Shorewood Hills Shark Tooth

Thank you so much to everyone who helped make our Fall Festival a fantastic event for our students. It was also wonderful to see our families last night and today for fall conferences. We hope you found them to be informative!

I want to give a special shout-out to the PTO's annual fundraising campaign. The PTO is looking to raise $8,500 in the next 10 days! The funds raised are critical for supporting some of our much-loved and enriching programs at Shorewood such as poetry week with the actor, David Daniel, International Week, and our fifth grade promotion ceremony.

Finally, I want to honor that November is Native American Heritage Month. Students will be doing activities in class this month to learn more about Native Americans and their contributions to our country both past and present. We will also have our first annual land re-acknowledgment ceremony at the end of the month. This is a time when we come together to honor the place on which we learn at Shorewood, the ancestral home of the Ho Chunk people.

In partnership,

Anne Gillespie

Principal

PTO Fundraising Update

At SHES, all families are part of the PTO! The PTO organizes and funds many school and community events during the year and each fall hosts an annual fundraising drive, which creates the budget for the school year. As of today, the PTO has raised $4,500 toward their $13,000 goal. Can you contribute by November 13?

If each family at our school gave $40 per child, we’d meet our goal. However, no gift is too small… the small gifts add up! If you have the means, please consider donating up to $250 per child, a gift that works out to only $25 per month for the ten months of the school year.

Please help our PTO raise $13,000 by November 13th! Your donation directly supports your child’s education. The sooner items can be purchased and programs can be funded, the sooner your child will benefit.

To make a donation, please visit https://www.shespto.org and click “Donate” for a PayPal link.

We are looking for helpers during our buddy classroom time. During buddy classrooms, two classes from different grade levels come together to do an activity together.

November’s activities are all about Native American Heritage month. Class helpers will assist students with doing crafts!

The dates are Thursday, November 9th, 16th, and 30th. There are two 1-hour sessions on each of those days. See the link below for more details and to sign-up.

**Sign-up Here!**

You have to be an approved volunteer in order to sign up! The process is quite easy.

Here are links with more information:

Volunteer approval process

Volunteer expectations

Volunteer policy

Volunteer onboarding training module

We are so proud to share that Ms. Kari Boyer, 3rd grade teacher, has won the Outstanding Cooperating Teacher Rockwell Award from the UW School of Education!

The Rockwell Awards recognize excellent teachers who have chosen to pass on their expertise by providing professional experiences for UW-Madison student teachers. The selection committee based its decision on nominations that addressed each cooperating teacher’s commitment to mentoring future teachers through a process of effective guidance, feedback, and opportunities for reflection, as well as exemplary teaching ability by establishing an environment that instills a desire for students to learn, bringing enthusiasm into the classroom, and putting into practice quality and successful teaching techniques, methods and goals.

Congratulations to Kari on this very well-deserved recognition!

We would love your feedback on your experience at fall conferences. Please see this link. Our School Based Leadership Team reviews the responses and we make adjustments accordingly. Thank you!

There are many mental health resources available to families in Dane County. Please see this list from our Social Worker, Ms. Nachtwey <rlnachtwey@madison.k12.wi.us>. As always, please reach out to us if you have questions or are interested in receiving support.

MMSD elementary schools are in our second year of using a phonics-based approach to teaching reading called the science of reading. There are many things you can do with your student(s) at home to support this approach to reading, as well. Over the next few months, I will share some tips you can use. This week we will start with phonemic awareness.

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and distinguish sounds. This includes:

• Recognizing sounds, alone and in words

• Adding sounds to words

• Taking apart words and breaking them into their different sounds

• Moving sounds

K-1 Phonemic Awareness Tips:

🔲 Play “I Spy” with your child, but instead of giving a color say, “I spy something that starts with /b/,” or “I spy something with these sounds, /d/ /ŏ/ /g/.” Have your child do the same.

🔲 Play a game in which you say a word and your child has to break apart all the sounds. Ask your child to stretch out a word like dog - he/she can pretend to stretch the word with a rubber band. Your child should say /d/ /ŏ/ /g/.

🔲 Say a sentence aloud and ask your child to determine how many words were in the sentence.

2-3 Phonemic Awareness Tips:

🔲 Demonstrate clapping a word into its syllables. Ask your child to clap words into syllables.

🔲 Make tally marks for the number of syllables in the names of people in your family, favorite foods, etc.

🔲 Give your child a small car (such as a Matchbox car). Write a word containing five or more letters on a piece of paper with the letters spaced apart. Have your child drive the car over each letter saying the letter sound. Have your child begin driving the car slowly over the letters and then drive over them again slightly faster. Continue until the word is said at a good rate.

This year Christine’s Kitchens is partnering with REAP Food Group to support local farmers and producers and raise money for schools in Southern Wisconsin. 15% of all sales (excluding shipping) of the REAP Holiday Fundraiser Boxes will be donated to your PTO. Here is how to order…

STEP 1: Choose the Holiday Fundraiser Boxes you want at:

https://christines-kitchens.com/reapholidayboxes/

STEP 2: For each box, select the school you want to receive your donation in the drop down box.

STEP 3: Each box you order will have an option to pick up (at your chosen school) or to have it shipped. (**Please note: pick up dates are earlier than shipping dates. Due to school schedules, pick ups must be done prior to schools going on holiday break)

STEP 4: ENJOY THE WONDERFUL PRODUCTS IN THE BOXES!

**Pick up dates at schools will be between December 4-6, 2023. Your school will provide you with the exact date.

***Shipped boxes will be in the mail Monday, December 18, 2023 to be delivered by Christmas.

At Shorewood, we are required by state statute to regularly practice safety drills to ensure that our students and staff know what to do in the event of an emergency. For instance, we practice an evacuation (fire) drill every month. Shelter (Tornado) drills are conducted in the fall and in the spring.

In addition, a Lockdown drill must be completed twice a year. As a reminder, a Lockdown would be implemented in response to a threat or hazard happening inside the school building.

We will be holding our Lockdown drill on Thursday, November 16th at 10:45AM. A few notes about the Lockdown drill:

• Prior to the drill, staff and students will spend time reviewing the Standard Response Protocol Lockdown training (mmsd.org/SRP) that was taught earlier in the semester.

• On the day of the drill, we will announce reminders to ensure that all students feel prepared.

• When the drill begins, staff and students will calmly move to the safe zone of their classroom and remain silent. Teachers will lock classroom doors, turn lights off, and account for all students. If there are any classes taking place outdoors at the time of the drill, staff will follow the protocol and remain outdoors until the drill is over.

• During the drill, no one will be permitted in or out of the building.

• The experience is meant to be practice only, and not threatening or scary in nature. The drill will not include anything aimed at making students fearful or anxious (no banging on doors or windows, simulated threats, etc.)

• Members of the MMSD Office of School Safety and Shorewood Police Department may be observing the drill and debriefing with staff. Teachers will also debrief with students after the drill has been completed.

This Lockdown drill is an important element in our Emergency Procedures (mmsd.org/BeSafe). While we do not anticipate needing to use this procedure in our schools, it is incredibly important for all our students and staff to complete the Lockdown drill to practice staying safe.

Please talk with your child about the Lockdown drill, emphasizing that it is only practice, but very important. I also wanted to share this resource for talking about school safety with your child.

For more information about MMSD school safety, please visit https://www.madison.k12.wi.us/office-of-school-safety.

Thank you for your continued partnership. Please contact me in the main office if you have any questions, at 608-204-1200.

Please find food service menus linked here. There is also an option to subscribe to the menus on iCal or Google calendar.

Upcoming Dates:

• November: Native American Heritage Month
• Monday, November 6th: Quarter 2 starts
• Friday, November 10th: Picture re-takes and popcorn sale
• Tuesday, November 14th: PTO Meeting
• Thursday, November 16th: Lockdown drill (see email and info above)
• Wednesday, November 22nd-24th: No School

Help Lines:

• Text “HOPELINE” to 741741

• Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 608-280-2600 or 1-800-273-8255

• Briarpatch Helpline: 1-800-798-1126

• Trevor Lifeline for LGBTQ+: 1-866-488-7386 or click here for Trevor Text & Trevor Chat

• 24/7 SAMHSA Disaster Distress Helpline - 1-800-985-5990

• 24/7 Parental Stress Line - 1-800-632-8188

• Domestic Abuse Intervention Services (DAIS) Help Line: 608-251-4445 or 800-747-4045, If you are in immediate danger, call 911.