Stansfield Photography will be on campus on Wednesday, October 4 and Thursday, October 5 to snap individual and group photos of the students in every class. Order forms went home in backpacks and are due to teachers on or before the day of your child's individual/class photos. The date and time of your child's photo day is on the order form (bottom right corner) and a full schedule is available below. If your child is absent on photo day you will be contacted to come to the make-up day, which is scheduled for Friday, October 6. If you have any questions, please contact Bessy Bert at the front desk.

The tale of Gaston, a stocky, white bulldog won the hearts of Chiaravalle K-3 students, as well as those statewide, as part of the Monarch Award (aka the Illinois Reader's Choice Award.)

At Chiaravalle, kindergarten through 3rd grade students used pennies to vote for their favorite among the nominated picture books. The Monarch symbolizes the growth, change, and freedom becoming a reader brings — and the award is designed to encourage children to read critically from a list of 20 illustrated children's books.

In late January, Chiaravalle Middle School students kicked off the first Media Arts Unit in partnership with the MetaMedia studio at the McGaw YMCA.

Chiaravalle Art/Maker Space Specialist Sarah Laing worked with Sam Phillips, MetaMedia Manager and fellow at Stanford University's FabLearn to create the foundation of a curriculum which integrates arts/design ed and new media. Students will gain experience with digital and fabrication tools while also exploring their own interests.

Day 1 of the 6 week unit started with a general overview of the program which will include woodcarving, photoshop, CAD, 3-D printing, digital animation, and green screen work. The kids designed portraits that then were scanned into computers and learned a program called Carvey and had their portraits carved into a digital wood fabricator.

MetaMedia is a free resource for students in grades 6-8 after school. Sarah's hope is that after this introduction, Chiaravalle students will take further advantage of the tools and resources to continue with personal projects on their own time.