Oak Hills Newsletter
January 22, 2018
Principal's Message
Dear Oak Hills Families,
We are so delighted our students will have an opportunity to experience a dynamic assembly on January 30. Far West Fiber has provided us with grant funds to invite Ethnotec, a Young Audience Assembly program. Asia Fantasia is the title of this performance. Below is the description of the show:
Why does the Milky Way look like a river of stars? Why do dogs chase cats? How did sea water get so salty? Is there really a Man on the Moon? These questions have sparked the imaginations of families since the beginning of time and have been the source of the metaphors and symbols that make up our folk tales and myths. This all new program of Asian stories is brought to life through the muse of Robert Kikuchi Yngojo of Eth-Noh-Tec, 1999 National Young Audiences Artist of the Year. His comic faces, graceful full-body gestures and vocal sound effects breathe life into the folk characters of Asia, including Pilandok, the Filipino trickster, the Heavenly Jade Emperor of China, or wise Judge Rabbit of Cambodia. Through these tales children learn core values of kindness to others, honesty, love for all living things, and how to open their hearts and minds to cultures different than their own.
I have watched Ethnotec perform on many occasions. Robert Kikuchi Yngoio who lives in San Francisco and comes to Portland every year to perform at the Japanese Celebration of Mochitsuki that happens around the end of January. I have gone to watch him perform at Mochitsuki when my children were little for many years, and I must say he is one of my favorite storytellers. I am so grateful we were able to schedule him to come to our school! I think our students will be in for an inspiring assembly.
I also look forward to seeing many of you at our Math Information session from 6-7pm on Monday, January 22, followed by our PTO meeting that starts at 7pm. See you then!!
Warm regards,
Sheila Baumgardner
Our beautiful mural is coming along!!!!!
Book Drive at Oak Hills
Allison Enriquez, a former Oak Hills student and current 8th grader at Rachel Carson, is working with the Children's Book Bank for her 8th grade project. She is collecting gently used and new books - from newborn through grade school level - to give to children who have no books in their home. We will have collection bins at the school entrance and the library for two weeks starting Friday 2/2. If you have a large donation, please email enriquez.jill@gmail.com and we can arrange a pick up. You can learn more about the Book Bank at childrensbookbank.org. Thanks for supporting this great organization!"
Oregon Battle of the Books (OBOB) Updates
OBOB will quickly be upon us! Winter break is a great opportunity for students to make sure they’re finishing their OBOB books. Your public library should have copies of these books, and OBOB books could also make a nice holiday present if you’ve got a voracious reader at home!
Our school level OBOB competitions will begin mid-January. Currently we’ve scheduled them to begin in the second full week of January, around the 16th. Ms. Baker and Mandi MacAskill will be reaching out to the fantastic parents who have volunteered to run OBOB tournaments with volunteer slot sign ups.
The student battles will be 100% volunteer run, so if we don’t have volunteers, the students won’t get to battle. We are really relying on our parent volunteers to make this a fun and rewarding experience for our students!
This year the group of volunteers who run OBOB have decided that due to the number of participants, our region will be holding 3 “mini-regional” tournaments with 18-20 schools per tournament rather than one large regional tournament. When we have more information about how this new plan will work, we will pass it along to you.
If you want to help your student prepare for the upcoming tournaments, Ms. Baker has linked a few great resources for practice OBOB questions on the Oak Hills library website (on the Oregon Battle of the Books page). Ask your student who is on their team - winter break could be a good opportunity for some team bonding and running practice questions together! It is also highly recommend to quiz your student on the author names/full titles of each book. This could easily be done with flash cards.
Remember that above all the purpose of OBOB is to encourage reading and expand your student’s reading interests by introducing them to different genres. Even if they only read one book, that’s likely one book they wouldn’t have otherwise been exposed to! Happy reading!
Thank you!
Jessica Baker
Library Media Assistant, Oak Hills Elementary
jessica_e_baker@beaverton.k12.or.us
(503) 365-2410 Ext. 6-2416
Career Fair - Volunteers Needed
Oak Hills will kick off its first annual Career Fair on April 10th from 8:15-10:30! This will be a great opportunity to highlight some amazing careers that our students might like to pursue after school! We are looking for presenters to give 10 minute presentations about the jobs they do. Students would rotate to your station, you'd give a 10 minute presentation and then another group of students would rotate to you. You'd give the presentation approximately 8 times.
Some of the questions that we'd love to have addressed during the presentation are:
- What do you ?
- What did you have to do to prepare for a job in that field?
- How has the shift in technology impacted your job?
- How do you impact the global workforce?
- How do you impact the community?
- Who are the key players you collaborate with in your field?
- How is your job are interconnected with other jobs?
If you feel like you could participate in this informative day and help prepare our students for college and career readiness, please email Jennifer at jennifer_demartino@beaverton.k12.or.us!
Thanks,
Jennifer
On Time Awards - Donate Swag
Turn Your Key – Be Idle Free
Idling vehicles contribute to air pollution and emit air toxins, which are pollutants known or suspected to cause cancer or other serious health effects. Monitoring at schools has shown elevated levels of benzene, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and other air toxics during the afternoon hour coinciding with parents picking up their children.
Children’s lungs are still developing, and when they are exposed to elevated levels of these pollutants, children have an increased risk of developing asthma, respiratory problems and other adverse health effects. Limiting a vehicle’s idling time can dramatically reduce these pollutants and children’s exposure to them.
In the Beaverton School District, the School Board recognizes that a safe and health school environment is important in contributing to the health of students and adults. Clean air is essential to creating a healthy learning environment for students to participate in the educational process.
Unnecessary vehicle idling emits pollutants, wastes fuel and wastes financial resources. Therefore, a goal of the Board is to eliminate unnecessary idling by all District vehicles, and to establish a way to minimize the practice in all vehicles on District property (Board Policy EBAD).
As parents, you can do your part to reduce students’ exposure to air toxins emitted in the exhaust of idling vehicles by:
· Turning off your engine when waiting for students to be picked up
· Turning off your engine when you arrive to school and when you expect to be parked for more than 5 minutes
· If idling is necessary for temperature control, please restrict it to no more than five (5) minutes
We encourage you to eliminate unnecessary idling, not only at our schools but anywhere you are waiting for more than 30 seconds. This simple change will improve the air our children breathe, as well as the air quality in our neighborhoods.
Tentative Dates for 2017-2018
1-22 Math Info Night 6pm
1-22 PTO Mtg. 7pm
1-30 Technology Parent Committee 8-9 a.m.
1-30 Young Audience Performance 1:30 pm
2-2 No School-Grading Day
2-19 Holiday - No School
2-26 PTO Mtg. 3pm
3-7 Conferences 3:30-7:30 pm
3-7 Global Citizenship Committee 8-9 a.m.
3-8 No School for Students - Conferences 7:30 am-7:30 pm
3-9 School Closed
3-13 Technology Parent Committee 8-9 a.m.
3-22 STEM/Future Ready Night 6-8pm
3-26 to 3-30 Spring Break
4-10 Career Fair 8:15-10:30
4-13 No School Assessment Day
4-16 thru 4-20 Book Fair
4-19 Volunteer Tea 1:15pm
4-23 PTO Mtg. 7pm
4-26 Kindergarten Orientation 4:00-5:30
5-2 Global Citizenship Committee 8-9 a.m.
5-8 Technology Parent Committee 8-9 a.m.
5-11 Fifth Grade Wax Museum
5-17 Choir Program 6-7pm
5-21 PTO Mtg. 7pm
5-28 Holiday
5-31 Art Night 6-8pm
6-11 PTO Mtg. 3pm (Budget Mtg.)
6-15 Field Day
6-18 5th Grade Send Off?
6-19 Last Day for Students