Hawthorne Elementary Educator Supports English Language Learners & the Environment

Ms. Kim Theodore is an English Learner (EL) educator at Hawthorne Elementary in District 200. She envisioned two programs that would support Hawthorne students and reached out to her local union, the Wheaton Warrenville Education Association, to apply for 2 SCORE grants from the Illinois Education Association. Ms. Theodore used one of the grants to continue an extracurricular activity called Children Learning English Fluency (CLEF) Club, which she and three colleagues started in the 2013/2014 school year with the help of a SCORE grant. This activity meets once a week supporting 40 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade EL students as they sing classic children’s songs to build phonetic awareness and fluency while increasing their background knowledge. This year’s $1000 grant money will be used to take a field trip on February 25th to the College of DuPage to see the musical production “Elephant & Piggie” based on the Mo Willems book series. As part of their field trip, the students will be given a tour of COD to help them understand from this young age that community college is a realistic opportunity for continuing their education and gaining the skills for a rewarding career. The group will be touring the Homeland Security, Health Sciences, and Culinary educational facilities. To further build the home-school connection, students will take home information for parents from COD, as well as two Elephant & Piggie books to keep.

The support doesn’t stop there. Ms. Theodore earned another SCORE grant worth $1000 that is being used to create an Ecology Club at Hawthorne. This club is open to first through fifth graders who want to learn about ways they can help our Earth. They have 50 students participating and meet monthly to do recycling projects, have guest speakers, and work on improving the landscaping of Hawthorne. On January 12th, SCARCE presented a program to the kids about recycling, reusing, and repurposing. Then Julie Schubert’s class of fourth graders participated in a lunchroom waste audit to determine how much garbage is accumulated during a typical day. The Ecology Club students will be sharing this information with the school and suggesting ways to minimize that amount. Future projects include planting a butterfly garden and expanding the sharing garden using Hawthorne’s compost.

Thank you, Ms. Kim Theodore, for collaborating with the community and searching for supplemental funding for extra support for our English Learners. We wish you the best of luck with CLEF Club and the Ecology Club.