October 29
Muskrat News
Upcoming events:
November 1 No School, Parent/Teacher Conferences
November 2-15 MCCS Holiday Food Drive
November 4 Board Meeting 7pm
November 5 Picture Retake Day
November 5 Bookmobile 2-3:15pm
November 10 PTO Meeting 8:30am
November 11 No school, Veterans Day
November 20 Giving Thanks Celebration
From our Executive Director
Reminder: There is no school on Monday. We are finishing up conferences and working on place-based projects.
We have children who are seriously traumatized by dogs and there is a no dogs rule on school grounds. So just as a reminder, please be careful with your dogs, as we do have children who are very fearful of them.
We are continuing, through next week, our life skill of common sense.
I was asked to have Pat Starker meet with parents here at school to help parents with reading support for their child. Pat’s personal circumstances do not allow her to commit to that. However, she has provided me with the material she uses for parent meetings on this topic. So for Kerry and Terina, I would be happy to meet with your PTO group some time to answer questions and offer suggestions for helping your child at home with reading. Here are the 8 areas that Pat speaks to when talking with parents:
1. Predictability – rhyme, rhythm, and repetition
2. Encouraging prediction – predicting based on title, illustrations
3. Take turns reading – modeling and helping the story move along
4. Read in unison – helps develop rate and fluency
5. Unknown words – skip, and come back to perhaps figure it out
6. Reading makes sense – too much to cover here
7. Read, reread, and talk – reading books again is very important
8. Encourage – to think, talk about, and what did they learn. Show genuine interest and enthusiasm.
Reading with your child is high quality connecting with your child. Getting a child to predict, evaluate, and discuss events in the book develop thinking and speaking skills. Children that have experiences like the list above do very well in school. Children that do not get these opportunities almost always struggle. -dan
Holiday Food Drive
Please consider joining the MCCS community in donating food to help low-income families in Benton County this Holiday season. From November 2nd-15th, each classroom will be collecting food. The types of food needed are: canned fruits, canned vegetables, canned pumpkin, canned cranberry sauce, canned milk, peanut butter, stuffing mix, tuna and other canned fish and meats, baby foods, olives, Jell-o, cake mixes, fresh apples and fruits, winter squash, potatoes and other fresh vegetables. No home-canned goods can be accepted. This year the number of people relying on emergency food assistance in Benton County is at an all time high. Thank you for helping us support such an important cause!
Classroom News
Room 1 – Pumpkin Day was a great success! We read pumpkin stories, did pumpkin math and science and made pumpkin houses and pumpkin pie in a bag. We counted 1,931 pumpkin seeds! Thank you to Mary Gunn for bringing in pumpkin cookies.
Hamster Happenings – “Hi guys! Why didn’t you make me a pumpkin house? The mouse in the story seemed to enjoy his. Well, thank you for the pumpkin seeds. Have a great weekend. If you don’t have a costume yet you could always be a hamster.” – Sam
Room 2 –On Tuesday we made a Stone Soup out of the vegetables that students brought in from home. Our plan was to bring it with us to the Soap Creek School for our History Day. We even had our costumes planned. Unfortunately, wasps thwarted our plans. The Soap Creek School had a wasp nest inside the building. We were very disappointed. However, we followed the lead of Ms. Bridget’s class and had a Pumpkin Day on Wednesday. After writing pumpkin stories and doing pumpkin math, we did a little more cooking in the afternoon. At the end of the day, we feasted on Stone Soup and Pumpkin “Pie”. See you at conferences…- Ms. Gorman
Kindergarten – This week the Kinders had a surprise visit for the monthly birthday tea party. Instead of the usual fairy visitors, Mr. Bones the skeleton from the science closet added excitement to the event. He had a few stories to tell about his missing teeth and he was so eager to answer the children’s questions. Mr. Bones felt very welcomed and plans to spend several weeks in our classroom.
Starting next Tuesday the Kinders will help sponsor the Holiday Food Drive at Muddy Creek. Each classroom will be given a box to collect food that will be taken to the Benton Co. Fairgrounds on 53rd Street in Corvallis. Last year the 2009 Community Holiday Food Drive provided a Thanksgiving meal for approximately 1400 families in Benton County. It was a great opportunity for the community at MCCS to be part of a larger community event.
After counting and making graphs with the 4/5th grade buddies, the Kinders will deliver the food to the Benton Co. Fairgrounds. They will also have the opportunity to spend extra volunteer time sorting food into the large bins and helping bag potatoes and onions for the baskets. This year the Kinders will be delivering the food on Tuesday November 16th.
– Miss Jenny
Room 4 – Parents of 4th/5th graders, please check your email for regular updates from me. Today was our first official expedition for the Student Stewardship Project. I thought it was awesome. The site was beautiful! Kim Carson from the Freshwater Trust and Christine Hurst from the Marys River Watershed Council were a great help to us and had set up a Beaver Scavenger Hunt for the students; land owners, Mr. and Mrs. Schmeddings, had crawfish, newts, and a snake to show-n-tell and the students found a long-horned beetle, an owl pellet and a dead snake. The students took pictures, sketched and wrote in their journals and just plain had fun.
I look forward to seeing you all at conferences over the next few days.-Thanks, Mr. Day
School Pictures Retake Day
Picture retake day has been scheduled for November 5th. Please let Cedar know if you want your child’s picture retaken. It’s not too late to get your picture order in! Please give them to Cedar by November 5th.
FROM THE BOARD:
We would like to write a homework policy for the school and are looking for parents to be on a committee. If you are interested please email kriste.york@gmail.com with a few words describing your views on homework so that our committee will hopefully have a balance of viewpoints. This is a temporary committee, and once the membership is decided we will decide when to have our first meeting based on members’ schedules. Thanks.
Our next board meeting is November 4th, 7-9pm at the school, and as always you are welcome to attend. There is time for public comment at the beginning of each meeting.
October Music Class News
Music classes were off to a great start in mid-September. A few of our topics were: How is sound made? and What’s the difference between sound/noise and music? We learned a Rules Rap. In October we worked on rhythm and started using rhythm instruments, as well as starting to learn about pitch (high/low). Lots of new songs have been learned, some from other countries, and we continue to sing seasonal songs. In anticipation of Veteran’s Day, we learned about and sang our national anthem, as well as several other patriotic songs. Part of each class is focused on listening to and discussing music and sounds. There’s a lot packed into a short time! On Thursdays, I’m usually in the music room right after school if you’d like to come in to visit.
Beginning in January I’d like to have teachers, parents and students who play an instrument sign up to come demo for all 3 classes. This is a great opportunity for students to experience a range of instruments. – Mrs. Hansen
Wish list: rhythm instruments, 50 kazoos!
PTO NEWS
The next PTO meeting will be Wednesday Nov. 10 at 8:30am.
Our annual “Giving Thanks” Celebration will be Saturday Nov. 20th. This is a MCCS Community Social with music, potluck dinner and activities for kids. Everyone is invited including grandparents, community members and friends. We need some volunteers to help set up, clean up, and supervise activities for the kids such as face painting, and games. We are also looking for some live musical entertainment, so if anyone knows a group willing to perform please let us know.
We are starting a Parenting Book Shelf in the library that will have resources for parents to borrow. If you have parenting books you would like to donate, please leave them on the library desk with a note marked “Parents Library”.
If you have any questions, suggestions or would like to volunteer please contact Kerry Pfeil kerrypfeil@gmail.com /541-207-3562 or Terina McLachlain 8gr8kids@gmail.com /541-829-9847
Lunchtime volunteers needed
We are looking for 3-4 parent volunteers who would be interested in covering lunchroom and playground supervision duties (11:30-12:20) once a week every other week so Melanie, Larissa and Laura can receive Literacy training. This could happen Monday, Wednesday or Friday. Please let Cedar know if you are interested.
Hiking/Walking Group
Please join us each Friday after drop off for an easy to moderate hike around our beautiful valley. On subsequent Fridays I will send an email telling where and when to meet. Hikes will be low-key but will go on rain or shine (If it’s real rainy or cold we may have a short hike then go to coffee!). Send your email address to emdub7@yahoo.com, and I’ll put you on the list. Thanks, Michelle Waddell (mom of Aidan S. and Jillian).
Community Canning Center
Is anyone interested in turning our Muddy Creek CS kitchen into a Community Canning Kitchen? I have read a little bit about it and think our kitchen would be a great place for such a center if we were able to get all the equipment working and up to code (with a lot of fundraising). It would make the canning task extremely easy, not to mention the benefit of bringing people together to share their knowledge and enthusiasm.
Let me know if you’d be interested in:
1. Using a canning kitchen if it were available.
2. Starting a group to study the feasibility of turning our kitchen into a canning center.
3. Sharing any resources for kitchen/canning equipment or knowledge.
Thanks, Michelle Waddell (mom of Aidan S. and Jillian) emdub7@yahoo.com
Special Thanks To:
MCCS’ beloved Grandma Betty York (OK, she’s actually Kriste York’s Grandma) for the adorable ghost candy holders for the kids and pumpkin and cat magnets for the teachers. Betty thinks of us every holiday and it is so appreciated!
Wish Lists
See music wish list above.
The Room 2 CD player is not working anymore. If anyone has a CD player with speakers (boom box style) that they are not using, we would appreciate it.
Ms. Gorman’s and Miss Bridget’s classrooms need a few items to help them with their outdoor activities. They are looking for donations of rakes, shovels, a wheelbarrow, kid-sized gloves, seeds, extra garden tools in general and fall bulbs (tulips, daffodils, crocuses, etc.). Anything you can spare would be greatly appreciated.