We are into our third week of school, and our amazing kids have adapted to their new teachers and surroundings. As we settle into our routine for this new school year, one thing that is always helpful is Back-to School night (more information below). It's always reassuring to meet your children's teachers and see their classrooms. It helps to have a sense of how their day unfolds while they are at school. Reconnecting with parents you might not have seen over the summer, and meeting new parents is just an added bonus.

Next week is Membership Week. If you haven't already joined the HSA (only $25!) or contributed to the Bear Fund, you'll have lots of opportunities to do so next week, face-to-face, as well as online. Contributions to the Bear Fund are voluntary, but so important to Lafayette's success. We encourage each Lafayette family to join the HSA and contribute what they can to the Bear Fund. Although we suggest contribution amounts depending upon the number of children enrolled at Lafayette, all levels of contributions are accepted and gratefully appreciated.

Volunteers are now hard at work combing through the Family Directory and making sure every Lafayette family is entered and their information is updated. Please help these fellow parents out by adding or updating your information now before the deadline this Friday, September 13th. Even if your info has not changed since last year, you need to log in and verify your information. Also, remember to have your Safeway, Giant, and Harris Teeter discount cards with you when you sit down to enter or update your information. You'll be able to register and link your cards with Lafayette so that every time you shop, you'll earn money for our school.

We are hoping that all of you have received and had a chance to look through your bright yellow packet. Make sure to check out your "Life at Lafayette" booklet. It is full of some great information that we are sure you will find useful to have on hand for reference.

We hope to see you on Wednesday and/or Thursday at Back-to-School Night!

Hope & Gayle

See HSA board members

Join the HSA

Back-to-School Night(s)

This is an evening to see what's coming up this year, see your child's classroom and meet their teachers. Come prepared with questions! There are two sessions to reduce congestion in the school. Wednesday, September 11 is for Pre-K, 1st, 3rd and 5th grades. Thursday, September 12 is for Kindergarten, 2nd and 4th grades. On both evenings, a meeting for new parents will start at 6 p.m. in the great hall, and a general information session for all parents will begin at 7 p.m. in the cafeteria. These evenings are for adults only. Please click here for the flyer with additional information.

Join the HSA!

If you've already joined, thank you! Our goal is 100% participation. Please join the HSA today! There are many ways to do so:

1. Pull out that yellow envelope you received last week; inside you will find the yellow membership form. Complete the form and deliver it with your payment to the blue dues box on top of the HSA filing cabinet in the Great Hall. You can also send it back to school in your child's folder.

2. Bring your checkbook to Back-to-School Night and come to our table in the Great Hall.

3. Click on http://www.lafayettehsa.org/membership/ and join us from home.

Family membership is just $25, but membership alone does not sustain our school's needs. Give to the Bear Fund and help the HSA fill the gap between what DCPS provides and the programs and materials we'd like our students to have, such as our unique Peace Program, technology support, science enrichment, the art program, new athletic uniforms and much, much more! Contributions to the Bear Fund are voluntary and tax deductible. Suggested contribution amounts are based on the number of children you have enrolled at Lafayette ($325 for one child; $475 for 2 or more children), but all levels of giving are appreciated. Any amount helps!

Membership Week is next week. If you've already joined, please remind your friends to do so too! If you still need to join, you'll have lots of opportunities to do so next week - volunteers will around the school trying to make it easy for you to join and contribute. We'll keep you posted as to when and where.

We hope to see you on Wednesday or Thursday at Back-to-School Night!

New Parent Social

Wednesday, September 18 @ 8:00 p.m., Jake's American Grille (downstairs), 5018 Connecticut Ave. NW

You are invited to an informal gathering of fellow Lafayette parents to welcome new parents to our school community. The program will include a short presentation to share information with new Lafayette parents so they can learn some of the ins and outs of Lafayette early in the school year. Several returning parents will share their "wish I knew that information when school started instead of later in the year" observations. This is also a great opportunity to meet and network with other Lafayette parents. Jake's is kindly donating 10% of sales to the Lafayette HSA so we hope you will join us for dinner and/or drinks. So we can be sure to accommodate everyone who would like to attend, please RSVP by Monday, September 16 to [email protected]

Show Your Bear Pride!

We will have Lafayette t-shirts, sweatshirts, car magnets, pencils and other Lafayette merchandise for sale at both Back-to-School Nights this week. There will also be samples of the awesome new Lafayette apparel and gear that is now available only online - t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats and tote bags with our adorable bear logo!

Give With Target

Every year Target gives up to $5 million to schools all over the country through Give With Target. Let's add Lafayette to the list of schools that benefit from this simple program!

Simply go to http://givewith.target.com/school/73359# and vote for our school weekly until September 21 or until $5 million has been awarded, whichever occurs first. It takes just 25 votes to start. After that, Target will donate $25 to our school. Upon receiving 25 votes, each additional vote equals $1 more for up to $10,000 per school. Log on and start voting today!

DC CAS Scores Available

DC-CAS scores from last year are available in the school office. Please pick them up if you can. This will save us several hundreds of dollars in postage. They will also be available during both Back to School Nights.

Arts Integration Corner

Jackie Snowden, Arts Integration Coordinator

Welcome back to our returning families and welcome, also, to our Snowden new Lafayette families. We are geared up and ready to begin integrating the arts through our partnership with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Changing Education through the Arts (CETA), as well as other arts organizations and institutions.

In fact, some teachers have already started. Ms. Paul and Ms. Baldwin have used strategies learned from the CETA course we hosted last year, and they have posted documentation to show it. That course, Reading Portraits as Biography, is one of the prerequisites for the CETA course we're hosting this year, The Pen, the Painting, and the Pose. This three-session course provides the opportunity to experience and examine how the strategies learned in the "Visual Art and Writing, Part I" or "Reading Portraits as Biographies" and the "Tableau, Part I" course, which most of our teachers have taken, can be combined.

Integrating these two bodies of work allows students to construct and demonstrate their understandings of reading and social studies through visual art, poetry, and tableau. Teachers will explore how to create lessons that integrate one-minute challenges, text card tableau, freeze tag tableau, visual art, and writing for various purposes before, during, and after the reading of a text so that students are engaged as they learn through visual, kinesthetic, and poetic modalities. If none of the vocabulary above is familiar to you, it soon will be. These are all strategies that we've learned and use regularly throughout the school.

Teachers have registered for CETA courses and workshops, and for professional development through the DC Arts and Humanities Collaborative. They have also signed up for Arts Coaching and Demonstration sessions.

I have visited classrooms giving refreshers on how to use the Actor's Toolbox and one minute challenges. We will begin demonstrating them as a school, in classrooms, via the morning announcements today.

Documenting how we are using arts integration strategies, showing that the process is as, if not more, important as the product, is our focus this year. We hosted part one of the CETA course, Documenting the Power of Learning Through the Arts, in August, and we're now working on hosting part two.

Our CETA Strategic Planning Committee, which has representation from every grade, has met, and we're all ready to engage our students in the creative process by "exploring connections between the arts and other subject areas to gain greater understanding in both.

Here's to a great year!

Please Verify Your Directory Information!

We can't publish the Lafayette Directory until all families have verified their entries. Please take the time by this Friday, September 13, to go to www.schooldirectoryupdate.com. Returning families need to verify their info even if nothing has changed. if you can't remember your password, choose "Can't Login." New families should choose "Join as a New Family."

Register NOW for Spanish Classes

The Lafayette Foreign Language Program is offering before-school Spanish classes to children in grades 1-5. Classes are held three days a week and begin on September 23. REGISTRATION CLOSES THIS FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 13th. Spaces are limited so please register early using this application.

Calling All Babysitters

We are compiling listings of neighborhood babysitters for the Lafayette Family Directory. As in previous years, this is intended for neighborhood sitters with a Lafayette connection--mostly students and often Lafayette alums or siblings--who will be available for weekend, evening, and other casual babysitting. The listings are free, but please only submit a listing if you expect to be reasonably available and limit the entry to a few sentences at most. Include your name, age, and at least one contact such as a phone number or email address, as well as any particular restrictions (such as days or neighborhood or what age group you want to babysit). Please email submissions (or any questions) as soon as possible to Holly Idelson at [email protected].

Chess Club Restarting

This morning we received approval from Mrs. Main to restart chess club! The class will be taught by Mr. Vaughn Bennett on Fridays in the cafeteria from 3:30-5 pm. The first meeting will take place this Friday, September 13. Kids should bring a snack and their portable chess set (if they have one). We will send home enrollment forms and a request for parent volunteers at the first meeting. Parents are highly encouraged to attend, help out and improve their own chess game. you have any questions please contact Carrie Cohen at [email protected] or on cell/text at 202-251-6560.

Community
Community Notices

Is your son or daughter interested in wrestling? Hunter, Cole and Sam Norris have been wrestling with this program and really enjoy it. Practices begin this week. Feel free to email me with questions ([email protected]) The Hustle & Muscle Mat Club is a 501(c)3 non-profit youth wrestling club that operates out of the St. Albans School Activities Building on Garfield Street. We will be having a fall practice session for novice, beginner and intermediate youth wrestlers ages 6-12. No experience is necessary and beginners are welcome. The fall session dates are as follows: Fridays September 13, 20, 27, October 4, 11 and 18th from 6:30-7:30pm The only cost is a USA Wrestling card which can be obtained via our website. There is also a required registration form that can be accessed from the website.

Lafayette Lunchtime and Afterschool Tennis. There is still plenty of space in the Lunchtime Tennis program for all grades, and there are also still a few spaces open for Afterschool Tennis except for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 3:30. Have your child play one of the most exciting sports that they can play with friends and family for their entire lives. Forms are in the Great Hall rack and on www.LafayetteTennis.org (where you can also check availability for Afterschool Tennis slots). Contact Paul Rosenbaum for questions at 202-441-0925 or [email protected]

Aftercare Available. I am a former Lafayette parent and a nanny/babysitter/recreation worker (at Lafayette center) and am very well acquainted with both the school and staff. I can take in four children for after care this school year in a private home four blocks from school on 33rd Street. If any parent is interested, please contact me, Marcia Williams, at phone 202-378-0192 or e-mail [email protected]

Is your child interested taking a Jujitsu Class? Polander Academy in Bethesda is offering a kid's class (older elementary grades) on Tuesdays. The class begins later in September. Kelsey, 5th grade, wants to take the class, but would like to have a few Lafayette kids take it with her. We could also carpool. Please email me if you are interested: [email protected]

Dance Courses: Urban Dance, Pre-Ballet, Hula Hoop. Join Tommie Shaw & Company for an exciting new Urban Dance course, which includes an intro to Breakdance, for students in grades K-5. Urban Dance, also known as street dancing, is a fusion of various dance forms. The course meets Tuesdays afterschool. Click here to register for Urban Dance. A Pre-Ballet course will also be offered to students in Pre-K through 2nd grade. The course will include the reading of classical ballet tales such as Cinderella, Giselle, Sleeping Beauty and more. The course meets Wednesdays afterschool. Click here to register for Pre-Ballet. Finally, Hula Hoop Dance courses will take place on Thursdays afterschool for students in grades 1-5. Hoop Dance is an exciting newer dance form, which involves dancing with a hula hoop used as a prop or dance partner. The Course meets Thursdays afterschool. Click here to register for Hoop Dance.

Art Classes. The Children's Art Studio is founded on the belief that children reap tremendous emotional, developmental, and intellectual gains from making art. Small class size, thoughtful instruction and the inventive use of high quality materials is what it is all about. We hope your child will join us. Enroll now for fall at www.childrensartstudio.org

Cub Scout Pack 52 will be having a orientation night at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, September 17 at All Saints Church, located at 3 Chevy Chase Circle. Cub Scouts is great way to build self-esteem, learn to serve the community, appreciate the outdoors, and have fun. We will be meeting after school starting this fall and welcome new members. Pack 52 is open to all boys who want to grow, learn and have lots of fun. We enjoy the diversity of many religious traditions, family compositions and ethnicities. For more information, please contact Chris Purdy ([email protected]) or Carrie Cohen ([email protected]).

Thank You Lafayette Sponsors!

These organizations support Lafayette through a generous annual donation- please support them!

Learn more about becoming a Lafayette sponsor.

Make a Submission

Submissions for next week's issue should be emailed to [email protected]. Submissions are due by 3:15 p.m. on Friday. Submissions received after this time will be included in the following issue, unless instructed otherwise. Please keep submissions brief. Longer articles may be truncated at the editor's discretion, with a link to the full text.