Events
Be sure to check out the Oak Street Activities Calendar!
 

The State of Kansas has mandated some changes in immunization requirements effective with the 2008-09 school year.  The new requirements will affect kindergarten through 5th grade students. (Please see IMPORTANT NOTE below.)

According to the new state guidelines, all Kansas students, kindergarten through 5th grade, will be required to have completed the Hepatitis B Series (3 doses) and have at least one dose of Varicella (chickenpox) vaccine.  Written documentation from either doctor or parent/guardian of prior Varicella disease will be sufficient in place of the immunization.  The documentation of Varicella disease will require month and year of disease.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  Hepatitis B and Varicella requirements for schools are being phased in due to vaccine funding and availability considerations.  Additional grades will be added each school year until students of all ages are included.  As changes to the immunization requirements are announced by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, we will keep you informed.
If you have questions or concerns about the new requirements, please contact Leslie Greenwood Eisenhower Middle School nurse at 794-4150.

Save your Campbell's Labels & Boxtops
Don't forget to continue and save your Boxtops and Campbell's Labels. They can be turned in at Oak Street Elementary.

Wow!  What a great year we have had in Kindergarten.  If you think the rest of the year flew by, wait until you see how fast April & May will zoom by!  As you begin to prepare for summer, please try to plan some activities for your family that are educational in value.  Even though the kids are on break, make it a point to do some kind of review/practice with them every day……we want to keep their skills sharp so that they are prepared for what the first grade world will bring them.
April is a very busy month for us.  We will be taking 2 field trips.  On April 2, Mrs. Peters & Mrs. Kitzmann’s class will be spending the day with the monkeys at the zoo.  We are so very excited.  If you have a zoo pass for your family, please get the information to your child’s teacher ASAP so that they can get in free and our PTO won’t have to pay their way.  Also, on April 2, Mrs. Wacker will be taking her classes to Exploration Place.  They will have the opportunity to see a number of exhibits, including one on shapes and one on time.  Then, on April 17, all of the Kindergarten classes will be going to the Wichita Children’s Theatre for a production of “The Three Little Pigs”.  We have been cooped up too long during this extended cold winter and we are looking forward to getting out and about.

Mark your calendars for May 16…….All of the Oak Street Crew will be participating in a field day to celebrate the end of a great year.  We want to thank those of you who have already signed up to help with this fun event.  Please remember to send a water bottle on that day and to lather your child with sunscreen, as we will be in the great outdoors all day!

Thank you for all of your help & support this year!  Best of luck to you and your children as you prepare for first grade. 

We wish you a safe & fun-filled summer! 

As the year flies by, we are seeing such enthusiasm and growth in our first graders!  Our field trip to the Museum of World Treasures was a fun and educational trip for kids and adults, it was a great success.  Oak Street’s annual carnival was also very successful and it couldn’t happen without lots of great volunteers!  We are looking forward to a very busy, but enjoyable remainder of the school year.

In April, we will further students understanding of time and calendar in math, specifically focusing on ordering events, telling time to the hour and half hour, elapsed time, and days, weeks, and months.  We will also work more with subtraction, now using two-digit numbers.  This has been a tough concept for students, but practicing basic addition and subtraction facts helps tremendously.  For music, Mrs. Christy has organized a field trip to Century 2 for a Stephen Fite concert in April.

In May, we will be making our annual Zoo trip and will need plenty of parents to join in the fun!  Students will also be participating in Field day.  In math, we will be learning about data and graphing, focusing specifically on tally marks on tally charts, pictographs, and bar graphs.  We will also learn about length and weight, focusing specifically on length and height, nonstandard measure, inches, centimeters, and comparing weights. 

In April and May in reading, as with the rest of the year, we will be encouraging students to meet their reading goals by daily assigned and free choice reading.  As the days get longer, we understand it gets tougher to fit homework time in, but it is very important in first grade!  Students should be more accurate, expressive, and quick in their reading by this time of year, as well as have a thorough understanding of what they’ve read.

As always, we appreciate your support and the opportunity to help your child succeed in first grade!

We’re on the home stretch. We’ve had such a great year with our second graders. They are a great group of kids and we really enjoy them. 

As we look to what we will be learning at the end of the year, here is a preview. In reading, we will focus on plot and theme in narrative stories. The plot is the action of a story- the beginning, the middle, and the end. The theme is the big idea behind the story. You can think about what you learned from a story to figure out the big idea. In the following months, as your child reads a narrative story ask them questions about the plot and the theme of the story. In addition, we will also be reviewing realism and fantasy as well as the author’s purpose for writing the story. These also avail themselves to a handful of questions about any story/article that your child reads.

In math, we will continue to work on telling time and elapsed time. Also look for measurement and fractions to appear in our class work.  All of these concepts are practical everyday opportunities waiting to happen.
Enjoy your summer with your child. Find some interesting books. And remember to read, read, and read some more. With reading, it’s always the more the better!

April showers may bring May flowers, but they also bring state assessments, field trips, and many other exciting events in the 3rd grade at Oak Street.  Please watch for important information about upcoming dates and events to be sent home in classroom newsletters, notes, and permission slips.

The third grade teachers would like to take this opportunity to thank-you for your generous donations towards the recent Oak Street carnival.  Each of our classroom baskets were overflowing with items related to our designated themes.  These baskets drew a lot of attention and collected several tickets from anxious carnival goers.  Our grade level also collected several two liters which were used for a pop-walk game and for the concessions stand.  In addition, we would like to thank those parents who volunteered their time to both work booths and donate goodies to the sweet shop.  The carnival was a huge success and we are grateful to have such wonderful parental support.  The money used from the carnival will help PTO to support student activities and purchase additional resources for the students as well. 

The students have recently completed the Kansas State reading assessments.  We are very proud of all of our third-graders for their hard work and maturity in handling these assessments.  The students will complete the State math assessments during the first two weeks of April.  Please watch for additional information to be sent home from your child’s classroom teacher regarding these tests.

Over the next few weeks, our classrooms will focus on math review and enrichment in preparation for the state assessments.  Students will participate in math activities and centers to reinforce any skills that they may need additional support with.  Our next math chapters will focus on geometry and measurement.  In reading, the students will continue to build on skills learned in previous units.  Students will read a variety of materials throughout the past nine weeks.  These materials will include stories from their textbooks, novel studies, poetry, and non-fiction selections.  Students will complete a variety of projects to support the stories that they read. 

The third-grade classes have many additional activities and events coming up in the next few months.  Some of these events include:

• State Assessment Bowling Events at Seneca Bowl-  May 2nd
• Oak Street Zoo Day- May 6th
• Cosmosphere Field Trip at Hutchinson – May 14th
• Oak Street Field Day- May 16th

The fourth grade students will enjoy their upcoming field trip to Hutchinson to tour the Salt Mine. Students will not only take a trip in the dark with flashlights, but collect their own salt sample, and learn about the "Ancient Waters" in an underground classroom. After the tour they will visit the zoo in town and enjoy their sack lunches. Mr. Gable/Mrs. Phillips' students will go on April 11 and Mrs. Hillman/Miss Kerschens' students on April 16.

We have completed our reading state assessments and will continue with the math assessment the first two weeks of this month. Then, the fourth grade students will finish up with the science assessment at the end of the month. The students have worked very hard and diligently and the fourth grade teachers recognize that fact and appreciate all the effort that they put into their testing.

As a reward for this outstanding effort, the students are going to be pleasantly surprised. The third and fourth grade students will enjoy 2 hours of bowling at no cost to the students. Fourth grade will bowl on May 9 and then enjoy a sack lunch and have time to visit with each other at the bowling alley.

In May, we will also have our annual trip to the Sedgwick County Zoo, present our music concert, and participate in field day. Our last two months of school are hectic and fun, but we also want it to be a learning environment. 

As teachers, we still have curriculum to cover and the students still have a lot to learn. We encourage all parents to continue checking those agendas and communicator folders each and every night and please sign the agenda. Your support is what makes the difference. The fourth grade teachers wish their students and their families the best for next year and hope that summer is sensational and full of family togetherness.

• If your child will be absent or tardy from school, please make sure and call the office at 794-4200 by 9:30 a.m. We will be calling on all unverified absences. We encourage parents to schedule appointments on days we are not in school, if possible (inservices, 1/2 day releases, holiday beaks…).
• If your child is tardy or coming to school late (ie. doctors appt.) you will need to come into the office to sign them in.
• If your child is a bus rider and you will be picking them up at the end of the day we either need you to write a note in the morning or come into the office to sign them up as a walker by 3:45. You may call to let us know your plans but we must have confirmation in writing.
• Any change of transportation must be done in writing.

• Any change in a child’s daily bus routine must be verified in writing from the child’s parents/guardians before school starts that day. Written notice must be given to the office if the child is to be picked up that day instead of riding the bus home. For the safety of your child we do not honor telephone calls to change a child’s school bus routine unless it is an emergency.

• No Mesh, see-through , halter, tube tops or one shoulder tops may be worn. All strap tops must be at least one inch wide or worn with a shirt under it. Muscle shirts must be worn with a shirt underneath. Midriffs must be covered.
• Clothing may not be worn with printing or pictures that promote the use of drugs, alcohol, or double meaning messages.
• Hats, Bandanas, and other head apparel may not be worn in the building.
• Clothing considered to be undergarments can not be visible. No sagging.
• Unnatural hair/highlights (such as blue, green, purple, etc) are not allowed.
• The building principal reserves the right to disapprove any apparel which he/she feels may create a disturbance or is inappropriate in the school setting.
• The building principal may approve exceptions to the dress code based on such reasons as religious reasons, student health reasons, parental requests and school activities.