Willow School Kindergartners Get Books to Keep

Wow, Homewood! Thanks to your generosity, every one of our kindergartners this year is going to receive a new book each month to keep! The effort started with just a couple of Willow School kindergarten teachers who asked for $9 donations from their friends and loved ones via their personal Facebook pages. Scholastic Books (remember those paper book order forms from when you were a kid?) offers a book each month for just $1. A $9 donation would provide a book for one of their kindergarten students each month. And things just snowballed from there! Other teachers (and non-teachers, too) joined in, and their posts were shared far and wide. The donations rolled in, enough to cover the entire kindergarten class. The first month’s books have just started to arrive with the rest coming soon. Here are Ms. Brecheisen’s kindergartners absorbed in various titles from the “Pete the Cat” series. Thank you for showing our youngest learners that reading is important and that even strangers are dedicated to getting them to learn to love the written word.

 Building Houses at Churchill School

Churchill School students have been busy building houses, both figuratively and literally. Move Over Hogwarts School houses (yes, like Harry Potter) have been created as a new incentive and community-builder at Churchill School. The house names are based on character trait pillars that are important for a successful Churchill Bulldog student: respect, determination, integrity, optimism, strength, kindness, courage, citizenship and friendship. To promote team building, each house is comprised of one class from each grade level plus other staff members. Every 6-8 weeks, a theme is identified, and students work to earn purple house bones for carrying out the theme. The first theme of the year is safety. So any student, for example, who walks to their destination, freezes at the whistle, and follows directions can earn bones for their house. The house with the most team points for that theme wins a special celebration. "House spirit is going WILD at Churchill School. If you walked through the halls you would see people cheering on their teammates, other houses and one another," said Assistant to the Principal Alison Lincoln, Principal Nikki Kerr adds, "It's great to see our 5th-graders take on nurturing and mentoring roles with the younger kids in their houses."

Art Classes Explore Architecture Meanwhile, 4th-grade Bulldogs literally are building houses in art class. During their unit of study on architecture, they researched examples of architectural styles around Homewood and are tasked with building cardboard models.

Panthers Undefeated in Regular Season Congratulations to the James Hart Baseball Team for a thrilling, undefeated regular season.   Unfortunately our Panthers fell to Parker in the regional finals, Sept. 17th.We wish the Falcons well in the sectionals.

PTA General Meeting Fall Meeting Tuesday, Sept. 25 Please make plans to attend!

PTA Puts Out Call for Entries Does your student enjoy art, music or dance or have an interest in writing, producing film or taking photos? The PTA's Reflections program is a great way to unleash their inner artist! Deadline to enter is Nov. 28th. Entry form here.

Upcoming Events

Monday, Sept. 24 Tuesday, Sept. 25 Thursday, Sept. 27

School Board Meeting, JH Media Center, 7:00 PM PTA Fall Meeting, JH Gym, 7:00 PM Willow School Open House, 6:45-8:00 PM

For a complete list of upcoming events, please check our website calendar.