NEWSLETTER February 2019
TABLE OF CONTENTS Welcome
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Staff Spotlight - Hector Romero
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New WP Members
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December Recap IT Info- Traffic Safety and Regulations WP TV Studio News
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Nurse News
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Yearbooks on Sale
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Student Spotlight
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Upcoming Dates and Events
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Martial Arts Demonstration for Rank Advancement
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Open House
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PTSA Parents Night Out
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Kids Heart Challenge Kick-Off
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PTSA Books for Books
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3rd Grade Piggy Target Market
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Self-Defense Academy
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Athletics
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ESL- Ms. Ziegler
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French-Mrs. Baird
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Pre-K 3- Mrs. Terry
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Pre-K 4- Mrs. Bryant
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Kindergarten- Mrs. Perez
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Kindergarten-Mrs. Bannon
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1st Grade-Mrs. Hewitt
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4th Grade- Mr. Gonzalez
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5th Grade- Mrs. Sudberry
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5th Grade-Mr. Koehnle
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6th Grade- Mr. Koehnle
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CAS Corner- Tyra Magnuson
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WELCOME Welcome, WP community members, to our first newsletter of 2019! We’ve had an eventful start to the new year, full of fun activities and events. In this newsletter, we do a recap of the final weeks of December and cover the month of January as well as touch on a few things that are coming up in February. We hope you’ve all had a great start to the new year, and we hope you enjoy our February Newsletter!
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Staff Spotlight - Hector Romero Joining us this year as our Chairman of the Board is Mr. Hector Romero. Among his main responsibilities are: leading the formation and operation of the Council, generating and monitoring the compliance of our strategic plan to achieve our 2020 vision, supporting our mission to offer an excellent education, and promoting the image of our school as a world-class alternative to international education. Mr. Romero is a retired Ambassador who has vast, first-hand experience in international affairs. For over 30 years he has worked in Embassies and Consulates in countries as diverse as Russia, Italy, Chile, Canada, France, and Ecuador and in languages ​​such as English, French, Spanish, Italian, and Russian, so he has a genuinely global education and vision. Additionally, he was the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Secretary of Education of Mexico. He was Ambassador of Mexico in Ecuador and Consul General in Vancouver. In both cases he promoted educational exchanges. His incorporation will provide our students and our school with a unique profile among the schools in The Woodlands and will help give WP a greater international presence. Please watch the following video to hear a message from Mr. Romero to the WP community.
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New WP Members We are excited to welcome three new members that have recently joined our WP family. Adriana Hernandez joins the team as our Director of Marketing and Communications and as our WP Representative for Iberoamerica. Evelyn Li will be collaborating with us as our WP Representative for Asia Pacific. Hector Romero is our new Chairman of the Board. And Elmetrious Small joins us as a Pre-K Assistant. We give them a warm welcome and we look forward to working together!
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December Recap The final weeks of December were very eventful, and many of the exciting activities and events that took place didn’t make it to our December Newsletter. So we decided to give you a quick recap of the final weeks of December.
Student Spirit Week From December 10th to the 14th, we celebrated our Student Spirit Week by having different dress up themes. We wore: Winter colors on Monday Ugly sweaters on Tuesday Dr. Seuss clothes, costumes, and props on Wednesday Holiday Hats and Scarves on Thursday And Pajamas on Friday! We all had a great time dressing up!
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Holiday Silly Gift Exchange The PTSA worked with WP to organize their very first Holiday Silly Gift Exchange! WP families and staff brought silly gifts to school, which were collected at the car line by our Student Ambassadors. Then on December the 12th, everyone gathered together at the front lobby to have hot chocolate, cookies, and other goodies and exchange their silly gifts! It was a very fun holiday experience for everyone.
Christmas Concert
Our Christmas Concert took place on December 13th! WP students performed holiday songs from many different countries and cultures, and delighted parents and staff with their performances. A special thanks to Mrs. Larisa for directing and preparing the concert and putting on a wonderful show, and also to Andrea Edwards, from the National Youth Theatre Group, for choreographing the dance moves! If anyone is interested in learning more about the National Youth Theatre Group, you can visit www.nationalyouththeater.org for more information.
WP Toy Drive Our WP Toy Drive also took place during the month of December. On behalf of the WP National Honor Society students and Texas Children’s Hospital we would like to thank all of our families who donated to our 2018 Holiday Toy Drive. The response was well beyond our expectations!! The hospital staff were excited to see so many of their high demand toys and wanted you to know that your contributions will be very much appreciated by the girls and boys who are spending time in hospital over the holidays. A special thanks to Ms. Elvira Matz-Ross in the welcome center for her help in getting the word out to families and being our collection station!
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IT Info: Traffic Safety and Regulations Dear WP Community Members, We wish to inform you that we are concerned with guaranteeing the safety of all of our students and WP community members. We would like to ask you for your support as we work to enforce the following driving regulations for our school. 1. Be careful when approaching the campus. A new signal that bans U-turns has been installed on Kuykendahl Road, northbound. The cars that transit through the area go 45 miles an hour and it is difficult to turn or cross the avenue, so we ask you to use your indicator lights when turning around. We have requested the authorities to install a traffic light at this traffic point, but, in the meantime, we ask for your caution and support in this matter. 2. We ask you not to use your cell phone while driving, especially inside the campus. Please, also travel at low speed and respect the posted speed limit of 20 miles per hour. 3. When leaving your children at the front, we ask you not to extend your time in the drop-off area in order to make the drop-off process quick and streamlined so that we may facilitate the arrival of students and support parents who need to get to work on time. 4. If you would like to speak with any of the staff that are welcoming students, please park your vehicle and approach them in person. If you have a matter that requires specific attention, we invite you to set an appointment through the IB coordinators. This will allow us to keep a record of all information from our parent-teacher/staff meetings and will permit us to give your matter the attention and time it deserves. 5. We ask you to please drop-off your children at the lobby area or park your cars in the parking area
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and escort them inside. Please do not drop-off your children out on the street to prevent accidents or risks. 6. When reaching the STOP sign, please stop and follow the flow and direction of traffic until reaching the campus exit. 7. Once you drop your children off at school, we ask that you follow the proper registration procedure through the Welcome Center when entering or visiting the school. The Welcome Center is responsible for assigning access credentials and keeping a record of our visitors. 8. We ask you to check your children’s backpacks so that they avoid bringing hazardous or valuable materials or items. 9. In order to create a safe and pleasant environment and to avoid putting our children at risk, no weapons are allowed on campus. 10. At WP, we work to promote important values, such as respect, discipline, and multicultural tolerance, and we will continue to work together with you to create a culture of order and peace.
Sincerely,
Alex Cobo Director of operations
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WP TV News Greetings Wolverines, and welcome to the WP TV News section! It’s only the beginning of 2019 and it has already been a year full of interesting news and events, which we have covered. IBM announced the release of the first ever commercial quantum computer, the IBM Q system. China made history by being the first to land a probe, the Chang’e, on the far side of the moon and also being the first to grow a plant in space (inside of the same probe). Of course, we celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day by talking about Martin Luther King Jr. and the history of the civil rights movement. And we talked about many other people, events, and topics, such as: • • • •
The History of New Years The Super Blood Wolf Moon The Electric Telegraph James Naismith and the Original Rules of Basketball
• • • •
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Benjamin Franklin Charles Darwin William Shakespeare Charlie Chaplin
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And of course, we continued our WP Spotlight segment and interviewed several more WP teachers and staff in order to get to know them more. Our most recent special guests were” • Nurse Mary • Mrs. Fabiola Baird-French Teacher • Mr. Paul Silva- Technology and Design Teacher
We hope you enjoy our WP Spotlight videos! Anyways, for now, this is WP TV signing out!
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NURSE NEWS February is Heart Health month! The Kids Heart Challenge has already kicked off and our students are excited about participating and promoting heart health. Through education and parental support students learn healthy lifestyle choices at a young age. They also learn to avoid risk factors, which can contribute to heart disease. This is crucial for prevention related to heart disease being the leading cause of death for men and women. So as a school community we ask all parents and staff to join in on the Kids Heart Challenge and Be Well!
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2018-2019 Yearbooks on Sale Yearbooks are still available but we only have 40 of them left! Yearbooks are a great way to preserve the friendships and memories made during the school year! Everyone is in the yearbook!!
Student Spotlight We would like to congratulate our Pre-K 3 student, Pete, for being featured on the blog “Essence” for his geography skills. Great job Pete, keep it up! Click on the link to see the “Essence” article and video about Pete: https://www.essence.com/lifestyle/travel/wakanda-forever-3-year-old-names-african-countries
Upcoming Dates and Events • February 5th - Wear Red for Chinese/ • February 11th - Media event with the Lunar New Year and Heart Health Month
• February 5th - Away Basketball Game vs School of the Woods
• February 7th - Last Home Basketball
Chairman of the board
• February 13th - PTSA Meeting • February 14th - Valentines Day Bake Sale
Game of regular season
• February 22nd - Go Texan Day
• February 8th - Last Day of Student
• February 22nd - Last day of Kids
Donation Drive for Breast Cancer Charities of America
Heart Challenge
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Martial Arts Demonstration for Rank Advancement On Thursday, January 24, 2019 at 9:40 am, the self defense students of Mr. Adornato, Kaiden Shihan Sandaikichu and Martial Arts Director at Woodlands Preparatory School, demonstrated what they have learned over the past semester. This demonstration was also to qualify them to advance to the rank of Shi chi Kyu (7th kyu - yellow belt).
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The students involved were: • Gabriel Arismendi • Michael Fadahunsi • Rosa Friedrich • Thomas Gjervik • Emily McLellan • Merlot Shorey • Loisa Tausch • Joanna Wang
The
DRA
(Demonstration
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Rank Advancement) ended with a ceremony where students were awarded their yellow belts and certificates.
Parents and teachers thoroughly enjoyed the demonstration, and we are all proud of our students who participated in the DRA.
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OPEN HOUSE
On January 24th, Woodlands Prep hosted its first open house of 2019! Our student ambassadors guided our guests, showing them several key destinations, such as the gyms, Technology and Design Labs, and WP TV Studio. Some of the production students even prepared a special
Open
House Live Presentation, to show our guests what we do every day on the morning news. The visiting families enjoyed seeing our facilities and meeting our wonderful staff, students, and teachers, and they left our school thoroughly impressed!
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PTSA Parents Night Out On the 23rd of January, our WP parents had their very own night out at the Bowlero bowling alley, organized by the PTSA. It was a night of family, food, fun, and, well, bowling of course! Everyone had a “ball”!
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Kids Heart Challenge Kick-Off In preparation for Heart Health Month, our Kids Heart Challenge Kick-Off took place on the 23rd of January. Bethany, from Kids Heart Challenge came to our school to talk to us about the importance of heart health and about the Kids Heart Challenge initiative. KHC is about teaching students the importance of being kind, eating well, and leading an active and healthy lifestyle. Our students will be participating in many different activities throughout the month of February and will be raising money for the cause. We will definitely keep you posted with our KHC updates and achievements!
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“Books for Books” is an initiative organized by the PTSA that is about providing new books to students. From February 4th to February 8th, students who brought old books to school in January will be able to trade the coupons they received for brand new books or purchase them for a dollar! This initiative is a great way for students to discover new books they haven’t read before, and, of course, it’s a great way to encourage reading!
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3rd Grade Piggy Target Market On January 25th, Miss Bigger’s 3rd grade class hosted a market to sell products that the 3rd-grade students hand crafted themselves. The market was a great success! The 3rd graders sold all of their products and even had back-orders. The money raised will help raise money to purchase a livestock animal for a family in an underdeveloped country through Heifer International Organization!
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SELF-DEFENSE ACADEMY Joseph Adornato, Menkyo Kaiden Shihan Sandaikichu Hakkoryu Nintai Dojo The Hakkoryu Goshin Jutsu Academy at The Woodlands Preparatory International School will provide the immediate possibility to contribute to the health and well being of its students. The class is composed of a combination of meditation, stretching, and goshin jutsu (self defense) techniques based on the principles of Hakkoryu Jujutsu: “No challenge, no resistance, no injury”. The curriculum is highly structured and involves no sport but is totally devoted to learning self-protection techniques that can control an attacker without causing injury unless necessary. An understanding of the bodies energy channels (meridians) and pressure points will help students instill pain but no injury to an attacker and thereby short circuit their effort to cause harm (“High pain compliance”). Defenses against grabs, chokes, punches, kicks, weapon attacks, multiple attackers, etc. are included in the course. The curriculum will challenge students in a healthy way and allow them to confront their fears, discover their capabilities, and strengthen their self-esteem and confidence.
• Grades 7 through 12 • Mondays and Thursdays from 3:45 pm to 4:45 pm • February 4, 2019 through May 13, 2019 (25 classes) • Student demonstration for rank advancement on May 16 • Affiliation with the Hakkoryu International Organization
INSTRUCTOR QUALIFICATIONS • Involved in the martial arts for 46 years • Achieved the highest rank of Menkyo Kaiden Shihan Sandaikichu in the art of Hakkoryu Jujutsu • Operates Hakkoryu Nintai Dojo in The Woodlands, Texas which
and the opportunity for rank advancement through black
is
belt within this organization.
• $550 per semester • Hakkoryu Nintai Dojo
licensed
by
the
Hakkoryu
headquarters in Omiya, Japan • Achieved black belt in Iaido (The
martial arts uniform required
Art of Drawing the Sword)
(Gi and t-shirt: $50)
• Certified in Taiho Jutsu (Police
• Minimum 5 students required
apprehension techniques) • Certified in Koho Shiatsu (finger pressure therapy)
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Athletics All events regarding Physical Education and Athletics may be found here.
Basketball Team
Soccer Team:
Regionals Feb 14-15 Feb 21-23
The state Soccer competition dates are Feb. 7-9. The tournament will be at The Woodlands Bear Branch Sports fields. 5205 Research Forest Dr, The Woodlands, TX 77381
Tennis Track and field Athletics tryouts will be week of Feb 25.
Kids Heart Challenge Kids Heart Challenge Jan 23-Feb 22 Woodlands Prep KHC Website! Our goal is to raise $3,000. Kids Heart Challenge teaches students to be kind, avoid excess salt, get 60 minutes of physical activity every day, eat fruits and vegetables, drink water, stay away from tobacco. Meet the Heart heros here!
Go Texan Day / Feb 22 in Gym A! Our Students grades PK3-10th grade will participate by learning about Houston Texas Culture and perform a line dancing show for parents and staff! “Let’s RODEOHOUSTON®! The anticipation for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo™ has been building, and now it is time to show your excitement. Participate in a city-wide celebration on Go Texan Day by putting your best cowboy boot forward and showing your Western pride. Go Texan Day is the unofficial kickoff of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Traditionally held the Friday before the Rodeo begins, the day serves to encourage the Houston community to celebrate Western heritage and raise awareness of Rodeo season. Houston-area residents are encouraged to wear Western attire, such as jeans, cowboy boots, and cowboy hats. The Go Texan Day Contest encourages organizations to host events that promote and celebrate the Rodeo and Texas culture.” Learn about Go Texan Day Here
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ESL- Ms. Ziegler ESL Students reflect on what PEACE means to them. January is a perfect month to think about the importance of peace in our lives. We started the month with hopeful and promising New Year’s resolutions and then we have ended the month remembering the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his dreams of peace and equality for all. Students created Peace Posters, adding words and phrases that demonstrated their individual definitions of peace. In addition, the 6th and 7th grade ESL students were assigned portions of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” Speech, in which they delivered with great enthusiasm. The speech brought up many engaging discussions regarding the Civil Rights Movement and how the speech is still relevant today. I’m so very proud of all the ESL students who have shown interest and appreciation in making our world a more peaceful place.
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French- Mrs. Baird For our unit of fairy tales, the students in 2nd grade explored the fairy tale of Le Petit Chaperon Rouge of the famous French author Charles Perrault. The students reflected on the specific moral that was being delivered in this tale and got to create their own puppet show.
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Pre-K 3 The Pre-K 3 classes have spent the last 9 weeks learning how to express ourselves through play. We focused on communicating through play and using our imagination to create things out of loose parts. As a summative, the children built a mini castle by using toilet paper and paper towel rolls, a little paint, glue and our imagination. They had a blast creating their castle and are extremely proud of their creation! We were also lucky enough to have some surprise visitors come and share with us some interesting books, apparel and facts about the Chinese New Year. The children enjoyed learning while playing dress up and collecting some yummy treats. Happy Chinese New Year!
Pre-K 4 In our unit, “Where We Are In Place and Time”, we have been discussing how different cultures celebrate important events. The students have enjoyed sharing their celebrations and also learning about other classmates’ cultures and how they celebrate.
Kindergarten - Mrs. Perez Kindergarten had Mrs. Batge (Emmas mom) come in and be our Mystery Reader on January 25th. It was also Mrs. Perez’s birthday so she thought it would be a great idea to read “The Day The Crayons Quit” and have the students work on a little surprise for her. The students had a chance to create their very own molds of soap and decide on a color and scent as a surprise for Mrs. Perez. The students were divided into two groups in order to get through the project. The first half worked on looking for sight words in the story by playing “sight word bingo” while the other group worked on the soap. Then the groups traded places so that everyone could have a turn. When they were done they gave Mrs. Perez the soap bars they created.
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Kindergarten Mrs. Bannon PYP Unit of Inquiry: How We Express Ourselves Kindergarten students expressed their feelings through art after reading The Dot, by Peter Reynolds.
1st Grade - Mrs. Hewitt First grade is having fun with our new unit, How the World Works. Our central idea is weather affects the way people live, dress and their routine. We have been researching the different temperatures around the world and comparing them to our temperature here at WP each morning. During our research and collaboration we have learned that not only the temperature varies according to where you live, but the time does too. We have learned so much about the weather and have had a lot of fun tracking the weather from all over the world.
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4th Grade - Mr. Gonzalez Students are starting to inquire about what organization is as a principle. They have been making excellent questions about the nature and purpose of organization in different contexts. They explored the organization of the human body in its different organs, as we all posted around a Padlet and learned collaboratively making connections between systems and organs. We talked about structure and the relationship between elements in an engineer-oriented activity with marshmallows and toothpicks where they could apply geometry concepts and ideas. Both teams developed amazing problem-solving and communication skills. In math, we are starting to explore problems about commerce and trade with the application of arithmetic. In language, we continue to learn new words, practice grammar in new workbooks, and spelling in weekly quizzes. We read aloud pieces from Cricket magazine, and the students tried their intonation and voicing reading a comic about conflict resolution. We are also inquiring about the organization and structure of the government and the UN. Finally we had cupcakes today thanks to Mrs. Ellis to celebrate Fraser’s 10th birthday.
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5th Grade - Mrs. Sudberry Grade 5 Supports the 2019 Iditarod
The Iditarod is an Alaskan sled dog race held every year in Anchorage, Alaska. This race is meant to commemorate the efforts of huskies that transported necessary medication to Alaskan communities suffering from a Diptheria outbreak in 1925. Remember the movie Balto? This movie was based on the real Balto (1919 – March 14, 1933), a Siberian husky and sled dog who led his team on the final leg of the 1925 serum run to Nome to deliver the antitoxin to combat the outbreak. Since 1973, during this race, mushers and their dog teams travel about 1100 miles on the historic Iditarod Trail between Anchorage and Nome. This year over 50 teams, including both men and women, will begin the race on Saturday, March 2nd. You can find more information and follow the race at www.iditarod.com During this project, grade 5 students will be exploring many mathematical concepts including collecting data, finding statistics, creating graphs, and calculating mean, median, mode, and range. In Language & Literature, they will write informative papers about the Iditarod and also about a musher that they will select and track during the race. As part of this project, grade 5 students made blankets for dogs participating in the race. These blankets will be used when necessary at various checkpoints along the trail. We hope to see pictures of our blankets in use!
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5th Grade Mr. Koehnle Science 5th grade science has been focused on learning about the animal kingdom and how certain adaptations help animals survive in the natural environment they live. Much research is supported from data collected from experiments done in labs.
6th Grade- Mr. Koehnle Individuals and Society
6th grade Individuals and Society have been researching and learning about Ancient Egypt. Working in small groups, students communicated their learning by creating timelines of major events and achievements from this time in history.
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CAS Corner As part of her CAS project, WP senior, Tyra Magnuson, is currently hosting a donations drive at WP for the non-profit organization, Breast Cancer Charities of America. The donated items will go toward the “Feeling Beautiful Program�, which helps women accept their post-cancer body, as losing hair due to treatments can leave patients with body image issues and low self-esteem. Some of the needed items include eyeshadow, fuzzy socks, jewelry, lip care, etc. The last day for the drive is February 8th Thank you for your support!
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Thanks for reading!
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