March 17, 2012- Vol 4, Issue 14

• April 12-15, 2012 - Titanic! The Musical Final performance on THE 100th anniversary of the sinking.

  Tickets available online at westmusical.org Students are busy working on stage and off to produce a wonderful tribute to this legendary ship and those who sailed aboard her on the maiden voyage.

• 04/13/2012 - DHS East Cougar Corp 3 on 3 Basketball Tournament, Food Drink Prizes and Fun.  All proceeds will be donated to the Chester county Food Backpack program.  7:00 PM at DHS East.
• 04/15/2012 - The Muzzy 5K Walk/Run will take place on Sunday morning, along the Struble Trail. T-Shirts were designed by Social Studies teacher, Dan Soler. Student organizations LINK, NHS, Student Council, GAA, FBLA (from STEM), and GSA are involved with the event. Registration is through the Chester County Running Store: www.runccrs.com . Proceeds benefit Downingtown School District parents and students.

Bradford Heights

Signs of spring can be seen all over the gardens at Bradford Heights.  Our parents have worked hard on cleaning the flower beds and mulching, while Mrs. Graham, our 4th grade teacher, has been working on her Native Pennsylvania garden.  It too has been weeded and mulched by her and the students.  Mrs. Graham is also getting her vegetable gardens prepared for growing season.  The vegetables grown are picked and brought to the Lord's Pantry to be distributed to those that need them.

 

Reading Olympics took placeMonday at CAT Pickering.  Reading Olympics is sponsored by the CCIU.  This year 175 teams participated over four nights.  BH competed this year with two very strong teams.  The students had to read as many books as possible off of a list of 45 books, as well as, attend practice meetings throughout the year with Mrs. Seigel, Mrs. Mack (IST teachers), and Mrs. Knaster (librarian).  We are also thankful to have had such wonderful parent support.

 

Our two teams each won first place ribbons. The BH teams included:

Reading Bulldogs:

Team Captain, Emory Chiappa
Team Co-Captain, Sadie Grunwell
Jack Guardiola
Jenna Bianco
Ryan McNeill
Lili Zeblium
Rachel Bowman
Grace Voss
Kyle Kuhlman

 eReading Bulldogs:
Team Captain, Megan Herrmann
Team Co-Captain, Kaitlyn Martchek
Schaefer Warren
Eva Vrencur
Meldoy Yu
Gillian Christopher
Samantha Haltom
Erin Conti

 

We are very proud of these students for their hard work and dedication to reading.  We are already looking forward to next year.

 

Brandywine Wallace

April has been identified as Autism Awareness Month and Brandywine Wallace has participated in a number of activities in support of this initiative. BW staff and students wore blue on April 2nd in honor of World Autism Awareness Day and autism facts were shared on the morning broadcast during the week. Teachers also received an overview of autism presented by Brenda Eaton from CCIU. In addition, Susan March, from CCIU, is working with special area teachers in support of the inclusion of our students from the autistic support classrooms.

 

Our fourth graders visited the State Capitol in Harrisburg last week, where state senators and representatives were in session. In addition, there were many visitors to the Capitol supporting a variety of causes, so students were able to see our government in action.

 

Earlier this year, Mrs. Maloney's second graders sent Valentines to soldiers in Afghanistan. Recently, they received a reply from US Army UH-60 Black Hawk pilot, CW2 "Chief" Jake Blaustein. Officer Blaustein, from Houston, TX, is currently serving in the Hindu Kush mountain range in Afghanistan. He thanked the students for their wonderful Valentines and encouraged them to do their very best in school.

 

Science

This month, elementary teachers will complete orders to refurbish their FOSS kits for next year. Each FOSS kit contains some consumable materials that support the hands-on lesson activities for each unit. Joann Hawk, from CCIU, assists DASD with this process by compiling and coordinating orders for each grade level in each building. Materials will be delivered to teachers in late August.

 

Third graders from Brandywine Wallace visited Downingtown Middle School this week to learn science lessons from their 7th grade Science Buddies. This collaborative project is a joint venture organized by Miss Laudenslager (BW) and Mrs. King (DMS). Seventh graders complete learning projects on topics from the third grade curriculum and then share these activities with their buddies.

 

Lionville Elementary

TITLE I AUDIT

Mrs. Peggy Barnes, IST, and Mrs. Jodi Tromatore (Title I Instructional Aide) have been busy preparing for the April 19th Title I Audit.

 

 

SERVICE PROJECTS

LE students and families have several service projects in the works.

• We are collecting gently used sneakers to send to Honduras (organized by DMS teacher, Mr. Gary Gittis).
• We are collecting school supplies to send to schools in Haiti. This project is organized by fifth grader Julia Fisher as part of a Girl Scout project.
• First Grader Collin Drummond is the Youth Honoree for the Philadelphia Arthritis Walk. He and his family are collecting donations for the May 19th walk.
• Mrs. Joan Strawbridge is organizing a team to raise money to benefit Multiple Schlerosis.
• Chick-Fil-A fundraiser night raised over $2000 to benefit special education teacher (recent retiree) Mrs. Joanne MacBrine in her fight against ALS.

 

EMERGENCY DRILLS

LE students and staff participated in two emergency drills in the past month. For this week's fire drill, we simulated the blockage of an exit. During the March fire drill, we took students out of the exit line and had them wait in the nurses' office to be sure our attendance reporting procedures were effective: staff were indeed able to identify the "missing students" in this drill. Each time, we identify items that may be improved for future drills and emergencies.

 

FACILITY UPDATE

Construction bidders inspected the LE façade and roof as part of the pre-bid process on Thursday, April 12th. The staff is very grateful for the Board and administration's support in remediating the water infiltration.

 

SENATOR DINNEMAN VISITS LE

Senator Dinneman visited LE to talk with fourth graders about state government as part of the fourth grade social studies curriculum. Senator Dinneman provided each student with a book mark that contains information about famous Chester Countians who contributed greatly to our state's history. In addition, fourth graders visited Harrisburg this month to tour the governmental buildings of the state capital.

 

Pickering Valley

The Pickering Valley Garden Committee has a new focus this year.  We are collaborating with The Chester County Food Bank to provide produce for Chester County residents who don't have enough food to eat. On April 3rd two members of the Chester County Food Bank worked with the garden committee, students, teachers and parents to build six raised beds. The children participated in every stage of building including screwing the boards together to form the beds, carrying the beds to the garden and filling them with soil.  The "bucket brigade" was a perfect way for all students to be involved with the project.  Many of the children would never have wanted to shovel soil at home, but were working hard for the garden!  We then planted seedlings and seeds in all 12 beds, 6 new and 6 from last year.

 

The Food Bank provided the wood, soil, seedlings and seeds and in return our school will donate 70% of the produce back to them -  30% can be used by our school. There will be 3 plantings in the beds - spring, summer and fall.  Also, 3 Downingtown High School students have volunteered to help with the garden to meet the requirements for their senior projects. 

 

In addition, the Garden Committee is planning to schedule a volunteer night at the Food Bank and a "picking in the garden" opportunity at the Food Bank fields during the summer. We look forward to continuing this mutually beneficial collaboration.

 

Pickering Valley has been collecting quarters for the Stop Hunger Now campaign all year. We are proud to announce that the goal of 10,000 quarters was reached!! On April 23rd, students will be packaging 10,000 meals which will consist of rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables and a vitamin mix. This will provide 10,000 meals to support school feeding programs all around the world.

 

Pickering Valley Kindergarteners and 5th graders are participating in the Reach Out and Read program. Students will bring in new or gently used books to donate to the program. The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Reach Out and Read program partners with doctors in impoverished communities to "prescribe" books and to encourage parents to read to their children. At each check-up, a child receives a donated book to take home and to keep. Toward the end of the collection period, the students will be doing the hands-on portion of the activity by making Caregiver/Child Activity Cards and bookmarks to be included with the donated books.  

 

Springton Manor

Author/Illustrator Visits Springton Manor Elementary: On Monday, April 2, 2012, Mr. Ralph Masiello visited Springton Manor Elementary School. Mr. Masiello is a published illustrator and author who spent the day meeting with the children in the library talking with them about his work and demonstrating how he draws many of the interesting illustrations he completes for books. While best known for illustrating alphabet books, Mr. Masiello has illustrated many other books and is also author of a few volumes. The students really enjoyed his presentation and Mrs. Masiello left a number of signed pictures that we can hang in our classrooms. Our thanks to Mrs. Parfitt and the Home and School Association for bringing Mr. Masiello to Springton Manor Elementary School

 

"BOGO" Book fair: Springton Manor students returned from our spring vacation to find our second book fair of the year had arrived at Springton Manor Elementary. The spring book fair gives students and families an opportunity to purchase books for summer reading and is set up as a Buy One Get One Free sale. This book fair does not generate funds for the school but does give our student and families an opportunity to purchase books at a great discount for summer reading. Again, thank you to Mrs. Parfitt and the Home and School Association for bringing the spring book fair to Springton Manor Elementary School.

 

Muffins With Mom: In conjunction with the spring book fair, the Home and School Association sponsored a morning Muffins with Mom on Thursday, April 12. 2012. We had over 250 students and moms come as share a light breakfast of muffins and juice and an opportunity to visit the spring book fair to purchase books together. Our parents and students reported that the event was a huge success and we thank all of the volunteers who helped make our first Muffins with Mom a real hit.

  

 West Bradford

A Week of Art!

Mrs. Mary Fran Guinta, WB art teacher, and her hard-working parent crew put together the annual Artist Day celebration on Wednesday 4/11.  This event welcomes local artists (we had over 30!) to share their craft and art with students and staff.  From wheel-thrown pottery to wool felt hat making, photography, drawing, painting, clay beads, and lapidary jewelry...students were intrigued and entertained by their interactions with our talented guests.  Huge thanks to Mrs. Giunta and her team who not only set up a wonderful opportunity for our students, but hosted a lovely thank you luncheon for our visitors.

 

Art Show

Then...on Thursday evening, the school was open for the evening art show (themed:  Walk in the Rhythm of Art) for our West Bradford families to visit and view our student-created art.  The school was transformed into a museum with a variety of art, dance performances and puppet shows!  A lovely night of culture and family fun!

 

DMS

Reading Olympics
The Reading Olympics teams participated in the county-wide Reading Olympics Competition at West Chester East High School on March 28.  They competed in 3 rounds in which comprehension questions were asked about the 40 different books read by the teams.  A total score was calculated after the 3 rounds and both teams earned blue ribbons, meaning they answered at least 50 questions correct.  We are very proud of all of the students!!!

                                   

Innovative Math News
The 7th grade Innovative Math students are using their knowledge of patterns, functions and sequencing to create Rube Goldberg style machines that perform ordinary tasks in extraordinary ways.  These machines are intended to solve a problem the students face in their daily lives.  

 

Penn Relays
The DMS cross country team is off to a great start. Several students participated in the Penn Relay qualifying meet. With strength and determination, along with solid team work, our students promise a successful season.

                

Life Skills Field Trip

Mr. Kowal's class went on a field trip this week to Spring Brook Farm. Spring Brook Farm is a farm that works with students with cognitive disabilities. Our students participated in combing therapy, walking therapy, and fed all of the animals. After a fun hayride, the students learned about all of the people and jobs related to running a barn and farm.

      

Therapy Dog with our Life Skills Students

Nicole Dankanich, a West graduate, visited Mr. Kowal's class to share her knowledge of using therapy dogs. She brought her furry friend, Leon, to class so the students could see a therapy dog in action. Nicole talked to the students about how therapy dogs promote connections between people and animals.

        

 LMS

Two of our teachers, Lois Grasso and Matt Dziunycz and two elementary teachers, Emily Vanim, PV and Jen Losch, EW presented at the international ASCD conference in Philadelphia this week. They demonstrated ways they are using technology to:

 

They discussed how they use a blended learning model using technologies like Moodle, SmartExchange, Renzulli, and web 2.0 social media tools to differentiate instruction. Additionally they demoed tools like Hippocampus for the flipped classroom and TPACK , a planning tool out of William and Mary College of Education, to help teachers select the right tech tool at the right time for the right purpose.

After presenting they had the pleasure of meeting Todd Whitaker, motivational speaker and author of the book What Great Teachers do Differently.

 

LMS Spanish 2 students wrapped up a unit on giving and getting directions by drawing a map of their own "ciudad" (town) and writing the directions (en español....of course) on how to get to five different places in their town from their own house.   Students then challenged their peers to follow these directions to see if they could get to these five different places - without asking for help.   Most students made it to all five places on their own! As a culminating activity, Maestra González Tucker challenged all of her students to hide a piece of a world map somewhere in the school building, then to write a set of directions for other students to follow in order to find that hidden part of the world. Directions in hand and in groups of four, students covered a lot of territory as they went in search of the world. All came back triumphant -- some a little later than others, but nonetheless, all returned in time to DISCOVER THE WORLD as they put their puzzle pieces together (and all before the period was over!) Whew!   ¡Descubre el Mundo!

 

Parents and Students from Team 8D met on the evening of March 22 to discuss Mildred D. Taylor's novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. Students led the discuss groups, which covered issues ranging from the effects of prejudice to the importance of family in their own lives. The meeting was the second in a series of book groups during which parents and students meet to discuss core novels from the eighth grade English curriculum. Vice Principal Chris Stango, Guidance Counselor Sue McGrath, and Teacher Deborah Kearney acted as facilitators for the group.

 

 

A special Titanic program was held for students, staff and community on March 15 (evening) and March 17 (afternoon).   Dr. Jaffe, our LMS librarian spoke about his lifelong fascination with the Titanic.   Artifacts and memorabilia were on display and replica period Titanic newspapers were awarded to many attendees.   Donations for the event were given to the library.

 

LMS joined the fray to help DMS student, Cameron Evans, find a bone marrow donor. We held soft pretzel sales on two mornings and sold Rita's water ice during lunch periods this Tuesday. Many of the staff donated bake goods to sell at DMS's bake sale on the 30th, and the LMS library put together a basket of books and other items to raffle off at DMS. Proceeds close to $950 have been raised so far!! We have yet to count the immense bag of change weighing 17.6 pounds. We will keep you updated.

 

 

5th Grade Orientation was held at LMS on Wednesday, April 11th and Thursday, April 12th from 7-9 pm.  Students and parents from all 6 feeder elementary schools had the opportunity to meet with administrators and counselors, learn about the school, and tour the building.  Other transition activities coming up include the 5th Grade Visitation Day on May 30th and Transition Camp on August 6th, 7th, and 8th.

We had great response for the first ever LMS Ecology Club Earth Day Photo Contest. 25 photographers across all grade levels competed with original nature photographs. The winners have been chosen and they are: 3rd place - Jogesh Chabria, 2nd place - Steve DeGroot,1st place - Dana Bubka.

 

TONGUE TWISTERS IN SPANISH!!!! Exploratory Spanish students learned about noun and adjective agreement as they practiced animal vocabulary, adjectives and numbers.   Each student wrote and illustrated 8 Tongue Twisters incorporating Spanish grammar and vocabulary. Here is a sampling of the success and creativity by these 3rd Marking Period Students in Maestra González Tucker's Spanish Exploratory class. ¡Bravo chicos! Can you say.... Cuarenta Canguros Contentos real fast 10 times?

 

On March 28th students from Lionville Middle School traveled with their teacher Mrs. Thorpe to Paxon Hollow Middle School. The students participated in a day long string festival. The festival required students to rehearse for over six hours during the day and ended with a wonderful performance in the evening.

 

DHS West
ACTIVITIES

Michelle Mahan's Spanish II students are writing children's books and will send them to kindergarten classes in the District.

 

Special Olympics Volunteer Club from both East and West hosted its annual basketball tournament on March 25th. Both clubs administered the tournament for 10 Special Olympics teams across the county.

 

Generation 4 Change is sponsoring a child from Guatemala through the organization, World Vision. They will donate $30.00 a month in order to provide food, clean water, healthcare, and education. This year the students will spend time writing letters to him and learning about Guatemala.

 

The National Honor Society sponsored Daffodil Day on Thursday, March 22nd. The Daffodil is the first flower of spring and is the flower of HOPE!! NHS sold flowers all day and helped to raise a large amount of money for the Cancer Society.

 

West held its annual PROM DRESS SALE - Thursday, March 29th at DHSW Library...2:30-6:00...all dresses were $20.00!

i9 Sports programs are safe and allow kids ages 3 to 13 to have fun and learn important values, such as teamwork and good sportsmanship.  We offer flag football, cheerleading, soccer and basketball leagues and camps all year round.  Our leagues last for 8 weeks and practices are only before games one day per weekend so parents do not need to drive to and from the field/gym during the week.

 

Click here to view the Summer/Fall Flyer.

 

If you are interested in being a D-Link sponsor, please contact Pat McGlone at pmcglone@dasd.org or call 610-269-8460, ext. 6113.