Mrs. Vander Kooi's Teacher Page 2023-2024
I am delighted to be your child's ELA teacher and I look forward to a fantastic year in fifth grade! I will be utilizing this page throughout the year for updates on curriculum and events. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have during the school year. I look forward to building a partnership with you to create a successful fifth grade year for our students!
Classroom and School News
Important Dates
Thursday, May 16: Fifth Grade Step-Up day to Hickory Creek
Friday, May 24th: School Improvement Day-Early Dismissal 12:05
Monday, May 27th: Memorial Day-No School
Tuesday, June 11th: School Improvement Day-Early Dismissal 12:05 and the last day of school if no Emergency Days are used!
Encore Schedule
Students will have P.E. class every morning. Students will also have the opportunity to enrich their learning in the following encore classes:
Quarter 1 Music with Mrs. Zito
Quarter 2 Art with Mrs. Maney
Quarter 3 Spanish with Mrs. Smerz
Quarter 4 STEM with Mrs. Jozaitis
Theme Thursdays at Chelsea
2/29/2024- Leap Day 2024- Celebrate the day that comes once every 4 years! Wear green or your favorite frog shirt.
03/07/2024-Decades Day: Fifth graders will represent the 90's!
03/14/2024-Luck of the Irish: Wear the color green or your favorite St. Patrick's Day shirt.
03/21/2024-March Madness: Wear a shirt or jersey of your favorite basketball team/player.
04/04/2024-Batter Up! Baseball season is here! Represent your favorite team by wearing
a jersey or baseball themed shirt to school today.
04/11/2024-Character Day: Wear a shirt with your favorite movie, tv show, or cartoon
character to school today.
04/18/2024-Neon Day: Let's brighten our school by wearing neon colors!
04/25/2024-"Level Up" by wearing your favorite video game or level up t-shirt.
Every Friday is Chelsea Spirit Day so let's show our Chelsea pride and wear our school colors of maroon and gold!
Library on Wednesdays
We will begin going to the library on Wednesdays this school year. My homeroom class will be going at 10:10 and the afternoon block 2 will be at 2:30. Every year our school librarian, Mrs. Schubert, has the opportunity to add new books! We can always ask her for book recommendations. There are even audio books! The students look forward to this time period to grab a book and read to their heart's content! We are so fortunate to have an abundance of books to choose from in our school library.
ClassLink at Home
Students can access ClassLink from their home computers! Directions for how to access the ClassLink launchpad from home are in the downloads section of this page. In order for students to not have to reenter usernames and passwords they will need to add an extension to their web browser. Directions for how to do that are also linked to this page. If the extension is not added then login credentials will have to be entered each time.
This information can also be found on the district website under "Student/Parent Technology Tutorials."
Communication
I am committed to establishing a strong parent-teacher relationship. I will be using this teacher webpage and the Remind app to communicate. If you would like to receive text updates on ELA class information including homework and general reminders please send a text message to 81010 and send this message @738e2g or you can click the link below: https://www.remind.com/join/738e2g
Please consider following us on social media to see photos and updates from our classroom, other teachers and our administrators.
Follow our class on Twitter: @MrsVanderKooi5
Follow Chelsea School on Twitter: @Chelsea_Tigers
Erin's Law Presentations
Governor Pat Quinn signed Erin's Law in January of 2013, which requires all schools in the state of Illinois to provide age-appropriate sexual abuse and assault awareness and prevention education programs for students in grades Pre-K through 12. The Chelsea Intermediate School social workers will be teaching each lesson in the child’s classroom. The "Think First and Stay Safe" program will be the curriculum utilized for these lessons with a focus on Child Lures.
