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CCSD59 students and staff alike are learning a cool lesson during these warm months: Summer is an awesome time for learning.

John Harrington, principal at Grove Junior High School and co-director of the summer program, said the focus this year was not only to provide academic support but also to increase students’ love of learning and school while providing the best experience possible.

“We hope that by increasing their emotional connection with school, we increase their opportunity to learn,” he said.

Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) continued to be an area of focus for the program, as well as presenting the content in fun and engaging ways that were interesting to students.

For example, students designed bridges out of popsicle sticks and then tested the load it could bear. Tim Prikkel, who was teaching students at the Friendship Junior High location, said the class chose to focus more on the engineering aspects of bridge building. The students set the goal of finding ways to make the bridges the strongest while utilizing the least amount of materials.

“The kids loved testing the bridges for how much weight they could hold, and the students wanted to push their bridges to the limit,” Prikkel said. “Since the students were very interested in how to strengthen their bridges, we were able to fold in many aspects of math and engineering into our work.”

First and second grade students at the Juliette Low location, who created a garden outside to learn about seedlings, also enjoyed the STEM programming. Teachers Krys Slattery and Denise Scimeca thought it would be a fun way to get students excited about learning all about plants, from how we grow and care for them to their many uses in everyday life.

In addition to learning about the life cycle and value of plants, the economical and nutritional aspects of growing food were also covered. Even a small setback – local ducks living in the courtyard ate a lot of what the students had planted – was a great learning opportunity that the teachers fully utilized. The students used technology to research, brainstorm, and engineer ways to protect their plants from additional duck damage. They even learned an altruistic lesson and divvied up the remaining plants, so all students had a plant to care for during the rest of the summer.

We hope that by increasing their emotional connection with school, we increase their opportunity to learn.

John Harrington

Teacher Anna Ostrogorska, who taught first and second graders at Robert Frost, said connecting the students’ learning to things they already know and experience also helps keep them truly engaged. She said when discussing what part of plants people eat, “kids would say they wouldn’t eat the roots of plants, and then were astonished to learn what carrots are…it’s a good connection of things they know to what they’re learning.”

The summer programming also took an invigorated approach to the literacy component of the curriculum. The goal was to continue to encourage the love of reading and writing that staff had worked hard to promote during the previous school year.

Teachers facilitated book groups related to students’ interests and allowed students to choose how to demonstrate what they learned. A “choice block” was introduced this year, allowing students to choose what they wanted to study from various options. These classes were designed by teachers based on topics they were passionate about. Since these classes were very successful, the goal is to offer both more options and more locations for these courses next summer.

Teacher Pam Schakowsky taught literacy during summer school at Robert Frost. She first selected high-interest books to teach the students as a group about genre, character traits, and plot development, then created book clubs once they had the basic information down. The clubs received discussion questions from Schakowsky, discussed their thoughts and opinions with their peers, and presented them in a variety of creative ways. She selected additional books carefully based on the students’ former selections and how the initial books she suggested were received, tailoring the selections to the students’ particular tastes. The approach appears to be working, as Giselle, one of the students in the class, commented, “My Mom used to have to make me read, but now I do just because I like to.”

“What was a huge positive surprise to me is how passionate the students already are about books…what we have done during the school year is really paying off,’ said Schakowsky . “The students are very eager and aware of a lot of books…the excitement of sharing books is already there.”

To help assist her students develop a passion for books, Teacher Nicola Avena at Rupley reached out to Elk Grove Public Library’s school liaison Tammy Wulf. The partnership resulted in the summer quest and extended school year students at Rupley participating in the annual Elk Grove Village Library Summer Reading Program.

Avena and the Elk Grove Village Library staff also worked together to organize a field trip to the library to show the students firsthand where all the books were coming from. Many of her summer students had never visited a library outside of the one located at the school and had their first experience due to the cooperation between Avena and the library staff.

Even in classes that are not literacy-specific, the simple joy of reading and writing propels learning. “The students like to read, and they needed a chance to be able to develop that appreciation,” said Dr. Felix Medina, who taught Dual Language at Robert Frost this summer. “They are able to see the beauty of reading and the magic of being able to write.”

He said that incorporating all aspects of literacy into his summer teaching is critical not only for the development of reading and writing skills but also for social and emotional development and improving self-confidence in the students. “Everything is interconnected and I see that clearly here. We have summer school merging the social and academic aspects of learning within four hours of instruction. That’s why you have motivated students that are ready to move forward and meet and face the challenge that they will find at the next grade level.”

Prikkel agrees that the motivation of the students and teachers to work together in the learning process delivers great results.

“Having worked with summer programming for the past six summers, this year’s iteration has been wildly successful in terms of student engagement and interest. The students this year were upbeat, excited about learning, and making deep connections with the curriculum.”