Mokena School District 159

As third grade students wrap up their ELA module about learning challenges near and far, they are working together to identify strategies to overcome reading challenges in their grade level. Each student will write an informational essay on strategies they can use to overcome personal reading challenges they might have this school year.

Congratulations to our STATE BOUND cross country runners: Alec Demma, Najeeb Ejaidi, Logan Klinger, David Lamonte, Connor Maves, Carson McGrath, Luke Simone, Russell Welch, Riley Wiessmann, and John Zofke!

Happy National School Lunch Week! 🎉📚🍏 Let's celebrate the amazing staff who work tirelessly to provide nutritious and delicious meals for our students. Our staff play a vital role in ensuring our students are nourished, healthy, and ready to learn!

Save the date!

7th grade students are exploring microorganisms in Science. Today they prepared a slide containing Euglena that was viewed with a microscope at different magnification levels. Students then created scientific illustrations of the structures they observed within the Euglena cell.

Congratulations to the MES Star Students for the month of September!Way to go!

Thank you to LWC and the Lincoln-Way Marching Band for hosting a fantastic jr. high night for our MJHS band students!

We love our guest teachers at MES!

October is National Principals Month! This celebration is an opportunity to recognize and thank our principals for their unwavering dedication, exceptional leadership, and remarkable impact on student success. #ThankAPrincipal

MIS loved the pj and stuffie day last week! Look at those smiles! ☺️

1st graders practiced their collaboration skills to a create a "magnificent thing" to solve a classroom problem. They then wrote informational sentences about the tools used to create it and did a presentation where they shared their creation and writing with 3rd grade buddies!

✏️ Students are off today, but our AMAZING staff members are learning and growing professionally at today's Teachers' Institute! ✏️

Thank you, Mokena Fire Department, for teaching our MES students all about fire safety this week!

Friendly reminder: no school tomorrow and Monday! Enjoy the long weekend!

4th graders are working in "expert groups" to research and learn about a poet of their choice's life and what inspires this poet to write poetry. This will prepare them to not only write an essay about their poet, but will also support students in thinking about what inspires them in preparation for writing their own poetry in the coming weeks.

Second grade students visited Kindergarten to share the books they made as part of their end of module performance task. The books showcased informational writing comparing and contrasting MES to a school they researched from across the world. As a bonus, they also performed Readers' Theaters about incredible and unusual schools around the world! Way to go Stars!

Boomwhacker and keyboard fun in music class with Mrs. Cheney!

Mrs. Arduino's class has been using habits of character to make a magnificent thing!!

The "Painted Essay" is an organizational structure to support informational writing in our new ELA program. This patterned structure is tied to certain colors so that students are able to use and internalize a template for thinking – and therefore, writing.

The MES library is the perfect place to watch the playground construction in action. Mrs. Andresen has curated a collection of books for students to read to learn more about the equipment they might see.