Highcroft Hotline

At Highcroft, we help learners grow in a safe, caring community where ALL are valued and supported to become leaders.

October

• 15: Family Fun Night, Smashburger, 4:00 pm - 7:30 pm, 1671 Clarkson Rd.
• 18: No School, Professional Development
• 21: No School
• 22 - 25: Red Ribbon Week, see flyer below for scheduled Spirit Days
• 23: Halloween Safety Presentation
• 23: Board of Education Meeting, 7:00 pm, 471 N. Woods Mill Road
• 24: Pumpkin Run
• 25: Visit your Elementary School
• 25: Trunk or Treat, 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm, Highcroft parking lot
• 30: Late Start, School begins at 11:05 am
• 30: St. Louis Blues Spirit Day, wear blue or Blues spirit wear
• 31: Halloween Parade, 2:15 pm
• 31: Halloween Parties, 2:45 pm

Hopefully, you received the following in an email from me last week; however, I want to ensure everyone is informed about proposed boundary changes, which will impact Highcroft.

Three elementary schools in Parkway have met, or are projected to exceed, their enrollment and classroom capacity while other schools nearby have room for more students.

This inequity makes it increasingly difficult to provide a high-quality education for all students in Parkway. In order to re-balance enrollments among the schools involved, Parkway is proposing boundary adjustments to three elementary schools. This redistributes students more evenly while helping the overcrowded schools get the relief they need.

Under this proposal, all of our current families would remain at our school and our school would only receive some of the students from a few nearby neighborhoods who would be moving from another school.

While our current students and families are not directly impacted, if you have any questions you are welcome to join us for a parent information meeting on Tuesday, October 22 at Parkway Central High School at 6:30 pm to learn more.

Moving from Craig Elementary to Ross or McKelvey:

This proposal will connect subdivisions and apartments that are currently split.

• Pavilion Apartments (from Craig to Ross)
• Bennington Heights Apartments (from Craig to Ross)
• Glenwood (from Craig to McKelvey)

Moving from Shenandoah Valley Elementary to Highcroft Elementary:

• Baxter Oaks, The Estates at Baxter Lane and Brandywine Condominiums
• Schoettler Village Apartments

Moving from Henry Elementary to Mason Ridge Elementary:

• Manors of Town & Country Regency and Bristol Manors; Polo Downs and Devonworth Manor
• Willowbend and Manderleigh of Town & Country

For more information, click here.

In partnership,

Cartelia Lucas

Principal

• Kindergarten was busy this past month making Halloween themed projects using various forms of art medium. They continued the study of color theory by mixing primary color model magic to create secondary colors. Using orange, green and violet they made little jack-o-lantern sculptures. They also had a lot of fun making train collages using a variety of geometric shapes. Look for them to be hanging up in the halls of Highcroft soon!
• First grade students learned about patterns and created a crayon resist drawing to show their understanding. They also mixed primary color paint to create secondary colors which has been a fun way to make our wacky jack-o-lanterns collages.
• Second grade learned all about American artist, Andy Warhol and his 25 cats…all named Sam!! They created wonderful cats of their own. The students are now in the process of painting sugar skulls after learning about Dia de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead), a holiday celebrated in Mexico and parts of Latin America to honor a family’s ancestors.
• Third grade was inspired by the book Willow to create their own unique tree drawings. The students were excited to use water soluble oil pastels, which turn to paint when you add water, to make their masterpieces.
• Fourth grade students learned about American pop artist, Wayne Thiebaud. They used oil pastels to draw colorful cakes in the style Tiebaud regularly uses. Tiebaud worked at a diner in his youth and items often associated with these restaurants found their way into his work years later.
• Fifth grade learned about Russian born American abstract artist, Louise Nevelson. They created Assemblages (a work of art made by grouping found objects together) in the style made famous by Nevelson. They each chose a color to unify the entire piece.

First Grade - This trimester students are being exposed to and given the opportunity to demonstrate accelerated learning and analytical thinking through visual spatial activities.

The Enduring Understandings are: We are problem solvers. There are many different ways to solve problems.The problem solving process may involve taking risks. The Essential Questions are: Why is one solution better than another? How many different ways can the problem be solved? Students recognize patterns, complete pattern pictures, are introduced to analogies, recognize how a shape rotates, flips, turns, and may be added or taken away to complete a pattern. Students also create their own unique patterns!

Second Grade - As the identification process continues, several students participating in enrichment activities are busy completing research projects on a wide variety of topics. They are learning to navigate the world wide web safely, recognize websites that have information they want or need, and organize this information to keep track of their new learning. Students used Google Keep as a tool for this purpose. They are also learning to independently follow written directions, and how to create slide-shows to share their work!

Third Grade - As students work to complete their projects on All Kinds of Animals, they are learning new note taking strategies, and recognizing and avoiding plagiarism! They are working to edit and refine new information to present in their own words. As critical thinkers and creative problem solvers, they are learning to use basic math functions systematically to solve a more complex problem, and to recognize that there are many ways to arrive at a correct solution! If you haven’t heard of the math game 24, it is an excellent tool to engage and challenge students in higher level problem solving skills! There is an app on your phone, or a box version available through Amazon or at Target. It is great for those times in the car when we need to stretch our brains a bit:-)

Fourth and Fifth Grade - Students are using the Inquiry Method of Research to apply a scientific approach to learning about a subject of their choice. This method follows the sequence of conducting a science fair project! Additionally, they are using a three column strategy on a Google Doc to organize their questions, resources with citations, and relevant information (in their own words).They will work together to create a rubric to evaluate themselves and each other in demonstrating these skills.The first Math Olympiad contest will be held in early November! Students working toward this event are doing extra homework, and learning to ask specific and meaningful questions in class about their math problems. This is called a “flipped class room”. This style of teaching provides students the opportunity to first attack new problems independently, developing grit, stamina, ownership and confidence in their learning! When they return to class, we work in pairs, small groups, or as a whole to discover and practice exactly what we each need to know to solve higher level problems successfully as a team. Additionally, this format allows for self-paced learning, and accommodates a variety of levels of motivation:-) I am confident our math-o-letes we will earn great success in this program again this year.