Carpenter Courier
October 26, 2017
Principal's Corner
First of all, I would like to thank the PTO and all of our parents and students that took the time to send thank you cards, emails, stop by, or help with sidewalk chalk to recognize Mrs. Lech and me for Principal Appreciation Day. It was an unbelievably humbling week, especially as the Carpenter Staff recognized us for Boss' Day earlier in the week. We are exceptionally proud to be the leaders in such a terrific community. We enjoy working side by side with our teachers and our parents to help our students grow academically, socially, and emotionally. We are all each other's second family and a community that cares! Thank you again.
It seems like a year ago that we were creating our eclipse schedule and thinking about all of the details for that event. Yet, we are only two months removed from that week and have done so much learning together. As we are finishing up conferences (with the exception of some classrooms that will be rescheduling), I appreciate the close relationship that our school and parent community have together. It is that partnership that has the most positive impact on our student's growth.
We have continued to work on our school goal and we are closing out UNDERSTANDING OCTOBER. At the end of each month, all of our students reflect on their classroom or individual goal and assess how well they did. Our 3rd-5th graders rate themselves on a Google survey and our K-2nd-grade students have a paper version geared towards younger students. Goal-setting and self-assessment are two valuable skills for our children, so combining those skills with focusing on the monthly concept (Understanding Differences) is a terrific way to teach and reinforce excellent life skills that extend beyond the classroom.
In November, our focus skill will be on the appropriate expression of feelings. We teach our children that everyone experiences feelings and we help them to identify those feelings. As we share with our children often, the most important thing is how we express and share those feelings appropriately and encourage and support one another. As we enter the month of November, please use our work here at school to continue conversations with your children at home helping them to identify their feelings and express them appropriately. Help them to understand that it's okay to become frustrated, but help them with strategies to manage their frustration; starting with identifying their feelings. There often are feelings hidden behind frustration such as fear, embarrassment, sadness, self-doubt that can lead to frustration. By helping children identify how they are feeling, it helps them to identify the right strategies to effectively manage them. So, there's a lot behind our Expression of Feelings month in November as I shared our goals extend beyond the academic work for our students.
Sincerely,
Mr. Brett Balduf, Principal
Carpenter Elementary School
Inspire every child to discover, learn, achieve, and care.
From the School Health Office
Students at Carpenter have completed vision and hearing screening.
Parents/guardians of students who failed the vision screening criteria will be re-screened in approximately two weeks. Students may initially fail vision screening due to a temporary eye condition. You will receive notification of the need for professional evaluation if, at re-screen, the vision test is failed again. Parents/guardians of students who are presently under the care of a physician for glasses or other reasons will receive a request for a report from the eye professional for the child's school health record.
Students who fail the hearing screening are re-screened in approximately two weeks. Students may fail hearing screening because of respiratory or ear infections. Once these resolve, the child is usually successful in meeting the hearing screening criteria. If the problem persists, referral for a medical evaluation will be sent home.
Science Olympiad 2018
Science Olympiad 2018! Parents and students! Please remember that the deadline to sign up for this year’s Science Olympiad is Friday, November 10. If your family includes a third, fourth or fifth grader, time is running out to make plans to participate in this year’s event. Information, along with the ONLINE registration form, are available on the District 64 Science Olympiad Webpage.
WONDER - November 25th at the Pickwick 10:00 a.m.
IMAGINE LAB and Google Expeditions
On Friday, October 20, 2017, the Carpenter IMAGINE Lab had its soft opening with a fitting activity, a visit from Google Expeditions. Since Google last visited two years ago, they have updated their expeditions with a new AR (Augmented Reality) program. One popular example of AR is Pokemon Go, which can create the appearance that a Pokemon is in the same location as the player. Our students were able to explore either the circulatory system, Da Vinci's inventions, forces of nature, the solar system, the ocean floor, basic landforms or dinosaurs. Thank you to Mr. Michael for coordinating and to all of our teachers for coordinating their plans around this unique experience for our students. Pictures can be found on our ABOUT section of our web page for future reference. You can use this link for the pictures.
Thank you to our PTO and all of you who support our PTO. On Friday, we were able to "soft-launch" the opening of our IMAGINE Lab. Check out this video Mr. Michael created that gives an idea of the possibilities.
STUDENT COUNCIL - 4th and 5th Grade
Many of our 4th and 5th-grade students joined Student Council this year. Our facilitators have been receiving a lot of emailed questions, so we thought it would be helpful to explain what our student council does. Our student council is a group that typically only meets once a month and/or around special events such as Red Ribbon Week or special collections. Our students will help promote or market those events as well as provide the "extra set of hands" to help. The meetings take place during lunch/recess and the meetings are announced at school over the loudspeaker. The meetings do not always fall on the same day, as the meetings are planned around facilitator schedules and particular events that they may be supporting. Fortunately, many students in 4th and 5th grade enjoy meeting for student council. At the moment, due to the large numbers, meetings are being broken down by grade or class for a management standpoint, but we appreciate the willingness of all of our 4th/5th grade council members. If and when our facilitators may need help, we will be reaching out through the Courier or email blasts to parents.
District 64 ELF Halloween Hustle 5k
We are looking for some volunteers to help with the District 64 ELF Halloween Hustle 5k on Saturday, October 28. We need volunteers for the start/finish line, registration, course marshals, clean up, etc. Please follow the link below for more details, times for volunteering and to sign up to be a volunteer. Please feel free to bring your kids to help cheer on the runners.
https://goo.gl/forms/OBZLAo0vY8iCrpzh2
Also, Cheer Stations will be set up along Vine at Hodges Park. Each school will have an area where they can congregate and cheer on their runners. If running isn’t your thing, come out and support the runners from our school!