Thursday
October 23
WPO Meeting 6:30pm
Cyber Safety
Friday
October 24
School Pictures
Saturday
October 25
WPO Halloween Fest 12-4pm
Thursday-Friday
October 30-31
Conferences;
No School!
Tuesday
November 4
VOTE!
Wednesday
November 5
Assembly 9:30am
Thursday
November 6
First Tour 9:15am
Friday
November 7
Spirit/Pizza Day
Tuesday
November 11
Veteran’s Day
No School;
No Childcare
October 23, 2008
WPO Meeting Tonight, 6:30pm
Halloween Fest 2008 is Here!
From Jo Ann - Gifted Education Part 3
What is a Poem?
A New Look on Lice!
Library Update
Vatukaka Update
WPO Meeting Tonight, 6:30pm
Cyber Safety with Mark Shagren
Improve your “tech-knowlogy” and learn how to keep your family cyber- safe! Mark will give parents a framework for keeping children safe in many environments now and in the years to come. Reserve your FREE Childcare (Westside students only) by emailing Kathy at kathyw@westsideschool.org. Overflow Parking is available at Grace Church. The meeting is in Judith’s 4th grade classroom. Hope to see you there!
Halloween Fest 2008 is HERE!!!
By Halloween Fest Chairs Tracy Beck and Angie Graves
There’s no escaping it - It’s time for Westside’s most spine-chilling Halloween Fest ever! This Saturday, the 25th, from Noon until 4PM, bring your terrifying goblins, ghosts and superheroes along with your enchanting princesses, fairies and witches for dreadfully fun activities and horrifyingly tasty treats for one and all!
So, how does this Halloween Fest thing work anyway, you ask? Buy lots of tickets (50¢ each) for your costumed critters and they use them to “buy” turns at the different activities/booths. They can slide down a gigantic Jumper slide, get a hole-in-one playing creepy graveyard golf, and get their future told by a “genuine” fortune teller! It really can’t get any better - or scarier - than this. AND there will be a chance to win an iPod Shuffle by guessing the right number of spiders and bats lurking in the Haunted Jar. In addition to all this fun, there’ll be pizza, snacks and treats aplenty to buy with tickets or real money. We know, you’re shaking in your shoes already…
All money raised goes towards funding the educational assemblies at Westside. See you there…
From Jo Ann
Installment 3 – “The Westside Curriculum for Students Meeting Gifted Criteria”
Unfortunately, curriculum in this country is mainly driven by textbook companies. Most textbooks/curricula are written for the general population, and are aimed at selling to large school districts. At Westside, teachers use multiple resources. While curriculum materials are identified, their main purpose is to create a baseline objective and to provide the faculty a common sequential language in the content area. Curriculum units include activities that extend beyond the normal curriculum, including inquiry-based projects, and we order materials above grade level to meet the needs of our students when required. A scoring tool, or rubric, defines how “the best” should look, while learning follows multiple paths.
Westside School does not deliver an Individual Education Plan (IEP) for students with differing needs, but differentiates within the standard curriculum. It is our belief that all students, even “gifted” students, need appropriate instruction, interaction with other students and regular feedback from the teacher. If individual students always work independently or are given separate tasks, they are gaining no more than they could do at home.
To differentiate our curriculum for different learners, our teachers understand that classmates differ in the pace at which they learn, the depth of their understanding and the interest they hold. With highly capable students, their pace is fast! Usually they need only one exposure. Historically, there has been debate about the role of acceleration versus enrichment. We don’t want to just give more work to students who are highly capable. Even though gifted learners may be capable of abstraction and may move from concrete to abstract more rapidly, they still benefit from the use of manipulatives and “hands-on” activities. At Westside School, we look for open-ended activities that will teach learners the basics, while not holding them back from more complex tasks.
There is no one perfect program for teaching. Pablo Casals says, “What we teach children in school is 2+2= 4 and Paris is the capital of France. What we should be teaching them is what they are. We should be saying: ‘Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique.’”
The Westside mission supports academic success while valuing high standards and joyful learning. Teacher quality, class size and student mix supports our commitment to an integrated program where children cooperatively work and play together. Look at the children when they come to school in the morning. Look at our classrooms. Are our students bored in classrooms with age-peers sitting in the next seat?
Our mission makes Westside unique. Our outstanding staff is empowered to monitor our progress and problem solving when needed – problems always arise with growth. It is important for us to have meaningful dialogues which focus on the accountability of each of us in our individual jobs – administrator, teacher, parent – yet integrating with and appreciating each other.
“Is my child gifted?” Absolutely!
“Can Westside School meet needs of gifted children?”
Absolutely!
We run our school like a gifted program. Teachers don’t give high-achieving students different curriculum; instead, they guide them to find novelty in their learning. We expect rigor for every one. Enrichment is available to all. Our goal is not only to evaluate skills, but also to promote self-direction. We enable students to grow in their self-awareness, to be self-motivated, and to connect “their human spirit and imagination to learning.”
What is a poem?
By Margie Carpenter, 1st Grade Teacher
Teachers often start a discussion with their students by asking a question. We do this for various reasons. We discover what our students already know about the subject, we can pique their interest, and by asking the right question at the right time, we can help a student clarify and extend their thinking.
I recently asked my class of first graders the question “What is a poem?” This is the first time we’ve talked about poetry this year but it was obvious from their answers that the majority of students in my class have had previous experiences with poems.
Their answers were:
• Words that rhyme
• Kind of like a song without music
• Like music notes
• Words that go together
• Some poems are real but a lot aren’t
• A mix of rhyme and Mother Goose
• Some poems don’t rhyme and don’t make sense
Then we read a variety of poems by Shel Silverstein, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Jill Eggleton.
My next question was “What is different between a poem and a story you read in a book?
• The words in a poem have a certain sound.
• The words in a poem make you see pictures and feel like you’re in the book.
• Most poems are about one thing.
• The words are playful in poems.
Finally I read poems about color from Mary O’Neill’s book Hailstones and Halibut Bones. The students listened quietly as I read about what colors smell like and what feelings describe particular colors.
The next day we read a few more of Mary O’Neill’s poems about color. Then the students started their own “Color Poems”. You could have heard a pin drop in our classroom. Here’s a taste of the First Grade Color Poems…
Blue is the sound of wind. (Adam)
Green is the color of a tangled vine. (Milo)
Pink feels like the sun warming up your cheeks. (Madeleine)
Pink is the smell of the breeze. (Helen)
Green is the smell of the ocean. (Jocelyn)
Black is as black as a hurricane. (Devin)
Red is for a soldier. (Axel)
Brown is my favorite color, my hair, one of the darkest colors. (Olive)
The feeling of pink is a smile. (Sarah)
Purple is the smell of a flower. (Tierney)
Red is for my blanket, very, very soft. (Sam)
Red is the top stripe of the rainbow in the sky. (Drew)
Green is the smell of grass. (Connor)
Black smells like smoke. (Karl)
I pick up orange leaves. (Gabe)
Blue is a glimmering river. (Ben)
Westside students are poets!
A Different View of Lice
Yesterday, Judith’s 4th grade class was talking about one of our recent hot topics – lice! And, one student announced, “I LOVE LICE!”
And, everyone reading this article exclaims in unison, “You do?????????????????”
And the reason is?
“It’s great. I got to sit and have my grandma comb my hair for hours!”
So, you never know. One person’s worst nightmare can be another’s great experience!
Freedom of Book Choice
By Sarah Wildflower, Librarian
I request that students, especially younger ones, vary their book tastes occasionally for the sake of you, the parents who read to them. I ask, in particular, that some of the children who borrow only Star Wars or Disney Princess books get something else some of the time. Some children are very responsive – Francesca very carefully picked out a non-Disney book about a princess, and then chose a butterfly book to go with it. Something completely new, which I was very impressed with. Other children prefer to get yet another Star Wars chapter book. I strongly support children being able to choose their own books, so I will only let them know what the options are and make suggestions.
Parents are welcome to visit the library after school to help your children choose books. I am happy to make a library card for you. I have been pleased to see some families come in already. The library is open from 2:45 - 4:00 pm on Mondays and Tuesdays.
A Vutukaka School Update!
By Judith Arvidson, 4th Grade Teacher
As part of an outreach project which coincided with a Global Perspective Investigation, Fourth and Fifth grade students last year spearheaded collection of school supplies for Vutukaka School in Takaungu, Kenya. The delivery of the supplies were interrupted due to a political situation last December in Kenya.
The last of the school supplies were delivered to Kenya the end of June. Suzanne Jeneby, Executive Director of the East African Center, sends her many thanks!