Wade King Elementary
September 2018 Newsletter
A Note from the Principal
Dear Wade King Families,
It is great to have your children back at school with us!
Our year is off to a great start! Students and teachers have already learned a lot from one another and on September 5th, we were able to learn from visitors from Bellingham's Sister Cities. During the Sister Cities visit, we learned things about the countries our visitors were from. We also gave them a book written and illustrated by local artist Ben Mann and they gave us favorite books from their country for our school library. Finally, they were able to tour our school and spend time in many of our classrooms. In classrooms, our students asked them questions about their lives and they asked us questions about ours. It was a fantastic way to connect with individuals from around the world.
If you were able to join me for the whole school presentation during Curriculum Night last week, you learned about the three things our school community will be focusing on this year.
- First, between now and June, our staff will be engaged in our International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program (PYP) self-study. This is a process that all I.B. schools go through every five years. It is a chance for the school to reflect on the PYP's Standards and Practices and to develop an action plan that will further strengthen the program in the upcoming years.
- Our staff will also continue to implement the strategies we learned from our training with Sound Discipline last year, as well as implement Caring School Community, which is the social-emotional curriculum that was adopted for all Bellingham Elementary Schools. A significant component of this curriculum is a daily classroom morning meeting and closing circle. If you haven't already asked your child about the morning meetings in his/her classroom, I encourage you do to so.
- Finally, with the support of our PYP Coordinator/Technology Coach, Hana Anderson, our staff will be learning how to use technology as a tool to enhance the learning our students are doing. We are currently learning to use SeeSaw as a tool to strengthen communication between home and school. If your child's teacher has not already shared SeeSaw with you, he/she will be doing so in the next few weeks. If you have difficulty setting it up on your device, Hana Anderson would love to support you, just as she is supporting our teachers.
As always, if you ever have questions, concerns, or a great idea to make our school an even better place for students and families, please connect with me.
Stephanie Johnson
Principal, Wade King Elementary
School Morning Meeting
Sister Cities Visitors
Make A Difference
Important Dates
- September 13th - PTA Meeting in the Wade King Library from 6-8pm; Childcare provided (PTA Sponsored)
- September 18th - Globe Trot PTA Fundraiser (PTA Sponsored)
- September 19-21st - 5th Graders are at Mountain School
- October 2nd - Globe Trot Donations Due
- October 3rd - Individual Student Photo Day (PTA Sponsored)
- October 9th - Vision and Hearing Screening
- October 10th - Parent Connect at Happy Valley Elementary - Technology Focus (PTA Sponsored)
- October 19th - NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS - Teacher Learning Day
PTA Meeting This Thursday Night - Childcare Provided! Please Join Us!
The Wade King PTA invites anyone interested in becoming a member to join us this Thursday from 6-8 pm in the Wade King Library. Food and childcare will be provided! Come join us to meet the Board members, learn about open positions ,and learn how you can get involved in upcoming events.
Hope to see you there!
Wade King Globe Trot
The Globe Trot is our PTA's main fundraiser for the year... and it is an incredibly fun day for our students! Our Globe Trot will be on Tuesday, September 18th! That's next week!
Your student will be bringing home a Globe Trot information page and donation envelope this week.
Our PTA is looking for volunteers for this event! Please volunteer if you can using this link.
This event is the most fun when we have family and friends cheering us on. If you can, please join us during your child's Globe Trot time.
8:00 – 8:45 4rd Grade
8:50 – 9:40 1st Grade
9:45 – 10:30 3th Grade
11:15 – 12:00 Kindergarten
12:10 – 12:55 2nd Grade
1:40 – 2:20 5th Grade
Snack Drive
Wade King PTA has a Help and Hope Committee that helps provide snacks for students who are unable to bring a snack from home. There are several ways you can help!
- Donate goldfish crackers, graham crackers, or pretzels during our Snack Drive, which has been extended through this week! (These are the only snack items we collect because they are free of nut allergens).
- If you can, be sure your child has a snack in his/her lunchbox or backpack so that he/she does not need a snack from school.
These are the allergen-free snacks that our PTA collects during our Snack Drive!
Drop Off Loop & Parking at Wade King
If you have dropped off our picked up your child, you know our parking lot is a busy place before and after school. Here are some important tips to help keep traffic moving and to keep our students safe!
- During pick up and drop off times, always walk on the sidewalks to model safety for our kids.
- THANKS for yielding to our buses so they can drive into the school driveway and bus loop without waiting.
- If you want to get out of your car, park in the parking lot and walk on the sidewalks up to the school.
- If you chose to use the pick-up/drop-off loop, stay in your car, in line, and continue moving up as the line moves forward. Our staff will help your child get into your car when you get to the front of the school. Our goal is to keep this loop moving and keep our kids safe!
- The gate on the Yew Street Road side of the school, near the fire station, is now unlocked during the school day! You can park in the gravel parking lot by the fire station and walk up along the school to avoid the school parking lot.
Box Tops - An Easy Way To Earn Money For Wade King PTA
Do you want to help out the school, but don’t have the time?
Did you know you earn $.10 per BoxTop and can easily earn 2-5 times more just by using the BoxTop app? Yes, there’s an app for that too, and it’s EASY! Check it out:
https://www.boxtops4education.com/bonusapp/how-it-works
Here’s the quick run down on how it works!
Check out all the products you get Box Tops for.
Buy the products you want.
Take a picture of your receipt.
Earn extra money for the school!
Seriously, it’s that easy!
Then, turn in the BoxTop to school and our PTA can collect even more!
Here's another tip... Trim your box tops well! BoxTops have to be trimmed before mailing them in so they can be bundled and to save on shipping costs.
Link Your Fred Meyers Rewards Card & Use Amazon Smile - Easy Ways To Support Wade King PTA
If you link your Fred Meyer Reward Card to Wade King PTA, every time you shop a portion of your purchase will be rewarded back to our school. It’s simple, takes only a moment, and has a positive impact on our fundraising efforts.
If you linked your card last year, you will need to re-link it again this year!
To link your Fred Meyer Reward card...
- Go to Fred Meyer Community Rewards: www.fredmeyer.com
- Follow the links to COMMUNITY REWARDS and link your card to Wade King
If you shop Amazon.com, you can also earn money for our PTA.
- Go to Amazon Smile: www.smile.amazon.com
- Search for Wade King PTA
- Start shopping... and 0.5% of your purchase will come back to the PTA!
Don’t forget to tell your friends and family about these programs.
They can link their cards to Wade King too!
Parent Connect on October 10th - Technology Focus
The counselors at Wade King Elementary, Happy Valley Elementary, and Lowell Elementary are teaming up, again this year, to facilitate Parent Connect. These are evenings for parents to deepen their understanding of a topic related to parenting. This year, our Parent Connect evenings will focus on technology. We'll consider appropriate uses of technology for our children, learn ways our children can use technology as a tool for learning, and learn teach our children digital citizenship and how to keep them safe in our technology rich culture.
We hope you can join us for our first Parent Connect evening!
When: October 10th
Where: Happy Valley Elementary
School District Calendar for 2018-19
Do you need our school calendar for 2018-19? You can find it at this link.
On Thursdays, all elementary students are dismissed at 12:45pm. This gives our teachers time for professional development and collaboration. There are only three Staff Learning Fridays this year (October 19th, November 2nd, and March 8th). These are days that our students do not come to school, but our teachers do.