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We have two amazing first grade teachers at TVCS and this spotlight is for one of them - Susan Gardner. Susan is in her second year of teaching at TVCS and is in her 15+ year of teaching. She came to TVCS from The Children's School where she taught a K,1st, 2nd combination class for the past 12 years.
Susan did not start out as a K, 1st or 2nd grade teacher but as a 7th grade English teacher. During that time, she lived in Iowa and was involved in a children's theater project where she started working with younger kids and, well, she loved it! She was so excited to work with the younger kids, she went back and earned her teaching certificate and has never looked back. We are glad as she is a wonderful 1st grade teacher!
Susan is originally from Minnesota and moved to Salmon, Idaho in the 80's for what she thought was a two year stint. Needless to say she loved living in Idaho and never ended up going back. Since moving out west, Susan has been exposed to outdoor opportunities that she had never experienced in the mid-west, like camping, river rafting and hiking which have become her passions as she loves the outdoors. Another passion of Susan's is travel and the most exotic place she has ever been is Turkey. The place she is dying to go to the most is, no joke, to the moon! She absolutely loves space.
Susan also loves books. She said she loves to read and loves to share good books. In fact, recently she and her husband created a cabinet filled with books on their property where neighbors can drop by and take a book and can also leave a book if they want. Susan said it has been a wonderful experience to check the cabinet and see what books have been taken and what books have been left. It is her own personal library system.
Susan has enjoyed teaching at TVCS and said, "I really appreciate the degree of interest and support the parents give the students and the school. That commitment is very valuable. It is not just a place for parents to drop off their kids. I have not been at a school where there are so many parent volunteers. It has been nice that the students get to have experiences with other adults and get to do some neat projects". Susan mentioned how great it has been to have some dads volunteer in her classroom as well as moms. Recently two dads have come in separately and read Dr. Suess books to her students which was a real treat for everyone.
We are thrilled that Susan is part of the TVCS staff and look forward to another great year in first grade!
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Well, it has been a lot of hard work for two amazing TVCS teachers who have taken on the feat of raising of raising money to send every 7th and 8th grade student and their chaperones to MOSS camp, and Dr. Fisher and Megan Olivetti have DONE IT! As we let you know last month, our middle school students have been very busy making t-shirts, hosting a garage sale and carwash, asking corporations for donations, making and selling baked goods, getting pledges at the run-a-thon last month and little by little it has paid off.
Doc Fisher said, "The total cost of MOSS will be about $8100, including transport and we have it covered by the great support of our community and parent support of their children".
Here is the breakdown of funds raised:
Lap-a-thon raised $2100
Community Donations about $900
Garage sale about $600
$3,115 paid by families to fund students and chaperone fees.
A big Thank You to all the parents who have donated large or small amounts as every little bit helps. Your participation in recent events, your support of garage sales and car washes and your monetary donations have not gone unnoticed.
Another thing that has not gone unnoticed, is the two passionate and dedicated teachers who have been working tirelessly behind the scenes donating countless hours outside of school setting up, taking down, emailing families, collecting funds, organizing events, cooking hotdogs and even donating their own money for these students to have this opportunity. We applaud their efforts and want to say Thank You to Doc Fisher and Megan Olivetti for all that they given to our TVCS students to make this opportunity possible!
MOSS camp is next week and we can't wait until the students get back to hear all about it! There will be more on this next month...
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Elective
Program Update
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Electives have started and the kids have already begun the buzz of excitement that accompanies this great program.
Did you know: that the first and second grade cooking class made gnochi with primavera sauce from scratch; or that the photography class is using high quality cameras that were purchased thanks in part to the funds that were raised from the sales of Linder Farms tickets; some of our Junior high students are taking a journalism class and this newsletter will soon feature a column created by them? Pretty cool stuff!
Please feel free to join us on Thursday afternoons from 2:30-4:00pm and see your child gain confidence while learning a fun new skill! It is really fun to be part of the excitement!
3rd, 4th and 5th graders learn the art of jewelry making
1st and 2nd graders learn how to swing dance
The 3,4th & 5th grade photography elective students are learning to use cameras taking pictures of 3rd,4th and 5th grade students in the Re-purposing Elective
Questions about the Elective Program? Email thrive@thevillagecharterschool.org
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From the Board of Trustees
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The board members recently attended their first day of a two day retreat, with the second day scheduled in November. During the retreat, Jackie Hopper from the Idaho School Board Association, provided training on good governance and oversight as well as the importance of creating and maintaining good policies. Board Committees were discussed and likely many of those will be forming soon.
Additionally, the board would like to introduce and officially welcome a new board member, Susan Hansen who will be overseeing policy development and review. Susan attended the board retreat and a board meeting all in her first week! Amazingly she has survived and is raring to go. The board members are happy she is on board and know that she will be an asset!
If you have questions for the board, you can email them to board@thevillagecharterschool.org. The board will also be presenting at the upcoming Curriculum Night in November (see the Upcoming feature article for more information).
- The TVCS Board of Trustees
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TVCS Book Fair @
Barnes & Noble!
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On November 9 the PTO and Barnes & Noble are partnering in a Book Fair that will benefit our classrooms. The Book Fair happens at Barnes & Noble with events planned just for TVCS families and between 5 & 20% of each purchase attributed to TVCS will come back to the school! (Electronics included) This is great event to invite friends and family to in the store and/or online for 5 days afterward as well. Hope to see you there!
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Are you Christmas Shopping Yet?
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Scrips
Buying gift cards for holiday presents? If you purchase from the TVCS Scrips program November 12-29, a percentage of every card you purchase will benefit the school! All cards will be delivered to the school by early December. Watch for more information on how this program works.
Also, don't forget Amazon. By going through our school link when you shop on Amazon, you are giving money to the school. Click HERE to access Amazon through our link or see the bottom of our website homepage.
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Please save the date for our upcoming Curriculum Night. Last year parents had an opportunity to travel to 4 stations to learn more about our Singapore math program and sample some of the same kinds of problem solving that our students do each day. This year we will continue 1-2 math stations, add a couple of literacy stations and our school board will host a station to inform parents about the state of the school and their recent board retreat. You will not want to miss this event. Last year parents shared many positive comments about their experience at our Curriculum Night:
- Amazing! I would have loved to learn more!
- More trainings like this would be nice.
- I love the Singapore method.
- Gave us a better understanding of how current math skills differ from what we were taught so that we could be more effective when kids had homework.
- My husband had some math questions answered that he had when he was a kid. It was awesome!
- Loved the in depth explanation and background.
Please join us on Tuesday, November 13 at 6:25 pm. When you arrive, you will receive a Rotation Schedule based on the first letter of your last name. Each station will allow parents to better understand our math and/or literacy program at TVCS. Our first station begins at 6:30 and we will do our best to end by 8:30. Each station will be approximately 20 minutes with a couple minutes of passing time between stations.
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1st grade "Buddies" reading to Kindergarteners
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DRESS DOWN DAY...
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The Student Council decided on a theme for the next dress down day on Halloween (next Wednesday). To show Halloween spirit, students can wear tops that are Green, Orange, Purple and/or Black with jeans. Please make sure text on shirts is school appropriate. if your child chooses not to participate in the optional dress down sports day, please have them wear their regular school uniform.
Also, please keep in mind that the dress code standards apply on dress down days. All clothing should fit appropriately- skirts and shorts should be the required length, no tank tops, spaghetti straps, or mid-drift tops. Thank you.
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2nd Grade teacher Megan Borjean reads to her class
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Dates to Remember
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Oct. 29 - Nov. 2 MOSS camp for Jr. High
students
Oct. 29 - Nov. 1 Papa John's Pizza Fundraiser (see article in this newsletter for more information).
Oct 31 Halloween and student's dress down day (see article for more info about this)
Oct. 31 Box Tops due (see info below)
Nov. 1 No School - Parent Teacher Conferences
Nov. 6 PTO Board Meeting 6PM at TVCS
Nov. 9th TVCS Book Fair at Barnes & Noble (see
article for information)
Nov. 12-29th Scrips Gift Card Sales (see article)
Dec. Giving Tree available at the school
Dec. 15 Pancake Breakfast (more info to come next
month)
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NEEDED...
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Sixth Grade is collecting reusable materials for an upcoming event! We are looking for soda cans (aluminum), pine cones, ribbon, magazines, old holiday greeting cards, light bulbs, and clothespins. All these materials will be used for Village craft projects. All items can be brought to Miss Olivetti's (6th grade) classroom or left in the box in the main hallway.
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Student Council News
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Announcing the TVCS student Council Members for the 2012-2013 school year:
4th Grade Carson Lemeyer
4th Grade Berkli Smith
5th Grade Taylon Hayes
5th Grade Kimberly Wilcox
6th Grade Mayona Green
6th Grade Savannah Drewian
6th Grade Wesley St. George
7th Grade Jeremy Dorcheus
8th Grade Unique Moiza
8th Grade Jaden Johnson
We look forward to a great year with our new student representatives.
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PIZZA PIZZA PIZZA
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TVCS Pizza Week with Papa John's!
The first of our Pizza Weeks is October 29-November 1. Monday through Thursday, 20% of any order attributed to TVCS will come straight back to the school. With Halloween and parent/teacher conferences in the same week, we figured it would be a great week to pick a Pizza Night! Watch for the flyer coming home at the end of the week to make sure that TVCS gets the credit. And don't forget that friends and family can participate in TVCS Pizza Night too!
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From the PTO
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Volunteer Training Success!
We had a great night for our Volunteer Training and disseminated some helpful information. Thank You to those who came and this information will soon be available to everybody who couldn't attend through the TVCS website.
Linder Farms
We made just over $1200 for the Elective program through the Linder Farms ticket sales! Thank you to everyone that helped sell the tickets and thank you to those who purchased the tickets!
Shirt Sales
The final amount isn't totaled, but we made close to $300 on the shirt sales! Thank you to everyone that purchased and thank you for your patience. In order to offer variety and keep our costs down, we went with an online wholesaler for the shirts and a local embroiderer to put the logos on. We met those two goals, but it's also made delivery take a little longer. We'll have them back from the embroiderer soon!
Feel free to email us any questions or thoughts at PTO@thevillagecharterschool.org
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Lauren and all of our 4th Graders recently made kites for the Idaho State Historical Museum's Dia de los Muertos celebration. 500 kites will decorate the museum, beginning Oct. 30.
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Holiday Giving Tree
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The PTO is working with the TVCS teachers to create Holiday Wish Lists for each class. These lists will be used to make a Giving Tree that will be displayed during the month of December at the school. TVCS families and friends can select wishes to grant in lieu of traditional teacher gifts. Contact the PTO with questions, pto@thevillagecharterschool.org.
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