The Eagle's Nest
Eagle Mosaic
  

 

Liberty  
Common 
Elementary 
School 
Common Knowledge, Common Virtues, Common Sense 
A National Charter School of the Year, A Nationally Recognized Blue Ribbon School,
 A Certified Official Core Knowledge Site School, A John Irwin School of Excellence ,
A Gilder Lehrman Affliate School  
Volume 18 Issue 22                                                                  
February 2, 2015
Important Dates
Feb. 6-Last day to order a LCS yearbook (see announcement below.  
Feb. 9-Feb. 13
|Volunteer Appreciation Week
Feb. 9|Volunteering Made Easy Meeting-6:30 p.m.,Band Room. 
Feb. 13|NO SCHOOL, LCS Teacher Professional Dev. 
Feb. 16|President's Day, No SCHOOL
Feb. 20|Winter Carnival
Feb.23-Feb. 27|Penny War
Feb. 24|New Kindergarten Parent Orientation,6:30 p.m.
March 6|Group Pictures
March 6|End of 3rd Quarter
March 13|6th graders to Liberty Common High School (All Day)
March 16-20|Spring Break, NO SCHOOL



Volunteering Made Easy
Have you ever wanted to get involved at Liberty but weren't sure how?  Or thought that getting involved with an event or committee would be too much with your busy schedule or with little ones still at home?  Are you new to Liberty and don't know where to start?

Please join us at an informational meeting where we will answer any questions you have about volunteering at Liberty. From the big ways to the small ways, everyone is welcome and can make a difference!

Ways you can get involved that we will discuss:
    - In the Classroom
    - At School
    - Specials Help
    - Fundraising and Special Events
    - Extra Curricular Activities
 
The meeting will be held Monday February 9th, at 6:30 pm in the Band Room.
 
Hope you can join us!!

Marnie Dame
LCS Volunteer Coordinator
Yearbook Orders Now Available

 GUARANTEED MEMORIES

 

The last day to guarantee a yearbook and to add personalization to your yearbook is February 6th.

Click on this link for easy, convenient online ordering: www.jostensyearbooks.com 

 

Questions???? Contact:

Mrs. Clouser ([email protected])


 

survey
Surveys Distributed Soon: Your Feedback is Vital 

It is the time of year when The Board of Directors seeks parental input on your child's educational experience at Liberty.  The Board values your opinion and strives to do its very best to be one of the top schools in Colorado.  A general survey focusing on our institution as a whole will be distributed to all families via email February 2, 2015.  The following week, on February 9, 2015, families will receive an individual teacher/class survey.  If you have more than one child attending Liberty,  please complete a survey for each of your students.  Please take a few minutes to fill out these surveys.  If you have any questions regarding the surveys, please call the front office at (970)482-9800.  We value your feedback.   

Shake, Rattle and Roll at Liberty's Sock Hop 2.20.15 Volunteers Needed for This Family Fun Night


For this year's winter carnival, we're bringing back the popular Sock Hop!  Friday, February 20th, 6:00- 8:00 p.m. in the gym. All attendees are welcome to dress up in your favorite "greaser" outfit or poodle skirt, eat, engage in many activities and dance to a live band!

There are many ways parents can volunteer to make this a fun time for all. We are seeking volunteers to be lead coordinators of games, crafts, and decorations.    Volunteers are needed to decorate, run stations, serve food and clean up. CLICK HERE to donate items for stations and CLICK HERE to volunteer for activities the night of the event.  

Act Now: Tickets Available for Liberty's Spring Lecture

Attention Parents:

 

Liberty Common School is excited to host a talk by Daniel T. Willingham.  Please join us on March 27th at 6:30 PM to hear a talk by Daniel T. Willingham a professor and author from University of Virginia.  He is an advocate of the Core Knowledge Curriculum and teaching our students content to comprehend the literature they read.  

 

Dr. Willingham has worked closely with ED Hirsch to cognitively explain why and how what we do works.  He will be discussing literacy and what we can do as parents and educators to make sure our students are reading.  Dr. Willingham does an incredible job of making the cognitive sciences accessible to all participants. 

 

Tickets are on sale now at 

 

 

We will have Dr. Willingham's new book, Raising Kids Who Read What Parents and Teachers Can Do, for sale and book signing after the presentation In Raising Kids, Willingham explains this phenomenon and provides practical solutions for engendering a love of reading that lasts into adulthood.

We hope you can all make it to this educational evening.
 
 
 Click Here for lecture flyer.

 

Schools On the Move Challenge Returns to Liberty
The Schools on the Move 5210 Challenge is an annual program held in February where students and staff keep track of their activity minutes and other healthy habits. Prize money is awarded to the top schools in two different categories to use towards physical education equipment or school wellness initiatives.

Healthy kids are better learners. Be a part of this new tradition at Liberty. Activity Logs coming home soon in Monday Folders.  All student and staff participants with a minimum of 60 checks on their logs will receive a Challenge t-shirt.  Click Here to learn more about the health challenge.  Now let's get moving.
Updated Curriculum: Parenting the Love and Logic Way
Would you like to feel more confident as a parent? Are you tired of your kids fighting? Would you like to have more fun parenting? Would you like to feel more relaxed at the end of the day? Help make your family life more enjoyable! Learn the Love and Logic way by attending a Love and Logic training. Love and Logic is the behavior management that Liberty Common uses and believes in. 

The next Love and Logic starts Friday February 27th at 6:00pm through Sat February 28th at 4:30 pm.  Class will be held at Heart of the Rockies Christian Church, 6501 Brittany Street in Fort Collins and is facilitated by Shannon Yockey, a former Liberty Common parent.  Cost per individual is $125.00 and $175.00 per couple (includes workbook and materials). This class is open to all parents with children of all ages. Details and registration can be found by Clicking Here.

For more information about the class, contact
Shannon Yockey,  at (970) 402-7030. Class size is limited and you must register by Friday, February 20th. Limited childcare will be available on site, but you must register in advance. Cost will depend on number of children registering.
Penny War Coming to LCS

LCS Student Council is sponsoring our Annual Penny War, Feb. 23-Feb. 27, with money collected going to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  

 

We will NOT accept money after lunch, on 2/27/15.

Rules of the Penny War:

-Coins only! No bills or rolls of coins, please.

-Pennies add to your class's total. Silver coins subtract from other class's totals.

-The cardboard boxes are a place to collect coins at home for the next few weeks. The kids are not to go door-to-door. 

-The winning class gets a Pasta Party from Olive Garden.

Spelling Bee Winner Keeps Buzzin On
 Congratulations to 6th grader, Katie Magloughlin, LCS Spelling Bee Winner.  Katie has passed a written spelling test and qualifies for the District Spelling Bee, held February 11th.
Good Luck Katie! 
 
In This Issue
Contact Us
Healthcare Reminder
If your student is sick with a fever of 100 degrees or higher or is throwing up or has diarrhea, he or she is NOT ALLOWED to attend school. Your child may return to school if they are not throwing up or fever-free(WITHOUT FEVER REDUCING MEDICINE) for 24 hours.
Board of Directors
Quiet Zone
Please remember that the front office is an office of business and the use of cell phones is prohibited.  We also ask that conversations be kept to a minimum so that front office staff can provide quality customer service to students, staff members and other parents.  Thank you.

Kindergarten Volunteers Needed

Mrs. Horton, one of our  kindergarten teachers, is needing volunteers on Tuesdays and/or Thursdays any time throughout the day.  Volunteers do not need to be parents of kindergarteners to assist in the classrooms.  Please email Angela Horton at
Why Latin?
Parents should attend a special LCHS staff presentation on the importance of robust Latin instruction on Wednesday, Feb 11th at 3:30PM in the LCHS Great Hall.

On Wednesday, February 11th 2015 at 3:30 p.m., the LCHS faculty will be convening its regular weekly staff meeting - and visitors are invited to attend.  Parents, especially are encouraged to attend as the topic will focus on the virtues of strong Latin instruction and Liberty's approach to Latin curriculum.  The presentation will be led by LCHS Latin instructor and Foreign-Language Department Chairman Mr. Marques Kem, and corresponds to the book all LCHS staff has been reading together this year Climbing Parnassus by Tracy Lee Simmons.  Various community leaders will be on hand for this unique lecture, as will one of the University of Colorado Regents, educators from Front Range Community College, and from Liberty's sister school in Seoul, Korea.  The presentation will take place in the LCHS Great Hall, and is targeted to end at 4:45PM.  

Charter School Parents Invited
The Poudre School District is looking for charter-school parents to serve on the district's accountability committee. The accountability committee consists of thoughtful parent and school representatives who provide guidance and recommendations regarding district spending priorities, the District Improvement Plan, and the districts charter schools to the PSD Board of Education. It also works to increase the level of parent engagement in the district. This important work is facilitated by a committee representative of the diversity of our district.
 
We are in need of a parent representing charter-school students. Parent candidates for the DAC must have a child currently enrolled in a PSD charter school, and may not be employed by either the district or the charter school.
             
If you know a parent who would enjoy contributing to the important advisory work of this group, please have them reach out to Robert Beauchamp, Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment. The contact information is listed below.

The committee meets once per month, typically on the third Wednesday of each month. Feb 18, Mar. 25 (may be moved to March 24th to accommodate the board adoption of the district UIP) ,Apr. 22, May 20,
6:30 pm - 8:30 p.mLocation: Board Room, 2407 LaPorte Avenue.

Contact Robert Beauchamp by email at [email protected] or call at 970-490-3667 if you have any questions about the commitment.
Keeping Our Foundation Strong
Parent Education Series, Part 1  
Spreading the word about our unique philosophies is something our Board of Directors and founding parents believes is paramount to the success of our community.  It is the responsibility of each parent to understand our philosophy and the policies that support them.  To that end, we will post articles pertaining to each, written by an expert in that domain. Please take the time to read and absorb them. 

We kick off the series with the following article describing the value of mastering handwriting by Laurel Van Maren, founding parent.

Handwriting - It's Good for Your Brain! 
by:  Laurel Van Maren, Founding Parent

 

There is a Chinese dance recital video in which Chinese teenagers show the remarkable dance skills they have learned during the course of their studies. The title of it is Be more beautiful also need hard to pay.   

         

In the western tradition, a classical education seeks to instill in children a capacity to identify and a desire to exemplify the Good, the Beautiful, and the True. There is only one pathway to this: "be more beautiful also need hard to pay."

         

The price of mastery is, indeed, hard to pay, but it is achievable by the diligent. To reach a goal, to master a skill, to seek after knowledge, there is only a "hard to pay" pathway. And as we and our students pay, as we work, practice, improve, and study, we become quicker, stronger, better, tougher, and more knowledgeable. The work becomes who we are and who we want to be.

         

This talk was originally given to the faculty and the original essay was written in longhand. It was composed first in hand-written notes, and then edited and rewritten with pen and paper. Why? Because this is an essay about what we expect our students to do with our penmanship program and it didn't make sense to type it when we are asking our kids to commit to improving their pen hand and creating something beautiful with their writing.

 

Writing with pen and paper is a very sensory-infused experience, so much so that it actually changes the way our brain works when we do it. More areas, and larger portions of those areas, do more work when we put pen to paper. According to Dr. William Klemm's post on Psychology Today's website, Why Writing by Hand Could Make You Smarter, "The brain's 'reading circuit' of linked regions that are activated during reading (is) activated during hand writing, but not during typing." In his blog, Brain Research and Cursive Writing, Dr. David Sortino states that,"Moreover, cursive handwriting stimulates brain synapses and synchronicity between left and right hemispheres, something absent from printing, typing or keyboarding."

 

Studies of children show that access to vocabulary, ideas, and speed are all increased when they write by hand, but not by keyboarding. In a study of sixty second graders, thirty were given extra math and thirty were given extra spelling instruction. The thirty students who got the extra spelling improved in not just spelling but also sentence structure, fluency, writing, and composition skills. Students in another often-cited study "demonstrated that printing, cursive writing, and typing on a keyboard are all associated with distinct and separate brain patterns - and each results in a distinct end product. When the children composed text by hand, they not only consistently produced more words more quickly than they did on a keyboard, but (they) expressed more ideas. And brain imaging in the oldest subjects suggested that the connection between writing and idea generation went even further. When these children were asked to come up with ideas for a composition, the ones with better handwriting exhibited greater neural activation in areas associated with working memory - and increased overall activation in the reading and writing networks." What's Lost as Handwriting Fades, NYTimes.com.

 

 

Language is incredibly important to the brain. And the depth and form language takes when it goes from the written page as it is read, to the brain as it is processed, to the pen on paper as it is expressed, is amazing. And very profound. How we think and use language flows out of us in a very different way when it goes from the read page to the brain, and then to a keyboard.

 

 

PET and MRI technology have allowed doctors and scientists to detail the incredible changes in a child's brain when that child puts pen to paper: changes that do not happen when that child writes or composes at a keyboard. Handwriting also allows children to extract more meaning from text and lecture, to spell more accurately, and to interpret more correctly the context of words and phrases. Why? Maybe because "the brain's reading circuit of linked regions" that are activated during reading are also activated during handwriting - but not during typing.

   

Cursive handwriting also helps the two sides of the brain talk to one another, which is especially important for boys, who have a thinner corpus callosum than girls. Which students always want to print instead of use cursive? Boys. It isn't good for them and it isn't good for their brains when boys don't learn a clean, cursive pen hand that they can use now, and later as an adult.

   

"In dysgraphia, a condition where the ability to write is impaired, sometimes after brain injury, the deficit can take on a curious form: In some people, cursive writing remains relatively unimpaired, while in others, printing does.

         

"In alexia, or impaired reading ability, some individuals who are unable to process print can still read cursive, and vice versa - suggesting that the two writing modes activate separate brain networks and engage more cognitive resources than would be the case with a single approach." What's Lost as Handwriting Fades - NYTimes.com

 

Do students love to use and practice good penmanship? Mostly, no. But they also don't love to make their beds, pick up after themselves, do their homework, and eat properly. As H.I. Marrou is quoted in Climbing Parnassus, "...the only point of education is to teach the child to transcend himself." Developing a good pen hand is a part of the hard work we do here to prepare our students to be clear thinkers and active participants in their own education. Be more beautiful also need hard to pay. The Chinese dance students know this, and so do the students of Liberty Common High School.

 

Laurel Van Maren

 

Donor Drop Box
As a tuition-free, public-charter school, Liberty receives less funding from the Poudre School District than do regular public schools.  To help Liberty remain the best school around, we rely upon free-will contributions from parents, grandparents, and alumni; and upon the generosity of community members who support Liberty's innovative brand of high-quality classical education.  
 
The Liberty Board of Directors, the school administration, faculty, and staff extend sincere thanks and humble gratitude for the following recent contributors:


Mary & Salman Khetani, Jane & James Kincaid, Maisie & Luke Knowles, Alana & Ryan Lane, Pamela & Lee Lauderback, Cathy & Jeff Lee, Alexandra DeLille & Glen Gulau, Ewa Grabczak-Lewulis & Bogdan Lewulis, Jamie & Christopher Lindemann, Linda & Jerry Magloughlin, Erica & David Martin, Rashmi & Lakshmikanth Mathur, Kenslee & Brandon McNeil, Katherin & Todd Miklos, Patricia & Aron Miller, Cindy & Tom Miller, Melinda Minton & Steven Mangelsdorf, Melissa & John Moore, Anna & William Morris, Perrin & Jeffrey Niemann, Jennifer & Edward Norman, Kelly & Mark Notarfrancesco.
   
Your generosity and thoughtful support of Liberty Common School give to our students academic advantages they would not otherwise enjoy.  Thank you for your leadership in public-education reform, and specifically toward achieving Liberty Common School's ongoing mission of academic excellence and fairness.

All donations to Liberty Common School are tax deductible (Federal non-profit ID # 84-1404585).  To volunteer on the Liberty Fundraising Committee CLICK HERE.  To volunteer on the Liberty Grants Committee CLICK HERE. To volunteer for the annual Liberty Spring Gala fundraiser event (Friday, April 10th, 2015 at the Embassy Suites in Loveland) CLICK HERE.  To make an online donation CLICK HERE.  For more information about contributing to Liberty Common School, please  CLICK HERE to visit the "Support Liberty" options at the school's website.
Liberty Common Sports News
Seventh grader, Alexa Kopren,  pushes past a Dayspring defender in the varsity game on January 26th.  Photo credit:  Susie Ellis.

Pink-Out-Game-Breast Cancer Awareness: A percentage of the proceeds from the February 3rd basketball game against Denver Christian will go to fight breast cancer.  We encourage everyone to wear a pink shirt as a show support.
  


This Week in Jr.-High Girls Basketball:
Today 4pm @ REZ  (Away)
2/5  4pm  vs St. Marys (Home)