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IMPORTANT DATES
Presione aqui para la informacion en espanol
Tuesday, September 1
First Day of School
A Note from Dr. Durtschi
Tuesday, September 1
New Family Welcome 8:30 am
Friday, September 11
Ice Cream Social 6 ­ 7:30 pm
Wednesday, September 16
PTO Meeting 6 ­ 7:30 pm
Thursday, September 24
Book Kingdom
See the full Schenk
calendar Save the Date:
September 11th is
Schenk's Annual Ice
Cream Social!
Every year the PTO at
Schenk hosts this amazing
event where students and
families are welcomed to
Schenk to eat some
delicious ice cream and
play outside with all of their
friends! It is a great way to
meet other people in the
Schenk Community,
including our principal Dr.
Welcome to the 2015­16
school year. Whether you
are a returning family or new
to Schenk, we hope that
you find a way to get
involved in the school and
make connections with
other families. We have a
lot of new activities and projects planned
for this year and look forward to sharing
them with the community. We will be
including details and updates regarding all
new initiatives through our monthly
newsletters.
One of the ways we monitor school growth
and set goals for our work is through our
School Improvement Plan (SIP). You can
find our SIP from last year on our website.
Our School Based Leadership Team (SBLT)
meets every month to develop and monitor
our SIP. Our updated version will be
uploaded later in September. Some of the
areas of focus for this year are: Common
Core State Standards in writing instruction,
literacy foundation skills including phonics,
teacher teaming, integrating student
collaboration in instruction, data analysis,
family communication through website and
newsletters, student engagement, culturally
and linguistically relevant practices, and
social­emotional instruction. I encourage
you to familiarize yourselves with the basics
of our SIP work and watch for updates
through our newsletters. In order to reach
our school goals, it takes all members of our
Durtschi, staff, parents, and
students. This is always one
of the favorite events of the
year and a great way to
kick off the school year.
Please come join us from
5:00­7:00 on Tuesday,
September 11th!
Fresh Fruit and
Vegetable Grant at
Schenk
We have been so lucky at
Schenk to have been
receiving the Fresh Fruit and
Vegetable Grant through
Wisconsin's Department of
Public Instruction (DPI). The
grant provides us with a
fresh fruit or vegetable
snack four days a week for
the entire school year. One
day a week our snack is
provided by REAP, a local
food group that presents us
with a snack from a local
Wisconsin farm. The snacks
range from known fruits like
apples, oranges, and
pineapple (a student
favorite), to unique
vegetables like jicama and
kohlrabi. It is a great way to
introduce children to the
wide variety of delicious
healthy food available in
our community. Ask your
children what their favorite
fruit or vegetable snack is,
and they might surprise you
with their answer!
school community.
We look forward to meeting all of our
Schenk families at Ready Set Go
conferences as well as the Schenk Opening
Ice Cream Social. One of my favorite parts
of the Opening Social is the family photo.
We will be roving around the event to take
family pictures and then put them up on the
hallway wall for the year. The photos from
last year are still up in the hall and come
down when we put up our new photos after
this year's event. This is a great way for us to
celebrate the diversity of our amazing
school community.
Looking forward to a wonderful school year.
If there is every anything you need, feel free
to reach out to me.
Dr. Emmett Durtschi
608­204­1502
[email protected]
Book Kingdom at Schenk
Every month Schenk hosts Book Kingdom, a
morning event where students are able to
purchase a used book for as little as a
quarter! New book are $1.25. It's a great
way for students to purchase used books at
a great price and get excited about
reading something new. It will always be
noted in our "important dates" section at
the top of every newsletter.
Support Staff Sharing
Welcome to the start of the new school
year! We are excited to work together to
support your child's growth this year. Every
month we will share a bit of information
about topics that may interest you.
Examples of topics we can cover include:
children and sleep, supporting your child's
friendships, and how to help with
homework. If there is a topic about which
you would like more information, please feel
free to drop in, send an email, or give me a
call (204­1507). We look forward to sharing
a year of learning together! Tara Schluesche, Schenk School
Psychologist
Meet Schenk's New Art Teacher ­ Catherine Germain
Schenk Elementary School is happy to welcome a new art
teacher, Cathy Germain, to our community. Ms. Germain has
been teaching art for 21 years! She grew up in Phoenix, and has
taught in Minnesota, the Washington D.C. Area, and now
Madison. She brings with her a lot of experience, dedication,
creativity, and passion for arts education. Ms. Germain loves to
paint, and recently painted two murals on her garage walls.
She feels incredibly blessed to teach art, "I feel lucky because I
get to create art, do something I love, and share it with children
­ what's better than that?" Ms. Germain has high expectations in
her classroom, her mantra is FOCUS. She likes to help kids find a place where they
can be in the zone, focused, working hard on their art. We can't wait to see all of the
beautiful things Ms. Germain will create with our Schenk artists! When you see her
please give her a warm Schenk welcome!
Positive Behavior Support (PBS) at Schenk
The first month of school is a time when we teach behavior expectations at Schenk.
At Schenk we use Shining Sharks to promote positive behavior. A Shining Shark is:
Safe
Helpful
A Learner
Respectful & Responsible
Kind
When students are demonstrating one of these behaviors, they are given a shining
shark with their name on it, indicating which quality they were possessing. Their shark
then gets collected and at the end of the week their teacher picks a shark out of
their class's collection. On Friday mornings, that selected student's name is shared on
the school­wide announcements and he/she is invited to pick a prize from the office.
Students are very proud to get shining sharks at our school.
Every month, starting in September, there is a Student of the Month from each class.
To earn Student of the Month, students have to consistently show all of the qualities
of a shining shark through the entire month. Students of the Month receive an
awesome Student of the Month t­shirt, a certificate signed by Dr. Durtschi and their
teacher, and a celebratory lunch with Dr. Durtschi. It takes hard work to earn Student
of the Month!
Literacy Corner
As a person begins the journey into the world of reading and writing, there are areas
that we know are essential. One of these crucial pieces is phonemic awareness.
The ability to identify, hear, move around and manipulate the individual sounds in
spoken words is called phonemic awareness.
Before children learn to read, they need to become aware of how the sounds in
words work. They learn that words are made up of individual speech sounds, or
phonemes.
Phonemes are the smallest parts of sound in a spoken word that make a difference
in the word's meaning. For example, changing the first phoneme in the word rat from
/r/ to /p/ changes the word from rat to pat, and so the meaning changes. (A letter
between slash marks shows the sound, the phoneme, that the letter represents, BUT
not the name of the letter. For example, the letter h represents the sound /h/.)
We watch for and teach children about phonemic awareness in several ways,
including:
recognizing if words begin with the same sound
("turn, tell, and tap all have /t/ at the beginning.")
being able to hear and say the first or last sound in a word
("The beginning sound of mom is /m/." "The ending sound of sit is /t/.")
blending the separate sounds in a word to say the word
("/r/, /a/, /p/ ­ rap.")
breaking a word into its separate sounds
("in ­ /i/, /n/.")
Ideas to do at home:
Rhyming Game
Goal: To show your child that rhyming words end in the same middle and ending
sounds.
As you are hanging out at home, or walking through your neighborhood, invite
your child to play a rhyming game with you.
Name something you see, and then say another word. Your child needs to tell
you if the two words rhyme.
Example: Say, "car, tar." Ask your child, "Do these words rhyme?"
Then say, "car, road." Ask your child, "Do these words rhyme?"
You can also say, "I see a cat." Then ask your child to say a word that rhymes
with cat.
If your child cannot generate a word that rhymes with cat, you can give them
choices. Ask your child which word rhymes with cat? Apple or hat?
Blending Sounds to Make Words
Have your child guess a word that you sound out slowly (cccccaaaaatttttt).
Child says, "Cat."
This time, the parent says a word in parts and the child repeats the entire word.
Example:
Parent: "to­morr­ow"
Child: "tomorrow"
Again, you can make this more difficult with words with more syllables when your
child is ready.
Welcome (back) to the 2015­16 academic year at Schenk! We hope the first day of
school went well and that you're ready for a wonderful year.
The Schenk PTO organizes a number of events throughout the year, and we're eager
to meet you and work together to make Schenk a warm and welcoming learning
community for you and your family. We invite you to join us at these events ­ hope to
see you there!
'Playdates on the Playground'. Join us on the Schenk playground to meet other
new and continuing families to help make the transition to school easier.
­ Thursday, August 27 from 3:30­5pm (for Kindergarten families): Ask questions,
make some friends and meet the Kindergarten teachers and principal
­ Sunday, August 30 from 6­7pm (for all new Schenk families, K­5): Make friends
and meet other families in our Schenk community
Ice Cream Social: Friday, September 11, 6­7:30pm. Enjoy ice cream and
toppings, and socialize with other Schenk families. One of the most popular
events of the year ­ don't miss it! A special thanks to Schoep's for donating the
ice cream again this year!
PTO Meeting: Wednesday September 16, 6pm. Schenk LMC.
Please do not hesitate to email us at [email protected] with any questions or
concerns you may have.
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Schenk Elementary School | 230 Schenk St. | Madison | WI | 53714