What an Amazing Year!

OMS Families,

I hope this finds you well into enjoying summer vacation!

Since the last day of school, there have been a few announcements. Julie Nelson will become a full-time advanced learning facilitator at Westgate. For the last couple of years, Julie has been a part-time advanced learning facilitator/LMC teacher at OMS. We wish her well as a Westgate Wolverine! After 29 years at OMS, Mary Jansson decided to retire. Along with Sue Dunlop, she will be missed dearly! Please find a message from Mary below, as she said it best.

What a year it has been! It would be easy to focus on the construction and all that is to come but, in truth, this year was about the people. I continue to be amazed by our wonderful neighborhood school. Our community is almost 600 students strong and yet it feels like a home and family. The care and concern that everyone shows for each other is a significant element of what makes OMS so special. We are also grateful for the support of our neighbors and are always looking for ways to give back. Together with parents, families, teachers, staff, and administrators, we are a team focused on encouraging our students to explore their individual passions. We value both tradition and innovation. We may have some new walls next year but it is the individuals inside that create the quintessential learning environment for all of us. Thank you so much for being a part of it! I am humbled to be able to call OMS home for the last five years and look forward to many more years together.

Wishing you special moments with your children this summer!

Becky

As soon as students and teachers left the building, construction really took off! Crews finally broke through the wall between our commons and the new hallway to the gym. Walls came down between our gym and commons and a new entrance was created on the west side of the building. Everything is going well and continues to look good for an on-time completion. Drive by sometime to check out our progress!

Replacing part of the roof

Walls knocked down between the gym, kitchen & commons

New drainage under our parking lot

Old gym = New kitchen, lounge & storage

Fresh, new ventilation in the commons

New gym almost 100% complete. Game on!

Dear OMS Families,

Thank you for a Hoot-tastic first year as an Olive Owl.  I drove to work each day feeling incredibly blessed to be a part of such a great community.  I thought I would reminisce and share a few of my favorite memories from my first year as Olive-Mary Stitt’s Assistant Principal.

August - Figuring out where 578 students were going to sit during lunch time!

September - Climbing to the roof to participate in the 5th-Grade Egg-Drop!

October - Participating in the ice bucket/marble collection game during a Halloween Celebration!

Watch Video!

November - Meeting families during Family Bingo Night!

December - Reading stories to students during “Holiday Story time with the Principals”!

January - Watching “The Mouse Trap Machine Show” with the 4th and 5th graders at Activity Night!

February - Welcoming new kindergarten families during Kindergarten Open House!

March - Watching some of our Owl present at the District 25 Teachnology Fair!

April - Sharing poems on Poem in Your Pocket Day!

May - Celebrating Olive our teachers during Staff Appreciation Week!

June - Two words - CAMP EDWARDS!

I wish you a safe and super summer and look forward to welcoming the students back in the fall!

Erin

Student Designed Learning Spaces

Students in Mrs. Range's class are demonstrating that not only do Olive students own the learning, sometimes they own the learning space, too! With the likelihood of looping to fourth grade with Mrs. Range, this year's third graders are taking an active role in planning the set-up and design for their brand-new fourth-grade classroom. So many bright ideas are being shared that Mrs. Range will have many options in mind when setting up her new room in August.

Summer Keyboarding Challenge

Please encourage your children to participate in the District Keyboarding Challenge 2016. Students log in to typingtraining.com  and practice their typing skills. The minutes are recorded in Typing Training and averaged by the number of students participating. The school with the most minutes recorded will house the coveted Golden Keyboard and be recognized at a district board meeting. The student with the most minutes at Olive-Mary Stitt will be treated to one technology lunch/recess with a friend and also be recognized at a board meeting. Click here or check the Olive-Mary Stitt website for more information.

AHML Summer Reading Program

The OMS LMC staff hopes that our community will make reading for fun a priority this summer! We encourage students to sign up at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library for the summer reading program: Up, Up and Away, Superhero Summer.  The District 25 librarians collaborated on reading lists for the programs with the AHML librarians.

If OMS students participate in the AHML program, we would love to have them save their reading forms.  When school starts in August, they can show us their completed forms and then choose a superhero character to represent themselves.  The superhero will be added to our city scene display as a way to recognize students who participated in the AHML program.

Watch the video to learn about the OMS connection to the AHML program.

https://animoto.com/play/W0m0RpPt0FjpeVgw3yxQyw

OMS LMC webpage Summer Reading link:

http://olivemarystittlmc.weebly.com/summer-reading.html

Mr. DeMarco's Art Blog

Please check out Mr. DeMarco's latest art blog!

http://oliveart.weebly.com/blog/third-trimester-update-springsummer

Field Day 2016

As you can see, we had more than a bit of fun today! Thank you to all of our field day volunteers and Mrs. Pusateri!

Thank You Olive Volunteers!

To Our Wonderful Olive Volunteers

We are so very fortunate at Olive-Mary Stitt School

to have the volunteers, such as yourself, that we do.

We do realize that these days,

it is especially tricky to find extra time to give of yourself, 

for the OMS children

to have such wonderful programs and experiences 

that would be hard or even impossible to do 

without your help.

The Volunteer Program at Olive-Mary Stitt,

is really one of tradition, 

as Mrs. Mary Stitt herself was quite an advocate

of having Olive Parents genuinely involved 

as an integral part of Olive School.

YOU have played an important role

in carrying on this outstanding tradition.

Olive could not be all that it is,

without your unselfish effort, 

and the generous gift of your time.

All the things that you do for Olive,

and especially the way in which you do them,

is truly felt by the children and the staff, 

as well as the entire Olive community.

Your work as a volunteer is dearly 

appreciated by OLIVE-US.

The Olive Staff has purchased a banner 

to be flown in your honor each year.

We warmly thank you!

With Our Heartfelt Gratitude,

The Staff of Olive-Mary Stitt School

Camp Edwards loves Owls!

You can't come to Camp Edwards and NOT go down the tube slide!

Group Initiative

Team building - we made it through the spider web without touching the ropes!  We also saved the class in less than a minute by swinging across a piranha swamp.

Say cheese!

Lunchtime!

Archery Anyone?

A beautiful day for a canoe ride!

Breakfast is served!

And we're off...

Camp Edwards here we come!