EnCompass: Resources for Learning
November 2017 Newsletter
EnCompass History and Mission
History - Encompass Resources for Learning was created to bring the effective learning strategies modeled at The Norman Howard School to struggling learners in public schools and community environments.
Mission - Encompass Resources develops and provides innovative educational services to students who struggle to learn and to the families, schools, and professionals that support them. Services are matched to each student's unique learning style in order to prevent academic failure and enhance lifelong learning.
Farewell party for Mr. Zimmerman
Mr. Zimmerman received a permanent teaching position outside the Canandaigua City School District.
Our new Program Coordinator is Ms. Heather Black
Ms. Black has been teaching for 17 years. She has been a Math teacher at the Academy for 9 years. This is her 3rd year with EnCompass. Ms. Black loves going on vacation to Disney World in Florida and doing anything Disney related. When she was in college, she worked in Disney World and had a lot of fun. Ms. Black also loves ice cream and learned how to make ice cream last year during EnCompass.
About our EnCompass Teachers
Kristina Cahoon has been a reading teacher in Canandaigua for 8 years. This is her first year at CMS teaching 6th grade and she loves it! Not only does she obviously enjoy reading, but also taking her energetic English Pointer, Martha, for walks and hikes all over the Finger Lakes region. Miss Cahoon is also quite a foodie and loves cooking, too, so she is especially excited about the Ice Cream Engineering unit her and Mrs. Clark's group is exploring.
Angel Clark has been a teacher in Canandaigua for 4-1/2 years. She taught in the Buffalo Public Schools for 9-1/2 years. This is her 1st year with EnCompass. Angel enjoys spending time with her two children, Liam and Mackenzie and her husband Steve. Mrs. Clark is very excited to be part of EnCompass.
Joyce Kowba is a retired Speech Pathologist and Librarian in the Rochester City School District (32 years). Mrs. Kowba loves Canandaigua and is very exited to be part of EnCompass this year! She enjoys traveling with her husband, painting dog portraits, and volunteering with her Golden Retriever, Winston.
Cindy Logan has been a contract substitute teacher at the Middle School for two years. This is her first year with EnCompass. Cindy has four children, ages 21, 17, 13, and 13 (twins) and is very busy following them around to all their practices and games. In her free time, Cindy enjoys baking, biking, decorating, and playing with her adorable Papillon puppy, Elmo.
Maureen Loeffler - after locating from Alaska ten years ago, Mrs. Loeffler began teaching high school English while her daughters attended school at Canandaigua Elementary. Last year, her youngest graduated high school and Mrs. Loeffler started teaching English as a new language at the Middle School. This being her first year with EnCompass, Mrs. Loeffler is enjoying all of the new learning opportunities with her sixth graders.
Kelley Mariano has worked at the Canandaigua Middle School for 15 years as a 7th grade Social Studies teacher. She now teaches both 7th and 8th grade and enjoys having some students for two years. Mrs. Mariano lives in Rochester with her family and enjoys hiking, biking, and gardening. She enjoys her time with EnCompass because she gets to know some of her students a little better and sees them in a different type of learning environment.
Kathryn Michalko has been teaching 7th grade English at Canandaigua Middle School for eight years. This is her 3rd year with EnCompass. Kathryn enjoys working out, reading books, and spending time with her friends and family.
Lorin Van Nostrand has been a Special Education teacher for the Canandaigua School District since 1993, teaching in the Middle School and the district's alternative education program (CACC). Lorin and her family live in the tiny hamlet of Conesus, just south of Conesus Lake. In her free time, she enjoys traveling with her kids (ROAD TRIP!), gardening, and playing Scrabble.
What have your children been learning?
7/8 Classes:
Students have been researching different natural disasters. Students have picked one natural disaster that they are interested in and researched everything there is to know about it. Students have started to create tri-fold posters that depict their natural disaster of choice. Also, students will be creating their own natural disaster artifact to go along with their tri-fold posters.
Another 7/8 classroom is focusing on prosthetic devices for animals. They have read about and watched videos on several different species of animals and the way Science has saved or improved their lives with a prosthetic. They started out making a life vest for a small dog using a soda can as their dog. Students had to use the engineering design plan to actually float the can using only the supplies allowed. Next, they created a prosthetic leg for an elephant, using paper towel rolls, tape, felt, and rubber bands. Currently, they are designing a beak for an Eagle. Students work in different groups for each activity, collaborate, plan, design, make, and evaluate in both their small groups and sometimes larger class. They truly seem to enjoy making something to improve the life of an animal and the videos we show before we start are encouraging.
6th Grade:
One 6th grade class begins each day with a brief walk outdoors. Upon return, they settle into working on their Natural Disaster projects, all of which pertain to the environmental impacts.
The other 6th grade class has been engaging in fun language-based games, reading interesting articles, learning about the engineering process and how it relates to food production. Encompass also has us working in groups all the time and we are learning a lot about what it takes to work in a productive group. A few activities we have done would be building a tower out of spaghetti to hold a marshmallow, making rice crispy treats without a recipe and the steps out of order, and most recently making ice cream again without directions. The students have taken charge of their learning and are researching recipes and ways to produce ice cream. We have ALL enjoyed samplings! We are now working on improving our methods and recipes to create a top-notch product.
ASK YOUR CHILD WHAT THEY'VE BEEN DOING!
EnCompass Student Interviews by Jacob
What do you like most about Encompass?
- We don't only do school work
- Field trips
- Playing music
- Snacks
- Friends
- Everything
- Experiments
- Targeted tutoring
- Games
- My teachers
- Making ice cream
- Fun activities
- It's really interesting
- Baking
- Fun stuff/work helps in future
- Having balance of fun and learning
- Projects
- Learning new things
- Free food
- Being here
- Able to spend extra time with teachers
- Tell puns without anyone judging
- Getting time to do homework
SAVE THE DATE!
Tuesday, December 12 is Encompass Family Night. Come see what all of the kids have been working on the past few weeks.
More details to follow.