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Ms. Heffron’s Thursday Letter
The display of some recent art projects is really brightening up our halls and stairwells. In the main entrance, kindergarten creations of their homes and neighborhoods are made using crayons, sticky tape and glitter. They bordered the creations with geometric patterns, integrating mathematical concepts. Third and fifth grades both completed projects using leaves. The third grade projects involved leaf printing in patterns that show movement and if you look at the display in the stairwells, you can’t help but feel like dancing! Fifth grade projects are on display outside the art room downstairs. Their projects are three dimensional, involving objects from nature. Students did leaf pounding for these projects, transferring the leaf ‘pattern’ onto fabric. If you have not seen these projects, stop in!
During lunch recess, groups of students often engage in organized games. We emphasize that these games are to be of a recreational level, played for fun. Students have a wide range of skills in ball handling as well as differing levels of out of school team sport experiences. At the beginning of each year, I meet with students to talk about fair play, choosing fair teams, and maintaining good sportsmanship. These ideas are heavily emphasized by Ms. Vielgut and Mr. Morrill in the Physical Education program, too. Despite these efforts, this year we have seen an increase in the number of arguments, sometimes very heated, that are taking place during some games. While most students are able to focus on playing and having fun, a small group of our students are elevating the conflict level and sometimes a good part of the recess is spent in disagreement. In order to maximize play time, and identify students who need additional learning opportunities in following the rules or showing good sportsmanship, we are implementing a new system.
In this system, supervisors will have red cards (think soccer games) and if they see a student who is disrupting a game with poor sportsmanship or unfair play, the supervisor will hand a red card to that student. The student will go directly to the office for a ten minute cool down period. S/he will talk with an adult in the office. Then, the student will go back outside for whatever remains of the recess. S/he will not be allowed to engage in that game for the rest of the day. If your child is sent into the office more than once, I will let you know and together we will come up with a plan for helping your child develop the needed skills.
On the topic of ball play, third grade students have lost the privilege of bringing personal play balls to school because too many third graders are playing ball games on the blacktop before school. The students have been given many reminders that all games before school have to take place on the grass because of safety concerns with the high traffic on the blacktop. And, earlier this week a student was injured by a flying ball. I will re-visit this in a couple weeks and consider reinstating their privileges. For now, they are to be using classroom balls during recess only.
Thanks for remembering yesterday’s Late Start time. We had almost no before school office visitors!
- Please note the letter from WFB Police Chief Jacobs that addresses the Silver Spring Project.
- Advocates for Education to sponsor state senate candidate forum on education:
Advocates for Education of Whitefish Bay, Inc. will sponsor a forum featuring Sen. Alberta Darling and Rep. Sheldon Wasserman, candidates for Wisconsin's eighth district senate seat, at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23 at the Schlitz Audubon Center, 1111 E. Brown Deer Road, Bayside. The forum is free and open to the public. The forum will be devoted to education issues. Moderators will be Jane Hampden, UWM lecturer in broadcast journalism, former host of WUWM's Lake Effect and Whitefish Bay parent; and Jack Linehan, Executive Director of the Southeastern Wisconsin Schools Alliance (SWSA) and retired Superintendent of Shorewood Schools. Co-sponsoring the event with AFE are the Alliance for Strong Mequon-Thiensville Schools, Shorewood Action for Education and SWSA. All sponsoring organizations are non-partisan and do not endorse candidates in any election.
- A new copier is coming! After its arrival, Johanna will schedule training times for all volunteers. Everyone is required to have training before using the new machine.
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Market Day Fundraiser