School Notes Buchanan Families,

Happy New Year to our amazing Buchanan Community! As we ring in the New Year, please

take a moment to review your child’s first semester academic performance with regards to

our standards based report card. This report card provides valuable information about how

your child is progressing towards the mastery of year-end standards. The Teacher Comment

section provides you with some excellent information on how to continue support at home to

develop a stronger academic foundation for your child.

Buchanan Elementary will be participating in the 2018 Great Kindness Challenge again this

year. This is a national program that promotes kindness with its positive and proactive anti-

bullying initiative to empower and encourage our students to create a culture of kindness

here at Buchanan. Acts of kindness include not only being kind to yourself, others, animals

and the earth. We are excited about this challenge and know our students will rise above and

continue to promote a culture of acceptance and tolerance here at Buchanan.

We are thrilled to be offering many performing arts opportunities for our students as we

begin the second semester. First grade students will be exposed to Musical Theatre by

learning various songs from “The Sound of Music”. We are happy to announce that our Ball-

room Dancing is back for its second year exposing 2nd graders to this wonderful genre of

dance. Third graders will be learning cartooning while our 4th graders learn how to play the

recorders. Our 5th grade band will continue and we look forward to the amazing growth of

these students as they learn the craft of their musical instrument.

Good things are happening at Buchanan Elementary!

Jennifer Randel and Jim Curtis

Did you know.....

Buchanan Spelling Bee winners are Austin Butterfield and Gabriel Luevanos

No school Monday, January 15th in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

No school Tuesday, January 16th for Professional Development Day for staff

Music gives wings to the mind and flight to the imagination

Jennifer Randel, Principal Jim Curtis, Assistant Principal

School Office Hours

Mon - Fri

7:45am - 3:45 pm

No School

Winter Break

December 25th

through

January 16th

Students Return

Wed., January 17th

Useful Links

School Website

School Calendar

Lunch Menus

School Handbook

Peach Jar Flyers

Upcoming Friday

Spirit Assemblies

January 19

at 8:30am

in the

amphitheater

January 2018

Growth Mindset Quote “We find comfort among those who agree with us, and growth among those who don’t.”

— Frank A. Clark

Student Lunches and Cafeteria Meals

Due to parent concerns and health/food allergies, students and parents should not share lunches with other students. Parents who join their student during lunch time will eat with their student at the tables under the blue canvas cover.

Student Meal Prices: Breakfast - Full Pay $1.50 Reduced price $.30 Lunch - Full Pay $2.50 Reduced price $.40 Milk or Juice - $.50 Bottled Water - $.75 Free and reduced lunch applications are to be completed online at www.fma.murrieta.k12.ca.us or you can pick up an application in the school office. Parents can make payments to lunch accounts at www.myschoolbucks.com

Buchanan’s Reading Round-Up!

For the month of November, Buchanan read a total of 251,866

minutes with a grand total of 454,426 minutes read to date. Our

school wide reading incentive program for the

2017/2018 school year will end in March. Will Mrs.

Randel dress like a chicken and perform the chicken dance? With

only 4 months left to go, the reading team is feeling very confi-

dent! We sure hope Mrs. Randel has been practicing her dancing!

Happy Reading!

Give your child the best start to the day— Be a H.E.R.O.

Here, Everyday, Ready, On time

Remember, the bell rings to line up at 8:20 am each morning for grades 1-5.

Please be sure to drop your children off at school on time. Prompt attendance is

crucial to maximize student learning. Arriving to school just five minutes late

each morning adds up to nearly three full days of missed instruction over the course of the

school year! Thank you for your support.

Author and Artist of the Month

The following students were honored at our December 15th Friday

Spirit Assembly. Their work is being showcased in our library.

Artist of the Month

TK: none Kinder: A student in (Knott) 1st: A student in (Davis)

2nd: A Student in (Richardson) 3rd: Asucena Martinez Fierroz (Zeitman) 4th: Jazlene Gillespie (Adams)

5th: Ashlee Tamez (Lyda)

Author of the Month

TK: none Kinder: A Student in (McWhorter) 1st: Emmalyn Micale (Cato)

2nd: Malea Caban (Hagen) 3rd: Lucca Caban (Morgan) 4th: Caitlin Turner (Adams)

5th: Erika Kirk (Williams)

The Great Kindness Challenge

All kids deserve to learn in a safe, supportive and

caring environment. The Great Kindness Challenge

provides a powerful tool that actively engages

students, teachers, administrators, families, and

communities in creating a culture of compassion,

acceptance, unity, and respect.

The Great Kindness Challenge is one week dedicat-

ed to creating a culture of kindness on campuses

nationwide. Our school is proudly participating in

this proactive, positive bullying prevention initiative.

All students will receive a GKC checklist of 50 kind

acts. Please encourage your child to complete the

checklist and show the world that …

KINDNESS MATTERS!

www.greatkindnesschallenge.org

Classroom Counseling Lessons During the first semester of this school year, every class received lessons to build social skills

and skills for learning. In K-1, we began with lessons on listening and focusing attention. The

current unit is focused on understanding feelings in ourselves and others. In 2nd grade, stu-

dents have been learning about empathy and compassion and have begun a unit on

emotion management to help identify emotions and learn coping skills that can be used

when having strong feelings. Students in grades 3-5, started the year with the bully preven-

tion unit to properly define bullying and steps a supportive bystander can take if they are

aware of a bullying situation. All of our curriculum is researched based and addresses a

variety of skills and social situations that students may encounter and learn ways to suc-

cessfully navigate their world and relationships with their peers.

Positive Behavioral Supports Moment – Be Kind to Others

As we come back from a long winter break,

I want to remind all in the Buchanan community

of what it means to follow the Blazer Way. It

means to Be Respectful, Be Responsible, and Be

Safe. Within these three ‘B’s’ lies the entire

platform of the Buchanan culture. Being responsible means

following the school rules. Being safe means making sure that

you are doing things to yourself and others that keeps you out of

harm’s way. But it is the underlying meaning of being respectful

that I want to focus on this month.

Being respectful does not have to be a complicated concept.

At its simplest, all it means is to be kind to others. Whether it

be ‘The Golden Rule’ of treating others the way you want to be

treated, or simply saying a kind word; a

Buchanan community with a population of

kind students who care about each other is

a school that all students will want to attend and be a part of.

Later this month Buchanan Elementary will be participating in

the Great Kindness Challenge. What can you do to make Buchanan

a place where kindness becomes habit forming? One habit of

kindness we can all start with is as simple as a smile. The simple

act of looking at someone and smiling can turn

their entire day around. We look forward to

seeing an abundance of Blazer smiles as we

return in January, and we will challenge ourselves

to perform acts of kindness each and every day.

Important Safety Reminders

Drop-off is 8:00-8:25am for grades 1-5.

Morning TK/K begins promptly at 8:20 am,

Afternoon TK/K begins promptly at 11:00am.

Each morning when the 8:25am TARDY

BELL rings, staff members will be at each

entry gate to give out tardy slips and

teachers will send any student not in class

or on their line to the office for a tardy slip.

Pick-up is 2:35 pm for grades 1-3.

Grades 4-5 is 2:40 pm. Afternoon K is 2:35

pm. No staff is available to watch students

before 8:00am and after 3:00pm.

Students need to be picked up by 3:00pm.

If you need supervision after 3pm, child

care is available on campus for a fee. Please

call our Family Services at 951-304-1623

for more information if you are interested

in before or after school child care.

Safety in the Loop

Please remember to keep

moving up in the loop as cars

leave and do not leave your

car unattended. Our goal is

to keep our children safe!

Box Top

Contest

Remember to turn in your Box Tops. The

next contest has started and will end Feb.

23rd. The winning classroom from each

grade will get to play a nation ball game with

Mrs. Randel and Mr. Curtis.

Check the Box Tops for Education website

Celebration Policy

Per MVUSD policy

regarding food allergies,

any food brought on cam-

pus to be shared with

other students needs to

have prior approval from

school personnel.

As an alternative suggestion to food for student

celebrations (i.e. birthdays), you may donate a

book to the classroom or school library honoring

your student. Another idea is to bring in a

goody bag (with no food items) or a non-food

treat for each student in the class.

Thank you for adhering to this policy for the

safety of all students and staff.

Coffee and Conversation with Our EL Families

Join us on Wednesday,

January 24th at 8:30am in Room

E3

Murrieta Valley Unified School District

2018 -2019 SCHOOL REGISTRATION TIMELINE

NOTE: Intra Transfer Requests between schools within the Murrieta Valley School District

are processed at the school site. Please submit the request at the school site that you are

requesting.

Please check the district website for Enrollment/Registration Information. *Listed under Parents @

http://www.murrieta.k12.ca.us

We hope that this information will help in your planning for the 2018-2019 school year. If you have any

questions, please contact your school office.

Thank you,

Administrative Team

Murrieta Valley Unified School District

November

6

School Sites Accept NEW Intra-District Trans requests.

*Intra-District = A transfer between schools in the MVUSD

January

8

District accepts New and Renewal Inter-District Transfers

February

1

Online Pre-enrollment begins for all students new to the Murrieta Valley

Unified School District, including Transitional Kindergarten and Kinder-

garten students.

February

13

Final day of Open Enrollment for New or Renewal of Inter-District transfer requests.

February

13

Final day to submit (NEW) INTRADISTRICT transfer requests at the

School Site.

March

6

Onsite enrollment appointments begin for Transitional Kindergarten, Kindergarten and New enrollees. Please contact the school site to make an

appointment to complete registration and turn in documents such as, birth

certificate/verification of age, immunization records, verification of residen-

cy and more depending on the grade level of your student.

June 15 Open Enrollment INTRA-district and INTER-district Transfer notifica-

tions to parents will be sent no later than this date.

*All other transfers that are turned in after 2/13/18 will be consid-

ered case by case

PTA - Save the Date

Mother/Son Dance

Friday, January 26, 2018

PTA - Save the Date

Father/Daughter Dance

Friday, February 9, 2018

Buchanan Elementary Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1

2 3 4 5

6

7 8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Martin Luther

King, Jr

Holiday

16

Staff Development

Day

17 Students Return

5th Grade Band

18 Running Club

Drama Club

19 Spirit Assembly

5th Grade Band

20

21 22

Early Release

23 Running Club

The Kaleidoscope

Chorus rehearses

24 5th Grade Band

Coffee & Conversa-

tion with EL Families

PTA Jersey Mike

Fundraiser

25 Running Club

Drama Club

26 5th Grade Band

PTA Mother/Son

Dance

27

28 29 Early Release

30 Running Club

The Kaleidoscope

Chorus rehearses

31 5th Grade Band

Winter Break - No School

December 25 through January 16

The Great Kindness Challenge Week 2018