Friday
Sept. 28
Spirit/Pizza Day
Wednesday
Oct.3
Assembly 9:30am
Thursday
Oct. 4
1st to Camp Sealth
Friday
Oct. 5
3rd Grade Coffee
5th Grade Leadership Overnight will be rescheduled.
Friday
Oct. 12
PNAIS Conference
Teacher In-Service
No School
Childcare Available
Wednesday
Oct. 17
Board Meeting
6:30pm
Thursday
Oct. 18
3rd to Pioneer Farm
September 27, 2007
Save the Date - WPO Meeting Oct. 25, 6:30pm
Movie Night Thanks
All Day Childcare on October 12
How Westside Communicates
Order Online Hot Lunch
Learning About Learning in First Grade
The Music Program
Enrichment Classes Coming Soon
Save the Date
WPO Meeting
Oct. 25, 6:30pm featuring Second Step and Roots of Empathy
At curriculum night and the classroom morning coffees, many of you asked how our teachers and staff at Westside School resolve conflict and disruptive behavior in our classrooms. At Westside School, our students learn at all grade levels how to be respectful and to get along with others. This approach to creating a caring environment is what we call “the Westside Way.”
We believe that understanding others, solving problems, and controlling anger are skills that can be taught. For many years, Westside School has used “The Second Step” curriculum. This curriculum focuses on 3 essential competencies—empathy, impulse control & problem solving, and anger management.
The goal of this curriculum is for teachers to recognize how to deal with disruptions and behavioral issues, and for children to learn how to:
• Recognize and understand feelings.
• Make positive and effective choices.
• Keep anger from escalating into violence.
In addition to “The Second Step” curriculum, Westside School is pleased to announce the addition of another curriculum called “Roots of Empathy (ROE)” that will be presented in our second grade classroom. ROE teaches empathy by inviting an infant and a parent to visit the classroom every three weeks. A trained ROE Instructor coaches the students to observe the baby’s development and to label the baby’s feelings. The Instructor also visits the classroom before and after each family visit to prepare and reinforce the lesson. This lesson helps children identify and reflect on their own feelings and the feelings of others. The more competent students are at understanding the feelings of others (empathy) the less likely they are to hurt each other through bullying and other cruelties. In addition, children learn how to challenge injustice. Through a grant, Westside School is one of only 12 schools selected for this program in the United States. To date, this program has been very successful in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Mark your calendar and join us on October 25th, when the WPO invites our ROE instructor Renee Hawkes, second grade teachers Erin and Kathleen, and fifth grade teacher and Second Step trainer Linda Turner, as they give us an inside look at these exciting programs. Parent handouts will be available to learn more about how you can incorporate these skills at home.
So come hungry (snacks and beverages will be provided) and leave happy. As a reminder, these meetings are for parents only. Childcare is available (free of charge) for all current Westside students. You are encouraged to sign up early for the childcare with Kathy Winans in the office. Space is limited.
Friday Movie Night Huge Success!
Westside students and their parents give Movie Night chairperson Kate Petrich and her crew of volunteers “two thumbs up” last Friday night. The gym floor was scattered with mats, sleeping bags, beanbags and lawn chairs while children munched on popcorn, pizza and other treats as they enjoyed watching Disney’s The Rescuers.
The following parents were instrumental in making our first Movie Night a Westside School success: Nick Wiley, Roger McMillen, Tracy Sundberg, Shawn White, Rhonda Watt, Hallidie Haid and Rene Ellis for donating the DVD/Movie projector.
And a very special thank you goes out to the following student volunteers. Not only did they help make Movie Night fun and successful, but they served as great role models for the other children, as well.
5th Grade Cashiers & Popcorn Servers - Patrick Haid & Ben Vo
4th Grade Pizza Servers - Elinor Lamb & Sophia Townsend
1st Grade Sign Makers: Lauren Howe, Flora Medina, Anthony Petrich.
Sign Up Online to Register
for Childcare on the In Service Day, October 12
Westside School classes will not meet on Friday, October 12. Our accrediting organization, PNAIS, is holding a conference for their member schools. As a service to our families, we do offer childcare on that day. Care is offered from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for children who are full day students at Westside. There is a flat fee of $40 per child for care between 8:00 and 5:00 for all families. The $40 fee applies whether you use the care for just a few hours or the whole time period from 8:00-5:00. Heidi, the Business Manager, will bill families who use the conference care.
Families who are contracted for childcare (not drop-in only contracts) will have priority sign-up through October 4. Sign-up will be open to all families starting October 5.
You must register for this care on the parent-protected part of the website. Click here, or go to “Before and Aftercare,” the provided link and then “InService Childcare” to sign up.
Communication at Westside School
Westside communicates with you in a number of ways. We announce events, write about curriculum and classroom projects, discuss issues of importance, etc. through several different publications and/or emails.
The Annual Report/Calendar
Everyone should have picked up the annual report/calendar at the start of the school year. This publication is your school calendar, and lists every important event planned for the school year. If you did not receive this, please stop by the office and pick one up. We also have a few extras, so if you would like an additional copy, we have those available.
Weekly communication occurs in two – three ways:
The Westside Update – this publication is distributed online and in your child’s take-home folder (if you requested a hard copy) on Thursday. Read the Update for announcements, teacher articles and more. (The Update can also be accessed through the website at any time, under “community” and “publications” or click here. )
This Week at Westside – this email goes out every Friday, with calendar information and announcements about the following week.
The Westside website– teacher pages are changed weekly – monthly. Check this site out for information about your class and others. Spanish is publishing a recipe of the month, and Chinese features in-depth information on the pinyin system.
If you’re not sure how to access the parent/student section of the website, please contact the office.
Folders
Take-home folders – these folders are in your child’s classroom, and go home at least every Thursday. Teacher communication, the Westside Update, and other publications (like the roster) will go home in this folder.
Room parent folders – these folders are in the office, and are for communication with the WPO, between parents and one-on-one communication. There’s one folder per household, and the folders are filed under the oldest sibling’s class.
Other Communication
Inside Westside is a newsletter that is published twice a year. It will be mailed to your home, and includes a variety of in-depth articles on Westside.
Letters Mailed Home -If the school needs to send out any important and/or critical information, a letter will be mailed from Jo Ann.
If you have further questions about communication, please don’t hesitate to ask anyone in the office.
Order Hot Lunch Online Hot!
Tired of making lunches? Hot lunch is starting in October! You can sign-up for a week or a month at a time. Just visit www.blueplateseattle.com and follow the instructions on the home page.
Learning About Learning in First Grade
By Margie Carpenter, 1st grade teacher
Don’t be surprised if you hear some fancy words about the function of the brain coming out of the mouths of Westside School students this year.
1st grade teacher Renee, 2nd grade teacher Kathleen, and I did some intensive “learning about learning” during the third week in August this summer. We attended a Schools Attuned workshop; an opportunity provided by the generous donations of three Westside School trustees. Schools Attuned is self-defined as “a professional development program for educators on neurodevelopmental variation.” Basically, it was a week of learning about the work of Dr. Mel Levine and his colleagues. Dr Levine is a pediatrician who has developed a way of explaining how we learn, using eight different “constructs” or functions of the brain. These constructs are Attention, Higher Order Cognition, Language, Memory, Neuromotor Function, Social Cognition, Spatial Ordering, and Temporal-Sequential Ordering.
One of the instructors of our Schools Attuned course was previously a first grade teacher. She told us some great stories about her first graders using and understanding words such as neuromotor functions and spatial ordering. This, of course, inspired me to add learning about learning to the curriculum of our first grade class.
Last week I read a simple book to the first graders about the brain, which prompted a discussion and list of all the things we use our brain for. It was a long list! A few days later we talked about affinities and the definition of an affinity. An affinity is something you really like to do and usually, but not always, are good at doing. The first graders then drew a picture and labeled one or more of their affinities. We will continue our discussion of affinities in the future with the idea of using affinities or strengths to strengthen weaknesses, a principle of the Schools Attuned program and an idea that we’ve been using at Westside for a long time.
The next function of the brain that we will be learning about in first grade is memory. We’ll do this by reading Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, a book by Mem Fox. This book is all about memories. We’ll read it; then the first graders will do some remembering of different parts of the book. Memory is incredibly important for children in school because they use their memory all day, every day.
Throughout the rest of the year we will be learning about other functions of the brain and how we all use them to learn. My hope is that it won’t be unusual to hear Westside first graders talking about things like neuromotor functions, spatial ordering, attention, and memory.
If you would like more information about the work of Dr. Mel Levine and the All Kinds of Minds program visit their website at www.allkindsofminds.org.
The Music Program
By Cathy Chutich, Music Teacher
Welcome and welcome back! It is always wonderful to gather back together in the classroom and see the changes a new year brings – the kids are taller, wider, and reedier. Some have new glasses and new braces, different haircuts and tales of the summer: EMP camp, band practices, a new piano in the home, new membership in the local Endolyne Children’s Choir. Musicians are busting out all over.
Along with singing, chants, and moving, right now we’re also reviewing place and space, very important concepts in music (and PE, as well as everywhere else), so we can safely and freely navigate in our room, sit close to each other and play instruments without disturbance. Come to think of it, this might be a useful concept for all of us. Place and Space while driving? Just imagine…
We’re also reviewing rules in music class. The top rules are to stay safe and do your best. The latter covers just about everything – do your best listening, singing, thinking, moving and problem-solving. When I ask about the rules the answer “have fun” always comes up. That’s an important part of class, but that’s not one of the rules. It emerges from “do your best,” I would hope.
The other rules are simple and basic school etiquette: listen while the teacher talks, raise a hand for a turn to speak. These are important to me because sounds distract me – I’m an auditory person. During our recent Red Cross course there was music and a heartbeat under some of the video presentation, and I could barely concentrate on the narration.
So it follows that I’m at least partly an auditory learner. How about your child? For those interested in musical development, I can recommend a few excellent books available at the Seattle Public Library:
- Your Musical Child: Inspiring Kids to Play and Sing for Keeps by Jessica Baron Turner, M.A, is a wonderful book to help parents identify children’s strengths and nurture their interests. If you want your child to find his or her unique voice, this is the book.
- The Singing Neanderthals: the Origin of Music, Language, Mind and Body by Steven Mithen, is an exploration of music as a fundamental part of being human, “encoded into the human genome.” But we knew that, didn’t we?
“It seems to be that what is ultimately of most importance in music can’t be learned like other cultural skills. It is there in the body, waiting to be brought out and developed like the basic principles of language formation.” – John Blacking, How Musical is Man?
Please see the school Web site for more about music. I look forward to a wonderful year.
Coming Soon!
After School Enrichment Classes
The always popular after school enrichment classes will be returning the week of October 15th. Detailed information will be forwarded to you early next week. We will be offering classes during three calendar cycles commencing in October, January, and April. Registration for these programs will be online. Stay tuned for more information.
The first cycle will include:
- Monday (Grades 1-5) Drama Class
- Tuesday (Grade K) Chess and (Grade 1-5) Jump Rope
- Wednesday (Grade K-5) Science Adventures
- Thursday (Grade K-5) Yoga
- Friday (Grade 1-5) Chess