Thursday
Oct. 25
WPO Meeting
6:30pm
Childcare
Available Online
Friday
Oct. 26
Spirit/Pizza Day
School Pictures
Saturday
Oct. 27
Halloween Fest
Noon - 4pm
Thursday - Friday
Nov. 1 and 2
Parent/Teacher Conferences
No Classes; Childcare
available online
Friday
Nov. 9
Tour 9:15am
Spirit/Pizza Day
Monday
Nov. 12
Veteran’s Day
No School;
No Childcare
Wednesday
Nov. 14
Tour 9:15am
Board Meeting 6:30pm
October 25, 2007
Halloween Fest 2007 is Here!
WPO Meeting Tonight, 6:30pm
Annual Giving at Westside School
Integrated Learning in PS/PK
Chinese Update
School Supplies Needed in Africa
Halloween Fest 2007 is HERE!!!
It’s time for Westside’s most spine-chilling Halloween Fest ever! This Saturday, October 27th, 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 Halloween Fest work anyway, you ask? Buy lots of tickets (50 cents each) for your costumed critters and use them to “buy” turns at the different activities/booths. Kids 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 this year 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, we’ll be selling pizza, snacks and treats aplenty to buy with real money. We know - you’re shaking in your shoes already…
See you there…
WPO Meeting Tonight
featuring Second Step and Roots of Empathy
Tonight, 6:30pm in the 5th Grade Classroom. For more information, click here.
Childcare available online.
Annual Giving at Westside School
A Partnership for Success
Westside School provides an amazing educational opportunity for your child and a caring community for your family. When you chose Westside as your child’s school you created a partnership between your family and our school. This partnership includes a financial relationship that supports our programs, our teachers and staff and our facility.
At Westside, tuition does not cover the entire cost of a child’s education. It also does not consider institutional needs such as capital improvements, an endowment or special projects. Providing an outstanding education requires funding beyond what tuition makes available, and Westside relies on support and involvement from our entire community –current parents, alumni families, grandparents, the Board of Trustees, faculty and staff.
Annual Giving Campaign
This November, you will be asked to give to our annual giving campaign. This fundraiser provides additional operating funds to support direct costs such as salaries and benefits, teaching materials, facilities maintenance and financial aid. Gifts range from $10 to over $10,000, and we hope that 100% of Westside parents participate. Look for more information about this important fundraiser, and ways to make your gift count for more, in the coming weeks.
Ways to Give
Westside School is a non-profit, 501©3 organization; gifts are tax-deductible.
- Cash or Check
- Credit Card - Visa or Mastercard (Get those airline miles!)
- Pledges paid over time - Gifts over time are a great way to increase your donation to the school. For example, a gift of $50 a month for 10 months is $500! Payments can be set up on any schedule, or we can automatically charge your credit card or debit your account at the intervals you specify.
- Gifts of Stock - You may be able to eliminate capital gains tax while still earning a tax deduction when you give a gift of stock. If you are interested in giving this type of gift, please contact the development director for a stock donation form.
- Corporate Matching Gifts - Many employers will match your contribution. Simply submit a matching gift form (usually available from your human resources department) with your gift.
Westside is dedicated to creating a dynamic learning environment staffed by committed and experienced master teachers with large classrooms, space to run and play and room for our library, music and art. Your financial support of Westside guarantees that we can create this educational community for your child. Thank you for your partnership and support!
Integrated Learning in PS/PK
By Nancy Levine, PS/PK Teacher
Last week, we covered one of my favorite topics - apples! It’s a really good example of the integrated learning that takes place in a preschool class.
I began by sitting the children down and passing around a few apple seeds, an empty apple juice box and a few stems. Then I asked the question, “What’s the connection?” A brief discussion followed and the children concluded that each of the items came from an apple. We followed up by listing all the things we could think of that are made from apples. We cut open an apple, discovered the “core” is a seed-pack and “counted” those seeds! We tasted the difference between a red, a green and a yellow apple and “graphed” our preferences. We made a real object graph, where each of the children placed their apple brought from home onto a huge piece of paper and “sorted” them by color. Finally, we made our own applesauce for snack, and each of the kids had a chance to turn the handle of an apple corer/peeler/slicer and a Foley Food Mill. Somehow things always taste better when you make it yourself!
With all this apple learning behind us, I bet you can’t wait to see what will unfold during Pumpkin Week!
DA JIA HAO!
The new school year is well underway and we are off to a good start.
Students once again enjoyed our Moon Festival celebration in September and the many flavors of moon cakes available. They were very adventurous trying the pineapple, coconut and red bean paste varieties and many were surprised that they actually liked something that didn’t sound good to them at first.
In class, we have, for the most part, finished our review of the “old” material that was introduced last year. We have reset our foundation for new learning!
The kindergarten children have picked up my system well and are assimilating the vocabulary, grammar and songs fast. It never ceases to amaze me what little sponges they are for something so totally new to them.
The first graders are moving on with more fruits, more Chinese Interview questions, and the Mother Duck song, which may be driving teachers crazy with all the gwa, gwa, gwa-ing. Ask your first grader to sing it for you.
The second graders are learning more classroom objects, more Chinese Interview questions, new colors, and a Chinese folk song The Little Pekinese Dog.
Third graders have learned five new colors, a second color song, more Chinese Interview questions (e. g. What school do you attend?) and will soon start a Chinese folk song called the Little Donkey.
The fourth and fifth graders have had the most material to review and are currently working on learning the pinyin system and using a Chinese word processing program. As you might expect, they are learning fast and are now in the process of making their own calling cards/name cards in Chinese. They should be up on the display board soon so please take a look when you are in the school halls.
The new students who haven’t had Chinese before are adjusting quite well for the most part and tend to catch up fast, particularly in the younger classes.
Finally, there is a link to Chinese language learning websites on the Westside School Chinese webpage. Several are directed toward beginners. Check them out.
Xie xie. Zai jian! Bai Laoshi
School Supplies Needed at Vutukaka School in Takaungu, Kenya
The forth and fifth grade classes are collecting school supplies for children at the Vutukaka school in Takaungu, Kenya Africa. We would like your child or children to collect supplies for the children in Takaungu.
Each child in Takaungu needs:
- Twelve pencils
- Three colored pencil sets
- Three colored crayon sets
- Nine cap erasers
- Three pencil sharpeners
- One pencil pouch
- $1 sent to Kenya to buy shoes
- One six inch ruler
These supplies provide one year’s worth of school supplies for student
Thank you for your participation,
Gloria, Aidan, Tatum and the four/five class!
*there will be a box outside each class room to put the collected items in*
Please help!
Right now, we only enough supplies for 25 students!
We hope that every Westside student will bring in supplies for
one child at the Vutukaka School. That would be over 170 students!
Thank you!