Olympia CUSD 16

Varsity Boys Basketball falls in the first round of the State Farm Classic to Aurora Christian. They will play tomorrow Dec 28th at 12:30pm at Illinois Wesleyan against Providence St. Mel.

Varsity Girls Basketball falls in the first game of the State Farm Classic. 53 to 37 against Camp Point Central. They will now play tomorrow Dec. 28th at 2:00pm at Bloomington High School.

Wikipedia.org is where millions of people stop first for information. Tools like it are what make the internet so valuable. But they also teach an important lesson, one you can start teaching your kids now: don’t believe everything you read. Family Tip Sheet: bit.ly/OlyNMFR2

Olympia is now officially on Instagram! If Instagram is your social media platform of choice, follow your favorite Olympia sites using these handles: bit.ly/ConnectWithOly

Check out this list of trustworthy resources to help you learn what's true (and what is not!) on the web. You can even use one of them to look back in time and what was on a website in the past!

The OHS National Honor Society partnered with the counseling department and PBIS Team to host a “De-Stress Fest” on Dec 17th. This event allowed students and teachers to devote time to practicing healthy stress-reducing activities as the end of the semester approaches. The event included: A therapy dog, yoga, dancing challenge, holiday games, free treats, coloring, board games, and athletic events. The students were wonderful and appreciative of having time to de-stress. A special thank you to Mrs. Hapgood and Mrs. Steve for all of your work and leadership! You do an awesome job empowering our student leadership at OHS. We are thankful for you!

The OMS choir conducted their annual Holiday Concert last night in the OHS auditorium. They sang a variety of holiday songs to help get us in the holiday spirit. The evening concluded with a collaborative effort by all OMS choir members and the OHS chamber choir. Thank you to Mr. Gallegos and all OMS choir members for their hard work and effort.

Tip #5: Choose a Variety of Sources. Show your children how you get news and information from different places, and explain how you make your choices. Use words like "credible," "trustworthy," "respected," and "fair." Ask them where they get their information, and if they think about those same words when choosing. As kids get older, introduce the ideas of bias, satire, and clickbait.

If a picture's worth a thousand words, do the words always tell a true story? One way to find out is through a reverse image search. Search with an image instead of a keyword and see what you discover!

Tip #4: Play "Should You Share?" Talk through the kind of content you and your tween or teen pass along to friends online. What types of things do you like to share? Do you always check to make sure something is true before you share it? How do emotions factor into your decisions to share things? Have you ever shared something and later found out it wasn't true?

Tip #4: Discuss fact vs. opinion Play around with ideas, deciding which are facts and which are opinions. Ask: How tall are you? What's the best food in the world? Do you like dogs? Point out that both facts and opinions show up in the news, but opinion is usually labeled.

Be A Deceptive Detective! If you want to know if someone is trying to trick you with a headline, think through a few of these five questions each time you read a shocking story. Don't let them pull the wool over your eyes Spartans!

OHMS staff participated in a Spartan Selfie Elfie Scavenger Hunt where they searched for Mr. Jones and Dr. J.  Bitmojis and took selfies with them. Congratulations to Mrs. Crebo our OMS winner and Mrs. Cahill who was our OHS winner!

Reading News Online Kids find and read news in lots of different ways. But studies show they're not very good at interpreting what they see. How can we help them get better? Teaching your students about the structure of online news articles is an important place to start. Video: bit.ly/OlyNMV1 Family Activity: Decoding Images. bit.ly/OlyNMFR1

Does attendance make a difference? See what this video has to say:https://vimeo.com/240840053

The JV and Varsity Boys Basketball games scheduled for Tuesday Dec. 14th at Fieldcrest have been postponed. A make up date will be announced at a later time.

The middle school boys basketball games scheduled for Dec. 13th and Dec. 14th have both been cancelled due to the opposing teams Covid protocol.

Tip #3: Explore Different Sides of a Story! Use real-life examples to help kids understand how people can view the same situation with totally different perspectives. One child might experience a game on the playground as fun, while another might feel like the rules are unfair. Sibling conflict can be a great example of how two people can have wildly different opinions about the same event. With older children, talk through controversial subjects and take turns arguing for different sides to help kids understand various viewpoints.

Congratulations to the OMS XC team! They were recently recognized by the Olympia School Board for making the state finals this season. The boys finished 17th out of 128 2A teams. State runners included: JT Piper, Kaleb Jacobs, CJ Moore, Hollis Scheets & Clayton Piper (the dynamic duo), Tucker Garey, Evan Petri, Owen Knuffman, Callan Clark, and Ethan Labelle. Coaches Hamilton and McFarland could not be more proud! Go Spartans!

7th Grade students are participating in a simulation of their very own presidential campaign! Students created campaign posters, established their party’s policy platform, and wrote campaign speeches. They even participated in a town hall debate followed by a Primary Election. They will end with a final debate between one Republican candidate and one Democratic candidate. The final debate will help them decide, when they vote in the General Election, who will be our next president!