January 28
Muskrat News
Upcoming events:
February 2 Writing Club 3pm
February 2 4/5 Planting Project at the Dunn Farm 12:45pm
February 3 ICP Board meeting 7pm
February 3&4 NO SCHOOL/Grading
February 3 NO Scratch or Homework Club
February 10 Hatfield Marine Science Center Trip Grades 1-5 / 8:30-4:30
February 18 Bookmobile 2-3:15pm
February 21 Snow day make up SCHOOL IS IN
February 21 Kinder Field Trip to the OSU Lambing Barns
March 3 Play at LBCC, All School 9:30-11:30am
From our Executive Director
We will stay with Organization as our LIFESKILL of the week for this next 3-day week. All of us felt we could stand a little more time working on being organized. At our Wednesday community meeting we told the students how important it is to all of us to put things where they belong in a neat and orderly fashion.
On Thursday teachers will be completing report cards on all students. Cedar will attempt to get all reports pulled together and in your mailbox here at school by Monday January 31st. There will be no music grades as Linda has been away helping out with a family situation. She expects to be back by February 1st to continue with music classes. We will include a parent survey in the envelopes.
On Friday we are having Corin Richards come to instruct the teachers on ways to implement place-based projects in their classrooms. Corin taught here when Muddy Creek was Inavale. She and Paul Bradley laid much of the ground work that we now follow to give students place-based experiences. She is now a teacher of teachers for the Willamette ESD.
–Dan
Classroom News
Room 1 –This week the Lifeskill was Organization, so we took the opportunity to practice this in our class by sorting and labeling our classroom library. We also cleaned out folders and cubbies of old work. We have been spending a lot of time outside this week weeding and raking leaves in our adopted area of the school. It is nice that the weather has been so warm. – Miss Bridget
Room 2 – On Tuesday afternoon, we headed out to the RESTORE area to lay more cardboard and kill more weeds. The weather was warm. Ms. Bridget’s class was also outside weeding. We had a few less tools than we expected, so it took a little extra time. The people who were waiting started singing our school song, “At Muddy Creek, where the evergreens grow, back to my school…” The song has verses for all of the children: “Did you ever see Trent sleeping in a tent?” and “Did you ever see Trevin playing with Devon?” Soon, everyone was singing and having fun. We made up verses for some of the students that were new to our school. Back in the classroom, the students opened a book that Mrs. Watson had made for them of the song when she was their kindergarten teacher. What a great afternoon! – Ms. Gorman
Room 3 Kinder News – This week our local Black Bear has been the mammal in the spotlight. It has been interesting learning all of the not so well known bear facts. Look for our upcoming display of mammal facts. Lift the flaps to see if you can answer the questions correctly. This Friday, after using our bears for math, the Kinders will be having a Teddy Bear picnic. We hope to have a beary good time. 🙂
Since the Kinders will be making the sky part of the ocean mosaic, Shari Ame came to our class and we had the opportunity to learn about mosaics. The Kinders each made a very large paper sun mosaic. You are all welcome to step inside the classroom to soak up the amazing warmth radiating from each work of art. – Ms. Jenny
Room 4 –For Oregon History, the students learned about the Tillamook Burn and watched a video about it. A fun fact we learned about fire is that a wildfire, at its fullest potential, can burn up to 200 acres in 60 seconds. CRAZY! We did an Erosion Experiment in class today. It was working really well until the erosion turned into a landslide. The student’s favorite part was when I spilt the water everywhere. 🙂 Next Wednesday the students will be helping to plant trees at the Dunn Century Farm. – Mr. Day
Hatfield Marine Science Center and South Beach
Grades 1-5 all have ocean – related studies this year. We are going to take advantage of funding from the Gray Family fund to make several trips to the coast this year.
The first trip will be on February 10. We will visit the Hatfield Marine Science Center. We will also make a short visit to South Beach State Park to collect materials for our ocean mural — weather permitting.
Mark your calendar and plan to come along! We are taking buses, but need as much parent participation as possible. This will be an extended school day, going until 4:30 PM. Please mark your calendar if it affects your child’s extracurricular activities.
eScrip
Although the “10% Goes Back To Schools” program at Safeway ended January 25th for any new purchases, you can still get you receipts in for the time period of Jan. 2-Jan25, if you do so by February 28th, 2011. Enter the number at the bottom of your receipts (dated 1/2 to 1/25/2011) at www.escrip.com (list Muddy Creek as your school) and 10% of that purchase will go to MCCS. See http://backtoschools.escrip.com/ for all the details.
Art Center Project Needs Volunteers
A tile mural showing what the students are learning about oceans will be built and displayed at the Corvallis Art Center. Once the students learn how to make the mosaic we will need volunteers to supervise small groups. The office will be coordinating volunteers for the project, so let Cedar know if you are interested.
Collecting for the Oceans Mosaic
We are asking parents to collect colorful pottery shards for the oceans mosaics. They can be broken pieces of ceramic pottery or whole dishes (flatter is better, but anything could be useful) from home or from thrift stores. Also needed are shells, beach glass, ocean stones and, potentially, some small pieces of interesting driftwood. We are looking for pieces under two inches square or that can be broken into pieces that small. You can bring them in to school where they will become part of the sorting and organizing stages of the project. Thanks! -Shari
Wish List
Portable Screen