On September 22 I did an in-service on Open Court Reading in School District 159 in Matteson, IL. The district uses Open Court Reading in grades kindergarten and grade 1. I remember conducting a training at the board office a few years ago, as the charming building looked familiar to me when I arrived. I worked with kindergarten teachers in the morning and 1st grade teachers in the afternoon. The district loves the program and has been using Open Court Reading for many years. A teacher who has been with the district for years told me she has taught Open Court Reading for 30 years!
Elementary School District 159 is located in Cook County and serves portions of the communities in Matteson, Richton Park, Tinley Park and Frankfort. The student population of 2310 and is served by five locations. Four grade schools, Woodgate, Armstrong, Yates and Sieden Prairie, house grades pre-school through fifth. One middle school, Colin Powell, houses grades sixth through eighth. The district Administration Center is located on Vollmer Road on the site of the original two-room Sedan Prairie schoolhouse, originally built in 1869
Ken and I celebrated our 4th anniversary on September 24, 2009. We had our parents over for dinner and cake on after my first St. Louis Wind Symphony concert of the season. We kept the tradition alive of getting an anniversary cake from Lubely's Bakery, the bakery that made our wedding cake. Keeping with the theme, we always request them to decorate our anniversary cake with musical notes and our monogram.
Ken and I continued the celebration by going out to two anniversary dinners where we were able to use anniversary coupons sent to us by two of our favorite restaurants. We enjoyed discounted dinners at Grappa Grill in St. Charles and at Maggiano's Little Italy in Brentwood.
After enjoying yummy deep dish pizza at Pi, Jaime and I stopped by 
