Monroe Elementary

The 2026 Spring Rotary Heart Screening program will be Saturday, March 7, 2026 starting at 8 a.m. in the Heart Center at Sarah Bush Lincoln. In an effort to make this valuable screening available to all high school athletes who are between 15-17 years of age (at the time of the screening), we are simplifying the distribution and collection process of the screening forms and we need your help!

The registration forms along with the parent letter are attached to this email. Please make a copy of the packet for each eligible high school athlete (must be between 15-17 years of age at time of the screening) in your school and ask your head coaches to encourage parents to mail forms back to SBL at:

SBL Heart Center

Attn: Lori Richardson

1000 Health Center Drive

Mattoon, IL 61938

OR email completed forms to lrichardson@sblhs.org

Please encourage parents to return the completed paperwork to SBL no later than Friday, February 20, 2026

We will need all three of the following completed forms in order to schedule athletes for screenings:

* RAHS Registration Form

* RAHS History Worksheet

* RAHS Student Participation and Parental Approval

If you have questions, feel free to contact Lori Richardson, Clinic Supervisor – Heart Center, at 217-238-4550. For more information, please visit www.sarahbush.org and search for Rotary Heart Screen. We look forward to seeing your athletes on March 7, 2026 at The SBL Heart Center.

Students are encouraged to wear a hat in memory of Ms. Sherry Lewis on Thursday, February 12th. Please participate by bringing $1 to benefit the family of Ms. Lewis. Money will be collected by classroom teachers. Thank you for your continued support as we grieve the tremendous loss of our colleague and friend.

Mrs. Davis' First Grade class had Math Centers last week. We played Addition Bingo, Number Chart to 120 Puzzles, Missing Number Scoot, and Duck for President Double up game (we added double to our dice roll to find out how many spaces we need to move). This was a great way to practice with numbers in various ways in small groups.

This last week, First Graders made All About My Animal books. They had to research what their animal ate, where they live, and an interesting fact about their animal. Then after they wrote about their animal, they illustrated their books. This was a week-long process and they were excited to read them to their classmates.

Sixth grade students began our ancient civilization units learning about archaeology and early humans while developeling critical thinking skills. We made cave art, dug for artifacts, and tried to solve the mystery of Otzi the Iceman, a mummy discovered in the Alps. Here are some photos of our journey.

During the Veterans' Day Program, Monroe Elementary sang Patriotic songs with flags . Mrs. Davis' First Grade class also signed the Pledge of Allegiance. The 6th grade class organized a wonderful Veterans' Day Program!

Mrs. Tutewiler's third grade class became scientists to find out what happens when you put candy corn in different liquids ... hot water, Sprite, and vinegar. First, they made predictions about what each liquid would do to the candy corn. Then they tested their predictions to see what would really happen. The candy corn dissolved the fastest in the hot water as they thought it would. The water turned orange yellow, and smelled sweet. In the Sprite, the student saw lots of fizz and bubbles. The candy corn dissolved more slowly and turned slightly mushy. Lastly, the vinegar made it bubble, and it had a funny, sweet and sour smell. Most students agreed that they do not like the smell of vinegar! It was a fun fall science experiment and the students enjoyed predicting, observing and discovering how different liquids changed the candy corn.

There's nothing better than a spooky story on Halloween! Mrs. Shawver’s 6th graders made a Halloween Roll-A-Story into actual well-illustrated books! They enjoyed the process and reading each book on Halloween 🎃👻📖

No school for a SIP day, this Friday, November 7th.

Tomorrow! The best day of the school year 🦇👻🎃

Save the Date🌟

TONIGHT! 🎃 Get ready for our Spooktacular Family Reading Night! 👻 School-appropriate costumes welcome for all your boo-tiful ghouls & goblins! 🧙‍♀️

We've brewed up some spine-tingling fun:
🖍️ Create a Haunted Stress Busters craft
🍪 Make a Frightful Fingers snack
🍭 Trick or Treat throughout the building
🚪 Vote in our door decorating contest
📚 Enjoy reading & A.R. Testing

Don't miss this fang-tastic evening of literacy and laughs! 🦇 The fun awaits... if you dare! 😉

Meal served 5:00-6:30
Reading & Activities 5:30-7:00

Sixth grade students have been preparing for our Veterans Day Program. We would like to invite veterans in our community to join us on November 11 at 9:00 am in the gym at Monroe Elementary. After the program, veterans are invited to stay for breakfast in the cafeteria. Please RSVP to brittany.kibler@caseywestfield.org or call 217-932-2178. Invitation designed by sixth grader, Serenity Kemper.

We will call this a Close to all school collaboration project (a few students were absent and no kindergarten). Students were given one color family to use and had to complete a self portrait picture. My student assistant, Lucy Moore, arranged them in rainbow order! ROYGBIV for the win! 🌈

🌰✨The last couple of weeks in Zone Room sessions, our younger students read Acorn Was a Little Wild by Jen Arena and talked all about what it means to have self-control and make safe, kind choices — even when we feel a little “wild”! Our older students focused on the same theme of growth and self-control, sharing real-life examples of when they made strong choices and how they can keep growing this fall. No matter our age, we can all be a little wild sometimes — but like Acorn, we’re learning that growth happens when we slow down, reflect, and make good choices! 🌰✨

Help out the Monroe Art department! Thank you for all your generosity!

T is for texture! Implied and actual texture-we are building those layers in 2nd and 4th grade art. Getting our hands dirty and our papers pretty!

We read Pumpkin Jack in the library last week, so we brought in our own Pumpkin Jack. The kids are going to get to watch the life cycle of a pumpkin first hand!