Electric Lincoln Elementary
Welcome to the chapter on the organization of Lincoln School. In this chapter, you will learn about the teachers, the schedule, the way the classes are grouped and the curriculum. You will learn about what the school life of students in grades K-6 are like at Lincoln. We hope you will enjoy learning about some of the unique things that make Lincoln a special school.
The Life of a Kindergartener
by Beth W. and Allison A.
The Lincoln kindergarteners are divided into two groups. The morning group is taught by Mary Bontrager 
and the afternoon group is taught by Joni Hayford. 
Kindergarteners have a very busy week for five and six year olds but, they do this in a very neat way.
Every morning the teachers start the kids with an opening activity. During the opening, they take attendance, put all of their things away and talk about what they will do during the school time. They also listen to books and learn about how to read. 
The kindergarteners go to the library and listen to books and to check out books to take home.
During the half day they are in kindergarten, they learn how to write. They get to write in a journal and can write in kindergarten writing or draw pictures to tell a story. This helps them with reading, too.
DAP is an unusual activity. It stands for Developmental Activities Program and is what kids do to help them learn math. The kids make "bubbles" around them and may not talk to each other when they are working in their bubble. They work with sets of materials and do many different kinds of things with them to help them learn about numbers.
The kindergarteners have music 
and physical education, too. In music they sing and do movements to music and in P.E. 
they do things related to sports and fun games for young children.
Children learn how to get along with one another in small groups while they do different activities. Because you usually work in small groups when you get older, this is good because it teaches the kindergarteners how to get along with other kids their age.
Kindergarteners especially like something called "Tell and Show". 
Usually there is a theme or a letter that the kids bring in something similar to the theme. The child gets to sit in the big chair, gives clues about what they brought to show and then shows it to the whole class.
The Primary Unit
by Joe G.
In the Primary Unit, students learn from each other in their different working groups. In homerooms, there are first, second and third graders. In other classes there are first and second together, second and third together and sometimes other combinations.
They start out their day with math. First and second graders do number work jobs, DAP, story problems place value, money, time and measurement. Second and third graders do some of the same things and also addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The students use many different kinds of manipulatives to learn how to do these things. 
Science groups learn about the environment, structures, water, plants, nutrition and health to name a few topics. They learn about these things by doing experiments and observing things.
Studying about different countrys' cultures, Native Americans, 
Presidents and safety helps them learn about our world during Social Studies.
During language arts, students work in small groups, independently and on whole class projects to help them learn how to read and write. This year, two of the themes they are doing are School and Pioneers. The Pioneers Theme is very interesting because they get to learn how people lived in the old days, they get to make the outline of a covered wagon to see how small they were and they get to read good books. 
Primary students also have music classes, art classes and P.E. classes each week.
Primary Teachers
by Katie S.
Math is an obvious favorite for teaching in the Primary Unit. All of the teachers try to make learning as fun as possible by using pictures and manipulatives. There is a big difference in teachers in numbers of year they have been teaching: from 3 to 35 years.
Mrs. Mary Cilek has been teaching at Lincoln all of her teaching career which is three years. "Your question about my best memory of teaching is a tough one," she says. "But as I thought of all the things that have happened while I've been here at Lincoln, the visitors who have had would definitely be one of the highlights!" 
Mrs. Kathy Jensen 
has been teaching for 15 years, 3 at Lincoln. Her best memory is teaching a little boy in fifth grade in another school who was not very good at reading but, she helped him after school everyday and at the end of the year, he could read about everything.
Mrs. Nola Naughton has been teaching for approximately 35 years, 12 years at Lincoln, all in the Primary Unit. One of her best memories is a very recent one. This year she is teaching a little boy in first grade whose father she taught when he was in first grade! 
Mrs. Kari Broghamer has been teaching for 14 year, 7 at Lincoln. Her best memory is when she was teaching a boy at a different school, who was a burn victim, how to read and write. 
Mrs. Helene Volkert 
has been teaching for 3 years, all at Lincoln. Ms. Volkert's best memory is also a very recent one. She was been working with a little boy teaching him how to write. He just was not sure until one day it came to him and now he can write words!
The Intermediate Unit
by Joe G.
The intermediate students work in different groups made up of fourth, fifth and sixth graders during the day. Homerooms are all three grade levels and are the language arts groups. We do eight or nine themes throughout the year. This year, some of our themes are Newspaper, Grandparents, Animals and Sibling Rivalry. During the Newspaper theme, for example, we write articles about Lincoln School for the family newletter. We use the different newspaper techniques that we have learned about as we make our own newspaper.
Math groups work on numeration, whole numbers, fractions, decimals, geometry, measurement, percent, statistics and probability. We use calculators, manipulatives and our minds.
We learn about many things in science. During the three years in the intermediate unit, students study Bugs, Beasts and Birds with Mrs. Hutton 
, Rocks and Charts in Ms. Smit's room 
, Mr. Ritter teaches sound and you learn all about hearing and the ear 
and make homemade musical instruments, and Mrs. Bozorgomid teaches Invisible Systems where you look through microscopes at microscopic animals and cells 
. Other units include Weather where you learn about winds, air pressure and rainfall, Optics is so you can learn about the eye, Adaptations, Balance Growth and Movement, Nutrition, Environmental Science, Astronomy and WON which is about whales, oceanography and navigation . The neat thing about science is you learn something new and interesting everyday.
During social studies time, students learn about different countries and about different time periods.
Intermediate students also have PE, Music and Art classes. Some students attend the ELP classes and instrumental and string lessons. 
Intermediate Teachers
by Richard L.
Mrs. Bozorgomid has been teaching for half of her life, 15 of those years at Lincoln School. She received her B.A. at UNI and her M.A. at the University of Iowa.
Her husband works at Dominoes Pizza and brings home a pizza for dinner sometimes. She has three children, Ben who is twenty-three and a university student in the Marine Reserves, Alex who is nine and likes sports and plays the violin, and Chloe who is tw o and has many cute habits such as hitting people and then saying, "I'm sorry, did I hurt you?" and pulling hair out of the family dog, which leads to pets.
Mrs. B. has two pets, a black Schipperke who thinks it owns the neighborhood and a cat who is named Sunny because of its fur color. Mrs. B's favorite hobby is reading science fiction and mysteries.
Mr. Ritter is the only male teacher that teaches in the Intermediate Unit besides the band and orchestra teachers. He has been teaching for five years, all of them at Lincoln. 
His family includes his wife, Mary, and his son, Tim, who is 15 months old. His pets are two cats named Buddy and Tucker. His hobbies are listening to music (all kinds except country) exercising, playing tennis and playing with his son.
Mrs. Hutton 
has been teaching for 18 years, twelve of those years at Lincoln. Her family consists of two brothers, a father, a father-in-law, three sisters-in-law, two brothers-in-law, four nephews, two nieces and a h usband. In the course of her life, she has had four pets, two dogs (one of which she still has), many fish, chickens and turtles. Her hobbies are reading, gardening, sports and walking.
Ms. Smit has been teaching for two years, one year at Lincoln. She is working on another degree at the University to get a M.A. in Science Education. She mostly concentrates on her job at school, but otherwise, having no pets, likes to be with her friends. She likes aerobics, reading, taking care of plants and cooking.
Specials Teachers
by Katie S.
The Lincoln program would not be complete without our specials classes. These teachers give kids the opportunity to explore and learn subjects in addition to the basic reading, writing and arithmetic.
Ms. Janice Schmitz is the Physical Education teacher for all grades, she enjoys working with kids of all ages and also participates with each class. Units that are covered in P.E. are individual and team sports and aerobic activities that teach working together.
Mrs. Nancy Wehrheim has been teaching art for 20 years. 
This year, she is teaching painting, drawing and sketching, but is also mixing in a touch of Mexican and Indian art with dancing statues and smiling dolls. She enjoys teaching and does not plan to stop any time soon.
Ms. Ann Wilke is the German teacher for Intermediate students. 
She teaches us about school in Germany, German words for the people in schools, about the culture and things like the calendar, the months, days and seasons. 
Mrs. Michele Schintler is the music teacher 
of the Intermediate students and afternoon kindergarten. She has been teaching for five years and is in her second year at Lincoln. In music students learn how to play different musical instruments such as the keyboard, recorders and Orff instruments, along with singing different songs.
Mrs. Strang 
has been teaching for two years at Lincoln. She teaches intermediate music classes. One of the special events each year is the Intermediate musical where students present a musical for parents and friends .
Mrs. Lane has been teaching ELP for a number of years. ELP is the Extended Learning Program that kids can participate in. Some kids go to classes each week and learn about things like scientific investigation, debating, photography, etc. Mrs. Lane also organizes special "learning at lunch" activities for anybody who wants to participate. These activities range from chess to writing poetry.
We have an instrumental teacher and a strings teacher at Lincoln, too. Mr. Moninger 
and Mr. Kennedy 
teach music lessons to fourth, fifth and sixth graders who want to learn how to play an instrument.
Special Staff People
by Doug J.and Brent W.
There are some other special people at Lincoln who contribute to the program and make Lincoln a special school.
Ken Oakes 
and Margaret Beaty 
are the custodians at our school. Each of them work very hard to keep Lincoln looking great.
We have two secretaries: Mrs. Norma Shultz 
and Mrs. Patti Davis. 
Mrs. Shultz is the secretary in the office. She does many things for teachers, the principal and for students. She has been the secretary at Lincoln for more than 20 years. Mrs. Davis is the secretary in the Media Center. She helps kids find books, helps the Media Specialist and helps all of the teachers, too.
Mrs. Ann Madsen 
is the teacher associate. Not only does she help teachers, but she also helps kids alot.
Probably the person that helps the Lincoln staff the most is the principal, Mrs. Chris Kolarik. 
She knows Lincoln School very well. She used to teach kindergarten here. Then after teaching at another school, she came back to Lincoln and taught in the Primary Unit and then in the Intermediate Unit before becoming the principal.