning this year. It is also a night to join PTO and purchase spirit wear. We hope to see you on this very important night.

Great Start to a New Year

On Monday, August 8th, Kennedy Elementary School welcomed 757 students into the building. It was so exciting to see all the new faces and to welcome back some very familiar faces. This year promises to be a fantastic year. We will continue to strive to be the best elementary school in Barrow County academically, but we are also really going to work on teaching our students skills to be leaders. Our goal at KES is to reach ALL students so they can be Ready, Respectful, and Responsible leaders in the future. This year, along with every grade level GPS, we will be teaching your children the 7 Habits of Happy Kids by Sean Covey. These are an elementary version of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective people by Stephen Covey. We feel that if we can continue to teach our students the GPS and incorporate these 7 Habits, that we will reach our goal.
I am really looking forward to the 2011-2012, and I hope to see you in our school!