A Message from Our Principal

July 2023

Greetings Country Place Leadership Academy Students, Families and Community Members,

We hope that you are having a great summer! The Country Place staff is excited to welcome you to the upcoming 2023–2024 school year! We look forward to partnering with you to create an inspiring learning experience for every student. We have new start and end times this year! 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. 7:30 a.m. to 12:10 p.m. on Wednesday. Our mission is iLead. iLead stands for, “Inspiring Leaders to Exceed, Achieve and Dream.” This year we will continue our leadership journey with the Leader in Me Process. We will continue to deepen our understanding of leadership principles and the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Students will take on leadership roles and teach leadership to others in our school and community. We will continue our goal setting process to support student growth. Our focus this year will be on empowering students to lead their own learning through the 4 Disciplines of Execution. The 4 Disciplines are a process that helps you accomplish your goals. The 4 Disciplines are, focusing on the wildly important, acting on lead measures, keeping a compelling scoreboard, and creating a cadence of accountability. We will empower our students to be leaders in their classrooms, on the playground, in the community, and beyond!

Please read the entire community letter.

Sincerely,

Dr. Cagle

Dr. Michael Cagle
Country Place Elementary School Principal

Highlighted Math Game

Hello all and welcome to our first installment of the math game of the week. This week, we are going to introduce (or reintroduce, if you know this one) your family to 1-2 NIM. Sophia from Mrs. Ruiz’s class selected this game. We have played NIM with students as young as our kindergarteners!

Instructions:
NIM is a 2-player game. Start with a pile of 10 objects. (They can be anything! Pens or pencils are great, but we play with rocks on the playground!) On your turn, remove one or two counters from the pile. You must take at least one counter on your turn, but you may not take more than two. Whoever takes the last counter wins.

Thoughts to ponder and investigate:
Can you figure out a strategy that allows you to win every time?
Does it matter who goes first? How does it affect your strategy?
Can you make a different version of NIM? One of our fourth graders created 3-5 NIM. Does this change your winning strategy? Why or why not?

Please share your strategies, pictures, and videos of you playing with your homeroom teachers! We will see if anyone can beat the NIM Master, Dr. Cagle, when you return!

Check out more fun games from Math for Love!