You're Invited to a Special Movie Event

Watch Girl Rising at the Highland Learning Center

Students and Parents are invited to join with Highland teachers to view Girl Rising, a movie that explores the lives of girls around the world and the power of education. The movie will be shown in the Learning Center on Friday, April 25 after school. We'll have snacks and some discussion as we watch the film. 

Please note, this film is rated PG-13. Students who attend without an adult will be asked to have a parent signature. A permission slip and invitation to the event is available below! If you want to attend, just print this out, have a parent sign it, and be sure to bring it with you on Friday. 

This event is part of Project Pretty Powerful, a grant project funded by the District 70 Partners for Excellence in Education. Over the course of the school year teachers involved in this project have worked to promote positive messages and build self-esteem among girls at Highland.

Educate Girls. 

Change the World.

Book Fair

It is book fair time at Highland!
The book fair kicked off on Friday April 11 and will run through Thursday April 17. Students can visit and shop at the book fair during their visits to the library during the book fair week and are welcome to stop in the Learning Center throughout.

Highland's Open House is on Wednesday evening, April 16. The book fair will be open from 7 - 8:30 that evening as well.

Joan Bauer to stop by Highland on her Illinois Book Award Road Trip

The cavalacade of author visits this year continues when Joan Bauer stops by Highland next week during her Illinois author tour.

Bauer is an accomplished author of tween and YA books. Many of her titles have been Caudill Nominees. Her book, Close to Famous, was a 2014 Caudill Nominee and the book Almost Home will appear on the coming year's list.

Copies of Almost Home are available for purchase. After she speaks to several classes the morning of her visit, Ms. Bauer will do a book signing.
We look forward to welcoming Ms. Bauer to Highland in the week ahead!

Neal Shusterman Inspires and Entertains the Highland Community

Hearing authors talk about their work and process always inspires and fascinates me. We were fortunate to have Neal Shusterman visit Highland on Thursday, April 10. He is an amazing storyteller. I knew from reading his books that he has a style that keeps me turning pages. But he has a gift speaking to an audience as well.

We kept Mr. Shusterman busy during his day at Highland. We started the day with two large group assemblies so that all students had a chance to hear him speak. His presentation format was unique and just worked! It was driven by student questions. I heard really positive comments from students and staff members about these sessions.

From there we did a small lunch reception with Mr. Shusterman and members of the Lunch Bunch Book Clubs. At this event our guest did a reading of a few pages of his upcoming book Undivided. We were mesmerized!

Then we moved on to a couple writing workshop sessions where students learned how to craft a story and talked about the writing process. These small group sessions let students work with Mr. Shusterman in a small group setting.

Finally, the day ended with a book signing back in the library.

It was a great author visit day.