Hawks g

Heights

October 2017

Volume 1 Issue 2

NONDISCRIMINATION: The Clarkston School District does not discriminate in any programs or activities on the basis of sex, race,

creed, religion, color, national origin, age, veteran or military status, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, disability, or the

use of a trained dog guide or service animal and provides equal access to the Boy Scouts and other designated youth groups. The

following employee has been designated to handle questions and complaints of alleged discrimination: Title IX Coordinator, Jim Fry,

Executive Director of Human Resources, 1294 Chestnut, Clarkston, WA 99403 (509)758-2531 fryj@csdk12.org; Section 504/ADA

Dear Heights Families,

The Heights Elementary community has successfully launched the new

school year. This year the goal for our school is for the:

Heights Community of students, staff and families will

increase engagement through student’s ownership of

learning.

That team includes ALL school staff, students and all of YOU who are

reading this newsletter. To assist YOU in being part of the team, con-

ferences are scheduled for Monday, October 9 – Friday, October 13.

Students will have lunch at school and be released at NOON each day.

During the conference you can expect your child’s teacher to share spe-

cific academic data and instructional plans.

Families, we need your help in creating a smooth, safe start to the day.

If you drop off your student at school, please:

ALWAYS pull as far forward as you can in the drive.

NEVER park or let your student out in the NO PARKING ZONE.

ENCOURAGE your student to be prepared to exit the car quickly

once you stop your vehicle.

Thanks for your help in making Heights the BEST place for kids!

Have a great month,

Mrs. Ogden

ogdens@csdk12.org

Upcoming Events

October 5th - Hawkathon

October 6th - No School

October 9th - 13th

Conferences - early release

October 18th

Picture Re-take Day

October 25th - 30th - Book Fair

October 25th

Heights Night with the warriors

at LCSC

Inland Cellular

Rogers Toyota-Scion

Happy Day corporation

Early Bird Supply

Eye Care Specialists

P1FCU

Brava's

White Appraisal Service

Lazer Heating & A/C

Advisor Central Professionals

Mike's HVAC

Clarkston Auto Sales

Clarkston Vet Clinic

B&E Electric

Crow Electric

Lacey Port - Century21

Jetco Machine & Fabrication

Tendercare

Hillcrest Aircraft Company

Valley Car Sales

SEL

Big Country

Nail Art

We All Scream For Hawkathon!

Thank you to our 2017 Sponsors!

The students blew their goal out of the water by raising $17,443.58! Thank you to all the students that participated and for helping us reach our goal. Prizes will be awarded in the

next few weeks.

Hawkathon Fun Run will be Oct. 5th starting at 10 AM. We encourage everyone to come and run with their students to promote fitness and celebrate our success in fundraising.

Library News

The library is in full swing! Checkouts, returns, and renewals, oh my! We are also busy preparing for the upcoming Fall Book Fair and PTA Family Bingo Night. BINGO for

BOOKS is Wednesday, October 25th from 6-8pm, please mark your calendar and come to this special event. You can even shop the book fair that night in the gym and have tons of

fun with the guest bingo callers. You never know what wonderful prize you might win…!!

The Fall Scholastic Book Fair will run from Thursday, October 26th through Monday the 30th until 3:30 each day. The students may shop the book fair during their scheduled class

library time, after school with an adult until 3:30pm, or with a pass from their teach-er. There are lots of opportunities to see the book fair, please feel free to come and shop with your student! Remember, books make great Halloween treats!! In addition, if you

can’t attend the Family Night Event, you can shop online for a huge selection of books and the school still gets credit! Please visit: www.scholastic.com/bf/heightselementary from

October 18th – November 7th, all purchases at the live book fair and online benefit our school! There is even FREE shipping on all online purchases! (The books are shipped to

Heights Library and sent home with your student.)

SPOILER ALERT: watch for the upcoming book fair coloring contest!

I can’t wait for the Scholastic Fall Book Fair and the PTA Family Fun Night, I hope to see you all there!

Ms. Savolainen, Heights Librarian

NO SCHOOL

There will be no school on

October 6th for Professional

Development Day. Have a

fun and safe Friday!

EARLY RELEASE

There will be early release at

noon on October 9th - 13th for

student conferences. Lunch will

be served each day.

Dear Magic “C” Bunny

Please welcome Magic “C” Bunny back to Heights Elementary School. He is an expert consultant regarding all matters surrounding the mysteries of good handwriting. He has been busy visiting

classrooms and observing students during writing assignments. He works closely with the school Occupational Therapist, Miss Michelle, and both are available to answer questions and give helpful advice about how students can improve the neatness and legibility of their written work. Magic “C” Bunny has lots of ideas about how written work will improve when students learn about letter for-mation, pencil grasp, and good posture. He is eager to begin sharing his ideas with students, staff,

and parents in his advice column, “Dear Magic “C” Bunny”.

Dear Magic “C” Bunny: Sometimes when I hold my pencil, I’m not sure where my fingers should go. I try lots of different ways to hold my pencil or crayon, but nothing feels right. Can

you show me what to do? ~Fumble Fingers

Dear Fumble Fingers: It is wonderful that you are asking such an important question! The way you hold your pencil or crayon is very important and definitely worth doing correctly. Since my

paws don’t have thumbs, I can’t show you in person, but I have included a picture to help you out. Basically, you should hold your pencil gently between the tips of your pointer finger and thumb,

with the pencil resting on your middle finger. Since your ring finger and pinky finger are not good at writing, they should just curl up and nap while you write, color, or draw.

Music

The 5th and 6th grade band students are off to a great start this year. Have you heard your student practicing at home yet? If not, ask them to share what they have learned so far! You will be im-pressed with the progress they make in a short time. The music room is open 3:00pm - 3:30pm on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for students to practice.

Please remind your child to bring their instrument, book, and binders on band days.

Woodwinds (flutes, clarinets, and saxophones) - Monday and Thursday

Brass (trumpets, trombones, and percussion) - Tuesday and Friday

We will sometimes have "all band" on Fridays. Your child will know ahead of time when this will occur.

The 5th and 6th grade students will be performing a singing concert on Wednesday, November 1 at 7:00pm in the Clarkston High School Auditorium. The program will feature the music of Jazz and Swing! We hope you can join us!

The 4th graders have recently started playing their recorders, and some of them can already play songs! If you hear your child "squeaking" remind them to blow less, and make sure their fingers are covering the holes completely! Loa Vornholt

Heights Music Teacher

Clarkston School District 509-758-8180

Halloween Parties

Please NO costumes with weapons, blood or gore.

Costumes should be appropriate for school and

follow the dress code.

Children will have time to change into their cos-

tumes, however costumes with easy assembling

are recommended.

Parents may attend the Halloween party. Contact

your child’s teacher for more details.

First Grade - Mrs. Leavitt & Mrs. Gettys

First graders are practicing new classroom routines and procedures. They enjoy making friends

with classmates from other classes!

We are creating an Animal Alphabet Book. This project combines state standards from several

subjects:

The big science idea is animal classification. Students are learning the names of the animal families (mammal, reptile, fish, bird, amphibian, and arthropod) and characteristics of each group (fur, feathers, scales, skin, number of legs...).

Students read, write, and spell high frequency words as we write about an animal for each letter of the alphabet.

Students are learning about writing conventions. They make complete sentences, using cap-ital letters at the beginning of each sentence and ending with punctuation.

We discuss reading comprehension strategies as we make connections to animals that we read about and see in the world around us. We use art concepts such as color, geometric shapes, and different types of lines, back-

ground, and perspective as we draw the animals in their habitats.

We are beginning to focus on the reading comprehension strategy of asking questions. Good

readers are actively involved with the text and its meaning as they read. They continually inter-

act with the text, asking themselves questions in response to the words on the page. This self-

questioning guides and engages readers, and promotes deeper thinking about the text.

Math

Introducing number lines Show how to decompose a number by making jumps of 10 and 1. Tree diagram to match our bar models

Kindergarten - Ms. Gonzales & Mrs. Call Kindergarten students are hard at work! Students have been practicing retelling simple stories and pictures using the sequence of events (beginning, middle, and end). Your child can prac-tice this skill at home by retelling favorite stories using the prompt: “First, Next, Then, Last”.

In Math, students are working on matching sets or quantities to the correct number. To do this, students must be able to correctly count items one-to-one, and also be able to recognize or write the number that corresponds to their amount.

Second Grade - Mrs. Aeling & Mrs. Ledgerwood

Welcome to all. It is a pleasure to get to know your student. We have several new fami-

lies joining us this school year.

We are off and running with reading, math and writing. Your student has started to bring

library books home to extend their reading practice and spelling words are coming too. In

writing, we are working on sequence in stories writing narratives.

As the weather changes, please label your student’s coats and other items. We try to keep

students and their things together, labeling really helps all of us!

Third Grade - Ms. Benson & Mrs. Graham

Third graders are hard at work learning to identifying important events while they re-tell

the first part of the book War With Grandpa.

During math they continue to build addition and subtraction models while learning to use

expanded form with hundreds, tens, and ones.

The students are becoming meteorologists, they are examining weather patterns, clouds

types, shapes, and locations.

We are also writing small moments in our lives while practicing the writing process.

Thank you for your support!

Fifth Grade - Mrs. Daniel, Ms. Drew, and Mrs. Skelton

After the first few weeks of reviewing behavior and academic expectations, fifth graders are in full learning mode! We appreciate the hard work being done at home to ensure students are: coming to school each day rested and ready to learn, receiving help with homework as needed, and spending some time talking to you about what they are learning in class each week.

In math this month we will continue working towards the learning target: “I can add and sub-tract fractions with un-like denominators”. We have learned several strategies to help with this including drawing a bar model to show equivalent fractions as well as using an equation to make equivalent fractions.

In writing this Trimester fifth graders are working on Opinion Writing. So far we’ve looked at examples of good opinion writing and have identified the organizational elements of an effec-tive opinion essay. We will be using the identified elements to help us as we begin to write an opinion essay of our own.

We look forward to sharing with you at Parent Teacher Conferences how your child is doing in class and showing you some of the amazing work they’ve been doing! If you didn’t see a conference request in your child’s Hawk Folder already, please contact your child’s teacher to confirm your conference date and time.

Thank you again for your support!

Fourth Grade - Mr. Anderson, Mrs. Huff & Mrs. Mattoon

For reading, we continue to work on our oral fluency skills. Also, for our book study, we are

reading the book, Shiloh, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. We are using the C.I.A. approach

(collect, interpret, and apply). We are now interpreting the text using comprehension strate-

gies to get to deeper thinking and recognizing key words or phrases being repeated in the text.

In math, our classes are developing understanding and fluency with multi-digit multiplication

and division.

Science is now underway and we are learning the processes that shape the Earth’s surface.

In Social Studies, we are exploring the Geographical Formation of Washington.

DECA projects are due Thursday, October 26th and the 17th Annual Entrepreneurship Devel-

opment Conference will be November 2nd at CHS. On October 9th from 6:00pm-7:30pm at

CHS in the Cafeteria/Adam’s Building, the DECA students will be available to help and an-

swer any questions.

Sixth Grade– Mrs. Lower, Mrs. Eacret & Mrs. Hobson

Teacher Reading Writing Math Science or Social

Studies

Eacret

We are interpret-ing key phrases to

help find the theme of The

Westing Game.

All 6th grade stu-dents are work-ing on identify-ing evidence to support argu-

mentative writ-ing. We are also

beginning the editing process.

All 6th grade stu-dents are using

reasoning to solve unit rates

and describe rela-tionships between

proportions.

We are studying human body sys-tems and how to

interpret data.

Hobson

We are collecting evidence for the author’s message in Maniac Magee.

We are studying the components

of mountain eco-systems.

Lower

We are looking for underlying

themes in Harry Potter and the

Sorcerer’s Stone.

We are studying ancient Egyptian

society.

How Parents Can Help at

Home

Set aside time to read at home each

night. This is homework for 6th graders, but more importantly, helps create a positive lifelong habit.

Argue with your child. Give

them evidence for your posi-

tion. Ask them to provide evi-dence for their

position as well. This will help them develop

data-driven ar-guments as well

as counter-claims.

Take your child shopping with

you. Ask them to find the better deal on some-

thing by finding the unit price.

They can also do this by looking at weekly store ads.

Ask your child how he or she

thinks our science or social studies class work ap-

plies to our lives. Practicing mak-ing connections helps build civic engagement and

community awareness.