If you would like to hear about the philosophy of SCPA and the curriculum and homework, SCPA is offering a informational meeting for parents to hear about what happens in the classrooms and the extension of work beyond to ensure mastery of concepts.  There will also be a question and answer session.  The Lower School night is tonight, October 13, from 6:00-7:30 p.m. in the PAC.

We have been busy at the beginning of this year.  Students have been assessed for reading and math skills and are working hard with their teachers on learning our Core Knowledge Sequence and the state standards, as well as starting Daily 5 rotations around reading and writing.  We have had visits from the Warner Nature Center, and a few classes have started the field trips to learn about nature, our environment, and the earth.  Projects and hard work have been evidenced by all students!

Our character trait for September and October is Respect.  Students receive Golden Tickets when they are caught doing something good or have exhibited strong character traits.  They are then eligible for a monthly drawing to have breakfast with me.  Our first breakfast for the September ticket winner drawing was Friday, October 2nd.  Kindergartener Makenna M., 1st grader Gabbie S., 2nd grader Katie W., 3rd grader Mackenzie D., and 4th grader Mansi S. were celebrated as the September winners.  We had a delightful time talking about our families, pets, and school as we ate breakfast together.

We are looking forward to a highly successful Marathon Day!  As of last week, we are around $74,000 in donations.  If you would like to still donate, please go to the website and click on the link.  The day proves to be active and busy, with opening ceremonies beginning around 11:15, the event starting at 12 noon, and a pepfest at 3:00, with various activities in between.  We are still looking for volunteers to help make the events run smoothly.  If you are interested, please plan to attend.  It is a really fun and exciting day to celebrate SCPA (and the weather is supposed to hold up, too)!

We have some exciting activities that have started or are upcoming.  The Lion Cub Theater Group is beginning and will have the first meeting on November 3.  Please read below or go to the website for more details.  Continental Math League is for 3rd and 4th graders who want to compete in math.  Please watch for information in future emails from your teachers about how to sign up to participate.  

Additionally, please be aware of the guidelines for dressing up for the Fall Celebration on Friday, October 30.  Students may dress up as a character from their favorite book or an historical figure.  Students will be discussing/reading/sharing about their character of choice as a curricular analysis in the classrooms.  Please remember that costumes must be appropriate for school and not include fake weapons, gore, blood, etc.  If students do not dress for Halloween, the school uniform must be worn to school.

Please remember that if your child is absent, call the attendance line at (651) 395-5991.  If you have a transportation change, please  email  the teacher  before  12 noon, and if it is  after  12 noon, please  call  Sara Bodin in the lower school office at (651) 395-5920.  Also note, we will not deliver in-depth information about after-school activities to students in the classroom.  We will only be delivering changes in transportation arrangements.  This ensures that there is minimal disruption to the learning occurring in the classroom.  We cannot be responsible for missed information other than the changes.  In the parent pickup areas, please ensure that you are staying in your cars, have signs with your child’s last name posted, do not use technology, and continue to pull up as far ahead as possible.  This ensures respect of those in line behind you and a faster and safe pick-up process.

Have a safe and enjoyable MEA vacation! 

Go Lions!

Joann Karetov
jkaretov@stcroixprep.org

Welcome back to the Art Room!

I am looking forward to another fun, creative, and adventurous year with your children. Please be sure your child has a spiral bound sketchbook for 1st – 4th grade along with an art shirt to wear.

A little bit about me…

• This is my 8th year teaching at St. Croix Prep.
• I live here in Bayport with my husband, Brian and 2 girls.
• Schaelly is a kindergartener here at SCPA and Kinlsey is a spunky 2 year old. We also have Chopper, our chocolate lab, who is 7.  
• I love to run, play hockey, workout, paddleboard, boat, camp, and go to concerts. Country is my favorite genre of music but I listen to almost everything.  
• My favorite color is Orange! ☺

  Here is what we are learning about:

Kindergarteners are finishing up their Chameleon Creation. We read the book, A Color of His Own by Leo Lionni and artists  embarked on a directed line drawing of a chameleon.  Students used sharpie marker to draw a chameleon, paint to add color, and a naked crayon, a crayon with no paper, for the background. These look amazing and super cute!

1 st  Grade artists are reviewing the color wheel along with primary and secondary colors. We are working on tracing, drawing, coloring, and painting skills to create a fish masterpiece! 

2 nd  Grade artists are finishing up with a Kandinsky Color Wheel Tree. We are reviewing the color wheel order and working on our cutting, gluing, and listening skills. We used Kandinsky’s ‘Concentric Circles’ as our inspiration for our artwork. 

3 rd  Grade artists are creating Color Wheel Birds! Artists were asked to create silly, unique bird designs and add details to the paint color using only sharpie marker. These are looking amazing so far! I am excited to share them with everyone!

4 th  Grade artists are reviewing the color wheel and working with the art form of Zentangle. A Zentangle is a style of art that focuses on repetition of line and shape to embellish artwork. This process has been known to reduce stress and improve focus along with creating an amazing work of art. Artist are asked to recreate the color wheel sections using different Zentangles they have come up. These are looking great so far! Ask your child to teach you the Zentangle process. 

Here’s to a great year in ART!   I’m excited to see what the kids create this year!

Although this practice is key, it is not enough.  Students need to glean this information in the context of music history as a whole.  Music history, like any other study of history, is vast and deep, but it is still important to see the “big picture.”  It is also a good way to review composers and genres studied in past years.

Because of this, we are spending both semesters this school year immersing ourselves in the eras, and key points, of music history.  As a starting point, we have seen and discussed the music time-line, named the eras and have begun our studies with Gregorian Chant.  This marked the beginning of formal music notation.  We have seen, heard, moved to and are beginning to sing a bit of simple chant, in Latin.  This music is beautiful and mysterious and has an amazing calming effect on all of us!  It may be important to note that most music and art in general was tied into religion and religious activities.  Chant is attributed to Pope Gregory, a musician who was interested in making sure that music was written down and preserved.  We study chant as an important event in music history, and not for religious reasons.
We will soon be moving on to music of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance eras.

We are also enjoying our bucket drums and are improving our rhythmic skills every day!  Each class has also been singing, sight-reading, and moving to music.  This is all done in conjunction with preparing for our upcoming concerts, taking place on Tuesday,  December 1 for Kindergarten, 1st and 3rd grade, and  Thursday, December 3 for 2nd and 4th graders.

Lion Cub Theater Group:

Coming up soon will be  the Lion Cub Theater Group , our theater experience offered to interested children in grades 1 and 2.  

To register your child for this group, click here.

Theater Club:

Theater Club is an opportunity for SCPA students in grades 3 and 4 to participate in a production from beginning to end.  This year, we will be performing . . . 
Rehearsals will be from 8:00 A.M. – 9:15 A.M. 

• All Tuesdays in January 2016
  
• All Tuesdays and Thursdays in February 2016
  
• Tuesday, March 1
  
• Thursday, March 3
  
• Tuesday, March 8
  
• Thursday, March 10
  
• Friday, March 11 (4:00 – 5:30 P.M.) Dress/Tech
  
• Monday, March 14 (8:00-9:15 A.M.)  

Evening Performances:  all shows will be from 6:00-7:00 P.M.

• March 14
  
• March 15
  
• March 17
  

  Daytime Performances:  

• Monday, March 14 at 10 A.M.
  
• Tuesday, March 15 at 1:30 P.M.
  

  (SCPA Lower School students will attend daytime performances.)

Cost:  $85.00 for each participant
Registration:  December 4 - December 14
 

Information on how to register will be available in the November Paw Print.

Questions?  Please contact Julie Harris at  jharris@stcroixprep.org
 

Both in music class and, if your child would choose to become involved in a theater group, there are many opportunities for your child to grow and a creative musician and performer.  I am so grateful to be with them on this journey.

The “super” lice reported on TV recently are really resistant lice and they have actually been around for about 10 years now. Just like bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics lice have become resistant to the chemical treatments. They still succumb to manual removal and die within 24-48 hours after being away from their food source. They still do not fly or jump, but you do still need to remove the nits.

Lice are definitely itchy, scratchy, and creepy-crawly but they do not carry disease. Head-to-head contact is how they are spread. Remind your student not to sit with their head up against another student’s head. Girls with long hair should consider wearing it in a ponytail to help prevent the spread. No sharing of hats, coats, hair do-dads, combs, brushes or head bands of any sort.

• Myth: Lice is easy to get (casual contact)
• Fact: This actually depends on the level of infestation of the neighboring head. That is why I am so adamant about weekly lice checks. The fewer you find the less chance of spreading it in your own home and to your friends!
• Fact: Lice have to have very specific spatial and kinetic conditions to crawl over to grasp a hair of a neighboring head.
• Study: only 7.1% of hair to hair transmission attempts (they actually TRIED to give each other lice), that’s 34 out of 480 attempts; the louse had to be oriented outward on the hair, the neighboring hair had to be parallel to the hair the  louse was on, the neighboring hair had to move very slowly (head-to-head contact for more than just a brief moment, like when taking a selfie or cuddling while giggling together at a sleepover). http://www.nature.com/jid/journal/v119/n3/full/5601602a.html
• Check the experts: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6556831
• Myth: Re-infestation from classmates is common
• Fact: Re-infestations are often the same infestation which was never completely eradicated and has erupted again (again the importance of checking weekly!)
• Fact: The Head Lice Life Cycle illustrates that a couple of missed nits can take upwards of 19 days (almost 3 weeks) to become adults before a new egg is even laid – and most likely another week before enough nits are visible to spot (unless you are checking weekly). That’s one month, well outside the recommended two week time frame to check after an infestation (weekly checks through at least their elementary school years)
• Check the experts: http://www.holdfast.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=798
• Myth: If one person has lice you should treat the entire family
• Fact: Doing correct and thorough head checks on all family members is crucial; treating all “to be safe” is an unnecessary waste of time and energy, plus contributes to resistant lice
• Check the experts: http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/housingandclothing/dk1030.html

Nit combs are your friend, they can help you find the live lice, get rid of nits and even remove gum from hair (freeze the gum with ice then comb out with nit comb). Check online for nit comb recommendations.

We have also been informed there is a stomach bug in the community causing stomach aches and occasional diarrhea, even in the middle of the night. It is lasting about 2 weeks. Treatment is to keep hydrated and eat starchy foods. See your healthcare provider if there is a fever or any signs of dehydration. The guideline for diarrhea and school attendance is to stay home if having uncontrolled or frequent diarrhea.  The occasional episode is okay if the student has not had any trouble getting to the bathroom in time. Younger students are better off at home until the diarrhea has subsided (K-3). Handwashing is essential, please review the how-to of handwashing and the when with your children.

Cover your cough, stay home when ill and check for lice weekly!

Candace, Licensed School Nurse