The AR store is today at West. Students in fourth grade are using the AR points they earned from the beginning of the year until now to purchase various items. Thank you Oly West PTO for this opportunity.
Christmas program tonight! The doors to the high school gym do not open until 6:00 pm and all students need to be there by 6:15!
Olympia West celebrates “Winter Fun in the Land of Lincoln” this afternoon and takes first place in the Minier Christmas Parade!
Pre-K was working hard in our December themed stations. They worked on numbers 1-5 or 1-10, then counting snowflakes at math station. Some worked on letter sound matching with a partner. Lastly, others worked on the difference between small, medium, and large and putting them in size order.
Fifth graders had fun practicing drawing the literal and figurative meanings of idioms today with a chapter from Harry Potter.
4th graders are using the computer to program the Ozobot and play Shape Tracer. #OlySpartanPride #4thgradelovesozobots
Dress like your favorite Pete the Cat book was so fun! Thanks to all those who participated. Isn't reading so fun!!??
It’s been a busy, productive day for the fifth graders! They made a banner for the Christmas parade then decorated the tree with ornaments made by Olympia West students.
Pete the Cat week has been so groovy! Check out all the fun activities PreK has been doing all week. Following directions, finding the color, and coloring Pete's shoes, finding letters and feeding Pete, reviewing numbers 1-10 with pin the shoe on Pete, then roll, count, and color the numbers. We had a few enrichment games of Hide Pete- modeled, then student led. They practiced their number recognition to uncover or flip a shoe to find Pete. They also practiced beginning sounds with naming words and feeding them back to Pete. Pete the Cat week concludes tomorrow...stay tuned!
Third graders are having a great day after a relaxing Thanksgiving break!
All Olympia schools will start one hour later than normal today, Monday, November 26, 2018.
The afternoon class did just as great! Such cooperative taste testers! Happy Thanksgiving all!!! Fyi.....cranberry sauce was not a favorite. 😳
3rd graders hosted a Thanksgiving parade for 2nd Grade! 3rd Grade researched and built floats, and 2nd Grade read about the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade
I am beyond proud of the morning class for trying ALL of our Thanksgiving foods. Majority said they liked most things, too!
This is going to be a two part share. Too many pics to combine both classes!
Third graders performed surgery on nonfiction text features yesterday! West has some skilled surgeons in their midst!
PreK went on a turkey hunt today. They worked very well with their partners by practicing taking turns with the clipboard and finding the correct crayon color to use. They identified shapes, matched them, and also used the corresponding color to color it in. Great teamwork!
2nd grade students started Edward Tulane this week and drew what they think he looked like 🐰
5th graders completed an escape activity to help Tom the Turkey find his presidential pardon 🦃
PreK enjoyed our week of T for turkey. They matched upper to lower case letters on a turkey, counted turkey feathers matching the numbers, colored turkey feathers, and made turkey headbands for our feast next week.
Student Council members supported the Community Claus Spaghetti Dinner tonight. They served drinks, salad, and desserts to all patrons.
PreK really enjoyed their special treat from Officer Weseloh for winning the Red Ribbon week door contest.
Thank you-from all of Pre-K
OWE students enjoy a lesson on perseverance from Juggling Jeff today. Join us tonight for our annual Community Claus dinner at St. John’s, doors will open at 4:30pm. Family Reading Night will follow at West. The evening will feature a performance by Juggling Jeff. Doors open at 6:30pm and our program will start at 6:45pm
Student Council members presented the flags for each branch of the military during the Armed Forces Medley at our Veterans Day Assembly.
Join Olympia West for our Annual Veterans Day Assembly on Monday, November 12 at 1:00pm
The final sense of 5 senses week was completed today. They were such good sports about trying different things. They are not fans of sour, or bitter. Sweet and salty were their favorites!
Pre-K has been enjoying 5 senses week. They practiced their sense of smell by smelling different items such as coffee, tuna, pickles, lotion, perfume, and more. They used their sense of touchy with the touch and feel game. They lost their sense of sight by tracing with and without some foggy glasses. Played telephone and guessed different sounds for their sense of hearing. Lastly, tomorrow will be the taste test. More pics to come!
Pre-K's afternoon class couldn't help but have some fun in the beautiful fall leaves! Leaf throwing, leaf angels, leaf swimming, and more!
Fourth graders designed and constructed cars to fit the Ozobot robots. Stay tuned to see how this progresses. #OlySpartanPride
Third Graders had fun completing tile math puzzles which required them to use their understanding of place value and subtraction.
Mrs. Swartzendruber’s RtI group created a road and programmed the Ozobot to travel from one end to the other. What will the Ozobot do next?
#OlySpartanPride #learningtocode
4th graders are answering the essential question: Will a Mountain Last Forever? After experimenting with sugar cubes and shaker boxes to replicate and observe what happens when a rock tumbles down the mountain, we learned a mountain will not last forever. The ice cubes broke into smaller pieces, just like boulders do when it splits from the mountains. #olyspartanpride
Red ribbon parade in Minier.
Huge thank you to 4th grade for helping the littles keep up this year!
Congratulations to Natalie for guessing how many pieces of candy corn were in the jar during Red Ribbon Week. There were 2,023 pieces in jar.
Halloween stations of the week in PreK included:
Witch's hat trick...which hat has the letter H?
Find and write the numbers 1-10 around the room
Make an H, 9, or spooky face at playdoh.
Thank you, Olympia West PTO, for purchasing a Qball for our fourth grade classrooms. We love speaking into the foam microphone to share our learning with each other. #OlySpartanPride #4thgrade
4th Grade celebrates “Hats Off to Good Choices” during Red Ribbon Week at Oly West
Congratulations to our October Spectacular Spartans!
3rd graders use their STEM skills to design and build Pumpkin catapults this week !
Pre-K celebrated Halloween with fun stations. Witch hat ring toss, eyeball balance races, Bingo, Spider fishing, and pin the nose on the Jack-o-lantern!
I finally figured out how to get more pictures for you to see- collages!!!
Enjoy and Happy Halloween!!!
Help! Gritch the Witch is stuck on her broom in the air, and we need to get her down! Some 3rd graders started sketching prototypes for a parachute STEM project.
Celebrating Red Ribbon Week at West with our “The Great Pumpkin Says Don’t Do Drugs!”
Kindergarten students work on coding today!
Third graders learned about why our skeletons have so many bones. They then created an x-ray of their hand and wrist bones.
Enjoying a hay rack ride at the Red Ribbon Rally.
Kicking off Red Ribbon Week at the Red Ribbon Rally. Who will be the bingo winner tonight?
#OlySpartanPride #BeDrugFree
4th graders are working with their grandparents during Grandparents Day. #OlySpartanPride #weloveourgrandparents
PreK talked about spiders and webs for our week of "W", "8", and the color black. We just so happened to have a visitor this week in our classroom. He was given many names by each student, and then, they counted his legs with Mrs. B.
Most importantly, we safely let him be....OUTSIDE! :-)
2nd graders working hard on their final drafts of their 1st personal narrative 📝.
5th graders working together to build a tower with toothpicks and marshmallows.
We ❤️ our new books. Thank you Oly West PTO!
Thank you Oly West PTO for providing a free book to each student. #olyspartanpride #4thgrade
Here are the Jack-o-lanterns finished. The AM winner was Tyler, and PM winner was Liam, as voted for by the Pre-K class.
Also, more pics from their exploration of the pumpkin on Friday.
Biography vs. Fiction in 2nd grade’s Genre World Series!
We had a great morning at the Color Run! Thank you to everyone who came out to join us! #olyspartanpride
Getting our color on! Race time is 9:00 am!
It’s not too late to join us for the Color Run. Registration is open until the start of the race at 9:00am!
So much pumpkin fun this week! 4 pictures, just isnt enough!
Today, PreK drew their jack-o-lantern face, voted for their favorite, and helped clean the pumpkin out for carving. They also enjoyed some jack-o-lantern making with playdoh, and scratch off art.
Carved jack-o-lantern pictures coming soon...
Fifth grade and kindergarten met for the first time as Little/Bigger Buddies
Mrs. Swartzendruber’s RtI class is learning how to create codes. #OlySpartanPride #4thgrade
Students read different passages on big baseball moments, found the main idea, the year it happened, and then ordered them by year!
First graders visited fifth grade to learn all about bats and participate in bat activities lead by fifth graders. Fun time had by all!
Something big is about to hit 2nd grade ⚾️.
It’s trial time in fifth grade and I am loving the participation from fifth graders!
Who will be proven guilty? Columbus? Columbus’ Men? The King and Queen? Or the Tainos? Or perhaps they are all guilty...
Pre-K ended fire safety week with a visit from some local firemen! They practiced their stop, drop, cover your face, and roll. They learned not to play with hot things like matches, stoves, campfires, and more. They were able to see everything a fireman wears. Lastly, they practiced calling out if a fireman comes to the rescue.
Their homework was to go home, and practice a fire drill with their family!
Fire safety week in Pre-K!
Practicing patterns, tracing, and sorting hot or not hot.
Fifth graders are preparing their opening statements for the trial of Christopher Columbus.
Students take turns being the teacher and leading our daily math review!
There is still time to place an Art to Remember order for your child. Order online today using your code or return the order form to school. Thank you for supporting Olympia West!
5th graders practicing multiplication by playing baseball ⚾️
Don’t wait- place your order today! Art to Remember orders are due October 9th. Original, student-made artwork is placed on a variety of items. These make great gifts for the upcoming holidays.
5th graders exploring measurement tools in science 👩🏼🔬👨🏽🔬
It’s Positivitee Tuesday at West. What will your message be today? #GrowthMindset #OlySpartanPride
PM PreK had some visitors as well for Job week. Officer Brammeier, Stanford President, and an relative from State Farm bank.
Job week concluded with some visitors from their community. AM saw a police officer, carpenter, and personal trainer/work out instructor.
Last week, students in 2nd grade were busy studying mysteries! They became detectives and had to read clues to solve the mysteries happening at Olympia West!
Watch out West! Fourth grade students are meeting their goals and reading buddies are starting to appear in the classroom. #readingbuddyselfie #OlySpartanPride
Fourth and fifth graders participated in a team relay during the assembly hosted by OHS Student Council. #OlySpartanPride #Homecoming
Excited for the Mile Run! We are ready to set our PR. #Olyspartanpride #4thgrade
Excited for the Mile Run! We are ready to set our PR. #Olyspartanpride #4thgrade
3rd graders at Olympia West welcomed students to school today with positive messages as a part of their “Start with Hello” week activities.
Creative writing is taking place in fourth grade. Students choose a series of pictures to put into a book and then write a story. #OlySpartanPride #4thgrade #learningisfun
Students at West created an amazing piece of artwork and soon parents will have the chance to turn the artwork into custom keepsakes. This is a great chance to order items for family members and raise money for the school. The order form will come home in the next few days.
Well, shiver me timbers! More Pirates showed up in the afternoon class, too! We sure arrrrre glad we had so many pirates to help us find the treasure!
Our morning class was taken over by pirates today. Me mateys found the treasure on our special treasure hunt. Then, were able to enjoy the golden, buttery treat within our treasure chest!
5th graders reviewing their current skill of multiplying and dividing by powers of ten by playing Connect 4.
Gum party for learning the letter Gg and knowing it’s sound. Bubble blowing demonstration and contest between Mrs. Castle man and Mrs. Graber!
Ahoy, Mateys! Check out all the fun PreK is having for Pirate week. Fill your treasure box color game, counting their jewels, letter matching, and practicing their cutting skills to make eye patches.
2nd graders working on part part whole activities that teachers learned at Jen Gibson’s math academy✏️.
Staff members are promoting positive vibes around the school with Positivitee Tuesday. #OlySpartanPride #OlyWest #kindness
Fifth graders practice finding main idea and supporting details with texts about hurricanes. We even watched live news streams of hurricane Florence and journaled about what we felt while watching.
Today, the morning class had an impromptu talk about butterflies. This one kept landing near the kids. We talked about its colors, how delicate they are, what other kinds or colors of butterflies they have seen, and more.
Mrs. Swartzendruber is a recipient of the Scholastic Book Club and James Patterson giveaway. She won money and Scholastic bonus points to purchase books for her fourth grade classroom. Congratulations Mrs. Swartzendruber!#OlySpartanPride #PattersonPledge
Discovering more about why a statue’s shadow moves! First graders worked in groups to see how they could get their gnome’s shadow to move onto a pattern that was laid out on a piece of paper. #olywest
Frisbee Golf comes to Olympia West!
Every day is an adventure in PreK. Interesting stories in the library, Alphabet Bingo, or practicing numbers with a friend. Learning in so many ways!
Taking a break with a GoNoodle- dancing and learning about prefixes and suffixes.
#OlySpartanPride #4thgrade
While studying different fairy tales, 2nd grade students completed a STEM challenge. They had to construct a raft for their billy goats to ride across the river in to escape the troll! If their raft sank, they got to go back and, using what they learned, remake their raft.
What better way to end Super Hero week than with a special visit from Batman! Thanks, Batman, for talking to the kids about using their "super powers" of kindness to help their friends, teachers, and parents everyday!
Cape day in PreK
Captian America day! Let's hear it for the red, white, and blue!!!
PreK PM class enjoying a SUPER start to our SUPER hero week!
Pre-K painting for Art to Remember, playing at centers, and enjoying the weather outside.
Practicing keyboarding skills on our new Chromebooks. #olyspartanpride
What is in the shopping bag? Fourth graders are looking at clues to make an inference about who would purchase the items. #olyspartanpride
2nd graders talking about all things 100!
5th graders practicing place value skills during math centers 📝
Pre-K had a fun 2 days getting familiar with their classroom and the routine.
5th graders working hard on their daily math review! They will use the data collected on their reviews to set goals correlating to areas that need improvement.
STEM bins were introduced in 2nd grade!
2nd grade students worked with a partner to put all the teacher’s Bitmojis on the school map!
We ESCAPED! #OlySpartanPride
Fourth grade is working together to Escape the Back to School Blues in the media center. #OlySpartanPride
Great to see everyone at Open House tonight! Can’t wait for the first day of school tomorrow!
Open House for students in Pre-K and grades 1-5 will be Wednesday, August 15 from 5:00-6:00 pm.
If you have a student entering kindergarten at Olympia West, join us for Kindergarten Open House on Monday, August 13 from 5:30-6:30 pm.
Are you new to Olympia West this school year? New student registration is Monday, August 6 from 8am-12pm and Tuesday August 7 from 1pm-6pm.
Hooping it up at Field Day #OlySpartanPride
Third graders had fun playing “shark in the water” at field day!
Having a fun time at Field Day! #OlySpartans
The afternoon session for the Wax Museum has started. We have a lot of visitors.
Olympia West 4th graders presented a Wax Museum today showcasing 38 famous Americans.
Third grade wrapped up their Genius Hour presentations yesterday! We had a variety of presentation choices, including creating blogs, Google slide presentations, and a meteorology newscast!
While learning about US symbols, second grade students stood for the National Anthem!
Kindergarteners learn about habitats at the Peoria Zoo.
Second grade students are enjoying a day of math review with Glow Games!
Third Grade is having fun designing book report t-shirts based on their novel study!
Fifth graders spent time with their little buddies this morning. Together they made a scrapbook.
4th grade shopping spree at the AR store. #welovereading #OlySpartanPride
5th Graders treated the crowd to a recorder concert at our awards assembly.
Safety Patrol recognized at awards assembly.
We had a great day today recognizing some amazing Spartans at our annual awards assembly. Congratulations to all of our award winners!
Mrs. Brand and Mrs. Render honored today at our Awards Assembly.
First graders estimated and then measured distances using the nonstandard measure of giant steps. They discussed how each person’s measurement would be different because the students were all different sizes.
Pre-K enjoying the petting zoo at Ag Day.
Mr. Dale enjoying Ag Day!
3rd graders continued to present their Genius Hour projects today! We learned about why cats sleep so much, why poison ivy is itchy, and how chameleons change color.
3J has started forming the landforms we have been researching for the last two weeks during our landform unit!
Drones are cool! 4th grade loves Ag Day!
4th grade is learning how to weld at Ag Day.
4th grade attends AG Day at OHS.
Maddox Dare takes 1st place in the 5th grade mile with a PR of 5:53 🥇
GO🏃🏼♂️🏃🏻♀️
Ready, Set....
It’s National School Nurse Appreciation Day and we’ve got the best at West! Thank you Mrs. Birky for all you do to take care of our students!
Mile Run is on Thursday! We would love to have you come and cheer on our students.
5th Grade- 8:05-8:55
4th Grade 8:55-9:45
1st Grade 10:00-10:50
2nd Grade- 12:20-1:10
3rd Grade - 1:10-2:00
2nd grade at the Planetarium.
Mr. B helps Mrs. Braffet as PE teacher for the day!
2nd grade students enjoying the Riverfront Museum.
First graders learning about repeat signs with our interactive Quaver music program!
Miss C. helps Mrs. C as principal for the day.
Some third graders began presenting their Genius Hour projects today! Throughout the year, they chose a topic, researched a question and created a presentation of their findings.
It's Teacher Appreciation Week and we've got the best at West! Thank you to our amazing staff for the countless hours, the dedication, and the care you show our students every day!
4th Grade “Bowl”ed Away!
5th grade bowling in PE today!
We are preparing for the mile run! The mile run will be on Thursday, May 10, come cheer on your student.
Third Graders love spendjng time with the chicks that hatched at the end of Chick It Out! #OlySpartanPride
Third Graders love spendjng time with the chicks that hatched at the end of Chick It Out! #OlySpartanPride
We have chicks! Watch the live feed on our website to watch the rest of our chicks hatch!
After 32 rounds, Abby wins the Spelling Bee! Congratulations to Ella who was the runner-up!
Principal Lisa Castleman agrees to wear this cape if all grade levels meet their benchmark!
Learning new technology things at institute today! You can teach an old dog new things!
1st graders enjoying STEM day today!
5th grade had a wonderful STEM Day and trip to OMS today!
4th grade had a great time on their field trip today!
5th Graders having a great time at the Science and Industry Museum today!
4th graders share their State Projects this week!
3rd grade had an awesome day at the circus!
3rd grade students check the development of their eggs today. #olyspartanpride
5th grade and Kindergarten students work together to code a path for their Ozobots.
3rd, 4th and 5th graders compete in the annual badminton tournament Monday, competition concludes today!
Congratulations to Raquel Birky and Tyler Dabney on their outstanding achievement and recognition by the Illinois Principals Association.
1st grade students use their engineering skills build catapults out of popsicle sticks, rubber bands, and a container.
Kindergarten students encourage their bigger buddies to do their best on PARCC testing!
5th grade students enjoy DARE baseball game with the Peoria Chiefs!
3rd Grade starts “Chick it Out” today! Stay tuned for updates!
OHS Child Care classes visit OWE.
4th grade students use their deductive reasoning skills to solve the code in their “Escape Box” activity.
1st Grade enjoys a story with guest readers.
4th grade students use their engineering and design skills to make marble tracks.
2nd grade students in Mrs. Nietzel’s class enjoy reading as a class this morning!
Pre-K walks the red carpet at Oly West today!
Reminder Kindergarten Round-up/Open House is tomorrow night from 5-6:30pm. Contact Oly West at 309-392-2671 with questions or to RSVP.
We are excited to kick off our first 4-H STEM/Robotics Spin Club for students in grades 3-5
Kindergarten Round-Up/Open House will be held on Thursday April 5 from 5:00-6:30. If you have or know someone who has a child who will be 5 on or before September 1,2018 please make plans to attend.
Congratulations Mrs. Edwards and Mrs. Swartzendruber on recieving a Maitland Grant to purchase Escape Boxes for your classrooms!
Have a great Spring Break! We will see you on April 3!
It's a great day to be a Spartan!