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High Desert Montessori School
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER October 30, 2019
10/30/19: 5:00 HDMS Board Meeting 11/2/19: 7:00-9:00 Parents Play Date 11/8/19: 1:00 Early Release 11/11/19: Veteran's Day—No School 11/14/19: 3:45 PTO Meeting 11/15/19: 2:00 Community Gathering 11/15/19: 5:30-7:30 PTO Family Fun Night 11/18/19-11/22/19: Grassroot Books Book Fair 11/20/19: 5:00 HDMS Board Meeting 11/22/19: 1:00 Early Release 11/25/19: Teacher Work Day—No School 11/26/19-11/29/19: Thanksgiving Break—No School 12/6/19: 1:00 Early Release 12/12/19: 5:30 PTO Meeting 12/13/19: A Celebration of Diversity 12/20/19: Teacher Work Day—No School 12/23/19-1/3/20: Winter Break—No School
Notes from the Office Staff
Reminders from the Primary Team
Dear HDMS Community, We had an incredible turnout at Fall parent conferences! Thank you so much for your help by working with your child’s teacher in supporting our goal of family partnerships. As a reminder, if you need to meet with teachers throughout the school year, please email them to set up a time to meet. There are a few simple things that all families can do at home to help support stu-dent academic growth. At the top of the list is always to encourage reading by ei-ther having your child read or spending time reading with your child. There is a saying in education which states, “First you learn to read, then you read to learn.'' This process needs to be supported both at home and school. In addition, having students know how to read and spell basic sight words improves overall literacy skills. In terms of math skills, estimating the cost when going to the store or baking with your children so they understand measurements. Understanding the basic math facts of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are key building blocks for solid math skills. And finally, the school uses an online program called FRECKLE which can be used to support both math and reading skills and is indi-vidualized for each child. Students are welcome to use this program at home and each student has an individual login information. If you do not have your child’s login for FRECKLE, or need basic sight words or math facts information, please contact your child’s teacher. Thank you for your ongoing support of the High Desert Community and have a ter-rific week! Sincerely, Ms. Tammie, Interim Principal
Notes from Ms. Tammie
Reminders from the Lower Elementary Team
Reminders from the Adolescent Team
Reminders from the Upper Elementary Team
Reminders from the Combo Class (Crystal Peak)
Parents’ Play Date - November 2nd @ Bundox Boccee (7:00-10:00pm) Why should the kids have all the fun?! It's time for us parents to have a play date of our own. Don't go to bed at 7:00 pm on a Saturday. Come out to Bundox Boccee at the Renaissance downtown for cocktails, delicious food, darts - and most importantly - boc-ce! Get a sitter, maybe even an overnight one, and hang out with other cool parents, staff and teachers from HDMS.
Friends of HDMS PTO
The Day of the Dead Mural is coming along beautifully! Our Adolescent students have been involved in this process as a Creative Expression class. Check out this article in the RNR and be sure to read to the end to hear what local kids are saying about the piece.
Upcoming Events
Ways a Parent Can Help with Reading: Read mysteries with you child and try to figure out the clues together. Ways a Parent Can Help with Math: Do logic puzzles and/or Sudoku with you child. Stillwater wish list: newspapers
Grassroot Books Book Fair
We will be hosting a book fair again this year through local bookstore Grassroots
Books. We still need 15 volunteers to make this happen! Signup here !
● 50% of supply fees have currently been paid. Our goal is always 100%. If your child’s supply fee has not been paid, you will be re-ceiving an invoice this week. Please contact Ms. Sherrie to make a payment or discuss the option of a payment plan. ● We are going into Winter and want to make sure all families will be notified of a snow day. If you are not receiving the text and or phone calls from the school please contact Ms. Stephanie a.s.a.p. Any ad-dress changes or household changes please fill out a form that you can get at either reception desk. It's very important for us to have the correct information on Infinite Campus for your child. ● When your child misses school it is very important to contact Ms. Laura and let her know. She can be reached at 624-2800 ext. 3 or [email protected]
Day of the Dead Wedekind Mural Progress
● 8th Grade students- it’s time to start looking at high school options and Passport to Success, put on by the Washoe County School District is a great place to start! Our 8th grade students are also busy planning their own field trips to several local High Schools.
● Our Equal Exchange fundraiser has officially kicked off! We plan to use the majority of the proceeds for new science and lan-guage materials. This is the main fundraiser for primary this school year. It is entirely run by the teachers, and we are working hard to make it a success. The classroom goals are $2,100 - $2,400 in sales ($100 per child), so we have a lot of work to do!
Van Seat
NO CANDY AT SCHOOL PLEASE!
Equal Exchange Fundraiser
Equal Exchange’s Fair Trade Fundraising Catalog is filled with delicious organic coffees, cocoas, chocolates, tea and more! Every penny earned goes directly into our Primary classrooms; this is a teacher-run fundraiser. We plan to purchase new classroom materials, add playground equipment, and buy new language materials to support reading. Any extra funds will go toward Montessori ma-terials, and classroom equipment. Please help us support our students by stocking up with items you use every day and buying high quality gifts for your family, friends, coworkers and neighbors. We will earn 40% of each sale! You can order directly from that catalog on the form inside, you can order directly from the primary teachers, or ask for your own catalog. We have extras. Orders are due on Monday, November 18th. Your products should arrive the week of December 9th. Make checks payable to High Desert Montessori School- NOT Equal Exchange. If you have any questions, please email Chrissy at [email protected]
● Lower Elementary has their last 2019 Art Museum trip on No-vember 1st. We need a chaperone and interested children. ● There will be a Chautauqua presentation on Thursday after-noon, October 31st at 2:00pm. ● Thank you to everyone who helped make the Fall Festival a great success!
● Thank you to all the parents who made it to conferences! We are at 97% participation. If you did not make it, we can still reschedule! Please contact us.
In the beginning of each school year, Elementary teachers tell the great stories, also known as the great lessons. For the next five weeks, we will be sharing a synopsis of each of these great lessons. First is the Story of Creation:
The Story of Creation of the Universe describes how minerals and chemicals formed the elements; how matter transforms to three states of solid, liquid and gas; how particles joined together and formed the earth; how heavier particles sank to Earth’s core and volcanoes erupted; how mountains were formed and the atmosphere condensed into rain, creating oceans, lakes and rivers. Students are introduced to lessons in physics, astronomy, geology, and chemistry. For exam-ple, they learn about light, heat, convection currents, gravity, galaxies, planetary systems, Earth’s crust, volcanoes, erosion, climate and physical geography.
Crayola ColorCycle is now at HDMS!!
Halloween Reminder
As a reminder, please do not send your child to school in a costume. Please also remind your child that we have a firm “No Candy” policy at HDMS.
Family Fun Night - November 15th @ Orovada Campus (5:00-7:00pm) Come join us for a night of fun and games! Bring a snack, craft, game, or just hang out.
PTO Clothing Drive - Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your donations! We are still collecting clothes until November 8th; if you need a donation bag please ask Dawn or Laura, please fill as many bags as you would like! If you have any questions or would like to vol-unteer to help transport bags, please contact Midori Ishibashi Wall at 936-525-0097; [email protected]
Wanted: Do you have a large truck or trailer? Are you available November 8th? We need to transport all our clothing drive do-nations a short distance and are in need of a way to do this. Don’t have a truck but still want to help? Please let us know if you can help load donations. Please contact Midori Ishibashi Wall at 936-525-0097; [email protected] Thank you in advance!
Amazon Smile
Remember, to designate HDMS as your charity of choice when you shop on Amazon! It doesn’t cost you anything but the donations add up!
High Desert Montessori School will be putting on a produc-tion of “Maria Montessori: The Musical” this school year! If your child is interested in participating, auditions will be held after the early release on Friday, November 8th at 1:30 at the Orovada Campus. Interested students should be pre-pared to sing a memorized 1 minute segment of any school appropriate song. Questions? Contact Ms. Kristina at [email protected]
Maria Montessori: The Musical
The Sierra Classroom’s bunny, Blue, has upgraded to a larger cage. Two of our students are or-ganizing a bake sale on Wednes-day, November 6 after school, to raise money for some new toys and entertainment for Blue.
● This week, Sierra students are wrapping up their first project of the year- a study of Indigenous Tribes in Nevada's History.
Sierra wish list: We are in need of a small step stool, and 2 small bookshelves (2-3 shelves- 3' tall)
● As discussed during conferences, several students should be working on math with Freckle 3 times a week: Operations & Algebraic Thinking for 4th and 5th grad-ers and Number Systems for 6th graders. ● If it was discussed during conferences, 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders should be prac-ticing math facts (addition, subtraction, multiplication) & working on sight words.
Crazy question, but does anyone out there have the back bench (the bench that seats 4 people) to a Ford Econoline van between the years of 1997 and 2007? The Aces van we are using has the attach-ment brackets and seatbelts for a back seat and we could fit 14 students instead of 10 if we can get our hands on a back bench! Please contact Ms. Laura or Ms. Dawn if you have one we can use or have!
Great Lessons
The Sierra Classroom is bringing Crayola ColorCycle to HDMS! ColorCycle is an amazing program devised to repurpose used markers rather than sending them to landfills!
The ColorCycle program has repurposed more than 70 tons of expended markers in the United States and Canada since 2013, and uses the most advanced plas-tic conversion technologies available today to make wax compounds for asphalt and roofing shingles as well as to generate electricity that can be used to heat
homes, cook food, and power vehicles.
New Dance Class for Primary Aged Children