Dear Families:

How wonderful to have you all in the building for conferences. It was lovely seeing all of you and celebrating your child. I hope you were able to claim your lost items from Lost and Found; it's overflowing.

I had so much fun visiting classes this week. Fourth grade was completing their CKLA Eureka unit. Students have been working hard to develop the skills and systems needed to become an effective inventor themselves. Students identified a problem and created an invention to solve the dilemma. I observed several contraptions Ms. Goldman's class created including how to solve difficulties with problem felines, where to store small valuables and how to get your math homework done quickly. Our students are very creative!

Enrollment is open for families who live outside of Manitou Springs.

Manitou Springs Elementary School is a small town school with big charm and we want to share our school with you. MSES has opened our choice window for families and students who live outside of the Manitou Springs area. If you live outside of our district and have a child you would like to enroll at MSES, or any of our district schools, please see our district website and click on the Choice Enrollment and tell a friend!

We continue to work on morning drop off at MSES. Hopefully, you all are seeing some improvement. We hear your concerns about drop off on Pawnee Avenue in the mornings. If you want to park your car and bring your student into the school building, please park at the Manitou Congregational Church on High Street and Pawnee, across from MSES. There is a parking lot behind the church that families can use from 7:30am-8:15am each morning at 103 Pawnee. If you are dropping off your child in front of the school, you must pull your car all the way to the curb. This is a "kiss and go lane" only. We have both security and an administrator out front to keep traffic moving smoothly and safely.

This Tuesday is 2/22/2022 and we are celebrating at 2:22pm school wide with a dance party.

Have a lovely weekend!

Warmly,

Maria

• Feb 21- No School - Presidents' Day
• Feb 22 - Dance party, 2:22pm
  
• Mar 2 - Late Start Wednesday (2 Hour Delay)
• Mar 7 & 8 - 1st and 2nd Grade Music Recitals - see below for more info!
  
• Mar 9 - Late Start Wednesday (2 Hour Delay)
• Mar 16 - Late Start Wednesday (2 Hour Delay)
• Mar 21-25 - Spring Break
• Mar 30 - Late Start Wednesday (2 Hour Delay)
  

We will have a 2-minute dance party at 2:22pm on 2/22/22 (this coming Tuesday)! Wear your tutus, ties, tiaras, dress like twins, tigers, or anything else that begins with "T". The Nutrition Department will be serving Tacos for lunch too!

Fifth graders have been studying archery and the Renaissance as part of the CKLA unit. Check out our first grade archers!

Click here to check out our new online Manitou apparel store and help support our school! The store will close at midnight on Friday, February 18th, so get your orders in now!

For every item sold, $4.00 will go directly to things like classroom treats, games/craft supplies, playground supplies, and more. Below are just a few examples of our new items!

This week First Grade wrapped up our History of the Earth domain. Check in with your expert and see if they can answer the following questions: What is a fossil? (A fossil is a preserved imprint of a plant or animal that lived long ago.) What does it mean when someone says that dinosaurs are extinct? (It means that there are no living dinosaurs left.) How do we know about dinosaurs if they are extinct? (Paleontologists have found and studied fossilized dinosaur bones.) In addition, ask your expert if they can name the three types of rocks! (Igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic). We are excited to jump into our Animals and Habitats domain next week!

Fractions! Third graders have started the fraction unit in math. They are learning about fractions as numbers. Ask your expert how they partition a whole into equal parts! Students are using various diagrams to represent and reason about fractions, compare their size, and relate them to whole numbers. At home, ask questions like, "How many pieces of this pizza would you like?" Express it as a fraction, compare it to a smaller or larger fraction, and try equivalent fraction discussions as well! Try to double a recipe with them, too!

Ms. Woytko's Third Graders are piloting Eureka Math. In groups, students had to partition various materials into fraction units based on a card at their station for the first round. Then, they moved to another station to record the fraction units there. "It was fun but hard to pour water equally into ten plastic cups to show tenths."-Student

One of the great privileges of being a fifth grader at MSES is participating in the annual SCIENCE FAIR! Students have been pouring over scientific questions, determining areas of interest, researching background information, writing hypotheses, and determining variables and controls in order to kick start their work and dive into their scientific experiments. The fair will be held in the gymnasium on Thursday, April 7th. (We are still looking for volunteer judges; though they cannot be related to nor guardians of a current 5th grade student. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact ababcock@mssd14.org.)

Across the entire curriculum, fifth graders have been putting forth tremendous effort. They are wrapping up their Renaissance studies in CKLA by completing a biography research project, reading and responding to novels, and learning about the Japanese warriors in Social Studies. Additionally, the entire grade is working through the pilot math programs, focused on the use of decimals to the thousandths place.

Our pictures show 5th graders jumped over 300 jumping jacks this past week! The jacks were part of a unit focused on teaching students the scientific process, and the importance of independent and dependent variables, controls, trials, and averages.

March is Music in Our Schools month, and we’re celebrating at MSES with in person recitals with our 1st and 2nd grade students! Concert times and dates are as follows, in the auditorium:

Monday, March 7th

12:40 Teacher Wood’s Class

1:10 Mr. Pletsch’s Class

1:45 Ms. Huffman’s Class

Tuesday, March 8th

1:10 Ms. Carley’s Class

1:45 Ms. Monk’s Class

2:15 Ms. Walsh’s Class

We are excited to show you all we have learned and are especially looking forward to audience participation! Masks are encouraged, but not required.

K-5 artists at MSES have a digital art portfolio on Artsonia, where their artwork is stored each year they attend MSES. Artsonia is a valuable tool for students and parents as it allows families to view and share their child's artwork. To access your child's uploaded artwork, you must grant permission by using the following QR code. If you have not been to Artsonia before, check it out! This free resource is amazing and super useful. Please scan the following QR code and follow the simple steps for verifying your child's account.

Did you know February is Love the Bus Month? We want to celebrate our wonderful bus drivers who are often the first people your child sees in the morning and the last person your child sees in the afternoon. Pass a smile and wave to your child's bus driver. Visit Love TheBus.org to learn how you can celebrate our drivers.

If you would like to view our COVID numbers, please go to the district website under information or use this link: Current Number of Positive Cases of COVID-19. The district website also has provided updated COVID guidance: Health Update for Parents 1/19/22.

Breakfast and lunch are free for all students. We would still like all families that qualify to fill out the Free and Reduced Lunch form on our district website.

Breakfast and lunch menus are available online here.

The Manitou Springs MS and Ute Pass 6th grade kids are doing their first theatre performance in two years! Admission is free, donations are lovely! Come join us for this lovely tale where Rumplestiltskin and his crew of evil stepmothers, queens and fairies try to wrest a happily ever after from the privileged princesses of the world.