Toys For Tots and Clothing Drive

GKMS is currently running two community service projects during the month of December. Our Student Council is sponsoring the "Giving Tree" clothing collection. We are collecting new and gently used scarfs, hats, gloves and socks. These items will be donated to families in need.

The Community Impact Club is running Toys For Tots this month. We are looking for new $5 toys to be donated. These toys will then be donated to families in need during the holiday season. GKMS was the #1 contributor for Toys For Tots in Dekalb County last year, we hope to continue that support for this year.

We hope all of our families enjoy a fantastic holiday season!

Technology upgrades at GKMS

In the last year, GKMS has gone through several technology upgrades. We hope our new technology helps students stay engaged and increases the opportunities for learning. Some examples of the upgrades:

*Each classroom is equipped with a computer projector and either an Elmo or a Document Camera.

*Our two computer labs have received 60 new computers this school year.

*We have purchased a few iPads for a mobile classroom set. We hope to purchase more for each grade level to have a mobile lab.

*We have a mobile lab of 15 chrome books on the way. These will be used for research, google docs and for our new math intervention.

With these new upgrades, we hope our teachers and students will find new and exciting ways to teach and to learn.

Lunches at GKMS

We've been receiving some feedback in regards to our lunches here at GKMS.  One common theme is that sometimes we run out of food in either the hot lunch line or the ala carte line.  Because we want to make sure all of our students eat a good lunch, we want to work with our parents and students on this issue.

A big challenge we are currently facing at GKMS is our lunch counts are off by a considerable amount.  Each morning as 1st period begins, students are asked to raise their hand if they want hot lunch.  (hot lunch is read over the intercom).  We use these counts to determine how much food to make.  Here are some examples of some of the lunch counts over the past few weeks (first number is the morning count, second number is the actual count):

58/83
69/99
71/92
35/48
72/87
67/81
56/77

As you can tell, when our counts are off by 20 or 30, it is very difficult to judge how much food to make.  We hope our parents help us encourage our students to be attentive and accurate during lunch counts in the morning.  This well help us make sure enough hot lunch food is made for all students.

If you have any questions or concerns about this, please contact me at 815-784-5222.  Thanks!

Community Service Efforts at GKMS

On October 30th, GKMS students will participate in a "Pink Day" in which students will wear pink to show support for Breast Cancer Awareness.  This day is an effort sponsored by Ms. Roberson our Community Impact Club.  Additionally, our Community Impact Club has been selling Breast Cancer Awareness bracelets all month for $1.50.

On October 31st, GKMS will conclude its month-long Canned Food Drive.  Mrs. Hencken and our Student Council have been working to collect cans to donate to the local food pantry.  Any student who brings in 3 cans can watch the Faculty-Student Basketball game on October 31st.  Any student who wants to play will need 6 cans.  Cans will be accepted up until the morning of October 31st.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

As we wind down the 1st quarter, Parent-Teacher conferences are just a few weeks away.  We encourage all of our parents to participate in Parent-Teacher conferences.  Our GKMS teachers will be available from noon until 8pm on Nov. 1st.  If you are interested in meeting with one or more of your students' teachers, please call the office to schedule an appointment (815-784-5222).  This is a great time to discuss strategies and successes with our staff.

Report cards will be sent home this Thursday (Oct 23rd).  The report cards are a great conversation starter to discuss how things are going at school for your student.

Extra-Curricular Activities at GKMS

We are so fortunate at GKMS to offer a variety of extra-curricular activities for our students.  We consider these activities to be an extension of the school day and we hope to promote character building skills during this time.  A list of activities, when they occur and who can participate is below, please contact me if you have any questions regarding this information.  Please keep in mind that any student participating in any sport at GKMS will have to have a current physical on file before trying out for a team.

Clubs:

Technology Club                         All Grades/All year

Chess Club                                 All Grades/All year

Fishing Club                               All Grades/All year

Art Club                                    All Grades/All year

Community Impact Club             All Grades/All year

Sports:

Girls Volleyball                          7th & 8th Grade/Aug-Oct

Football                                     7th & 8th Grade/Aug-Oct

Cheer                                        7th & 8th Grade/Aug-Dec

Boys Basketball                         7th & 8th Grade/Oct-Dec

Girls Basketball                          7th & 8th Grade/Jan-Feb

Wrestling                                    6th-8th grade/Jan-Feb

Track (Boys and Girls)               7th & 8th Grade/Mar-May

TPO

Throughout the classrooms of Genoa-Kingston schools, students and parents will find "TPO" posters.  If we're doing our jobs well, our parents may have even heard their student discussing a TPO.  One of the most basic instructional practices going back decades is to begin each class with an objective.  In GK schools, this objective is often referred to a TPO, which stands for a Three Part Objective.  Our approach towards our objectives begins with "We Will" and has 3 parts:

1. A cognitive verb that matches the level of the task (Infer, Generate, Determine, Classify, Explain, List)
2. 6-12 words of descriptive content with connections to standards.
3. A specific product created by student

Some examples:

Parents and students can find these posters in each of our classrooms at GKMS. Students often read these out loud and they refer to them during the lesson   If you want to get really crazy, ask your kids about their TPO from a particular class, it's a great conversation starter!

Progress Reports and ISAT Scores

At the end of this week, our students will be bringing home Progress Reports.  Please look over the Progress Report with your student.  This is about the half-way point for the 1st quarter; the Progress Report is a great opportunity to discuss progress at school with your student.

Also included in the Progress Report will be your student's ISAT scores from the spring of 2012.  All of our students are tested in Math and Reading during ISATs.  Our 7th graders are also tested in Science.  Students are placed in 3 categories for ISAT: Below Standards, Meets Standards & Exceeds Standards. Our hope is that all our students are in the Meets or Exceeds categories.  Below are a few pictures with helpful hints on how to read the ISAT report.  If you click on each picture, you can get a bigger version. As always, if you have any questions, please contact Mr. McPherson at 815-784-5222, ext. 15.

Also, thanks to everyone who came to our Open House.  Please be sure to fill out our Open House Survey!

GKMS Facebook!

As we try to create new ways for GKMS to communicate with it's parents and students, we have stepped into the social media outlets to do so.  GKMS is now on Twitter (@gkmscogs) and Facebook.  Please follow us on Twitter and "like" our Facebook page to receive updates.  We will be conducting an Open House Survey on Facebook this coming week.  

Open House is Coming!

On September 17th, GKMS will host our Open House from 6:30-7:45.  This is a great opportunity for parents and community members to come check out our school and meet staff.  A very important reminder about Open House; please keep in mind that our teachers have 120 students in which they see on a daily basis.  Our Open House is not a time for conferences; if you have specific questions regarding your student, we can set up a separate time for that.  Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Also, please remember to follow us on Twitter, @gkmscogs.  This is a great way to keep current on events and happenings at GKMS.  For a quick tutorial on how to use Twitter, please click here.

Pizza's and Twitter

The 6h graders at GKMS are currently participating in a fundraiser to help raise money for Lorado Taft. Students are selling pizza's, all of the money earned for this fundraiser will go to the Lorado Taft outdoor learning experience. Lorado Taft is a community staple; the money raised from the fundraiser helps us provide this experience for our students. Please support our sudents if you can, the support we receive from the community has always been outstanding!

 GKMS works hard to communicate with parents and community members. One new tool we have been using regularly is Twitter. Parents and community members an sign up for free to follow us on twitter, @gkmscogs. Through this free website, parents can have these updates sent to their phone for instant updates on school functions, announcements etc. For a tutorial on how to get signed up, please watch this brief tutorial. We have had a great start to the school year; we are so very lucky to work with the students and parents of this great community!

Great Things at GKMS!

We are extremely excited for this new school year at GKMS!  We hope to form a great partnership with our students, parents and faculty.  To help parents stay current on happenings at GKMS, we offer the following communication tools:

Powerschool.  Log in and keep up to date on your students grades.

Assignment Connection:  View daily assignments through this tab on our website.

Twitter:  Follow us on Twitter @gkmscogs for updates.

Blog:  Follow this blog for bi-weekly updates.

School website:  Our website offers a variety of tools such as sports schedules, newsletters, lunch menu's and a school calendar. gkschools.org.

Please contact me at 815-784-5222 with any questions!

Important Dates!

8th Grade promotion will be May 21st, 2012 at GKMS at 7pm.

ISAT testing at GKMS will be on March 6, 7, 8 and 9th. We hope our parents support our efforts by helping our students get a good night's rest and breakfest each day during ISAT testing.

Parent-Teacher Conferences will be Feb. 16th and 17th. Please contact the office to make an appointment.

If you have any questions, please contact me at 815-784-5222.