Family STEAM Night!!!

Thank you to the University of Chicago and East Prairie Team for partnering together on a cutting edge Family STEAM & Math Night.  The evening was a fabulous opportunity to bring our community together and first hand explore, create, and learn about the transformative happenings of our STEAM lab and Community Connection Center (makerspace). 

Areas of focus included circuitry (Makey Makey), robotics and controlled technology (Code & Go Colby), manufacturing technology (Tinkercad/3D printing & Ozobots), mechanics and structures (City Engineering & Design), environmental technology (Snap Circuits Green Energy), communication and media arts (stop motion), as well as, freeze the fun with liquid nitrogen ice cream, diving into discovery with local fish and getting mesmerized by magnetic marvels.

Thank you to Ms. Sarantakis, Mrs. Mortell, Ms. Dantino, & Mr. Abraham for their creative collaboration. Thank you to Dr. Forghani and the University of Chicago for their stalwart partnering. And a HUGE thank you to our student tech experts for helping, wowing, and inpspring all! Our STEAM and fine arts programming is one more example of the educational excellence afforded our students.

Panthers Meet Wildcats

 

Our seventh grade students and math team ventured to Northwestern University today for a visit and special tour.  Seeing and experience is a first step to achieving and realizing - what a powerful, inspirational, and aspirational experience for kids!

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Congratulations to our varsity volleyball team, and their coaches, on an enjoyable and meaningful season AND a championship run to finish things off!  Nice work both on and off the court!

Pawsomeness!!!

Throughout the school year, the entirety of our staff explicitly teach, reteach, review, and model our common behavioral expectations for students.  We double down on this practice come spring and the final weeks of the school year. 

As a staff we seek a 3:1 ratio (at least) of positive reinforcement to redirection, knowing that there is no meaningful correction without connection.  Pawsomes are one of the ways that we specifically recognize, praise, and reinforce positive behavior throughout our school.  Our entire team seeks to regularly give Pawsomes, along with specific feedback to students to recognize and celebrate prosocial behavior.  Students are then provided with a sticker and hearty congratulations from our office staff, as well as, the opportunity to win prizes from our weekly Pawsome raffle on Fridays. 

Throughout the year we have worked towards the goal of collectively earning 12,000+ Pawsomes, and in reaching that goal got to duct tape me wall!

White Pines

 Our sixth grade trip to White Pines Ranch was a fabulous connection and community building opportunity.

Community Connection Center

The Community Connection Center (CCC) is a space where all students will utilize the engineering design process to think critically and solve problems in order to give back to our community.

Throughout the fourth quarter, our middle school students have selected one of our community’s identified needs - per teacher and staff feedback - and are collaboratively creating a solution to address the issue. 

Some projects include: creating school-wide expectation posters/videos, creating book reviews/book trailers, creating pencil grips and bins for our primary classrooms, creating audiobooks and digital libraries, creating our 8th-grade and end-of-the-year videos, and creating our EPS Tinkertown with 3D-printed designs from various grade levels!

Pair-up perfection!

 Our fourth quarter pair-ups featured lots of reading and lots of fun!  The ongoing opportunity to connect Panthers of all ages together makes our school a unique and wonderful place for kids!