Yearbook Orders close TODAY!
Our brains are great at using past experiences to make quick decisions on the fly, but these shortcuts can also lead to bias. "Confirmation bias" is our brain's tendency to seek out information that confirms things we already think we know. Help your students learn to recognize this when they encounter news online, as a way to examine competing opinions and ideas and to avoid drawing questionable conclusions.
Mark your calendars for Family Reading Night! You will not want to miss this fun family event, but we need your help! We are looking for magazines and recycylable materials (toilet paper/paper towel rolls, plastic containers, paper/plastic cups, milk, juice and egg cartons, cans, plastic bottles, etc.) for a project students & families will be working on that evening. If you have any of these items, please send them into school with your student! Thank you!
Family Tip Sheet: bit.ly/OlyNMFR2
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.
Sharing the Investment
Did you know? Approximately 35% of purchases in McLean County are made by visitors and travelers.
If the One-Cent Tax is approved, revenue from these purchases will directly support our local schools—helping fund safety improvements, facility upgrades, and property tax stabilization.
This means non-residents contribute to our schools, easing the financial burden on McLean County property taxpayers while ensuring our students and community benefit.
Learn more about the sales tax referendum by attending our community information meeting on March 10th @ 5:00 p.m. in the Media Center at Olympia High School, visiting our webpage www.april1cent.info or contacting us directly.
#april1cent
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!
Yearbook Orders are due FRIDAY! See ordering information below!
Say hello to two-way messaging and classroom announcements in the Olympia CUSD 16 app! With the addition of Rooms, our district app keeps getting better. Parents/guardians check your email/text for instructions to sign up and access new features.
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.
Yearbook orders are due by this Friday, February 28. See below for ordering information.
How Do I Make Sure I Am Invited To Rooms?
Each parent needs to have a unique email address or a phone number that is classified as “Cellular” associated with their account.
You can add an email address in Skyward Family Access on your own using the My Account menu. If you do not have access to Skyward, please contact your school’s office and they will work with you to update your information.
If you do not have an email address in the system, you must have a unique Cellular phone number to receive the invite. If you only have the default "phone" number, it will not pull into Rooms. You need to have a number that is identified as “Cell”. If your default phone number is your cellular phone number, you should repeat it and identify it as “Cell” using the drop down box.
See more details on our Rooms FAQ website here: https://www.olympia.org/page/rooms-faq
Congratulations to Nicole from our Transportation Department as she received a dozen cookies from Sprinkled with Love for our "Fresh Cookie Friday" event. Sam from Food Service was also a winner of a dozen delicious cookies. Thank you ladies for all you do for Olympia!
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! This process has gotten even easier with tools like Google Lens!
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.
Early voting has started in McLean County! You can vote early by mail or in person until March 31st. For details on voter registration, mail-in voting, polling locations, and more, visit www.elections.il.gov.
https://bit.ly/MCEV25
Say “hello” to two-way messaging in the Olympia CUSD 16 app! The same district app now offers class streams, class announcements, and parent-teacher chat. Look for your personalized invitation to begin using this feature in our app after Feb 24th.
Download for Android https://aptg.co/ZDkmVX
Download for iPhone https://aptg.co/49q8Hl
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.
Fake News has been around for a long time. Track its history from 63 B.C. through present day in this infographic. Where do you see Fake News today? Where does AI fit in? How does it impact your life? Does it impact the type of media you consume, or where you consume it?
https://youtu.be/mh1dLvGe06Y - BBC
When we get news from our social media feeds, it often only tells us part of the story. Our friends -- and the website's algorithms -- tend to feed us perspectives we already agree with. Check out these ways to escape the filter bubble and make sure your ideas about the world are being challenged.
When you see advertising on TV or on a billboard, ask your children to figure out what the ad is selling. Sometimes it's obvious, and sometimes it's not. Help them explore why certain pictures, sounds, or words are used to sell certain products.
