Berthoud Eagle

Principal to Parent

March 2013

Thank you to all of our families who participated in our Parent-Teacher Conferences in February. The opportunity to partner with you in order to best meet your childs needs is critical to their success at school. I am so proud of the learning I see taking place in each classroom and the great support at home with practicing what is learned in reading, writing and math. You are making a huge impact on your childs future with your commitment to that support! This month we will conclude our Transitional Colorado Assessment Program, formerly CSAP, by continuing our testing of third grade students in math and writing; our fourth and fifth grade students will be tested in reading, math and writing; and fifth grade will also have three hours of testing in science. These tests are fairly comprehensive and give us great information about how each student is progressing in all of these academic standards. It also assists us in evaluating our curriculum and instructional practices. Additionally, all schools are evaluated on their progress toward the state goals of having virtually all students meeting proficiency standards in reading, math, writing and science by 2013. For all of these reasons it is important for each student to be present and do their very best to show what they know on these exams. We want our students to approach the tests with excitement about this opportunity to do great work, but not anxiety about this being for a grade or something of which to be fearful. Please help your student do his or her best by getting a good nights sleep, a hearty breakfast and having a healthy attitude each day! It is especially helpful if appointments are made after school hours during the two weeks we will be testing. Many of our days will have testing in both the morning and afternoon. Hopefully we will all stay healthy during testing! Our actual testing days: Third grade: March 12th, 13th, 20th & 21st Fourth grade: March 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st & 22nd Fifth grade: March 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st & 22nd Mrs. LoJeske

In This Issue Letter from the Principal p.1 Parent & School Information p.2
Clubs, Next Year Placement, Box Tops, Art Show, Thank You, Childrens Day, Book Fair Update

News From p.4

Cafeteria, Health Office, Library,

Thompson School District News Monthly Calendar p.5 All Day Kindergarten Flier Event Fliers p.6 Box Tops sheet p.7 PTA Newsletter p.8

Reminders p.3
Summer Bridge, Spirit Days, TCAP, Student Safety, Schools on the Move, Jog-A-Thon Schedule

After School Clubs Please remind your students when they have a club and be sure to tell them the plans for getting home after! We will announce the clubs each day over the intercom to remind students to attend. Students will be released in to the front hall at the end of clubs at 4:50p, so please be there to pick them up if that is the transportation plan! Also make sure siblings know how they are to get home after school when another sibling is in club. Remember the office staff leaves at 4p and there will not be anyone to answer the phones after that so it is crucial that the students know the plan for getting home safely. Thank you and we look forward to another successful year of fun and bonding with our students during Clubs!

Class Placements for Next Year

Many factors are included in the complex process of designing class lists. We use academic and social needs, parental input, gender balance, learning styles and dynamics created when certain children are grouped together. A Parent Input form, which is used to provide us with information about your childs specific needs, is now available in the front office if you wish to have additional information considered in the process. Please return it to the office by April 12th and please do not request a specific teacher.

Box Tops Update Great job everyone! With this months Box Tops submission reaching almost $500, we have collected $1614 for this school year. We still have a few more months and our goal of $2,000 is within reach! Remember to use the Box Tops collection worksheet at the end of this newsletter to attach your box tops. You can send them to school in your child's folder or turn into the VITAL Room. Every Box Tops submitted is money for our school. Thank you for your suport! Jessica Mazzei & Melissa Tychsen Thompson School District Annual Art Show
The Thompson School District Student Art Show will take place from March 2nd April 14th at the Loveland Art Museum. This years show title is Look. Think. Make. Connect! March 2nd from 1pm-3pm will be an opening reception; March 8th from 6pm-8pm is the Night on the Town workshop (students can make an art project at the museum this night); April 14th is closing day. Our Berthoud Elementary Art Department is happy to announce the following students that will have their self portrait art work created with colored pencils framed and displayed at the Annual Thompson School District Art Show: Tyler Holden, Sarah Kouns, Gavin Wolf, and Logan Kilgroe.

A Big Thank You Goes To:

Suzy Bullett and Kari Holden for chairing the Book Fair, and all volunteers who made it run so smoothly! Toni Cox and the other parent volunteers who prepared a fantastic dinner for teachers and staff during the first week of parent/teacher conferences. All of our families who made it to Parent Teacher conferences last month! Our great 3rd grade students & teachers who did a super job completing the reading part of the TCAP! Everyone involved with the great After School Clubs!

Childrens Day
Childrens Day started several years ago in Loveland, when local senior citizen Annie Hall had it proclaimed at the local and state levels. This year April 24th has been designated as Childrens Day.

Scholastic Book Fair Update

Thank you everyone who helped make the Book Fair a huge success. We had over $7,000 in sales which gave the school over $4,400 in scholastic dollars. The school can use the dollars to buy books and other equipment for the school. You also gave over $100 in the all for books donations. Scholastic will match that in books for the schools affected by Hurricane Sandy The book fair chairs would especially like to thank Emily Carder and Carri Grimditch who spent time writing AR levels for the books. Also to Mrs. Kouns who allowed us to take over the library for 10 days so that we could have the book fair available for the entire conference time. Thank you -- Kari and Suzy

Summer Bridge Workbooks

During conferences order forms were available to order a Summer Bridge book for your child/children. Contact your childs teacher if you did not receive an order form or stop in to the office to pick one up. Please turn in your order form by March 5th.

Spirit Day
Our spirit day will be on Friday, March 22nd; mismatched clothing. Be fun and creative in your gear!

Transitional Colorado Assessment Program (TCAP)

Our third, fourth and fifth grade students will be tested in reading, writing and math, and fifth grade will also be tested in science. The testing window will be from March 11th through March 29th. As you can see, it will be a very busy time and we appreciate your efforts to schedule any appointments or trips outside of the testing time.

Student Safety
We take the safety of our students very seriously and consider this an area of constant focus. We will be keeping the front doors locked at all times (our other outside doors have been kept locked for years), you will need to wait by the far left door for the click to open the door after the front office buzzes you in. If we are busy, please knock on the window to get our attention and we will assist you as soon as possible. Also remember to check in with the front office if you are going to be in the building. To walk the hallways you must have a visitor's name tag or your volunteer badge on. You must do this during all school times, even if you just want to pop into a teachers class at the end of the day and go through the building, you will need a name tag. Our hours of operation are 8am-4pm; doors will remain locked without entrance at all other times unless you have an appointment with a staff member or teacher. If you forget homework and are outside of our normal hours you will have to wait until the next business day. Thank you for helping us to keep the school a safe place for all!

Schools On The Move Challenge

Students and staff need to complete the form and have it returned back to school no later than March 5, 2012 to receive prizes. For participation alone you just have to complete one check, answer all questions on the back, and have a parent signature. If you have any questions, please contact our PE teacher, Tim Jones at 613-6289.

Get Pumped! The Jog-a-thon is coming on April 11th! All parents and family members are welcome to join the students in walking and/or running laps in the school yard. You will soon be receiving information regarding pledges and prizes. This is a great spring fundraiser and all proceeds will go towards funding for healthy activities for our students. Students and families usually have a great time participating and volunteering! Please consider helping out in any way you can. Below is the schedule. If you have any questions, please contact Cecilia at jdoylee@aol.com or 532-5514. Jog-a-thon Schedule: 4th Grade: 8:55-9:55 2nd Grade: 9:55-10:55 KB and 3rd Grade: 10:55-11:55 5th Grade: 12:50-1:50 KC and KA: 1:50-2:50 1st Grade: 2:50-3:50 *All students will have an instruction, warm-up, laps, and then a cool down before returning to their normal specials schedule*

Cafeteria News
Only 3 more months left of school. TCAP testing is coming up later this month, so be sure to have a wholesome breakfast and lunch for your children to make it a better day for them. Just a reminder breakfast is being served starting at 8:25 a.m. If your child is a bus rider and is running late they can still come in and get a Grab and Go breakfast. Children on Free/Reduced lunch can come in and have breakfast for free, so take advantage of this offer. Also, please contact me if it is a struggle to pay for breakfast and lunch for your child. You may be eligible for Free/Reduced meals. Having a good meal will help your child learn. -- Monica Koldewyn, 970-613-7508

Health Office News

To keep the germs from spreading, please be sure to keep your students home if they are sick and teach good hygiene habits for washing hands, eating well, and being active. District Health Policies: If your child has had a fever of 100 or more, they must be fever free without medication (Tylenol, Ibuprofen, etc.) for 24 hours prior to returning to school. For pink eye, your child must be on prescription eye drops for 24 hours before returning to school. For vomiting and diarrhea, we request that your child be symptom free for 24 hours before returning to school, if your child is unable to control their diarrhea at school we will call to have them be picked up. Healthy Tip Make Time: Set the alarm to allow 10-15 unhurried minutes for breakfast. Suggest several healthy breakfast items, and let your child choose. Tip: Have him/her eat breakfast at school, where we have healthy choices and time to eat with friends.
Brought to you by Nutrition Nuggets 2007 Resources for Education, a division of Aspen Publishers, Inc.

Library News - Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Dr. Seusss birthday is March 2. He will be in our author spotlight this month and will be the center of most classs library activities. Thank you to everyone that came out to support the book fair and to PTA for organizing this annual event! PTA was able to get A LOT of books for our library collection, including two copies of The Lego Book! Kindergarten continues exploring different literary genres. Weve added poetry in March and in addition to Dr. Seusss whacky rhymes, well be learning Dennis Lees poem Alligator Pie. You can make your own alligator pie, click here: alligator pie Second graders just completed a unit on Bartholomew and the Oobleck, by Dr. Seuss, and BEGGED me to give their parents the oobleck website we used! Click here: Oobleck fun! Fifth graders are making timelines of events leading up to the Revolutionary War. We are using The History Channel website as a jumping off point. Click here to watch a video: British policies ~ Mrs. Kouns

THOMPSON SCHOOL DISTRICT NEWS

ST-EMS Registration opens April 8th, 2013!

Parents: Registration for Summer in Thompson Experiences in Math and Science (ST-EMS) will open April 8, 2013. All students currently in kindergarten through 5 th grade are eligible to participate. Classes will be June 10-15 and June 17-21 and run from 9am to noon. The location of ST-EMS this year will be determined soon. All registration is online this year. Be sure to check the TSD homepage beginning in April for more information and for a link to the registration page (http://www.thompson.k12.co.us/). You will also be able to register at the TSD Administration building, 800 S Taft Ave, Loveland, CO 80537. Families who are eligible for free or reduced meals will be offered half-price tuition.

Monthly Glance
March 5 7 8 10 11 12 18 19 22 4/1-4/5 7:30 PTA; executive meeting End of 2nd Trimester No School; teacher work day Daylight Savings Time Begins; remember to turn your clock ahead 1 hour CSAP TESTING 3/11-3/29 4:00 PTA; general meeting 4th Grade Field Trip 4:00 SAAC meeting Spirit Day: Mismatched Clothing Spring Break; No School

March 1st is the deadline to purchase tickets for $45. Otherwise, you can still purchase tickets this weekend for $50.00. Purchase tickets online by going to www.berthoudbash.org.

BOX TOP SHEET

PTA March Newsletter