The Hawk Happenings: May 2024

Hawk Thoughts & Happenings

Team Pennoyer,

I seriously cannot thank you all enough for an amazing school year and everything you all put into your profession day in and day out. We had so many celebrations and successes along the way, and a handful of challenges as well, but you truly persevered through it all and always showed up for our students, each other, and our families. As you go off on your Summer Break, I hope it's peaceful, meaningful, and you take time to focus on yourselves, friends, and family. You can feel free to reach out to me at school or on my cell phone any time this summer if you need absolutely anything. Congratulations on finishing up the 2023-2024 school year...you're the best!

Enjoy some final highlights from this past week...

We had our Preschool Graduation filled with celebrations, bouncies to play on, and so many treats! I'm really excited to see many of these students next year as Kindergartners at Pennoyer.

Kindergarten had a wonderful celebration with songs, speeches, certificates, and treats. This group has certainly come a long way, and I couldn't be more proud of them. I can't believe they're on their way to 1st grade next year!

The 3rd and 4th grade had some cool activities this week with the Wax Museum and Paper Plate Challenge! Students did a great job showcasing a special individual of their choice during the Wax Museum, and 4th graders put their brains and ingenuity to the test!

This year we did a modified version of Field Day with all of the construction around school, but grade levels got to be outside for an hour at a time and compete in a variety of fun events on the field. They also finished off with freeze pops and donuts to refuel after running around!

Hawk Action Items

Enjoy your Summer Break you've all definitely earned! You're the best staff ever, and I wish you nothing but the best during your time off. No matter how you spend it...enjoy the Teacher Stages of Summer!

Weekly Hawk Playlist/Lyric

"I can see clearly now the rain is gone. I can see all obstacles in my way. Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind. It's gonna be a bright, bright, sunshine day."

- I Can See Clearly Now by Johnny Nash

Hawk Celebrations

Our final celebration of the school year is all about our 8th graders who graduated this past week and are going onto high school next year! The fun filled week was packed with making final memories for our group of 8th graders. Some of these students have been at Pennoyer since they were in Kindergarten and it was an emotional week for many. We started out with a party on the Odyssey Boat trip around Lake Michigan. Our 8th graders took in the sights around Chicago on a beautiful sunny day, ate some good food, and danced it up with the DJ. They had such a great time!!! Then it was onto the Hello Goodbye Breakfast where our 8th graders had a chance to pass on some words of wisdom to the 7th graders and hang out together. After some good treats that day, the 8th graders were certainly energized and ready to go for the Student Staff Volleyball Game. They celebrated in style by dominating the staff and winning two games in a row. It was certainly a tough 8th grade group this year that was athletic and competitive. Our teachers will definitely be better prepared in years to come. At the end of the day on Wednesday, our 8th graders had one last walk through the Pennoyer hallways during their Final Clap Out. Our students and staff lined the hallways in celebration of our 8th graders and all that they've accomplished through their years at Pennoyer. Finally, it was time for the graduation ceremony. Our students celebrated at Ridgewood High School in the field house as we highlighted their many accomplishments and the excitement for their journeys ahead. #PennoyerPride and #8thGradeRocks

May Birthdays! 🎂

Alyssa Ellstrom - 5/10

Teresa Sego - 5/16

Alana Wood - 5/23

George Rodriguez - 5/25

Hawk Thoughts & Happenings

Team Pennoyer,

Wow...I feel like this week just flew by! There were so many highlights as we head into our final week of school. I seriously cannot believe it. You're all doing an amazing job keeping our students productive during a challenging time of the school year. Keep your heads up, stay positive, and here are some things that certainly made me smile this week that I wanted to share with all of you...

Vicki Kafka had such a cool math lesson this week when she brought her 4th graders outside to find out if their dimensions (height and wingspan) created a rectangle or square. Students then used the measurements to calculate the area and perimeter in preparation for their final math assessment.

I had a special lunch with my 2nd grade buddy Todd from Rachel Michael's classroom again after he cashed in his PBIS points. We talked about his favorite things he did this year in 2nd grade most of the time!

Meghan Loring created Word Clouds in her 3rd grade classroom to focus in on such a creative SEL lesson where everyone had a chance to highlight special character traits of each one of their classmates!

Mark Smith finished his time teaching at Pennoyer this week, and his Math 2 students surprised him with a cake and some cards. Mark has brought his expertise to Pennoyer to work with our students over the last two years, and we're surely going to miss him. It's been such a successful collaboration with Maine South, and he definitely got our students ready for the next level!

During our Spring Data Day this week, we had so much to celebrate as an entire school! We saw tremendous growth in K-8 Math and overall in both Reading and Math, the percentage of students who Met or Exceeded their projected RIT Score increased this past school year as well. What a testament to the hard work of our entire staff and all of our students!

The 5th graders participated in their DARE graduation and showed how much they learned about making positive choices in their life both in and out of school. Officer Steve, Justin Widd, and Desiree Dollak really got these students prepared for the next level in 6th grade and the middle school journey that lies ahead for all of them.

Shout Out from Kiera Strecker to Structured Learning Team

"A huge shout out to Megan McManus, Alyssa, and Sam on a fantastic year of curriculum development for the Structured Learning team. They went above and beyond to craft a Structured Learning ELA curriculum, complete with assessments, that is aligned to Pennoyer's general education ELA curriculum so that students of all abilities are ensured equitable access to quality instruction. This was done while implementing and validating their newly developed Structured Science curriculum and assessments as well!"

Shout Out from Nurse Alana to Jill

"Thank you Jill for being flexible and always helping me out in the office when we are short staffed. Also thanks for keeping it fun!"

*Adam is out all day on Tuesday, May 28th next week on the Odyssey Boat Trip with our 8th graders. Please contact the office for any assistance.

Hawk Action Items

For all teachers...HERE is the final checklist that we'll be using on our final day. Please read it over carefully and fill in a time if you still need to that works best for you that day to check out with administration before leaving for the summer...thanks! Please reach out with any questions.

HERE is the final draft of our new Master Schedule for the 2024-2025 school year! Thanks again to everyone for their collaborative efforts into putting this all together. I truly appreciate all of your thoughtfulness and hard work.

As you prepare to leave for the summer, please make sure to start cleaning up your classroom spaces as much as possible, and give students time to clean out their desks and lockers as well. If you need any boxes for yourself, please put in a facilities request on SchoolDude...thanks!

Just a final friendly reminder to teachers...Trimester 3 Grades/Comments are due at the end of the day on Wednesday, May 29th and permanent cumulative record cards with final attendance and student pictures ONLY, should be completed the final day of school on May 31st.

HERE is our updated final week of school calendar so everyone is in the loop. If anything is revised or added on, we'll update this document. Reach out to Adam with any questions.

If you're interested in signing up to supervise and facilitate any Behavior Academies after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, feel free to sign up on the spreadsheet. Here's a reminder about the protocol for our Behavior Academies if you're interested. *New addition to the protocol...please make sure to let the supervising teacher know you're sending someone when you sign a student up for a Behavior Academy. Thanks to everyone who has been supporting these.

Wanna make somebody's day at Pennoyer...don't forget about our staff shout outs we'd like to get started up again this year! It's real easy; if one staff member wants to give another staff member at Pennoyer a positive shout out for something that week, just send a quick email blurb to Adam, and he'll feature it in our weekly Hawk Happenings!

Great job with all the social media posts shared for the month of April! Keep it up in May. Here's the Google Form for teachers to complete. Thanks!!!

Weekly Hawk Playlist/Lyric

One Man Band by Old Dominion

Hawk Celebrations

I'm so excited to celebrate the amazing Talent Show/Art Showcase we had at Pennoyer this week! We have so many creative students that really shine as artists and performers. Ms. Bieda, Ms. Kopolous, and Ms. Wood put together a fabulous evening event that truly highlighted the the passions and abilities of our Pennoyer students and brought out the best in them. Things kicked off with the Art Showcase with so many things to see. Students were able to show off their favorite art activities they were most proud of and it was truly a gallery of work that was impressive. One of the things I know I enjoyed the most was a lesson on display where our 8th graders got to interpret the artwork of our Kindergartners...it was so cool! When it was finally time to hit the stage for the Talent Show, the lights were bright and so were the performers. There was such an amazing variety of acts from dance, to instrument playing, singing, yo-yo trickery, and so much more! It takes a lot of guts to get up on the stage and perform for others, and we couldn't be more proud of each and every one of our students that were brave enough to share their special talents with everyone in attendance. #PennoyerPride and #Pennoyer'sGotTalent