Washington Elementary
April 10, 2017
Washington Elementary Presents Family Math Night!!
When: Thursday, May 4
Time: 6:00-7:30 pm
Where: Washington Elementary School
Theme: $$ Money $$
Dinner: Pizza will be served from 6-7 pm
in the cafeteria
Please come and share an in evening of math fun with Washington students, families, and staff! We have a wonderful evening of fun planned for the entire family!! There will be interactive math stations for Grades K-2 and Grades 3-5.
We will have presentations from two Washington parents about money, savings, and the importance of finance in everyday life. Junior Achievement will also be sharing as well. We will have money bingo throughout the evening along with door prizes. Pizza will be served in the cafeteria! Please plan to join for this great evening!Washington is Awarded an Educare Foundation Ed Waltman Mini-Grant
The Reading Intervention team is excited to share that they have acquired Secret Stories to support student reading growth, thanks to an Educare Foundation Ed Waltman Mini-Grant. Secret Stories supports student acquisition of phonics skills, and provides students effective ways to remember the sounds of both individual letters and common letter patterns. “The SECRET STORIES® is a multi-modal, brain-based teaching ‘bag-of-tricks’ that transforms the reading and writing abilities of primary and struggling, intermediate grade learners. Through visual, auditory, and kinesthetic means, the SECRET STORIES® activates every learning channel and personally connect learners to the skills.” (thesecretstories.com) We are excited to begin using Secret Stories with students. If you are interested in learning more about Secret Stories, you can visit their website: http://thesecretstories.com/
Spring PAWS Rotation
Yearbook!
Science Fair...
We had an amazing turn out for the 2017 Washington Elementary Science Fair. We had 24- 3rd grade groups, 17- 4th grade groups, and 4- 5th grade groups participate. Congratulations to all of our participants! Each of you had taken up the challenge to ask a question, form a hypothesis, carry out an experiment, and experience that, “ah ha” moment as you drew your conclusion. The result was a gym full of creativity, problem solving, and projects that really impressed the judges. Thank you to all the Wildcat scientists for their preparation and hard work throughout this process.
A special congratulations goes out to students whose projects will be going on to the Regional Science Fair at MSU on April 29th.
From 3rd Grade:
Piper Beschorner and Ava Tibodeau
AJ Burns
Ady Lurken and Olivia Remund
Olivia Baumann
Clair Christopher
Audrey Wood
From 4th Grade:
Rylie Hansen
Makaio Bloom
Kaia Austin
Amrita Kaur
Jerrick Kritz
From 5th Grade:
Ethan Christoffer
Lilian Jaquette
Morgan Evan and Lily True
Erica Stensrud
Again, Congratulations to all of the Washington Scientists. We are very proud of each and every one of you!
Jeff Dittmer and Stacie Smith
New Process for summer youth sports camp sign up
Dear Parents,
We want you to know that the various athletic camps (football, volleyball, boys and girls basketball, and baseball) will now all run through Community Ed. The catalog that was mailed out to home recently has all the information to sign up. If you did not receive this catalog for some reason, you can sign up online through Mankato Area Public Schools website. It is under the Departments tab and Community Ed. Click here to access the Community Ed website.
Thank you and go Cougars!
Sincerely,
Shane Baier
Principal
Important for students who exchange buses at East High School beginning April 17th.
Due to the ongoing construction at East High School, please be advised of the following changes regarding bus exchange, drop off and pick up that will be in place starting April 17, 2017 at East.
- We will be closing the west parking lot (“Tennis Court Lot” or “Junior High Lot”) to student and staff parking from 7:00 am - 4:00 pm.
- We will be using the west parking lot as our bus exchange, bus drop off and bus pick up area.
We have worked with our partners at Palmer and Yeager Bus Companies to develop a plan for bus exchange, student drop off, and student pick up that provides the safest possible conditions for our students we will be moving the exchange zone to the parking lot on the west side of the building. We will have extra staff on-site beginning on Monday April 17th to make sure students will be able to find the right bus in a safe manner. This will not change any times for our routes all will run on the same schedules as previously.
Request for Specific Learning Environment
Parents may wonder how students are placed in classrooms or teams. As a staff we fully understand the importance of assigning students to homeroom teachers and that endeavor is taken very seriously. Grade level teams, special education staff, counselors and specialists work diligently to develop the schedule. The goal of the placement process is to create heterogeneous class units. This requires balancing the unique needs of each child with the overall school need for cohesive homeroom and classroom sections. There are several items taken into account when creating class lists, such as ratio of boys to girls, students educational and behavior needs to name only a few. We believe that if we are successful in creating balanced homeroom situations, all students in each class will have the best chance for learning and success. In early spring, staff begins to develop the school’s schedule for the 2017-18 school year.
If you feel your child has an educational need which should be considered when we place students, please stop by the office to pick up a Request for Specific Learning Environment. This form will need to be completed and returned by May 5, 2017. Due to retirements and change in staff assignments, your request should be focused on educational need rather than a specific teaching team. Only requests focused on educational need will be considered. This completed form should be dropped off in the office by May 5, 2017. If you any questions, please contact Mr. Baier, Principal at 345-3059 or sbaier1@isd77.k12.mn.us
Important Dates...
April 11: Two Hour Late Start & Are you smarter than a 5th Grader at West HS 6:30 pm
April 14: No School.
April 20: Kindergarten Round-up at 4:30pm and 6:30pm & State Wide Tornado Drill.
April 21: Math Masters 5th Grade, 1st Grade field trip to Children's Museum, & Kindergarten Family Day at 1-2:30pm
April 28: Art Show at 5:30-7pm