Hope everyone can make it to the party on Friday @ 1:30. I will not be able to make it but the party must go on without me.
Ben
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Friday, December 2, 2011
Friday December 2nd 2011
Rockstar Gazette
12/2/11
Teacher’s Note
We have been working really hard on our Idaho Geography Unit and should be finishing it before break. The class will be in charge of the Community Circle the Wednesday before break, it starts @ 10 A.M. you are more than welcome to come and watch. The children have been practicing dance routines, joke telling and guitar playing so it should be a great performance. Please try to read at home with the children and practice their spelling words as well (they go home on Mondays). If you have changed your email or if you have not been receiving my daily email please let me know. Thanks for all of your support. |
The Class - By Chris Harrison and Ben Miller
This year has been going great. We have gone on a field trip to the Boise River and we also got to go to the Boise Art Museum. We have done some DOL (Daily Oral Language), this used to be done very day but we are taking a break from it right now. We are going to try to go to the Boise River more and to the library soon.
A lot of kids are playing Beyblades, they are really popular this year. They are metal spinning tops that “battle” each other. We are going to do a scientific study on our Beyblades to see why they spin and why some of them are better than others. We also have been playing golf at break or choice time, it is pretty fun as well.
Fire Drill and Lock Down - By Kiley Taylor
Hi parents, I hope you want to learn about fire drills and lockdowns, because I am going to tell you all about them. First we go outside when we hear the fire alarm. If it is fake we go back inside the school. If it isn’t fake we obviously stay outside and wait for the firemen. Now let’s talk about lockdowns. First Mrs. Cindy will tell us if somebody unknown/harmful is coming near the school. Then we will hide under our seats and be silent. Then the teacher will make sure nobody is missing from the class and we wait for the person to leave the school area. If nobody comes then everything goes back to normal.
I Like Ice Cream
By Madison Hillary
I like ice cream a whole lot
It tastes good when days are hot
Vanilla, Chocolate, Rocky Road
I can see that al a mode
I have my own recipes
Rock-A-Chock is the best of these
Mr. Ben likes Rocky Road
Even when it has a chocolate code
I like Lolly -It
It is like eating a sugar pit
I Love Ice Cream
Even if it makes me scream!
The 5 R’s - By Dean Rollins and Ben Miller
Our school has some guidelines that we follow that are called the 5 R’s. They are Respectful, Resilient, Responsive, Resourceful, and Responsible. In our class we have some other guidelines that will help us become a great class. They are called R.O.S.E which stands for Respect Others Self and World. Each of the 5 R’s are very important for our class to do, they will help us become a great class. If someone is respectful than other people will respect them back. If someone is resourceful they will be able to be independent and not rely on other people. If someone is resilient they will keep on trying until they reach their goal. If someone is responsible they will accomplish their goals in life. If someone is responsive they will respond to their needs and other needs very quickly. The 5 R’s are very good guidelines to help you become your full potential.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
11/11/11 Rockstar Gazette
Rockstar Gazette
11/11/11
What’s Going On – Ben Miller
Our class has been really been putting there best foot forward and working really hard on our school subjects. We have been working on sequencing and fluency of what we read, understanding the scientific method, researching Idaho history, improving our behavior, building “super sentences” and our spelling words. This last week has been one of the most productive weeks we have had all year. I am really excited to show all of you what the children have been accomplishing in class during our Family Teacher Conferences.
Parent Letters - Ben Miller
I would really appreciate it if everyone could get the family letters to me soon. These are going to be read at the beginning of every family teacher conference by each parent. The students will cherish these letters and it will help motivate them in school. Please return them in an envelope to me ASAP.
The 5 R’s - Dean Rollins and Ben Miller
Our school has some guidelines that we follow that are called the 5 R’s. They are Respectful, Resilient, Responsive, Resourceful, and Responsible. In our class we have some other guidelines that will help us become a great class. They are called R.O.S.E which stands for Respect Others Self and World. Each of the 5 R’s are very important for our class to do, they will help us become a great class. If someone is respectful than other people will respect them back. If someone is resourceful they will be able to be independent and not rely on other people. If someone is resilient they will keep on trying until they reach their goal. If someone is responsible they will accomplish their goals in life. If someone is responsive they will respond to their needs and other people’s needs very quickly. The 5 R’s are very good guidelines to help you reach your full potential.
FAMILY-TEACHER CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
Monday - 11/21 Tuesday – 11/22
1:00 | Eladio Cisneros | 8:00 | Glen Scott |
1:30 | Christopher Harrison | 8:30 | |
2:00 | Bella Williams | 9:00 | Caspian Jennings |
2:30 | Dean Rollins | 9:30 | |
3:00 | Michaela Coe | 10:00 | Jordan Crosier |
3:30 | Zachary Evans | 10:30 | Madison Hillary |
4:00 | Hannah Bard | 11:00 | Gabe Visaya |
4:30 | Hannah Scott | 11:30 | |
5:00 | Michael Wilson | 12:00 | |
5:30 | Zack Tippetts | 12:30 | |
6:00 | Ziah Ginn | 1:00 | |
6:30 | Kiley Taylor | 1:30 | |
7:00 | Dean Rollins (dad) | 2:00 | |
7:30 | Wyatt Ridgway | 2:30 | |
Sunday, October 30, 2011
FAMILY NEWSLETTER November 2011
FAMILY NEWSLETTER November 2011
Hello to our DaVinci families!
Everyone’s continued to settle into our new home and we loved having our families visit with their students during the recent Family Goals Night Event! I hope you enjoyed learning more about your children’s teacher, classmates, curriculum and their new class space. Everyone’s been surprised how nicely the modulars have turned into great spaces for our classes for this year! Thanks for showing how much you care about your child and their education by attending the annual event. It means a lot to your child and their teacher to have you attend to help them set and follow through with their educational and personal goals in life. Please remember to get your child’s letter back to their teacher as those are special treasures to all students whether they are five or fourteen!
PICTURE RE-TAKES Tuesday, Nov. 8 at 9AM. If your child was not here on picture day, they will automatically have their picture taken. Contact the office if you’d like to receive a packet to order pictures. If you were not happy with the pictures already taken, the entire packet must be returned on picture day to give to the photographer in order to have re-takes taken without being charged.
FAMILY-TEACHER CONFERENCES Monday, Nov 21 (1-8PM) & Tues, Nov 22. (8AM-2PM)
This important event is new for us as we are changing our conference format – as per parent requests! There will be no school for students these two days in order to give families enough time to have a private conference with their child and teacher. These are required for each student and their family as they are important to their children’s education at DaVinci. Your teacher will contact you soon to sign up one family at a time to have their private, confidential 20 minute session to visit with their student and teacher – and to have their student show them their portfolio of work up to this date. New conferences will start for the teacher every 30 minutes so teachers have been asked to respect each sign up time and not go over the allotted scheduled time in order to meet with all families. If you want to talk with the teacher beyond this time, they will have request forms for follow-up conferencing time. We ask that you note we’re offering a wide variety of times to accommodate your family schedule. These dates have been announced since April 2011 and everyone’s schedules are packed during December; therefore I’m asking everyone to be flexible to find a time that fits Monday or Tuesday as we do not plan to re-schedule outside these dates. Your child’s teacher will be contacting you about your conferencing time soon. Enjoy!
THANKSGIVING BREAK: Wed, Nov. 23-Fri, Nov.25 Enjoy this long break with your children! We give our thanks to have such a great school, staff, students and parents as we look towards DaVinci’s positive future!
BIRTHDAYS & TREATS The students enjoy celebrating their own and others birthdays! We’d like to ask the adults to consider the following if you are making special plans that involve the school with birthdays:
· Have I asked the teacher in advance when would be a good time to bring birthday treats?
· Have I considered bringing healthy fun treats or asked if there are food allergies in the class?
· Have I considered the feelings of other students if my child is passing out invitations, but they aren’t inviting everyone? You may need to ask the teacher advice on this – depending on the age of the children.
We want it to be a special day, but these issues are important and affect the entire class.
VOLUNTEERS Every family is asked to volunteer as much as possible as it really helps the entire school, your child’s teacher and your children love to have you here! Field trips are high priority for our school, but teachers are not allowed to even walk to the library or greenbelt without a minimum of two additional volunteer adults helping them. Please offer your help whenever possible for field trips! If you haven’t turned in your All-School Volunteer form yet, there are extras in the office.
CHECKING IN & OUT – It’s all about safety! No matter where we are located, the safety of our students is always very important! None of our policies have changed, but I’ve noticed many adults being rather rude to our secretary as she politely reminds you about checking your student in and out of classes. Even though the policy may seem silly to you, each has been carefully developed to make our location as safe as possible for our children. I know everyone feels this is important! To be sure everyone knows how this process works at our school, please review the following:
1. No one may go into any room in the school until they’ve checked into the office to sign in and receive a visitor’s badge. For our safety records, we also need you to sign back out with the office before you leave. If anyone sees an adult without a badge, they are required to report you and I have been known to call in the police when we could not identify the person. We take safety seriously!
2. If your child arrives to school after the class has gone into their room, an adult must check them into the office to get a tardy pass and walk the child to their teacher’s door.
3. If you need to check your child out or in for appointments, the same check in and out procedure is necessary.
ATTENDANCE Of course we know how important being in school is for our students to learn – especially with our hands-on educational philosophy! Did you also know that our school’s financing depends almost totally on the students’ attendance? It’s the pretty much the only way we receive funding from the state of Idaho as a charter school. We hope you will take advantage of the days off of school for trips and appointments. If you must have your child leave early, please try to wait until after 1PM as this is the cut-off time to receive funding with our school’s schedule. Thanks for helping with this!
BOYS & GIRLS CLUB SCHEDULES will be closing at 6PM on November 3 and 4.
DRIVING AROUND THE SCHOOL & DAY CARE Wow! Some people seem to have some challenges with patience when dropping off and picking up students! This is the best method we have found, but I’m open to suggestions! Both Tater Tots Day Care and DaVinci have become very concerned regarding some of the impatience and driving in our “circle”. The owner of the day care and DaVinci are teaming up to remind everyone to drive the same direction at all times (counter clockwise), slowly and watch for people. The entire “circle” has children in it. We are trying to get speed bumps and arrows added – in addition to the GC police plan to swing through more often since some people still aren’t following good safety.
COMMUNITY CIRCLES 10:00-10:30AM on Wednesdays. You are always invited – just check in at the office. Nov.2 is Pat’s class’s turn to facilitate the program, Nov. 9 is Elizabeth’s kinders, and Nov. 16 is Wren’s.
FACILITY UPDATE We are continuing to work towards a financial package which we hope will be accepted soon to finance building a new school. Our board treasurer, Tim Richey, our attorney, Bud Yost, and I met with Dave Evans Construction and the bankers this last week to finalize the presentation for the bank’s board. Keep thinking positive!
Please see the attached letter and the web site for the new building funding campaign which the board and parents have started! Let’s start getting that thermometer to rise!
BOX TOPS FUND RAISER Our bookkeeper, Michele Roth, has been keeping track of the money raised by bringing in your box tops and soup labels to the box on Secretary Jeanna’s desk! It’s starting to build, so please remember to get those in! What an easy way to help out!
I love to hear your ideas and listen to your questions or concerns, so remember to contact me at any time! Have a wonderful season of thanks!
Cindy Hoovel, Administrator
DaVinci Charter School
377-0011 or cindy.hoovel@gardencityschool.org
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Daily Update
Wednesday – 10/26/11
· Morning Circle – Finish Joke Share
· Math – DPP and Spinning Differences
· Community Circle@ 10:00 Marti’s Class was in Charge this week.
· Snack and Stretch
· Idaho Symbols - Jigsaw Share
· Lunch @11:25
· Finished Idaho Symbols Jigsaw Share
· Spelling Groups – Peer Sort
· ZYLAR
· Jobs and Choice
· Play Practice
· Read Aloud
· Art @ 2:15 With Rebekah
· Circle – Summarize The Day
Common Tasks
Ø Circle – Morning and Afternoon – These are 10 to 15 minutes long and they are to create community in our classroom.
Ø Math – I teach 3rd and 4th grade math so this will basically apply to the 3rd grade parents, the titles of the lessons are always changing so you hopefully your child can tell you all about it. Also, 4th grade parents the children will hopefully be writing a math article soon for The News Team.
o Math DPP – Is a Daily Practice Problem that typically introduces a topic or is working on some skills that they may need to refresh. This is done every day when they enter the classroom. It is also done with the whole class in the afternoon.
Ø Idaho History – This is 4th grade Idaho History year. Every year we flip flop between 3rd and 4th grade Social Studies and Sciences so this is the year for 4th grade Social Studies and 3rd grade Sciences.
o We are currently studying the symbols of Idaho. The children have been researching in small groups certain symbols. They are sharing their finding by doing a jigsaw.
o Jigsaw is basically dividing up the work and then sharing your findings.
Ø Scientific Method – The children have been conducting several experiments which focus on learning how to do The Scientific Method. They are doing some that I come up with and we are also letting them come up with their own questions using the Wonder Wall.
Ø Spelling Groups - The children are in several different spelling tiers. They do a Variety of word sorts.
o Speed Sort – This is just sorting out the words into their appropriate sorts, they will not record them today they will just be using their word cards and sorting them into sections.
o Write Sort – The children will sort the words out one at a time, they will record these one at a time in their word study journals. They will record them in the appropriate sort column in their journal.
o Peer Sort Test – This is a peer test and sort, they will take turns reading the word to each other and writing their word in the correct column as their peer reads it to them. They will be writing it in the column under the appropriate section, this will also be a quiz so they can know if they have learned their words yet.
o Book Sort – this is when the children will read books, magazines or any other published material. They are looking in their readings for their types of words or rules of the week. When they find a word in their book that fits their rule they will record it in their journal under the correct column.
Ø Journal or Free Write – This is where children are given a prompt and they are asked to write a story or a narrative about the prompt. They can also choose free write which is basically writing on whatever they want.
Ø News Team – This is a chance for the children to write a news article to go into our class newsletter, if they are on the news team they typically do this instead of a journal prompt.
Ø Reading Groups – These are typically when I tier the children into different reading groups based on their abilities. We have several different books that we will read throughout the year.
Ø ZYLAR – Zip Your Lips And Read – This is basically a silent reading time for the whole class or it can be used as a center.
Ø Reading Games – We have a variety of games that work on everything from reading fluency to giving an opinion on what you read.
Ø Jobs and Choice – This is when children do their job and then have time to make a choice on what they want to finish for class or if they want to play.
Ø Ketchup and Mustard – This is time to work on school work that is not finished.
Ø Parents,
In past years I have had a daily email, so I am going to try it again. It will be basically an agenda of the day and I will have some descriptions of what we commonly do below but if it is on the agenda but not on the description, please just ask your child what it “is” or “means”. Please try to keep in mind that I am writing this daily and will be doing so very quickly so the email might have some grammatical errors. I will do my best to do this every Monday through Thursday.
Thanks,
Ben
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Rockstar Gazette
Fall Festival: Friday, 10/28/11 from 2-3PM
The children will not be wearing their costumes to school but they will be allowed to get ready at school. Please use your best judgment when sending them to school on this day, obviously if the costume requires green pants or something that can be worn for the whole day that will not be a distraction, then they can wear it. Remember the costumes need to represent one of the 5R’s. For example Superman is responsive to the needs of the people in the city and Princesses are responsible for the care of their kingdom etc…
Family Goal Night!
I still need quite a few parent letters back, this was your “homework” from Family Goal Night. If you missed Family Goal Night I will be sending some work home for you to catch up on as a family. The work will be a Parent and Child Goal Sheet and some instructions on how to write your child a letter. I will need this work returned to me ASAP. Please send the parent letter back in an envelope for your child, that way it will be a surprise for them on Family Teacher Conference.
What Is Going On?
Our class has been working on the symbols of Idaho, the scientific method, spelling groups, writing rough drafts in our journals, News Team, becoming familiar/how to manipulate numbers and lots of reading games.
New Location by Bella Williams
The Da Vinci Charter School has a new location. Surprisingly, it is not so bad. We have full walls, so if we want to we can sing opera as loud as we want (just kidding). We have a lovely dirt patch for a playground. We have a great big dirt mound/sand pit, so we need to wear tennis shoes. Our schools new location is on Glenwood across from the Boise Hawks Stadium. We don’t have a water fountain near us anymore, so parents unless you want your child to go thirsty PLEASE get them a water bottle. We are staying in portables until our school is built. I love our new location!
Joke Time by Quinton Antoniuk
What were the pennies talking about? answer: I don’t know but I think they were making cents
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