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Stoner Prairie News
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7th Edition, November 6th, 2023
Principal Connection
Pumpkin in your Pocket a Big Hit with staff..and students!
Last week we welcomed November together on Wednesday, but not before we searched for pumpkins! To support staff through an action packed week, we played a little game. On Monday I introduced 4 pumpkins to various staff. They could keep those pumpkins until someone asked them, Do you have a pumpkin in your pocket?" If they did, they had to give the pumpkin to their colleague. The game lasted two days and anyone who had a pumpkin when I announced the game was over on Tuesday, came to the office for a prize. For two days, the staff interacted around the game, often laughing and smiling as they crossed each other in the hallways throughout the day. Fifth graders became involved on Tuesday afternoon and staff were increasingly "pumpkin checked" near their hallways. Staff agreed it was a fun way to connect with each other during a busy week. The winners included: Mr. Ty, Ms. Minter, Ms. Messina, Mr. Riley, and Ms. Caithamer.
Our work is hard sometimes - it is nice to infuse a little fun along the way! Thank you to CVS Pharmacy for providing one lucky winner with a $25 gift card. Get ready for Gobble, Gobble in November!
Teacher Newsletters: Click here to see your child's newsletter
Stoner Prairie Elementary PTO News
Kick start your holiday shopping with the Rusty Dog Coffee, Tea, and Cocoa Sale! Online sales are open through Sunday, November 19. https://www.rustydogcoffee.com/collections/stoner-prairie-elementary-pto-coffee
Pick up on Sunday, December 10 from 3-5 PM and Tuesday, December 12 from 5-7 PM at Stoner Prairie.
Stoner Prairie PTO is excited to invite you to our Gratitude Glow Night on November 10th from 5-7pm. Join us at the school for a heartwarming evening of creativity and community spirit! Stoner Prairie scholars will be decorating luminaries in art class with the things they are grateful for, showcasing their creativity and thankfulness, and families are invited to take a stroll through their lighted path. After enjoying the luminary walk, head to the gym for a glow dance with glow sticks and music! Please note that this is a chance for our families to come together and celebrate our scholars and is not a drop off event. We hope to see you there!
Volunteer opportunity! We need volunteers for Gratitude Glow Night on 11/10. Set-up luminaries, greet families, hand out glow sticks, or DJ the dance. Sign-up here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60B054AABAA28A5F49-45824626-gratitude
Mark your calendars! The next PTO meeting is 11/14 from 6-7 pm. All are welcome! Reach out to stonerprairiepto@gmail.com with any questions, concerns, or suggestions or to be added to our email list.
Important Updates & Upcoming Dates
Attendance reminders:
We are seeing an increase in the number of unreported absences. Please report if your scholar will not be joining us. You may:
- Call 608-845-4203 (English attendance line) or 608-845-4200 (Main line with Spanish option) or
- Email sp-attendance@verona.k12.wi.us (English and Spanish) with all attendance changes.
Contacting the attendance office directly is important!
What can parents do to help with scholar attendance?
Understand the value of daily attendance and impact of tardies.
Learning is progressive; each builds upon those of the previous days
Student’s with good attendance generally achieve higher grades and enjoy school more.
5 minutes matters: We start instruction at 7:30 daily. Dropping off students 5 minutes late, results in students getting to their classrooms typically 10 minutes late because they are required to check in the office and pick up breakfast prior to attending. If done daily, this means your scholar is missing nearly an hour of an instruction by the end of one week!
Please see the October Digital Citizenship Letter
Thanksgiving Events
As it gets closer and closer to the holiday season, help us get the word out about our upcoming free Thanksgiving events for 2023.
This year we have TWO event options:
Meal Baskets: Individuals & families can register to pick up a Thanksgiving Meal Basket to pick up on Thursday, November 16th from 3:30-6 PM which will include a turkey, stuffing, and additional fixings for a meal! Meals can be picked up at our Fleming Club (2001 Taft Street, Madison) or our McKenzie Club (232 Windsor Street, Sun Prairie).
OR
Sina Davis Community Meal: Individuals & families can register to join us for an in-person cooked meal on Thursday, November 23rd from 11 AM - 2 PM at our Allied Club (4619 Jenewein Rd, Fitchburg).
Registration is HERE, and any questions can be directed to community@bgcdc.org.
Are you new? Welcome to Stoner Prairie!
We have welcomed a number of new scholars to our school already this year. To support students feeling welcomed to our school community, we will be holding lunch bunch times for our new scholars. Our school social worker, Ms. Confer, will also reach out to welcome new families and check in.
Gymnastics Night November 9th
Stoner Prairie P.E. is hosting a Gymnastics Night next Thursday, November 9th! The times are 3:30 - 4:15, 4:30 - 5:15 and 5:30 - 6:15. Sign up at one of the three slots at this sign up genius: Gymnastics Night Sign Up. Adult supervision is required.
Child Protection Unit Lessons begin this week (11/6 through 11/17)
Laura Confer, our School Social Worker, will teach Protective Behaviors lessons to all students this year.
These are the themes taught in the protective behaviors lesson:
Ways to Stay Safe: The three R’s: Recognize (Is it safe?), Refuse (Say words that mean no) and Report (Tell an adult).
The Always Ask First Rule: Always ask a parent or the person in charge first before going somewhere, doing something or accepting something from someone.
Safe touches: Touches that help us feel safe and loved such as hi-fives, handshakes, hugs.
Unsafe touches: Touches that hurt our bodies such as kicks, punches, hitting, biting. These are not okay touches to use.
Unwanted touches: Touches that we do not want, including safe touches. It's okay to refuse even a safe touch. We can use our words to refuse a touch we do not want.
The Touching Rule: Another person should never touch your private body parts except to keep you healthy. The curriculum calls it this, but it is also referred to as the private body parts rule.
The Never Keep Secrets Rule: Never keep secrets if someone breaks the touching rule.
At the end of every lesson, Ms. Confer has the kids review and go through some hypothetical scenarios to ensure they're understanding the material and are able to differentiate between all the rules and when or not to report.
You may find it helpful to use this information as you talk to your child(ren) about personal safety.
If you have questions or concerns, please feel free to contact Ms. Confer or Ms. Seidl. Thank you!
conferl@verona.k12.wi.usWhat did teachers do on the asynchronous day?
The Verona Area School District provided professional development on November 3rd for all staff. In the morning, staff were provided with multiple opportunities through the "Elevating Excellence Together" event held at the high school. Staff were asked to sign up for two learning sessions that supported their growth as professionals. A wide variety of options were offered that began at 8:00 am and ended at 10:45. Sessions were taught by our own VASD experts including a few from Stoner Prairie: "Donuts and Diverse Authors" by Ms. Davis, "Elementary Library Resources to Enhance and Diversify Lessons" by Ms. Hewitt, "Sonday Essentials - a reading intervention" by Ms. Zeroth, "Star and Educlimber - data tools we use" by Mr. Geissel, and "Using Visuals to do the Talking" by Ms. Helseth. We are fortunate to learn from this expertise in our school as well as other expertise from across the district.
Following a break for lunch, we proceeded to Stoner Prairie to be available for scholar questions between noon and one and then gathered in our library for school-directed professional development. At Stoner Prairie, we deepened our knowledge of our own data goals for the 2023-24 school year while learning more about what it means to be a warm demander and why race and equity work is critical to our shared success. We ended our day with a circle of gratitude. We honor that disruptions in the weekly schedule may pose challenges for some and want to share our appreciation for scholars and families grace and understanding as we worked hard on Friday to support our own growth and development. Thank you!
Garden Year in Review
- Kindergarteners: planted garlic cloves that will grow to big garlic bulbs in late summer!
- 4th graders winterized the garden for us by pulling out all the plants and adding straw to the beds! They also found lots of winter veggies that were donated to the Badger Prairie Needs Network.
- 5th graders planted tulips and daffodils that will come up in the spring.
- Our 3rd graders harvested in the garden in September and we donated lots of produce from the summer to the Badger Prairie Needs Network and the Allied Drive Food Pantry.
- Our 1st graders made pine cone bird feeders using sunflower seeds from the garden!
- And finally our 2nd graders painted mini pumpkins.
It was a successful Fall in our Stoner Prairie Garden! I appreciate all the collaboration with teachers, staff and parent volunteers to make all this happen! We cannot wait to get everyone out again for planting in the Spring!
Keep your eye out for STAR report
Scholars will be bringing home their Fall STAR report this week - please keep your eyes open for backpack mail. A reminder that this is one assessment that we use to help inform staff of instructional moves that will best serve our scholars. There are additional assessments that we use to inform our work as well. Please reach out to your scholar's classroom teacher if you have any questions. Thank you!