website watertownhistory.org
ebook History of Watertown, Wisconsin
St. Henry
School Newsletter
“Let the children come to me; do not
prevent them,
for the kingdom of God
belongs to such as these. Mark 10: 14
For
the next two weeks the children in grades two through eight will be involved in
standardized testing. It is to
the children’s benefit to give their best on those. Could you encourage them in that
direction? We do NOT want them to be
nervous wrecks about them, of course; they aren’t THAT important. But on the other hand, we don’t want them to
approach them with an uncaring attitude either. If you can contribute to their
understanding that the tests should receive their best effort, thank you! Of course, good nights’ of sleep and healthy
breakfasts are also important physical factors.
We
have a new parish website that now contains some valuable information for you
to access as both parishioners and parents of school children (and perhaps) of
young people involved in the extracurricular youth programs and of high
schoolers in the religious education program.
Its address is www.sainthenryparish.org. We are putting our weekly newsletter on
it. Also on it are our mission
statement, the weekly Scripture verses, our dress code, our supply list, and
the service sheet that could be downloaded should you lose yours. Mr. Weissenborn is putting a number of items
on it that relate to the Youth Ministry activities in which many of our older
children participate. Mr. Ken Riedl, our
“webmaster,” certainly deserves the gratitude of us all for the time he spends
making this website useful to so many.
These
past two weeks brought such sadness to so many with the tragic events in
Colorado, Pennsylvania, and our relatively close neighbor in Cazenovia. How vulnerable we all are! How important it is that our children grow up
in homes where sensible and caring nurturing by parents greatly reduces the
chance of their developing severe emotional and mental issues. Like all schools everywhere, we reviewed our
emergency procedures should some unthinkable event strike here. We try to
balance giving our students the knowledge they need without making them
paranoid. Haven’t you been impressed
with the deep faith of some of the families most affected by these
tragedies? I did want to share that if
ever we would have to evacuate our building, our first choice of a site for you
to find your children will be the Municipal Building less than two blocks
away. The large, First Street river
parking lot is next to it, and there would be room for us in the building if
the weather were bad. If for some reason
it was impossible to go that way, our alternative location would be east on
Cady Street to the site of the two Lutheran schools. I’m sure they would welcome and accommodate
us. May that be a piece of knowledge you
will never need!
Our
new superintendent, Michael Lancaster, wrote a beautiful
note to the faculty and staff of Weston High School. Let me share part of it here. “We are deeply saddened and grieve at the
death of your principal, John Klang . .
. As (adults) who have dedicated our lives to educating our children, we
know how Mr. Klang must have felt about the students at Weston. Those students weren’t just any
students. They were his students; his
children and he would do anything for them, anything to help them, anything to
protect them, anything to keep them safe. . .
While some people may say that John’s death is yet another sign of what
is wrong with the world, I believe his character and his actions that day are
sure signs of what is right with the world. . . .” I’ll put his entire message on the new
website for you. May we be people who
make the world a better place for all children.
EIGHTH
GRADE HAS BIG EVENTS
Big events are happening in eighth grade during October! We are going to Camp Gray in two weeks. Please remember to turn in permission slips
and money as soon as possible. We began
two of the service projects we will be doing this year. The eighth graders are “lunch buddies” with
the preschool and kindergarten. They
assist the children with their lunches, visit with them in the cafeteria and
help them get outside. We also are
assisting with Market Day each month. We
help set up, unpack the food and pack orders.
Service-learning projects provide worthwhile experiences for
students. If anyone has any ideas for a
service project, please contact me.
The seventh and eighth graders began learning the 6 +1 Traits of
Writing. We are learning these traits
through picture books. These books
provide great examples for the traits.
We just finished making our own
“Grown-Up Rules” modeled after the book, The Secret Knowledge of Grown-Ups by
David Wisniewski. Look for these rules
in the hallway soon.
Since it is the month of October, we are completing an author
study on Edgar Allan Poe for reading. We
will be reading various short stories and poetry. We do turn the lights off (to be scarier)
when we read. Ask your students what
they think of Poe’s works.
Enjoy your weekend!
Mrs. Harms
MANNERS
AND OLD MACDONALD
Manners… do we need them?
Of course! Even though we should
not “judge a book by its cover,” we do make judgments of people by their
appearance and behaviors.
In the past few years, teachers have seen a decline in the manners
used by children. It may be because of
the increase of fast food meals or families not eating together as often due to
so many varied activities. These are a
few manners which children should be displaying: chewing with their mouth closed, not talking
with food in their mouth, using silverware and napkins properly, using “please”
and “thank you,” greeting people when they meet them, and waiting for adults to
finish talking before interrupting. Let
us commit ourselves to the task and proceed to educate our children in the
social graces. It is also important to remember that the young learn by
observing, and it is we adults who model for them.
First grade has begun our farm unit, which we will enhance with a
field trip to Glacier Rock Farm near Ashippun. With so many children growing up in the city
and fewer and fewer Wisconsin farms, this is a great hands-on experience. The children get to see and pet many
different kinds of farm animals. They
even get to milk a cow!
The children are very excited to be in our first reading
book. They love reading new and old
stories. We are also working on our
short vowel sounds to help us sound out words.
In math we have started our addition unit and will soon move on to
memorizing our facts.
Mrs. Fortlage
Dates
to Put on Your Calendar
OCTOBER
Monday 09 Standardized testing begins for grades 2-8. Spread out over two weeks.
Home and School Association (HASA) meeting,
Tuesday 10 Education Commission meeting,
Wednesday 11 Grade
5 filling children’s liturgical roles for
Thursday 12 Preschool class going to Nelson’s Pumpkin Patch and Farm
Fall Music Program, all K-grade 6 children
in it,
(This
is the promised spring program that had to be re-scheduled.)
Friday 13 Other preschool class going to Nelson’s Pumpkin Patch and
Farm
Grade
5 field trip
Mid-quarter
reports go home
Saturday 14 Parish Octoberfest Celebration
Monday 16
Mon-Wed 16-18 Home
and School Book Fair during the day for the school children
Thur-Fri 19-20 Grades 7 & 8 to Camp Gray Retreat Center
Preschool
classes going to the Fire Station
Saturday 21 HASA Blood Drive in Parish Center,
8-2
Youth
Group Bonfire and Hayride
Wednesday 25 HASA
Halloween Bash for children through grade 5
Thur-Fri 26-27 NO SCHOOL – Public School Teachers
Convention Days
NOVEMBER
Tuesday
07 Picture make up day
Scripture
verse for week of October 9-13
Psalm 90: 14 & 17
“Fill us at daybreak with your kindness (and) prosper the work of our
hands for us.
Prosper the work of our hands.”