We were more than excited to see our students coming in on Monday. We hope that you had a restful and wonderful break with family and friends.

On Wednesday, we gathered together as a school and explored one of the Seven Core Principles of the Happiness Advantage. We discussed, watched a video, and participated in team building activities that demonstrated the advantages of Falling Up.  As a school and in classrooms, we found that when we struggle and have the support of others, we can overcome challenges with the support of one another. Please ask your child about the Rock, Paper, Scissor Challenge and the Ball Bin Challenge. Einstein also had a visitor from the Spark, the orange frog! It was a fantastic way to start the New Year.

To learn more about the principle Falling Up, refer to the Orange Frog, Family Reading Guide, page 72.

Weather
We know that mornings can be extremely busy and hats and gloves can often be left behind. We wanted to send a reminder that if the temperature or wind chill are 0 degrees or below, we will be inside for recess. Anything above 0, students will be going outside. Our secretaries check throughout the day as conditions change. We use the National Weather Service site for accurate readings.

News from the PTA
Come enjoy a donut with your dad (or other significant male) on Wednesday, January 23, 2019.  After enjoying time with your child, dads or special person can walk their child to their classroom. The event begins at 8AM.

In order to have enough muffins, kindly RSVP to this evite no later than January 18, 2019.  This is a PTA sponsored event and donuts are no charge to the parent, however we ask that you limit your attendance to one adult per child.  We really hope you can join us.  

http://evite.me/tU811XXEgH If you are having difficulty submitting your RSVP, please email einsteinowlspta@nullgmail.com.

You can also send your volunteer information to einsteinowlspta@nullgmail.com Hope to see you all there!

PTA REMINDERS:
General PTA Meeting:  1/22/19 6pm in the Staff Lounge
Dairy Queen Hot Lunch:  1/22/19
Donuts with Dads:  1/23/19 8am in the Einstein Gym
Culvers Hot Lunch:  2/5/19
Pho Chopsticks Hot Lunch: 2/19/19

Kindergarten Registration
On Wednesday, February 6 we will be hosting Kindergarten Registration.  Kindergarten Registration is intended for any incoming Einstein-based kindergarteners for the 2019-2020 school year.  Registration will take place at Einstein School from 9:00-11:00AM and 5:00-7:00PM.

5 Essentials Survey
Once again we are reaching out to our families and asking you to participate in the annual Illinois 5 Essentials Survey to provide us with your perspective and help guide our school improvement efforts. The parent survey will be available online through February 15, 2019, at https://survey.5-essentials.org/Illinois.

Schaumburg Parent University – January classes
Schaumburg Parent University (SPU) is designed to involve more parents in the life of the school, to strengthen family relationships, and to improve parenting skills that will ultimately result in improved student success academically, socially and emotionally. There are two evening programs scheduled for January. Please note that child care is always available.
Learning how good outcomes in adulthood are connected to strong emotional regulation and resiliency skills in childhood – 5:30-7 p.m. on Jan. 14
This educational seminar will focus on teaching parents of children and adolescents concrete skills towards improving emotional regulation, problem-solving skills, and nurturing resiliency for optimal functioning in school, extracurricular activities, and social life. Adults only.

Literacy Night – 6-7:30 p.m. on Jan. 23
Come join us for a night of interactive writing where your family’s creativity is in control of the story line. Clues will lead you to special treats as well as a keepsake. Parents and students, aged preschool – eighth grade, are welcome.
These events will take place at the District 54 Professional Learning Center, 522 E. Schaumburg Road, Schaumburg. Please register by visiting https://goo.gl/TB49x7. For more information, contact Meg Kwak at 847-357-6586 or spu@nullsd54.org

We had a blast last Thursday beginning our day with the PTA sponsored, Holly Jolly Breakfast and Pajama Day! A big thank you to our PTA and all of our volunteers. It is always a great time to visit with our students and families. We had an incredible turn out. Thank you for taking the time to spend your morning with us.

Reminders: A reminder that tonight is the Portillo’s Fundraiser.  A portion of the proceeds comes directly to Einstein! 

A reminder there is no TAP after school on December 20th.

Students will be coming home with MAP reports next week.

This Thursday, December 6th, we will be celebrating our students’ hard work and generosity with an All-School Pajama Day.  

Just a reminder that our Holly Jolly Breakfast will be sponsored by our PTA on Thursday, December 6^th. The event will begin at 7:30 in the gym and food will be served until 8:15. The cost is $2.00 per person. PTA will be serving pancakes, turkey sausage links, hash browns, toast and jelly, and fresh fruit. All students must be accompanied by an adult.

If you have any questions or are still interested in volunteering, please contact the PTA at einsteinowlspta@nullgmail.com.

At our last All School Assembly, we shared with our staff and students that we raised over $2600 through our Penny Wars! There was a tremendous amount of generosity from our Einstein Community.  Our Student Ambassadors led the way in making blankets with all of the classrooms and delivered them to St. Alexius Pediatric Center last Wednesday. The commitment from our students was incredible. We also decided to donate $1500 to our School District 54 Food Pantry. This is a fantastic resource, which benefits so many of our families. Again, thank you for your generosity and kindness.

The winter weather came with a fury! Students came into the building in a hurry this morning, bundled head to toe! Just a reminder that we do still go outside during the winter months. If students would like to be in the snow, they need to be dressed appropriately to stay dry. Please let us know if you need any support in getting warm clothing for the winter months.

In the month of December, our Orange Frog focus will be on Zorro Circles. As we are in the season of making resolutions and goal setting after MAP, we want to focus on small wins in order to make those bigger goals more attainable. A small, positive change can result in change on a grander scale. You can refer to page 71 in your Orange Frog Family Reading Guided as well as Chapter 5 for examples on how small wins turn into great gains.

News from the PTA
Einstein PTA will be hosting a Holiday Workshop. This is an opportunity for students to purchase gifts for families. Included is a link to view all of the items, which are available. Fliers will also be sent home. http://shop.funservicesil.com/

The workshop will be open during the Holiday Breakfast on 12.6.18 from 7:30-8:30am. The workshop will also be open during the school day on 12.6.18.

Einstein PTA will be having a Holiday Breakfast this year and you are all invited!
Please save the date for Thursday, December 6, 2018 7:30-8:30am.
Please email einsteinowlspta@nullgmail.com if you are interested in becoming a volunteer at the event.

All District 54 schools and the Rafferty Administration Center will be closed on Monday, Nov. 26, 2018, due to the weather. All after-school and evening activities are canceled as well.

The decision to close school is not one we make lightly. Our top concern is whether we believe the more than 15,000 students we serve can get to school safely (whether they walk, take a bus or ride in a car).

District 54 makes every effort to keep our schools open, but circumstances beyond our control (such as extreme weather) sometimes dictate that we close.

Thank you for your understanding and support. The decision to close schools is made one day at a time.

For more information about our notification procedures and a link to our Severe Cold Weather Response Plan, you can visit https://sd54.org/resources/schoolcancellations

As we go into this Thanksgiving week, the Einstein staff would like to wish the entire community a wonderful Thanksgiving break. We are so grateful for your partnership and support! Wishing you time to relax and make memories with family and friends this holiday season.

No School – November 21st – November 23rd
There is no school tomorrow, Wednesday, November 21st through Friday, November 23rd, due to the Thanksgiving holiday. 

MAP Testing
The next round of MAP testing begins November 27, 2018. We are excited to monitor the progress of the goals we reviewed with your child earlier this year. Shortly after the conclusion of the MAP testing window, we will share the results with you. 

We are excited to see the growth our students have made since the fall MAP administration!
Monday 11/26        2^nd  (Weber only) & 4^th Reading
Tuesday 11/27       2^nd & 6^th Reading
Wednesday 11/28  2^nd and 4^th Math
Friday 11/30          1^st & 3^rd Reading
Monday 12/3         6^th Math
Tuesday 12/4        3^rd Math & 5^th Reading
Wednesday 12/5    Kinder Reading & 5^th Math
Friday 12/7            Kinder & 1^st Math

Report Cards Online Nov. 21
Parents/guardians will be able to view report cards online this semester on Nov. 21. I want to ensure that all of our parents have access to this early viewing of the report card, so I highly encourage you to sign up for the District 54 Infinite Campus Parent/Student Portal. The portal is a website and app where parents and guardians can view their children’s grades, assignments, immunizations, test scores, demographic information and report cards. If you have not previously logged on to the portal, contact our front office for instructions on how to obtain a secure Campus Portal Activation Key.

What an incredible day today! We welcomed our families into our classrooms to learn aside our students. Whether it was playing a game in PE, drawing a Turkey scene in Art, or working on word problems, our students were excited to spend the first part of their day with you. Thank you for taking the time to join us and your endless support.

In our most recent community messenger, we shared that our wish was to connect with our Einstein Community as we began our Penny Wars. It has been an amazing Act of Kindness! Today we concluded our Penny Wars and we are still counting our total. Our students have been utilizing strategies to engage in serious competition! We will be celebrating our students’ commitment and generosity on Monday with an all school assembly. Since the generosity was overwhelming, we will be selecting other organizations to donate to as well. Our 5^th and 6^th graders have been doing their research and finding causes to donate to. We will be sharing the total amount donated and the organizations we will be donating to at our All School Assembly.

New from the PTA
Einstein PTA will be having a Holiday Breakfast this year and you are all invited!

Please save the date for Thursday, December 6, 2018 7:30-8:30 a.m.
Please watch for more information in upcoming blasts and on the flyer to be sent home soon! We will be looking for several volunteers to make this event successful.  Please email einsteinowlspta@nullgmail.com if you are interested in becoming a volunteer at the event.

We are still looking for all BOXTOPS.   This is a simple way to make Einstein PTA money so we can continue to provide fun school events at little or no cost to our families.  With that said, please make sure that you are turning your box tops in right away and not saving them.  We had to throw away a large amount recently due to them being expired.  We don’t want all that to go to waste.   Please throw them in a baggie and send them to school even if its only three at a time.  We appreciate your efforts!!!

On November 16^th, we will be hosting parents for American Education Week. We would love to have our families be a part of our learning environment. We will begin by having our parents join us in the gym between 8:15 and 8:35. Our student ambassadors will take our parents to the grade levels/classrooms they are here to visit. We will run 2 sessions for families who have more than one child. Session 1: 8:45-9:15 and Session 2 9:15-9:45. Students will be sent home with an RSVP by this Friday to fill out and return. We can’t wait for our parent community to see the great things happening here at Einstein.

Reminder: No school tomorrow, Tuesday 11.6.18.

Positivity is Key at Einstein
At the beginning of the school year, Einstein families received a copy of The Orange Frog Family Reading Guide, which is a parable based on the foundations of The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor.  We also shared a version of the parable at our 1^st All School Assembly on the first day of school. This year we will be bringing The Happiness Advantage to life at Einstein School by focusing on the different happiness habits. You can refer to page 77 in your Orange Frog Family Reading Guide to learn more about all of the Happiness Tactics & Habits.

In November we will be focusing on Conscious Acts of Kindness! Take a look at pages 86 and 87 in the Family Reading Guide. By practicing Conscious Acts of Kindness, we are not only putting a smile on someone’s face, we also feel good for sharing positivity with others.

We would love to connect with our Einstein Community as we commit to our Conscious Acts of Kindness.
We have begun today with our Penny Wars! Students have been proudly bringing in their pennies and silver coins! I witnessed a Kinder student empty a Ziploc baggie filled with pennies into her Kinder jar to help the children at St. Alexius Hospital in Hoffman Estates. I also saw a 5^th grader purposely putting 3 quarters into the 6^th grade jar, so that they would deduct from their total amount of pennies. Game on! Let’s see which grade level can donate the most! I love seeing how strategic the students are when donating and trying to get their own grade level to win!

Our Conscious Acts of Kindness does not stop there!

On Veteran’s Day, we will be writing letters and making cards for our troops during the holiday season. We would like to share our gratitude for their service. We will also be reading America’s White Table. Einstein will have their own white table to accompany our “memorial wall”. We will  be creating our very own “memorial wall” at Einstein. You will be receiving a paper brick this week to decorate, making it your own. Please return them to the school by this Friday as we are looking to create our wall of dedication.

Our Happiness Committee which is run by our very own Einstein staff has created a brief presentation and activities which demonstrate the meaning of gratitude for our primary and intermediate students. Here is a sneak peek at the videos.
Click here for the Thankful Book by Todd Parr. Click here for the WestJet Story

Einstein is also here to provide our families with support. We can offer many services and connections to food pantries, clothing closets, outside counseling, and support during the holiday season as well. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us, as we are always here to help.
Community Closet Flyer for Schools.pub District 54 Food Pantry.docx

We hope you have a wonderful and safe Halloween! It was wonderful to see all of our students dressed to impress! Thank you to our community for cheering us on as we paraded in the beautiful weather.

Reminder: No School Tuesday, November 6^th, Election Day

Illinois Report Card
The Illinois State Board of Education annually releases school report cards that show how each school, each district and the state is performing on a wide range of educational goals. The 2018 report card information is posted on the state’s website at www.illinoisreportcard.com. District 54 will also make it available on our website at http://sd54.org/schoolreportcards.

The illinoisreportcard.com website contains results from the PARCC assessment, as well as information about student and teacher demographics, enrollment, district-level financial information. The report card also includes results from the 5Essentials survey, which was given to students in grades 4 through 8, certified staff and parents last year.

If you do not have access to the Internet or prefer to receive a hard copy, you may call the school at (847) 357-6444. If you want copies of the report cards from more than one of District 54’s schools, please call the District 54 Community Relations Department at (847) 357-5027.

Schaumburg Parent University – November classes
Schaumburg Parent University (SPU) is designed to involve more parents in the life of the school, to strengthen family relationships, and to improve parenting skills that will ultimately result in improved student success academically, socially and emotionally. There are two evening programs scheduled for November. Please note that child care is always available.

• Secret Service Internet Safety Class – November 5 The U.S. Secret Service will educate parents on how they can keep their children safe online. Topics will include inappropriate content, privacy, sexting, cyberbullying and digital citizenship. This event will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. on November 5 2018, at the District 54 Professional Learning Center, 522 E. Schaumburg Road, Schaumburg. Secret Service Internet Safety Class Flyer
• Mindful Meditation – November 14 As part of our ongoing focus on student wellness, we invite parents and their children to join us in learning how to use the power of something super simple – your breath – to improve concentration, reduce stress, improve quality of sleep and help you handle your response (both emotional and physical) to outside circumstances and situations. Please bring your own yoga mat or a towel to sit on during meditation. This event will take place from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. on November 14, 2018, at the District 54 Professional Learning Center, 522 E. Schaumburg Road, Schaumburg. Mindful Meditation Flyer

To register or for more information, contact Meg Kwak at 847-357-6586 or spu@nullsd54.org. Leave your name, contact information, the number of children needing childcare (free) and your child’s school.

Boleta de Calificaciones de Illinois
La Junta de Educación del Estado de Illinois publica anualmente los informes escolares que muestran cómo cada escuela, cada distrito y el estado se están desempeñando en una amplia gama de objetivos educativos. Se espera que la información de la boleta de calificaciones de 2018 se publique el miércoles 31 de octubre en el sitio web del estado en www.illinoisreportcard.com. El Distrito 54 también lo pondrá a disposición en nuestro sitio web en http://sd54.org/schoolreportcards.

El sitio web  illinoisreportcard.com  contiene los resultados de la evaluación PARCC, así como información sobre datos demográficos de estudiantes y maestros, inscripciones e información financiera a nivel de distrito. La boleta de calificaciones también incluye los resultados de la encuesta 5Essentials, que se entregó a los estudiantes de los grados 4to a 8vo, el personal certificado y a los padres el año pasado.

Si usted no tiene acceso a Internet o prefiere recibir una copia impresa, puede llamar a la escuela al (847) 357-6444. Si desea copias de las boletas de calificaciones de más de una de las escuelas del Distrito 54, llame al Departamento de Relaciones Comunitarias del Distrito 54 al (847) 357-5027.

La Universidad Schaumburg para Padres – Clases de noviembre
La idea de la Universidad para Padres es envolver más a los padres in la vida escolar, para fortalecer las relaciones familiares, y mejorar los conocimientos de crianza que finalmente resultarán en un mejor éxito académico, social y emocional del estudiante. Hay dos programas nocturnos para noviembre. El cuidado de niños está siempre disponible.

• Clase de seguridad de internet del Servicio Secreto de los Estados Unidos – 5 de noviembre El Servicio Secreto de EE. UU. educará a los padres sobre cómo pueden mantener seguros a sus hijos en línea. Los temas incluirán contenido inapropiado, privacidad, sexting, cyberbullying y ciudadanía digital. Sólo para adultos. Este evento tendrá lugar a las 6 p.m. el 5 de noviembre en el Centro de Aprendizaje Profesional del Distrito 54, 522 E. Schaumburg Road, Schaumburg, IL 60194. Clase de seguridad de internet del Servicio Secreto de los Estados Unidos
• Meditación de Plenitud Mental – 14 de noviembre Como parte de nuestro enfoque continuo en el bienestar de los estudiantes, invitamos a los padres y sus hijos a unirse a nosotros para aprender a usar el poder de algo súper simple: su respiración – para mejorar la concentración, reducir el estrés, mejorar la calidad del sueño y ayudarlo a manejar su respuesta (tanto emocional como física) a circunstancias y situaciones externas. Por favor traiga su propia estera de yoga o una toalla para sentarse durante la meditación.  Este evento tendrá lugar de 6:30 a 7:30 p.m. el 14 de noviembre de 2018, en el Centro de Aprendizaje Profesional del Distrito 54, 522 E. Schaumburg Road, Schaumburg. Meditación de Plenitud Mental  

Regístrese con Barb Velez al 847-357-5074 o spu@nullsd54.org. Por favor, dejar su nombre, información de contacto, número de participantes, número de niños necesitando cuidado de niños (gratis) y la escuela de su hijo/a. Los intérpretes están disponibles por solicitud.