FOXY TALESFOXY TALES DOROTHY FOX ELEMENTARY SCHOOL NEWSLETTER MARCH 2015

I N S I D E T H I S N E W S L E T T E R

School Reward and Recognition Program

Guidelines for Keeping Ill Kids at Home

Classified Staff Appreciation!

MARCH 13 Last Day of 2nd Trimester

MARCH 19 General PTA Meeting 7:00pm @ Fox Library

MARCH 20 Spirit Day—Crazy Hair

MARCH 23 3rd Grade ELA Smarter Balance Tests Begin

MARCH 26 Report Cards Home in Backpacks

MARCH 26 Music in Our Schools District Program

Swingin’ Ukes Performance

MARCH 27 Free Fox Family Movie Night (Big Hero 6)

APRIL 1 Vancouver Pop All School Assembly

APRIL 1-2 Foxy Depot for Monthly Reader Calendar Books

APRIL 3 Spirit Day—Wear Read!

APRIL 3 Celebrate April Birthdays at Lunch with PTA!

APRIL 6-10 SPRING BREAK

APRIL 17 Spirit Day—Crazy Hair

APRIL 23 Fox Book Exchange

APRIL 23 General PTA Meeting @ 9:15am @ Fox Cafeteria

UPCOMING DATES: (Can go to Fox School Website for Calendar Information) http://schools.camas.wednet.edu)

D o n ’ t F o r g e t t o Tu r n i n Yo u r P TAD o n ’ t F o r g e t t o Tu r n i n Yo u r P TA

M o n t h l y F o x y R e a d i n g C a l e n d a rM o n t h l y F o x y R e a d i n g C a l e n d a r

All Fox students should be reading at home. Families should

record daily minutes read at home. Students earn points to

spend at the Foxy Depot at the end of the trimester.

MESSAGE FROM DR. SORK, PRINCIPAL

I want to thank our Fox Families for a very successful STEAM Night on March 4th with Science Fair Projects, OMSI, Math Games, and Robotics. It was a great time to come together around Scientific and Mathematic Thinking and Problem Solving. A highlight for me is reviewing the questions that our students ask to begin their scientific inquiry. I love seeing what interests our young scientists. Special thanks to all of the parents and community members who were judges and provided students with feedback and to the families who helped to interview student scientists at the event.

Good luck to the 14 students signed up to compete at the Washington State Science Fair in the coming weeks.

Why is Math So Different?

I talk to many Fox parents who share that they try to help their student with math homework, but can find themselves confused or surprised by the strategies students are being taught in mathematics today.

The following link is a video that helps to address why we teach math differently than when many of us adults were in elementary school. While Common Core has brought new standards to our grade level classroom, this shift to understanding beyond the algorithm has been going on for a number of years based on best researched practices. If you have sat next to your student and been confused by their homework, this video might be worth watching.

http://vimeo.com/m/110807219

Another link that parents have found helpful are the Parent Road Maps to the CCSS.

http://www.cgcs.org/Page/244

I appreciate the opportunity to work with your children

on a daily basis. Thank you for all you do to support

our school! ~ Dr. Cathy Sork

Click on this button to take a practice test

and learn more about the

Smarter Balances Assessment. (SBA)

(www.smarterbalanced.org)

All students will take 4 tests which take approximately 5

total days on a computer The tests are not timed and stu-

dents can roll over to another day if more time is needed.

Two Kinds of SBA Tests:

Computer Adapted Test (CAT):

This test adapts to your child as they answer questions.

The test can get harder or easier to narrow down

exactly what students know and can do. The CAT

generally takes 1 day.

Performance Test:

These can take 1 or 2 days. In English Language Arts, stu-

dents read articles and listen to information, and then

answer questions about what they read on Part 1. For

Part 2, students synthesize this information to write an

informational or persuasive piece using evidence from the

resources to support their claims.

In Math, students apply their math knowledge to problem

solve a real world situation.

Planned Testing Windows for Dorothy Fox

Smarter Balanced Testing 2015

3rd Grade English Lang.Arts: March 23-April 23 3rd Grade Math: May 19-22 4th Grade English Lang.Arts: April 27-May 4 4th Grade Math: May 11-15. 5th Grade English Lang.Arts: May 4-11 5th Grade Science MSP: May 14

FROM THE FOX MUSIC CAVE, Mr. Hunley

March is Music In Our Schools Month, and I’m very thankful to be here at Dorothy Fox as your music specialist! Our annual concert to celebrate is on March 26th at 6:30pm at Skyridge Middle School. The Fox Pack Swingin’ Ukes will perform a great jazz program featuring the music of Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. Groups from Helen Baller, Prune Hill, and Grass Valley will also participate. We’ll see you there for a wonderful celebration of music in our schools!

The “Informances” for our third grade classes went well last month, while first grade had a chance to show off for parents on March 11th.

Both fourth and fifth grades will begin their units on recorder starting this month in the third trimester. Look for information sheets and emails about purchasing a recorder to come home very soon, and get ready to embrace the sonorous tones of this mystical instrument!

The All-State Youth Choir concert on Feb. 14th was a fabulous show, and Fox student Amanda Hutchins did a great job!

Each day here with the students at Dorothy Fox is special and filled with song and music. Thanks so

much for your continued support! Dustin Hunley, Dorothy Fox Music Specialist

Hello again from school counselor, Mr. Baxter. I wanted to share some information

about what 4th graders have been learning and share a couple awesome book rec-

ommendations for the parents of kids nearing middle school.

Our curriculum is called Second Step and is published by Committee For Children in

Seattle. First we learned about Empathy. Then we practiced being respectfully As-

sertive and tried to avoid Jumping to Conclusions. We then launched into Emotion

Management and now we are finishing Problem Solving. You can check out the Second Step curricu-

lum at www.secondstep.org with the activation key SSP4 FAMI LY74 There are video’s and

handouts you can use at home at this site.

In addition we have been discussing Bullying and the strategies, like the ones taught through Second

Step, that help us be part of the solution to stop bullying.

In 4th grade I become more and more aware of the power of

groups and social pressure. A couple books I have found to

be very interesting when it comes to the social lives of girls

and boys are the books by Rosalind Wiseman. I am currently

reading Masterminds and Wingmen.

I recommend these to any parent who would like to have a

look into what kids are negotiating socially.

NEWS FROM THE LIBRARY: The Fox Family has access to subscription resources to help us continue to be life-long learners at school and at home. These award winning subscriptions are cre-ated just for students, teachers and parents and deliver safe, educator-selected information while using the Internet. Go ahead. I invite you to explore these with your child. PLEASE WATCH FOR A BROCHURE TO COME HOME WITH USER NAMES AND PASSWORDS ATTACHED. Below are the subscriptions currently avail-able online.

*World Book

*Safari Montage

*Culture Grams

*E Library

*K-12 Proquest

*Mackin VIA

*DestinyQuest

Thank you for supporting our school library and encouraging a love of reading in your child!

Mrs. Culverwell

NEWS FROM THE

FOX GYM

During the month of March, all students will participate in a variety of floor hockey activities and skills. In addition, lower grades will participate in fitness activities that include our HOPSport program. HOPSports is a program that provides increased opportunities for physical activity through the use of a digital, multi-media platform that brings fitness and fun to the Fox gym.

Troy Dunn troy.dunn@camas.wednet.edu

ROBOTICS AT FOX

Students in grades 2 and 5

have already figured out

that Robotics has become

a part of our school curric-

ulum at these grade levels

in the regular classroom.

Why Robotics?

Learning to code and apply this process to the real

world is a life skill that will be required of countless

future careers that await our boys and girls. This

program is a chance to understand the basics and apply

coding for instant feedback. Students work in teams to

build a Lego Mindsotrm EV3 or WeDo robot and then

program it through basic coding to get it to move in a

certain way.

WANT TO CODE AT HOME FOR FREE.?

Check out http://code.org for free activities in coding

NEWS FROM DOROTHY FOX PTA I hope you are all enjoying this early spring sunshine! As we head into Spring Break, we actually start preparing for the end of the school year. At this time, we start looking for parents interested in serving on the PTA board next year. I have truly enjoyed the time I have spent serving on the board. I hope you will all think of serving on the board sometime during your years at Fox. Keep an eye out for information on the nomination process and upcoming Election in April.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the Dorothy Fox community for supporting our PTA. This year has been an exciting time for Dorothy Fox PTA! Our financial support of the VTS program has garnered attention around the Camas community. This month we hosted an informational session with Superintendent Nerland and the Citizens Advisory Committee. I think we are showing what amazing things can happen when parents, staff and community work together to help our students.

Lastly, we are launching a new Fox PTA Website!! I want to thank Erik Kilk for volunteering his time and experience to this project. It is our goal to have a website that is convenient an informative for parents. We are looking for volunteers that are interested in serving on a website committee. It is a great way to volunteer from home a few hours a month. Please contact me if you are interested!

Thank you for making Fox Rock!

Stacey Kim

President

Dorothy Fox PTA

Check out our new website:

March

2-5 Book Fair (rainy day room)

4 STEAM Science Night

6 Spirit Day- Wear Red

13 Cookie Dough Sale Fundraiser Begins

19 PTA Meeting @ 7:00pm

20 Spirit Day- Crazy Hair Day

April

3 Spirit Day- Wear Red

6-10 Spring Break

16 PTA Meeting 2015/2016 Board Elec-tion @ 9:15am

17 Spirit Day- Mixed Up Clothes Day

20-24 Make A Difference Week!

How does Dorothy Fox Celebrate the Fox Four?

Signing the Success Book

The Dorothy Fox Success Book started in 2013 as a way for staff to honor students being successful across our school. This adds to the Pawsitive Tickets and drawings that have become our school tradition.

Student are nominated every 6 weeks for a variety of reasons. Some for academic achievement in the classroom, others for consistent Fox Four behavior, and a few for making great improvements. We added this celebration element to make sure that we were honor student who are consistently being successful in our school and we did not want it to pass unnoticed.

Student who are nominated get announced on the news or at the 4/5 Celebration Assembly. They get to sign their name in the book and be a permanent part of our school record. They also get to take home a certificate so their can share their recognition with their family and know why they were nominated.

At the end of the 2nd trimester, Dorothy Fox has had hundreds of student signatures in the pages of our Success Book.

Dorothy Fox Students Earn Fox Paws’itives

‘Paw’sitive tickets are given to students schoolwide for showing any one of the Fox Four traits. We believe that students who make these choices should be acknowledged for their efforts. Students are rewarded for earning ‘Paw’sitives in a variety of ways including school-wide activities, individual privileges, and the chance to win prize drawings. Students can be acknowledged as Fox Four Scouts with the ability to pass out Paws’itive tickets to others. They can trade chairs with the principal for the day, get a student photo ID card, earn extra privileges and small prizes. So far this year, Dorothy Fox has acknowledged 341 winners in grades K-3 on the Fox News as drawing winners.

Students in grades 4-5 attend a brief Celebration Assembly every 6 weeks in the cafeteria Students with 10 Paws’itive tickets can trade them for their student ID or play Plinko to win one of 8 rewards. We have found that by modifying out reward program for the older students, it helps them to be motivated to follow the Fox Four as school leaders and older role models.

ACKNOWLEDGING POSITIVE CHOICES The Fox Positive Behavior Support plan emphasizes the positive. This includes making sure that we take ample opportunities to celebrate students who are making Fox Four choices in classrooms and around the school.

The most important means of encouraging students at Dorothy Fox are the minute-by-minute positive interactions that occur between staff and students. We will strive to interact with each student more frequently when the

Mrs. Alford, Para

Mrs. Bergmann, Secretary

Ms. Brenda, Supervisor

Mrs. Chaney, Para

Ms. Dahlen, Para

Mrs. Duley, Student Services

Mr. Tim, Custodian

Mrs. Essman, Para

Mrs. Gano, Health Room

Mr. Holmes, Crossing Guard

Mrs. Hull, Para

Mrs. Keenan, Cook

Mrs. Larsen, Supervisor

Mrs. Morris, Cashier

Mrs. Jamie, LEAP

Mrs. Pierce, Supervision

Mrs. Randall, Para

Mrs. Ruse, Sub

Mrs. Sheppard, Sub

Mrs. Starks, Supervision

Mrs. Stevenson, Para (not pictured)

Mrs. Terry, Food Service

Mr. Tucker, Custodian

Mrs. Wambolt, Library/Tech

Mrs. Watson, LAP

Mrs. “Z:, ELL Para

From the health room: C A M A S S C H O O L D I S T R I C T G U I D E L I N E S F O R K E E P I N G I L L

C H I L D R E N H O M E F R O M S C H O O L

Here are some guidelines for keeping ill children at home. These are the same guidelines we use in determining when to send ill children home from school. This information can be found on the district web site at http://www.camas.wednet.edu/district/parent_corner/forms.html . • Fever - over 100.0 F, especially if other symptoms are apparent. Your child should be free of fever for 24 hours (without the aid of Tylenol/ibuprofen) before returning to school. Aspirin or other salicylates should not be administered for viral illnesses because aspirin appears to be statis-tically linked to the incidence of Reye’s syndrome. (http://kidshealth.org/parent/infections/bacterial_viral/reye.html). • Nausea, vomiting, and/or diarrhea – Students and staff should not return to school until 24 hours after the last time they vomited or had diarrhea. If an outbreak occurs (10% or more of students absent due to illness) do not re-turn to school until 48 hours after the last episode of vomiting or diarrhea. If an outbreak occurs Camas School Dis-trict will notify parents. • Rash – –DO NOT send a child with a rash to school until approval by your licensed health care provider (provide documentation to school) or the rash has been resolved – especially with additional symptoms like itching, fever or appearing ill. Rashes may cover the entire body or be in only one area, and are most contagious in the early stages. • Known communicable disease - should not be sent to school without the specific approval of your doctor. Chick-enpox (exclude students from school until all lesions have crusted). Impetigo (exclude until under treatment or un-less licensed health care provider suggests it). Strep (exclude until under treatment for 24 hours). Ringworm (exclude until treatment has been started). • Eye drainage – may indicate conjunctivitis (a common infectious disease of the eyes) caused by several types of bacteria and viruses. Exclude student from school and see licensed health care provider if there is white or yellow drainage from the eye(s), altered vision, and/or redness of the eyelid or skin surrounding the eye. • Mild cough/runny nose – if there is no fever and the child feels fairly good, school is fine. Colds are generally self-limiting and disappear on their own without complications. If the student develops ear pain, severe sore throat, difficulty breathing, or symptoms beyond 10 days, parents should call their licensed health care provider.

Over the Counter Medications Just a reminder that any medications your child may need at school require a medication administration authoriza-tion completed by your child’s physician and signed by a parent or guardian. A copy of this form is available at your child’s school, or on the Camas School District web site at http://www.camas.wednet.edu/district/parent_corner/health_notices_forms.html. Please do not send medications to school with your child, all medications need to be signed into the health room by

a parent or guardian and in the original container with a prescription label attached (your pharmacy can usually pro-

vide this for over the counter medications); this includes medications such as cough drops, Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Ben-

adryl, etc.

If you have any questions, please contact our school nurse, Karen Wight, or our Health Room Assistant, Teresa Gano.