Contributed Photo GRANDPARENTS DAY: Bowler Elementary kitchen worker Michele Rosinski and Principal Wade Turner serve breakfast at the school’s annual Grandparents Day breakfast. A meal of pancakes, sausage and other yummy delights provided by the kitchen staff was served to 111 grandparents as well as students.
Contributed Photo AUTHORS FAMILY NIGHT: Misty Cook, an author who grew up on the Stockbridge-Munsee Reservation, shares her experiences of writing and publishing her own book at Wisconsin Authors Family Night held recently at Bowler Elementary. About 65 people attended the event, where activities were related to Wisconsin authors. After families were treated to pizza, every student left with a free book.
Sacred Heart Catholic School
This week marked the end of 24 years of service to our school for Carol Aschenbrenner. She has served on our support staff as a supervisor outside and inside the lunchroom. We wish her well on her retirement. People like Carol make our school a great place to be.
This week we take time to show how thankful we are to those who support our school in time, money and talents. In our prayer service to open this week, our fifth- and first-graders acted out the Gospel of Luke when Jesus meets the 10 lepers. Jesus chose to cure all 10, but only one came back to give thanks. Our students were reminded that God is always there for us even when we forget to be thankful. After our all-school Mass we had our own “turkey trot” to the local food pantry. Each student and staff member walked their canned food donation to bring to those who are in need this season. It was a great opportunity for students to share in giving.
St. James Lutheran School, Shawano
St. James Lutheran School and band director David Pelow are proud to announce that Erin Cerveny has been selected to participate in the 2014 National Band Association Wisconsin Chapter’s All-State Junior Band. Erin plays the oboe. The 2014 All-State Junior Band is comprised of 102 students from 41 schools throughout Wisconsin. Talented young musicians chosen for the honor were nominated by their directors and will perform as a group at the finale concert of the 30th annual convention of the NBA-WC. The concert will be held at 7 p.m. Jan. 18 at the Performing Arts Center on the campus of Wisconsin Rapids Lincoln High School, Wisconsin Rapids. Liz Rosenthal, a well-known and highly respected music educator from Beloit, will conduct this year’s band. All performances at the convention are open to the public.
LEADS Primary Charter School, Shawano
During the month of November, Betsy Henning’s LEADS first-graders are doing a mini-inquiry about pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians. We are studying the Mayflower voyage, the Plymouth plantation and the first Thanksgiving.
We are learning to research answers to our “Wonders” using different sources, such as virtual field trips on the computer.
We also continue our ongoing study of day and night skies. We are observing the moon phases each evening and recording our observations in our research booklets.
We are learning about features of informational text and how they help the reader.
Menominee Tribal School
On Nov. 15, “JA in a Day” community volunteers taught the K-5 students about financial literacy, entrepreneurship and work readiness. We give out a big maec waewaenon to those generous people who gave an entire day to our students. In March, “JA in a Day” will need more of those fine people to enlighten our students about checkbooks, credit cards, debit cards, mortgages and loans. Meanwhile, students will be able to sign up for Junior Achievement classes taught through our Bear Trails afterschool tutoring, homework and enrichment program.
MTS applied for and received a grant that provides tutors and teachers, snacks and a huge variety of choices for enrichment for Bear Trails. The enrichment opportunities include science club, art club, beading, arts and crafts, sports, tumbling, math games, dance, nutrition and astronomy. The program runs from 3:30 to 5 p.m. The fall/winter session began Oct. 28 and ends Dec. 12. The winter/spring sessions begin in mid-January and conclude May 15.
MTS honored our local veterans during an annual breakfast on Nov. 7. Students gave presentations thanking the veterans for their service.
Our art teacher, Janice Rabideaux, traveled to Myanmar (Burma) early in November with 24 other art educators. She has returned with numerous pictures, items, wonderful impressions and new ideas to share with the students.The first project attempted by the art club is painting on cloth that has received an initial coat of thinned glue covered with sand. The students are excited about the novelty and challenge of exploring this new medium.
St. Paul Lutheran School, Bonduel
The eighth-grade class continues to do fundraising for its class trip to Washington, D.C., this spring. The students are looking forward to seeing our nation’s historical sights in a Christian viewpoint and perspective. They are taking orders for Christmas cut-out cookies, your choice of decorated ($5 per dozen) or undecorated ($3.50 per dozen). See any St. Paul eighth-grader or call the school office at 715-758-8532 to place your order by Dec. 9 and support the eighth-grade class trip. Cookies will be ready for pick-up on Dec. 17.
St. Paul will host a Red Cross blood drive Monday from noon to 5 p.m. While walk-ins are welcome, an appointment can lessen your time commitment. Please phone the church office at 715-758-8559 to schedule an appointment.
Menominee Indian High School
The Menominee Indian School District will have its annual holiday concert at 6 p.m. Dec. 11 in the high school theater. The band and chorus will perform many holiday selections. Please note that the concert time has been changed. More details will be sent home informing everyone of what concert attire will be and what time each group will need to be at the high school.
The winter sports season has also begun at Menominee Indian High School. The first wrestling match will be on Dec. 5 at home at 7 p.m. Parents and community members are encouraged to come and support the Eagles.
MIHS held parent-teacher conferences on Wednesday. Parents who attended had their names put in a drawing for Eagle gear and a season pass for any winter sporting event.
Students began their Thanksgiving break Wednesday and return Monday.
Gresham Community School
Representatives from Northeast Wisconsin Technical College met with interested juniors and seniors to take Accuplacer tests, complete a career assessment and apply for college. The students completed a career assessment at www.wi.careerpathways.org which showed them what careers would be a good fit for them and their values and talents. The students also took the Accuplacer tests for acceptance into NWTC or any tech school. There were five seniors that applied to NWTC and got accepted.
Kimmie Petrich, a senior who attended the session, said, “They were very helpful and supportive. Even if you got a low score, they reassured you that you would get into college and just have to take extra classes.”
Gresham Community Schools had parent-teacher conferences and a half-day Nov. 19. The book fair also finished up that day. We also celebrated the beginning of hunting season by wearing camouflage on Wednesday and wearing blaze orange on Friday. Also on Friday, each of our school organizations met.
Students are off Wednesday through Friday for the Thanksgiving holiday. School resumes Monday.
Hillcrest Primary School
Some of the second-graders’ work was mentioned in last week’s School Notes. Here’s a further update:
The second-graders at Hillcrest Primary of Shawano have been very busy during the first few months of school. Many classrooms have been working on different writing pieces and learning about the different stages of the writing process. Most classrooms are also wrapping up with their study of insects during science. This unit provided our second-graders with a hands-on learning experience, teaching them about the life cycle, habitat and parts of an insect.
Diana Wichlacz’s class just completed its study of insects, although we are still monitoring a few silkworm cocoons. We were able to see three adult silkworm moths hatch. It was exciting to see them go through their life cycle from very small larvae to adults. Now we are watching for eggs. Currently we are investigating balance. Using what we learned about balance points and the use of counterweights, we were able to balance a pencil on its tip. We also made cool mobiles to hang in our classroom to show how to balance objects of different weights.
Jamie Kriewaldt’s class has been using its schema to make connections to texts during Language Arts. We learned that we can make connections through our personal experiences, from other texts we have read, and through things we have seen on television, in the newspaper or on the Internet. Making connections to texts helps us understand the author’s purpose and helps us understand the meaning of books we read.
Sarah Radke’s second-grade class has been hard at work utilizing the reading strategies Activating Schema and Making Connections. Through the use of mentor texts, teacher think-alouds, student discussion and student reading and writing, the class has learned how to use prior knowledge to help comprehend the current reading. We practiced making connections to a story based on feelings rather than just surface-level experiences. Students are also delving deeper into their reading by asking themselves “What is this story really about?”
Rebecca Arens’ class is learning to convert its classroom behavior points into cash. They earn points daily. These points have a cash value that they keep track of and can spend at their classroom store every other Friday. They are learning the value of each coin, exchanging coins and adding multiple two-digit numbers. They learn to make choices at the store based on their total amount and then receive their change to save for the next store.
Chris Kellett’s second-grade class is really working hard at our “greater than” or “less than” math facts. We have multiple math stations that the kids have enjoyed completing and challenging one another.
Students in Curt Preston’s class have been busy investigating the life cycle of various insects. Students constructed suitable habitats for their live specimens, then hypothesized, observed and documented changes and behavior in the insects. We hope to continue the life cycle of some all year.
Lori Schwecke’s classes have been studying fairy tales. They have been learning about character traits, story structures and morals and comparing and contrasting versions from different cultures. The students have also been eagerly writing their own version of a well-known tale.
The students in Stacey Popp’s class have just finished their study of interesting insects. We discovered that mealworms change into darkling beetles. As number detectives, we have been working with numbers up to 1,000. Each day of the week we collect clues to solve a mystery number of the week. We have also been practicing reading with expression so that we can read to our 4K book buddies.
Jennifer Zoll and the LEADS Charter School second-graders are learning how to summarize and synthesize traditional tales while also trying to think about the purpose behind the first retellings of these traditional tales many years ago. We are becoming extremely familiar with traditional tales. This is important because a lot of literature, music and movies base themselves off of traditional tales. Making text connections to these traditional tales can help us understand the world around us. We have also been thinking about our wants and needs, along with how our community helps supply these for us. November is a great time for us to be thankful for our community and being able to have certain needs and wants met.