December 3:
NO SCHOOL
December 4:
K-2 Diversity Group 8-8:25AM
December 11:
3-5 Diversity Group 8-8:25AM
December 14:
4th & 5th Strings and 5th Grade Musical 1:15-2PM
Dress Up Day - Flannel and Fleece
December 17:
Sizzlin' Strings Performance 1:15-2:15PM
December 19:
School Board Meeting
December 20:
PTO Meeting 6:00PM in the Winnequah Library
December 24-January 1:
Winter Break!
January 2:
Classes resume
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Notes from the Student Services Department
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Thank you to everyone who took a gift tag from our winter wishes board. They ran out fast, but we now have more from MG High School. Stop in to grab one if you haven't already.
We'd also appreciate donations of grocery store gift cards for families in need.
Woodman's, Pick 'n Save, Aldi, Walmart, etc., would all be great! You can drop them off in the office with Carrie or Tish.
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This holiday season, the best gift you can give your child is a good education. And the best place to get an education is in school.
It’s tempting to extend your vacation by a few days, but remember, those days count as absences. Just a few missed days here and there, even if they’re excused absences, can add up to too much lost learning time. So make sure your child is in school every day, right up until vacation starts.
Our teachers will be teaching, and our students will be learning!
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A good night’s sleep is very important to a student’s success at school. It might surprise you how much sleep your child needs or how early they need to get up. But when a child is well-rested they are set up for success and ready to learn. Below you will find a chart with suggested bedtimes to get optimal sleep. Each child has individual needs but these are general guidelines.
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Consistent bedtimes and routines are very helpful when it comes to good sleep.
Other helpful tips include:
- No screen time 30 minutes before they need to start unwinding.
- Keep the same bedtime everyday (even on the weekends).
- Use comforts like night lights, sound machines or essential oils to help them drift off to sleep.
- If your student has difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep speak to their pediatrician.
*For more information on the importance of sleep go to this
website
.
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Welcome to Winequah, Mrs. Miller!
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Name:
Charlotte Miller
Position at Winnequah:
Art Teacher
Teaching history prior to Winnequah:
Certified to teach both Elementary/Middle Ed and Elementary/Middle Art Education. 5 years of experience teaching grades 2-4 Elementary Ed and 1 year teaching Elementary Art to grades K-5.
Family Info:
My husband, John, and I have three daughters, Marie (12), Sophie (10), and Claire (8). We also have a dog named Panda! We live in Cottage Grove.
Hobbies:
My family loves to camp! We enjoy going to different State Parks all around Wisconsin. While camping we love swimming, hiking, and just sitting around the campfire. I also enjoy running and doing arts and crafts, and movie nights at home with my family. Oh, and I just started taking guitar lessons!
If you could be any animal, what would you be and why?
I’d be a bird! I would love to be able to fly all around and see the world, and visit family and friends easily.
Favorite color:
Pink
Favorite food:
My Mom’s Roasted Red Pepper Soup.
Favorite Book:
“The Nightingale” by Kristin Hannah
Who is your least favorite superhero and why?
The Incredible Hulk! As a kid, it always bothered me that his clothes would get torn-up every time he’d change into the Hulk.
Who inspires you?
People who stand-up for others inspire me! It shows courage and strength-of-character being an advocate for others.
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We live in a world surrounded by technology. And we know that whatever field our students choose to go into as adults, their ability to succeed will increasingly depend on understanding how technology works. But only a tiny fraction of us are learning how technology works.
That’s why Winnequah is joining in on the largest learning event in history: The Hour of Code, during Computer Science Education Week (December 3-9). Students will be coding in their classrooms all week long, but on Thursday, December 6th we are inviting you to code with your student from 5:30-7:00 pm.
This is a drop in event so feel free to come whenever you can.
We will have something for all learners and levels! Even if you have never typed a line of code we will have you coding robots and creating animations within minutes.
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The Monona Grove Boys Hockey team would like to invite all staff and students to Youth Night on
Sat, Dec 8th
at Hartmeyer Ice Arena. The
MG Varsity Team will face off against Kenosha at 7:30 pm. JV plays at 5:30 pm
. The Monona Grove Hockey Club will be giving away Schoep's ice cream. Youth hockey players plan to wear your jersey! Come to the rink and support your MG Boys Hockey team.
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The Monona Grove Charter School for the 21st Century (MG21) is expanding! Currently MG21 serves students in 9-12th grade, but we are excited to announce that starting in the 2019-2020 school year MG21 will be adding a Middle Campus to serve students in grade 6-8.
MG21 is a project-based learning charter school that focuses on wellness, social-emotional growth, and project based learning. They take advantage of their small class sizes to foster deep relationships between students and staff; to create unique opportunities like providing trail management for the Ice Age Trail; and to be flexible and responsive to students who have learning styles that are not well-served by the traditional educational model.
If you are interested in learning more about the MG21 Middle Campus,
please visit this website
. They will also be hosting an information session and open house on
Thursday, December 13th from 5-6pm
at MG21 (5301 Monona Drive). Stop by to meet the staff, see the space, and learn more about this exciting opportunity!
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December 14th
is the 4th/5th Grade Strings and 5th Grade Chorus concert!
Students will perform for their Pre-K - 3rd Grade peers in the morning, and for the community at
1:15
. Both concerts will be in the Winnequah Wood Gym and will end with a sing-along.
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EARLY LEARNING FAIR
Monday, February 4th, 2019
On Monday, February 4th, 2019, the Monona Grove School District will hold its annual Early Learning Fair and
Together 4 Kids
Registration at Nichols School (MG District Office) in Monona. This event is a free service to families of pre-school children. Parents will have the opportunity to meet with a professional to share information about their child’s development and to register for the 2019-2020 T4K program. Registration information will be sent to families in mid December. Parents will need to schedule an appointment upon receipt of registration materials.
If you have any new neighbors with young children aged birth to 4 ½, please have them call Gina in the Early Education Office at 839-2113.
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This week, Kindergarten students in Mrs. Gelhausen’s class experienced two awesome opportunities that incorporated learning and wellness.
Two instructors from Infinity Martial Arts came to Winnequah School! One of the students in our class participates in karate classes at Infinity Martial Arts, therefore, we received a special invitation to participate in a Martial Arts "Workchop" involving the topics of bullying and self-defense. We talked about the importance of respect. We learned and practiced a few self-defense moves. The instructors also stressed the importance of never using your karate moves to hurt someone at home or at school. The kids had a great time and learned valuable lessons!
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We also had the chance to practice yoga with Ms. Megan Planey.
Ms.
Megan (a Winnequah parent) is also a certified yoga instructor who came to Winnequah to share her talents with our students and lead a special class for us! The class included yoga moves to music as well! It was such a fun, calm, and refreshing way to start the day and prepare our bodies and minds for learning! If you would like to learn more about Megan Planey and the yoga classes she offers for kids and families, please visit her website!
http://tothemoonyoga4kids.com.
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First grade has been learning all about communities and community helpers. To connect with our own Monona community, we went on a field trip. At the police station, students got to hear about how the police officers help keep Monona safe and even got to sit in a squad vehicle. At the Monona Public Library, first graders got to meet different people who work at the library and hear what they do to help the library. At the Community Center, we got to learn about what Parks & Rec does to make our community great. What a fun day to explore so close to our school!
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Second grade took a field trip to the UW-Discovery Center. Students learned about nanotechnology and microscopy. They loved building microscopes, examining tiny critters, and observing how temperature affects liquid crystals.
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Winnequah School Food Drive!!
December 4 - 17
Winnequah Third Graders are holding a food drive to collect items for the St. Stephen’s Food Pantry. This food drive is an annual event at Winnequah. In addition to non-perishable food items, personal care items (like toothpaste and shampoo), and baby items (diapers and wipes) are also welcome and needed. Students should bring food items to their homeroom classrooms so that 3rd graders can count them and bring them to the collection table. Last year, we collected 1,278 items. Our goal this year is 2018! Let’s meet or exceed this goal to help families in our community that are in need.
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Third grade learners at Winnequah have just begun researching endangered animals. After our trip to the Wisconsin Crane Foundation and learning about the endangered Whooping Crane we have now begun exploring other endangered species. We are interested in learning more about how animals become endangered and what we can do to help.
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Mrs. Dyer’s third grade class had an opportunity to do some service learning by helping with clean up after the Monona Senior Center Fall Luncheon.
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Happy December from Fourth Grade! This past month has been busy. The students have tackled multi-digit multiplication and are now jumping into long division. Keep practicing those basic facts to make these longer problems less challenging!
For Social Studies, the kids got to research a Wisconsin Native American Tribe and create a project to go along with it to present to their classrooms. Students wrapped up the rock and soil unit in science and are now learning all about plants: how they adapt in certain environments to survive, parts of a plant, reproduction, and photosynthesis.
After reviewing parts of a story and doing some character analysis work, the students are reading to identify main ideas and details in a story to help find the theme/message. We can not express enough how important independent reading is for a child to grow intellectually, so please keep encouraging your child(ren) to read at home and continue to fill out their reading logs.
The students did a fantastic job on performing their “Pirates” musical. Looks like we have a very talented crew!
We got to participate in our first “Hootie Huddle” this past month and we focused on Gratitude. The students got to write things they are grateful for on a leaf that was placed on a whole school “Gratitude Tree” that is in the hallway near the office. Things that topped the gratitude lists were family, pets, and video games. Ha ha.
We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Keep on the look out for details regarding our annual 4
th
grade Gingerbread House activity!
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Are you looking for some family fun ideas to do during the long winter months? Here is a list of games and activities that are not only entertaining but educational as well!
Literature Based
Family Fun Dinner Games
Oh Yuck
Visual Brain Storms
Mathematics Based
Q-bitz
Double Shutter
Equate
Flip 4
Shut the Box
Math 24
Science Based
Candy Factory (kit)
Tasty Science (kit)
Potato Chip Science (kit and book)
Make Your Own kits (Chocolate, Gummies, Chewing Gum)
Ant Farm
Classic Erector Sets
Social Studies
Settlers of Catan
BrainBox games
Americana Trivia
Professor Noggin's History and Geography Card Games
Strategy/Problem Solving
Mancala for Four!
Chess
Solitaire Chess
Mastermind
Cover Your Tracks
Serpentiles
Line Up
Rush Hour
HAVE FUN!!
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Ms. Donna leads a morning yoga/meditation practice as a before school option. The kids are loving this peaceful start to the day!
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A huge thank you goes out to the Winnequah 1
st
grade Daisy Troop #8315, who volunteered to help with our November TerraCycle Box and Ship event. This group of girls along with a few other Winnequah Owls successfully boxed up over 135lbs of collected items to ship out for recycling and upcycling! Thanks for all of your hard work!
Thank you to everyone for your help and cooperation collecting items for TerraCycle. Please continue to collect accepted items and bring them to the Monona Library drop site (all items are collected there) and remember to sort your items - this is a HUGE help for our small group of volunteers.
Interested in helping out?
We are always looking for volunteers for our monthly Box & Ship events (held the 4
th
Sunday of the Month @ the Monona Library from 1:30-3:00pm).
Be sure to mark your calendars for our upcoming box & ship dates:
January 27
February 24
March 24
April 28
May 26
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to visit our
website
or
Facebook page
, or send us a message. We appreciate hearing from you!
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Inaugural Enrichment Program Workshop
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Do you have a kiddo who loves to be active?
Are they up for trying something new?
Are you already wondering how long January will feel this year?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then register your child to participate in the first ever enrichment program workshop! This workshop will give K-5 kids a chance to rotate through three different mini-classes featuring karate, yoga, and hip-hop dance. Each mini-class is taught by a professional instructor from the area. The drop-off workshop will run from 2:00-4:30 pm on Sunday, January 13, 2019 in the Winnequah gyms.
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Annual Team Trivia Night!
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