Successes

Well, I'd be lying to you if I said I couldn't be prouder as mushy as that is. Friday was a wonderful day of celebration as I watched 5th grade students step up to the plate to show other students a good time and to talk about their Make A Difference Day Project. Equally impressive was the amount of time, effort, and no doubt, love that went into the carnival and its success. Bravo, Outlook.

Congratulations to the fifth graders at Outlook who worked so hard to collect hats for the Make a Difference Day project. More than 1,500 hats were collected by the students and sent to four hospitals that work with children who experience hair loss from cancer treatment.
The fifth graders celebrated their accomplishment on October 27th. Two local television stations covered the event. In a special tribute, four young men had their heads shaved in honor of children everywhere battling cancer. Four young ladies got haircuts and donated their hair to Locks For Love, a group that makes wigs out of donated hair for children experiencing hair loss.

To all the parents and community members that donated time, resources, and effort, we can't thank you enough. I've included a few picts from the events.

Cheers,
Mr. Bowman

Monsters, Make A Difference Day, and Stuff

End of October and here it is, Make a Difference Day. The goal of this was to collect hats for kids with cancer and to send the hats off to various hospitals that treat both students and adults suffering from the disease.

I'm very anxious to see tomorrow's festivities and the hard work the fifth grade has put into all of this.

I loved these stories created by the third graders. If you get a chance to come into the school, stop by the third grade wing and see their creativity. It's wonderful! Bravo, 3rd grade, bravo.

Morning Meeting

Morning Meeting is a respect and sharing program that is used to teach respect and the building of a positive classroom enviornment. All of which we have agreed at Outlook we could benefit from. Waterville Elementary is in its third year of this program and we had the opportunity today to go and watch it all in action.

I was impressed with quite a number of things, the most important of which was the respect from the students. It was great to see. I believe the program has a lot of potential and we'll see in the coming months if it something that can be used at Outlook.

Tomorrow we go and watch the school TOWN MEETING and see how that's done. Should be interesting...

Regards,
Mr. Bowman

Mid-October Check

Here it is, we're into mid-October and things are running! This week, I've spent quite a bit of time looking at data for the school. This is in terms of the initial testing, we go through the Northwest Evaluation Association. Students are tested on computers on a series of questions in reading and mathematics. Though the questions are multiple choice, the questions are difficult. Very much like the WASL test questions students will see in the spring of this year.

The data I've looked at in terms of math shows that we still have a lot of work to do. It's difficult sometimes when you look at the many needs students have and the limited amount of time we have in school to truly help and address kids' needs. In this case with math, how much do we add, when do we add more, and what resources do we add with it? All tough questions.

I'm curious for Friday because we have staff scoring 3-5 grade writing samples and we'll have hard evidence on how well our Outlook students write. Though we had our highest scores ever (55% meeting standard in writing at 4th grade) it's still not acceptable.

We continue to work hard!

HATS and stuff

For those of you that have been following our blog, you know about the HATS project that the fifth grade is undertaking . . . collecting hats for kids and adults with cancer. As you can see by the pictures, hats are starting to come in and they are mounting them to the walls. The 5th is up and over 300 hats. They need more as their goal is 1,000. If you have an extra hat that you can donate, please send it our way here at Outlook Elementary.



We've also been working on an updated web site that should be up and running here next week, so look for that as well.

This week was spent finishing up our initial testing and the start of WALK TO READ and our intervention classes to help kids read. Kudos to the Reading Leadership Team and the awesome work that's going on for reading.

Next week, the Applaud Squad (our student council) meets for the 2nd time as well as our Art Decor group that's in charge of the look and feel of the building. I've included some pictures of the building and what the kids are doing.



Finally, kudos go to Judith, our Art Specialist, for her wonderful work in helping make the school what it is and for engaging kids in art.

Look for more later...

Have a great weekend.

-Mr. Bowman

One Month Down

Well, it's been a month of school and things are in full swing. Last week it seemed to flow a little better than previous weeks as people get adjusted to their schedules as well as kids. There are still a lot of details to explore and as the reading program kicks into full gear this week, it will be exciting to see.

We've started our Art decor club as well as the Student Council, which is working well as we build on student leadership.

The fifth grade will participate in the state-wide 5th grade WASL writing project and we continue to do initial tests on students so that we can know how they're doing and where they're at academically. We will share predictions and results with students within a couple of weeks.

Regards,
Mr. Bowman