Dear Families:

Thank you for accommodating the town of Manitou Springs and MSES by picking up your children early on Thursday. Hopefully, you were reunited with your child quickly. We appreciate your grace during our busy release.

We have fall conferences on October 20 and 21 at MSES. Please be sure to use the link below to sign up for a family conference.

SIgn -Up for Conferences

The Parent Action Committee, PAC, has been meeting to plan Maniboo, our Halloween carnival. The carnival is scheduled for October 28th from 4:30-7:30pm. To join this hard working crew, join them at their next meeting October 10th at 1:30pm, at MSES.

We are hosting our Scholastic Book Fair October 17-21. The Fair will be open before and after school. See More here: https://bookfairs.scholastic.com/bf/manitouspringselemsch

Have a lovely weekend. Thank you for sharing your children with us!

Warmly,

Maria

First grade just wrapped up our Human Body domain with an interactive Museum Day for family members! Your expert should know the 5 systems in the human body (skeletal, muscular, digestive, nervous, circulatory) that work together to keep you alive. Ask for a fact or two that they learned about each body system! In addition, see if your kiddo remembers the 5 keys to health (exercise, eat well, sleep, keep clean and get check-ups). Many thanks to our first grade families for making our Museum Day a success!

Your third grader is working on comparing and contrasting. In our reading, we have compared vertebrates to invertebrates (backbone to no backbone), warm-blooded to cold-blooded, (constant body temperature to a temperature that changes with its surroundings), and especially the characteristics that help us classify animals. Ask your expert which vertebrate group lives on land and in water? Amphibians. Which vertebrate groups lays eggs? Birds, reptile, amphibians, and fish. Which vertebrate group has live birth? Mammals. As you can see there are lots of similarities and differences between the vertebrate groups we are studying. Third graders are also working on context clues to determine the meaning of a word in the text. After we learned about a bird’s light-weight bones full of cavities, or hollow spaces (context clue), we experimented with hollow “bones,” too! We are so ready for the zoo!

We have had such a busy couple weeks with our overnight camping trip to Camp Shady Brook, cleaning up along the creek for Creek Week, participating in spirit week and attending the Homecoming Parade! We've used these events in our class discussions and our writings. Fifth graders wrote a long personal narrative on our camping trip, practicing topic sentences, planning, and descriptive language. Our camp activities included: forest ecology, creek ecology, survival skills, archery, life and death (animal classifications), boating, climbing wall, and the night hike. Ask your expert: What was your favorite camp class? Which rotation was the hardest for you? Which camp class are you most proud of?

We have just finished up our soccer skills and games unit with all classes. We are beginning our football unit and will be working on throwing, catching and kicking a football in the primary levels. In the intermediate levels, we will work on throwing and catching as well and then put those skills into flag football games. I am looking forward to a great year as we get back to a full physical educaation schedule that will include gymnastics, archery, floor hockey, basketball, juggling, yo-yo's, and jump roping, volleyball and many more activities.

Mr. Niebuhr

Dear Mustang Families,

October is National Bullying Prevention Month. To help our school be a safe and respectful place, students K-5 have learn specific skills to help stop bullying. Students learn how to:

• Recognize when bullying is happening, report bullying to a caring adult, and refuse to let bullying happen

• Be a bystander who helps stop bullying

• Support someone being bullied by standing up for that person and being kind and inclusive

• Recognize, report, and refuse cyber bullying when they see or know about it happening

We need your help, too! Get involved in making our school a safe and respectful place by letting us know if you hear about bullying at our school. Make sure your child knows to tell you or someone at school if he or she is being bullied, or if he or she knows about someone else being bullied. Give your child the clear message that it is never okay to bully others. For more information on our school’s anti-bullying policy and specific procedures, check our school website or contact the school office. Thank you for helping us make MSES a safe, respectful place where everyone can learn.

This week in 3rd grade, I taught a lesson on bullying and the importance of kind acts. I read the book Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson and we discussed how small acts of kindness can change the world. We also discussed the 3 R’s of bullying that teaches students how to Recognize, Report, and Refuse bullying. Ask your child about the 3 R’s of bullying and what power they have as bystanders to stop bullying.

Ashley Root, MA, LPCC

School Counselor

Manitou Springs Elementary School

Thank you to our parents who are scanning their grocery receipts into the Box Tops app - you've already earned $81.90 for our school so far this year! Box Top funds are used to support your students by helping with classroom supply purchases, classroom celebrations, games and outdoor activities, and more. Download the app today and start scanning to help us keep learning fun at MSES!