Willard Intermediate School

Check out our New Intermediate Web Site!

wistigers — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 15:13:41 +0000

Willard Intermediate School has a new web site. Click here to check it out. Don’t forget to bookmark it to see the latest announcements and schedule of events happening in our building.

Warm weather returns

wistigers — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 20:45:16 +0000

It was great to have 5 days of school in a row this week! The weather has been beautiful and our students and teachers are thankful to be able to get outside again for recess.

I had the opportunity to take a field trip with some of our teachers this week. We visited a communication arts classroom in Springfield to observe a master teacher effectively using MRI (Missouri Reading Initiative) strategies in her classroom. We have been involved in this effort for 4 years and this visit affirmed two major things for me: 1) We have put a powerful tool in the hands of our teachers that can and will improve the learning of our students. 2) Our teachers are willing to do whatever it takes to help our students become better readers and writers. I am very proud of the continued time and effort all of our teachers have invested in this process.

Enjoy the warm weekend!

V-Day!

wistigers — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 20:21:26 +0000

Although the cold and snowy weather has kept us out of school for 5 of the last 10 days, the building was full of energy today! Valentine parties were in full swing this afternoon and it was fun to see all the creative valentine boxes our students (and parents) have been hard at work on. We appreciate all the time and effort our homeroom parents put in to make this a fun day for our students.

At our monthly PTO meeting last night plans were finalized for our spring fund raiser. We will have some great prizes up for grabs that we think everyone will be interested in! Be looking for more information to come your way in the near future. If you have not had a chance to attend a PTO meeting this year we would encourage you to come to our next one on March 10th.

Students received a copy of their mid-term report today. Please take some time to look over this with your student. Parents on our email list should have received an electronic copy yesterday. If you would like to be added to our contact list just give our office a call and we can help you get it set up.

Some upcoming calendar changes due to our missed days:

-Red and Black team DARE graduation has been move to next Thursday starting at 6:30

-School will be in session next Friday 2/18 as our first make-up day. This will be a 1/2 day for students with a 12:30 dismissal.

-School will also be in session on Monday 2/21 as our second make-up day. This will be a full day for students

Enjoy the warm and sunny weekend!

Three day week

wistigers — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 01:54:27 +0000

A three day school week, temperatures in the teens, and snow on the ground. You have to love winter in the Ozarks! We are thankful to have escaped the last two weeks with only one snow day to make-up.

Teachers spent the day Monday in professional development and meetings to continue our improvement as a building while students were away. Be on the lookout for a new and improved building website that will be coming soon. Our hope is that this will strengthen our ability to communicate with our community. We encourage parents to take some time to visit our teacher blogs. This is a great way to keep up with what is going on in your child’s classes.

Student illness has been on the rise recently in the building. Our custodians and nurses have been busy doing their part to help with this. We would greatly appreciate parents remembering the district fever free policy to limit the spread of illness here at school. Hopefully we will be on the road to recovery soon!

Enjoy the winter weekend

2011

wistigers — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 21:21:12 +0000

Welcome to 2011! We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas break and is ready for the downhill side of the school year. Everyone seemed to be a little droopy-eyed Monday morning but we survived our first full week back and welcome the first Friday of the new year! The change to second semester has also brought several new faces to our building family including students and staff.

Today we celebrated our second quarter iChoose award winners with 12 students that will be going to Silver Dollar City in the spring and 11 more that earned a field trip to watch a movie next week. Everyone will have a chance to redeem their iChoose stamps next Friday at our 2nd quarter iChoose store. We appreciate all the donations that help to make this program happen for our students! Next Thursday we will take some time to recognize our first semester honor roll and perfect attendance students. 6th grade at 9:00 am and 5th at 9:30 am. As always, parents are encouraged and welcome to attend.

Have a great weekend!

Upcoming events at WIS:

-1/13 PTO meeting at 6 pm

-1/14 and 1/15 5th grade fundraiser at Texas Roadhouse

-1/17 No School-Teacher Workday

Enjoy the holiday break!

wistigers — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 20:07:43 +0000

Wow! The semester is over and we have two full weeks of break!! We hope everyone enjoys the time away from school with some rest and relaxation with family and friends. Be safe, and we will see you back here in 2011.

A full week of learning

wistigers — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 01:07:08 +0000

After a long Thanksgiving weekend it was great to come back
to school and spend a full week learning at WIS! I have
been visiting many classrooms this week and it is amazing
how many great things our students and teachers have going
on. I was also very impressed with the positive attitudes
about learning our students have. We are very fortunate to
live in a community that values education and instills the
love of learning in its children. I know from personal
experience it is not that way everywhere!

Enjoy the cool holiday season weekend!

Thanksgiving Food Drive

wistigers — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 20:57:14 +0000

WIS students and teachers came through in a big way again this year to help with our Thanksgiving Basket food drive. Through their efforts over 20 local families in need received a giant food basket of canned fruits and vegetables, soups, box dinners, desert mixes, and a Turkey just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. Thank you to our student council and counselors for planning and organizing everything. We hope those on both the giving and receiving end find this as a reason to give thanks this year!

Be safe, stay warm, and enjoy the 5 day weekend!

Click to view slideshow.

Ahead of the curve

wistigers — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 23:38:44 +0000

I had the opportunity today to spend some time along side a group of our teachers during some proffesional development training. This trainig was specific to finding ways to successfully reach all the learners in a classroom. This is an incredibly tough challenge when you recognize the diverse needs and abilities that exist in a class of 25-30 students. Our teachers must find ways to engage those students that are struggling learners along with those that come into the lesson already knowing the concept. Teaching to the “middle” is no longer adequate. We must always be looking for ways to improve our instructional practices to reach the broad range of students we have been entrusted to educate. Being a teacher has never been easy but I think this is even more true today than in the past. This is a challenge WIS teachers are ready to meet head on. I appreciate the extra time and effort that our staff puts in to stay ahead of the curve and move all students forward. It is this “extra” that makes Willard a great place to work and learn!

Veterans Day 2010

wistigers — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 18:26:04 +0000

It is very normal as we go through life to spend a large amount of our time thinking and talking about what is wrong in our lives. We spend so much time focusing on the problems in our world that we often overlook the “little” things that happen every day that make us truly blessed people. The service our veterans have given to maintain our freedoms is an example of this. WIS took some time on Thursday to reflect on and honor the men and women of the armed forces. Veterans day is always a special day in our building and we were proud to host over 100 veterans and their families. Thanks to everyone that was involved! Below is a link to a short video created to honor our Veterans day guests.

http://static.animoto.com/swf/w.swf?w=swf/vp1&e=1289828178&f=nB0xOnjyYSok0FyYayMkqQ&d=262&m=a&r=w&i=m&options=”