Muskrat News

Events for the week of April 12:

Tuesday, April 13                                  Room 2 Expedition to the Wings of Wonder Butterfly House, Independence

Wednesday, April 14                             Grading Day, No School

April 15 and 16                                      Student-Led Conferences, No School

Upcoming events:

Wednesday, April 21                             RESTORE Day

Thursday, April 22                                 Wildlife Stewards Conference

Friday, April 23                                      Room 2 Expedition to Beaver Creek

Friday, April 23                                      Room 4 Expedition to OMSI

Wednesday, April 28                             2^nd annual MCCS Egg Drop

From our Executive Director:

Oregon State students will be a part of our school for the rest of this school year.  Each teacher has what is called a 309 Practicum student.  These students are just beginning their training toward becoming a
teacher.  They fit in their time here among their other classes.  This makes the times vary with each student as to when they are in the classroom.  They help the teacher get clerical things done, and they work usually individually with students, but sometimes with small groups.  Some of these students come with a lot of time already in a classroom.  Such students tend to get more involved teaching earlier.  I know our students will really enjoy a college student being in their classroom.

A note of interest to some of you – our enrollment for the 2010-2011 school year is up to 75 students from the current 66 students.  Each class is nearly at our desired size of 20.  As a result, we will soon start to create waiting lists for each of the classes as more people come wanting to enroll students.  There are 16 in kindergarten, 16 in first grade, 12 in second, 10 in third, 9 in fourth, and 12 in fifth.  The energy seems to
me to be very positive in our school.  It is a great place to come to work.

Our PTO has done a wonderful thing for the staff.  Each day up to this writing, exceptionally good things have been provided for us to enjoy.  I especially appreciate the efforts parents have made to make this
happen when I know they are extremely busy with children and jobs.

Thank you so much,

Dan

Student Led Conferences. There is no school next week, April 14, 15 & 16^th.  During this time the school will be holding student led conferences.   The individual classroom teachers have been scheduling these conferences so you should have a date and time set for yours.  This is an opportunity for your child to let you know about what is going on in their classrooms and how they are doing in individual areas.  This is an ideal time for you to ask your students questions about their school day and about the projects they are working on.

Kinder News. This week the kinders had a visit from Maggie Miller-Green who comes from the Holderead Waterfowl Farm in Philomath.  Maggie brought with her three babies that were one and two days old.  She spoke with the students about the differences in ducks, chickens and geese and let the students touch the babies.  Maggie then helped with candling our incubating chicken eggs.  Unfortunately we found out that we only have about 4 fertile eggs out of the dozen we started with. 

Room 2 News. So much going on!

• Our class put the finishing touches on our engineering projects.  All of the electrical circuits work and the students paid for their last pieces: wire and batteries.  The parents in our classroom were simply amazing in helping out get this project finished.
• We met Brittany, an OSU student who will be in our classroom on Mondays and Tuesdays.  Brittany has spent time in first grade classrooms before, and is working toward the goal of being a licensed teacher.
• We have butterfly eggs hatching and butterfly larva feeding on broccoli plants by the window.
• Update on the milkweed experiment:  Our milkweed seeds that we planted to start a milkweed patch have germinated!
• Freshwater Trust came by this afternoon and showed us where our school is in the Beaver Creek watershed.  They taught us about beaver and let us try out “being” a beaver.  We built beaver dams on a stream table.  A stream table is a table with running water that you can use to see how streams work. We watched to see if our beaver dams were strong enough to flood the willows we “planted” around the stream.

Arts Center Display. The students and most staff at Muddy Creek went on a field trip to the Corvallis Arts Center and the Benton County Public Library on Wednesday.  The students visited the great display of student projects at the Arts Center where they got a brief talk by the director, Sara Swanberg, and got to ask questions about art.  We encourage everyone to visit the Corvallis Arts Center before April 13^th to see some of the fabulous art being produced by students in Corvallis Schools, including Muddy Creek Charter School.  The kids water masks are front and center as you enter the gallery!

Library News. Congratulations and a big THANK YOU to Katie Edson, mom of 5^th grader Josh Edson.  Katie applied for and was awarded a grant for library books through the OSU Folk Club’s Thrift Shop Foundation.  Katie has worked so hard for our library over the last two years.  She has organized, catalogued, gotten donations, organized volunteers, ordered supplies and on and on.  We are so fortunate to have Katie at Muddy Creek Charter School.

A Digital Story from Ms. York. As many of you know, Kriste York loves digital storytelling and introduced her students to it last year through digital storytelling projects.  Here is the link to the first digital story she has produced since her surgeries this past year.   It is a great one to share with your children.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMQTnNKBb5s

Kriste is continuing to share her passion for digital storytelling by working with the 5^th grade students to produce digital stories that they will share with everyone on the last day of school at graduation.

2^nd Annual MCCS Egg Drop. This eggciting event will be taking place on the morning of Wednesday, April 28.   Start making your ESD (Egg Survival Device) now.  A letter with official procedures and rules will be coming home with your child, so be on the lookout.    Awards will be given for:  the smallest ESD surviving the drop, best use of recycled materials, and the most unusual design surviving the drop.  This is a family project – HAVE FUN!

Family Contra Dance. There will be a Family Potluck and Folk/Contra Dance on Sunday April 11th, 2010 from 4:30pm-8:30pm at the Boys and Girls Club of Corvallis.  Dances will be geared towards beginners, but veteran dancers are certainly welcome.  We’ve engaged a fabulous caller from the Coos Bay area, Stacy Rose.  Very fun!  And the music will be provided by Three Fingered Jack (including MCCS kinder parent Shari Ame)and friends.