I hope that everyone had a terrific Thanksgiving Break. It was nice to get away for a bit and focus on the family. Thanksgiving was a much smaller gathering this year. We normally have 30+ people in our house. The staff is looking forward to a strong few weeks before we head into our Winter Break time.
Talent Show Participants
We need more students for our virtual Talent Show! Please encourage your students to share their skill with our Woodlawn community. We would like to have the students submit a video by December 9th. If your student is interested in participating or has any questions, please email Mrs. Shanks <[email protected]> or Mrs. Woods <[email protected]>.
STEM Opportunity This Saturday (12-5)
Is your middle school student Interested in coding and CAD 3-D modeling? Kids in grades 6–8 are invited to join the STEM Crash Course Zoom hosted by the Stevenson High School Sophomore VEX Robotics Team on Sat., Dec. 5.
Workshop times are 9:30–11:30 AM and 1:00–3:00 PM. Club coaches will be present online throughout the event to offer assistance if needed.
See MORE INFO (https://bit.ly/3ok63yO) and sign-up instructions to receive the Zoom link. Questions? Contact [email protected]
Sorry for the late notice on this one. We didn’t receive the information until just recently.
Monthly Asynchronous Wednesdays
Once per month, beginning in December, students will participate in asynchronous activities for a portion of their school day. The dates for each of these asynchronous Wednesdays are identified below. Students will go through all of their periods on an amended schedule. They will be done with their classes at 12:00PM. Lunch will be from 12:00-12:30PM and the asynchronous portion of the day will be from 12:30-2:30 PM. Teachers will communicate with students to be sure that they understand the expectations for each of these days.
These monthly asynchronous days were created to give students the opportunity to participate in topics that will enhance our current curricular content, and so that teachers have time to collaborate and plan with each other to determine the best way to approach future instruction.
In addition to the December 16th date, the remaining asynchronous Wednesdays will take place on the following dates.
December 16
January 13
February 24
March 17
April 21
SPECIFIC INFORMATION ABOUT THE FIRST ASYNCHRONOUS WEDNESDAY: DECEMBER 16th
The asynchronous portion of the day will take place in the afternoon. The asynchronous focus for this day is digital citizenship. Students will be engaging in a variety of Digital Citizenship See specifics below for each grade.
Middle School (Grades 6-8): Students will engage in instruction as they typically would until 12:00pm. At 12:30pm, the asynchronous portion of the day will begin and continue through the end of the school day. Students will access the asynchronous work in Schoology. Teachers will communicate with students to be sure that they understand the expectations and communicate where they should access the asynchronous work for each of these days. While we prefer that the asynchronous work is completed during this designated time, please adjust timing based on what works best for your family.
The schedule for 12/16 will be sent out on 12/11 in the Principal's Message.
Please visit the PTO monthly blog!
SHS Foreign Language Placement Information for Languages Other Than Spanish
Stevenson High School is looking forward to meeting and greeting next year's incoming Freshman! Their goal is to ease the transition as much as possible by communicating opportunities with our families. We would like to make sure you are aware of the opportunity to take a language benchmark exam for courses other than Spanish should your student wish to place in an advanced level language course. The following languages are available at Stevenson: Chinese, German, French, Hebrew, Latin, and Spanish*.
Pre-registration opened on Tuesday, November 24. The deadline to complete the exam is Thursday, December 17. Incoming Adlai E. Stevenson High School students interested in taking a World Language course beyond Level 1 MUST complete an online placement exam and register via this link.
This year, SHS offers the AAPPL exam online and ask parents or guardians to assist as proctors. By registering, the proctor agrees to administer the assessment in a supervised and appropriate environment while maintaining the exam's integrity.
Students with no previous class instruction or exposure to the language of interest will not need to take an exam.
Students with previous language instruction or heritage language learners MUST complete the benchmark exam.
*Note: Incoming students from the sender schools currently enrolled in SPANISH will be taking the placement exam through D96 in November/December. These students should NOT register to take a placement exam unless interested in taking another language course.
For more information or questions, please contact Sylvia Lima at Stevenson High School: [email protected]
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Finally, I am all about a family tradition. Leading up to Thanksgiving, we make certain dishes as a family with each person performing a certain job. We have potato peelers, apple slice cutters, table setters, etc. The same traditions apply to getting a tree, hanging ornaments and decorating our home. This year, we are adding a new one that we hope will become a yearly tradition. We are having a cookie making contest. There is no way around this, as a family, we are a competitive group. Each of us is choosing a cookie and in a TV style competition, we each get one hour to make our cookie recipe. The rest of the crew is making standard cookies...not this guy. I am making a shortbread cookie with a puppy chow topping. (Yes, there will be something to hold the Puppy Chow on the shortbread) I am excited and nervous for this opportunity. I will share the results with you next week. Yes, we have an outside judge for this competition. Having a lot of time together is offering my crew new opportunities and I am really excited about this one.