Wcsanews04-06_09

The Watsonville Charter School of the Arts April/May/June 2009 Newsletter Our Mission Statement Art is the pathway to knowledge. The Watsonville Charter School of the Arts is a community of families, educators, artists and community members who believe in the development of a well-rounded child. We value the arts as a lifelong pursuit. We respect the environment, hold high academic standards and acknowledge the importance of diversity. Family involvement is vital for the long-term success of our students and families.

Principal’s Corner Spring at Watsonville Charter School of the Arts brings with it a wonderful array of events and performances! You can see these events on the enclosed calendar pages and read about them elsewhere in this Newsletter. I’m mentioning these first, because these events and productions offer parents and guardians a means of getting your volunteer commitment up-to-date! • Grades 1 & 2 “VIEW OF THE SLOUGH” – April 1 in the MPR • 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders play “ROCK AND RECORDERS” – April 7 in the MPR • EARTH DAY CELEBRATION – April 22 • DIA DEL NINO -- April 30 • Kinder and 1st grade “WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE” – May 8 in the MPR • 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders present “DANCING IN THE STREETS” – May 28 at the Mello Center • 6th graders are creating “ A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM” – date TBA Parents and guardians, with these performances and events, as well as numerous planned class trips and State testing preparation, come opportunities for you to lend your all-important volunteer hand! Getting enough parent help is on our minds! If you have volunteered fewer than 20 hours this year, you will receive a call.

Please read inside about the 8th grade’s recent trip to Catalina Island Marine Institute with Mr. Sugerik, both fourth grade class overnight trips to Sacramento, and the 7th grade’s rafting trip on the American River. Wow – it’s great to be a kid here at WCSA! The Courtyard area is being transformed this spring! Jaime Sanchez, a local muralist, is creating a water cycle mural on the inside walls. You can observe him and his student helpers most sunny afternoons after school— Yvonne Leonor, Neli Avila, Christian Reyna, Jessenia Garcia, Sonia Leonor, and Nikki Gonzales have been painting alongside Jaime. Yes, a couple graduates of WCSA are exercising their creativity also. Student Council members this year developed fun theme days, which continue until school ends in June. Members have included Arleen Marquez, Jack McGrath, Sarah Tapia, Etienne Green, Galilea Garcia, Victoria Otvos, Samantha Galvan, Brielle Moreno, and Donovan Arteaga. Thank you for being enthusiastic leaders at our school! I cannot say enough thank yous to all the parents who are involved in leadership roles on campus through Leadership Council, Home and School Club, Art Auction Team, and the Safety Committee; plus those involved in creating the yearbook and fundraisers that have happened throughout

this year. Staff will hold a special recognition in May for these parents who give countless hours to our school. They are wonderful role models for being active partners in their

9:00 to 2:00 - Sale It’s time for some Spring Cleaning and to start saving all your Treasures.

If you are interested in donating items, setting up or selling at the yard sale, please contact Liz Gonzales: [email protected] Window of Opportunity

More Principal’s Corner… childrens’ education! We are grateful for this wonderful support! Thank you to Landa Rosebraugh, the Newsletter Editor, who took on this job and has done a great job all year! Best regards, Trish Hucklebridge, Principal

Can you believe we are on our last Trimester for the school year? Busy times are ahead with even more ways to volunteer. There will be the Kinder/First Grade production “Where the Wild Things Are” and “A View of the Slough” and the 2nd thru 5th grade production coming in May. To date, each family should have a minimum of 25 hours. The volunteer report for the end of the second trimester is that WCSA has 290 students, and 157 students’ families ARE meeting the volunteer pledge that we committed to at the beginning of the school year. THANK YOU! Ms. Bateman’s Kindergarten class has 17 of 20 students meeting their pledge – RIGHT ON! Unfortunately there are 19 students at zero hours and 114 students whose families have volunteered less than 18 hours. This means that 133 families ARE NOT meeting their volunteer pledge. Please remember to log your hours in the volunteer logbooks located in the classroom. Hours are totaled based on what is logged in the books. If you don’t log your hours, they cannot be transferred to the spreadsheet that is given to the Leadership Council. There are other opportunities to volunteer aside from helping in the classroom. Some of these opportunities are Saturday workdays (the next two are April 4 and May 2), you may volunteer to help with sorting mail in the office, updating the school marquee, or helping with class activities. We also welcome help in the cafeteria from 11:30 – 12:30 Monday thru Friday. Thank you to Maria Bahena, Erin Vega, Dawn Ramirez,

Home and School Club Thank you to all those parents who made the 08-09 fundraising events successful. With your help we were able to make monetary contributions to the school in many areas. The following is a partial list demonstrating how the Home and School Club supported the school: purchased picnic benches for the quad, provided scholarships for students to attend class fieldtrips, sponsored the upcoming Dia del Nino festival, purchased Emergency/Safety Kits and black out curtains for each classroom, sponsored the materials/supplies needed to have the school mural painted, donated half of Cookie Dough profit to all teachers to spend on the classroom, sponsored an ad in Growing Up in Santa Cruz. In addition, a BIG THANK YOU TO THE OFFICERS – Margaret Carlon, Lorena Moran, Geneva Ybarra-Lopez, Erin Vega, Leticia Arteaga, and Leticia Preciado.

WCSA Yard Sale! Saturday May 16, 2009 Corner of Freedom Blvd and Crestview 8:00 am - Set Up 2

Geralyn Speziale, Linnie Livingston, Sergio Fuentes and Jose Zamora for regularly committing their time to helping our children at lunchtime. Thank you for your time.

excited for our event coming up in October, date TBA. Please come and support WCSA for one or both fundraising events coming up in April. We will display artwork from the classrooms to bid on. How wonderful it will be to enjoy a gourmet meal and see all the spectacular pieces displayed around us! Also, both establishments have agreed to donate a portion of the proceeds of all food sold those nights to the school. You don't want to miss out on either one of these events!

Trisha Suruki, WCSA Volunteer Coordinator [email protected]

♪♫ Musical Notes ♫ ♪ By Sheryl Gentry

Students in grades 3-5 are diligently memorizing songs on recorder for our upcoming concert. “Rock & Recorders will be in the cafeteria Tuesday, April 7th at 6:30. Join us for such exciting numbers as “Leaping Lizard”, “Secret Stairway”, and “Proud Mary”! Students are beginning to master the notes of the scale as well as music notation. Cookies and water will be sold during intermission. We will also hold a music raffle, so bring a few extra coins! Have you seen wetland creatures wandering the campus, or is it just me? The amazing talents of our 1st and 2nd grade students will be showcased at the annual production of the musical, “A View of the Slough”, April 1st at 6:30. The Orff Program promotes experiential learning through story, song, drama, and movement. Our students enjoy the opportunity to express their talents through a myriad of quality activities daily! Teachers in grades 3-5 are beginning to teach some fancy footwork as we all prepare for our end-of-year music production at the Mello Center, May 28th. Mark your calendar for America’s best dance show (á la WCSA)!

Art Open House Cafe Ella Saturday, April 25

Dinner Fundraiser Green Valley Grill Wednesday, April 29

Family Movie Night Friday, May 15 Admission: $10 per family OR get in free when you bring your debit cards and sign up for escrip. Join us for a fun, family friendly movie at the WCSA outdoor theater. Popcorn and hot chocolate will be served. Mark your calendars now, more details to come later.

What’s Happening at WCSA? By Our Amazing WCSA Teachers

Spring is a wonderful season in kindergarten! At this point in the year the students are beginning to look more like first graders. They are becoming very successful in reading little books and writing sentences. After finishing up a unit on tide-pools in March with a visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, kinders are jumping into a science unit on oviparous animals. We will be learning all about birds, fish, reptiles, and insects! Our K-1 Spring production this year will be "Where the Wild Things Are." Both kinder classes are working hard on learning the story

Art Auction Update By Jessica Leonardis

The auction committee would like to thank our teachers, staff, parents, and our generous sponsors for everything you have done for this event. Your hard work and support is greatly appreciated. We are

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and portraying it through drama, song, and dance. Prepare to be amazed! We will also start a literature unit on Leo Lioni's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." We will wrap up our kindergarten year with an exciting water cycle exploration, our Tiendita week, and finally, GRADUATION! Ms. Gill’s Sunny Days First Grade has just finished studying Mesoamerica, focusing More What’s Happening…

In Social Sciences we will move on from medieval times to Native Americans and Pioneers. We have six children now in second grade readers and many others in close pursuit. I've had to purchase three more second grade workbooks just to keep up. April 2nd is our trip to MAH in Santa Cruz to study art. Let me know if you'd like to attend. Many thanks to Gilbert for all the supplies he showers down on the class including our new guinea pig, Mary Cassatt. Bravo! Thank you to Dawn for the art books. Thank you to Trisha for developing the idea and for buying items for the Mona Lisa planter our class did for the auction. Velma for the yearbook page. I couldn't do near as much in here without your generosity. Warmly, Manjula Stokes Second grade has been busy watching things. We have looked at bugs and snails and wetland animals. We have taken our observations and put them into written form and we have studied what other scientists observed about our animals and reported that back to the class. We went to the Elkhorn Slough and observed things through microscopes and binoculars. We saw white pelicans, leopard sharks, Great Blue Herons, Greater and Lesser Egrets and a myriad of other wonders. "A View of the Slough" has everything it had in past years; all 42 Second Graders, 18 First Graders, 5 songs and a crab! The show will be in the cafeteria. Right now we are doing a mini-unit on Biographies and in class we will study Cesar Chavez and compare and contrast him with other Civil Rights Leaders. As soon as the Slough play is done and after the party has been cleaned up, we will plant our seedlings with the Kindergarteners and study moths and butterflies. We will watch silkworm moths go from egg to cocoon and painted lady butterflies go from

on the Aztecs. Students loved learning about these great warriors, their music, dance, art, mythology, games, and calendar. We have also been studying the rainforest, complete with small collaborative murals. The first graders have become very proficient at using our school laptops! We have explored many educational websites, and even created a graphic design portfolio for each student. Wild Thing headdresses are underway, as we look forward to our May production of Where the Wild Things Are. April and May will be filled with Earth Day festivities, conservation awareness, and personal health lessons. Also on the agenda will be making our “Flat Stanleys”, as well as paper maché Piggy Banks! Students are already beginning to look forward to 2nd Grade with nervous anticipation. The students and I are so proud of our accomplishments this year! Greetings from Ms. Stokes. Spring is in the air. Our flowers are blooming almost as quickly as the children's minds. This is the time of year when everyone is learning and is energetic and creative and finding new ways to be kind to each other. Our fundraiser brought in over $75 to help us save an acre of the rainforest. The class learned about the flora and fauna and most importantly how chocolate grows on trees. We will soon be learning about human anatomy and the five senses. This is an exciting unit and one that everyone seems to enjoy.

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caterpillar to chrysalis and both will hopefully be successfully released to the wild. By the way, the snails were successfully released into the wild last week with many fond goodbyes! Looking forward to seeing you at Open House after Spring Break. Rhythm Nation – Mr. Matthews third grade: We've been rolling along wonderfully in our 3rd grade class. Two recent field trips have been nice compliments to our class work. First, we went to the San Jose Tech More What’s Happening…

group of students, has been an exciting addition to the standard curriculum for the teachers and the students. In anticipation of the Spring tests Ms. Paulus and I are heading into the final rotation of our targeted academic instruction (otherwise known as Reading Land and Math Academy). It's been a pleasure working together to address the learning needs of the students in both 3rd grade classrooms. Working with all 40 3rd graders has been a pleasure these past months. On deck are the Personal Museums that I previously mentioned, fiction writing in the form of comic books, painting and poetry, plenty of dancing in preparation for the endof-year show, and tons of reading. Stop in to see. News from Paulus 3rd Spring has sprung and the 3rd graders are growing like weeds. That is, their basic skills are growing. And the seeds that have been sown over the past 7 months are beginning to blossom. OK, enough of the garden metaphor…but it IS a great time in our 3rd grade world. The March 12th –13th Science Fair was a tremendous success! Students worked their way through 6 weeks of concentrated activity. Everyone completed a comprehensive report, successfully completed an experiment, created their own visual on the classic 3paneled poster board, and worked up an oral presentation outlining what they studied, what they learned, what their experiment was about, how it turned out, and what their experiment proved about the science of their topic. Added to all that, the 3rd grade scientists then presented their projects to every other class in the school—one class at a time!! It is a great truth that we learn best by teaching others, and my 3rd graders are now experts in all things Light and Sound. Next up for us is the creation of our Personal Museum Displays for Open House on April 23. This will be a culmination of our Important Things unit, a unit that has been

museum where we were the lucky benefactors of a hands-on science lab and hours of exploration. The trip fell in the middle of our 6-week efforts to understand the scientific method while investigating the science of matter and preparing for our own science fair. I was most impressed by the students' report papers, which showed a command of the concepts we were studying. Their experiments and presentations, alongside the other 3rd grade class and the 5th grade class during our science fair, was a nice ending to the adventure. No time to rest! The next week we dove headfirst into local history with a crash course on the different waves of people arriving to the central coast over the years. We anchored our discussion on the kinds of artifacts these folks would have been using. A field trip last week to the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Art and History allowed students to interact with a wide variety of artifacts and replicas from the Ohlone culture and during the Gold Rush years. Their experiences at the museum will serve as a nice foundation as they create a personalized museum display that includes important artifacts from their life. We're wrapping up the 3-5 grade art rotations for the year. I have enjoyed working with all of the students in the upper elementary in my Hip Hop art elective. This program, where teachers share their artistic passions for 1 hour a week with a mixed 5

running since August. Included will be a myriad of stories, recipes, photographs, and personal artifacts. Students have learned a lot about their own personal histories and, by extension, the history of the different people who have come to live in Santa Cruz County (one of the 3rd grade social studies standards). We look forward to having you visit our 3rd Grade Historical Museum during Open House.

and 4th grade is a great time to go. I encourage all WCSA families to visit our historically rich local parks: Mission San Juan Bautista, the Carmel Mission, the Santa Cruz Mission, and the Path of History in Monterey. We are so fortunate to live on the Central Coast! During our classroom time, we are currently sharing our mission projects with each other, learning fractions, reading "Tall Tales" and "How to Eat Fried Worms" and jumping over hurdles with Mr. Harris in PE. We are off to Sacramento on Amtrak April 8th and 9th. We'll return after Spring break ready to soar over Spring testing and sprint to the 4th grade finish line!

More What’s Happening… Besides running through cycles of Chapter Book reading, book reports, extension art projects, and oral presentations, students have been working hard mastering the times tables and figuring out the mysteries of fractions, telling time, and counting money. Problem solving is a daily activity, something akin to teeth brushing. Some take to it easily and others try to find shortcuts around the main event. But mathematics is a way of thinking so these mathematicians do A LOT of problem solving during their day. There have been a number of interesting art activities this past trimester, including mosaic self-portraits and life drawings of our own forearms and hands. This trimester we will work with three-dimensional structures and will study the Art Masters. My favorite activity is when the 3rd graders have to complete a drawing on paper taped to the bottom of their desks as they lay on their backs. There’s just no better way to appreciate Michelangelo than that! Happy Spring! Wetland Wizards Update: We Wetland Wizards are busy traveling throughout our gorgeous state learning about our interesting history. Did you know that in its heyday, Mission San Juan Bautista held over 1,500 people?! Did you know that a "California banknote' was a stiff cowhide in the mid-1800's? Have you ever seen a real treasure chest or Ohlone tule boat? Well, we have! Our area is full of fabulous field trips

8th grade Watsonville Charter School of the Arts student Andrea Marquez does a nitrate test in our school wetlands area, Tarhassan Cy, with 4th grader Alexa Cortez. Students are partnering to test water quality in our school creek. For more information call

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material so that it was understandable and interesting for the younger students. First graders were so inspired that they are now going to do science investigations and boards of their own! We are coming up on one of the busiest times of the year. The good news is that Swing dancing has been progressing well. Students in this class can really shake it down! Disco is coming, soon. I will keep you posted on costumes and make-up help as our performance comes closer. We tentatively have two shows at the Mello Center at the end of May. Test preparation is well under way. You may have noticed that released test questions are going home for homework. Please take this opportunity to review these questions with your kids. Sometimes the questions are deceptively easy. There are actually planned "distracter answers" which seem like they might be right but are not. On some of the math questions, students have the right process on their paper and then they fill in the wrong bubble! These released test questions are an opportunity to prepare students for test-taking mindset. Believing you can understand and do well is the first and most important step to doing well. Practice should help to ease tensions about content since the actual test does look quite similar to the released test questions. During the actual testing, fifth grade has a big job to do. Besides English Language Arts and Mathematics, they also have Science (4th and 5th grade standards) and Physical Education. On the mornings of academic testing (six), I would like to have tostadas. They are quick, easy, have protein and help students to be satiated for a while. I have found that eating, reviewing and then testing seems to work best. I am going to ask for support in bringing food on these days. Also, I will need the students as rested as possible and here on time because food serving and test review happen almost immediately in the morning. After that, they will take the subject

Mr. Harris and Ms. Rondelle’s fourth grade class: Fourth grade spent February writing and getting ready for the state writing test. Although that may not sound exciting, the stories the kids wrote were fabulous! They know how to write interesting narratives. They were probably very successful for the state writing test. Their More What’s Happening… scores are rolled into their language arts scores for the state STAR test in May. We are getting ready for our Sacramento field trip in the first week of April. This has been an on-going effort on the part of several parents. Our fundraising has been very successful--they raised over $3000 for this trip. Thanks to Lorena Moran, the Carlons, Lara Livingston, and all the other parents who worked so hard to make this trip a success and to make it affordable for the families. On the itinerary is: Amtrak to Sacramento, Sutter's Fort, the California Indian Museum, the California Museum of Women and History, the Capitol, and panning for gold in Coloma.

WANTED:

Two guitars, used or new for 5th grade music. Contact Ms. Gentry for more information. Fifth grade news: I want to commend the fifth graders on their hard work and creativity with their science fair projects! I was very impressed with the variety of projects and the thought that went into them! The first through fourth grade teachers were very impressed as well. It was nice to see the older students able to break down the 7

test for that day. They do not have a time limit. While I have heard several teachers say that they do not give homework during that time, the truth is that I will probably still be giving test prep work throughout. It gives us one last opportunity to review the problems that have been given and to deconstruct them as a group. Also, they are being asked to recall information that they have been taught for the last eight months. The review helps a lot. We have two more field trips planned. One is to the Corralitos Creek (Water Field More What’s Happening…

there is a motivation. This has caused them to question their own movements in life----what IS their motivation to move? Why do people move? Many lifelong lessons are being accessed through preparing this production. The students just bid farewell to Madame LeFloch, a 6th grade teacher from Paris, who came from France to teach the students. She was here two weeks. We wrote letters to her students, and she has recently told me that letters from Paris are on the way to WCSA. Sixth graders have completed a unit on the life of Siddhartha touching into the Buddhist philosophy. They know the Eightfold Path based on the Four Noble Truths, and have been impressed with the life of Buddha. Before studying Buddhism, they learned about Hinduism and are now heading into Confucism. Sixth grade history is a time for being introduced to major religions, broadening their sense of the other cultures. As for "history" the students recently went to San Francisco to sail on the "Hawaiian Chieftain," a tall ship, that takes students for a three hour sail, teaching them how to handle the sails and the many ropes aboard the ship. They also took classes in various aspects of the ship and history during the time of exploration. After the exciting sail the students visited several museums. Before they entered the museum they chose four elements of art from which to assess the art: line, color, form, and texture. After viewing Picasso, Chagall, and Miro, the students sat in the museum in a circle. The rich discussion that ensued was so inspiring. What impressed me most about the students' sharing was the realization that the qualities they found in the art could be applied to their everyday lives. They are astute in so many ways. We continued our sojourn to McCormick and Kuletto's, a fine seafood restaurant in Ghirardelli Square, where Mia, the manager, led the students under the restaurant into the kitchens, the prep rooms, the storage area, the

Trip). It is a great trip that involves them using binoculars and going on a scavenger hunt, building ground models and learning how our water is cleaned for consumption. It is hands-on science and interaction with the environment...a really good time. The second is in April to Henry Cowell State Park. We will appreciate the process of photosynthesis in the presence of giant redwoods. Thank you, again, to all the parent drivers who help to make it happen. I cannot believe how quickly this year has gone by! If I don't say it enough, I have loved teaching this class. They are bright, enthusiastic, genuinely unique characters. They have progressed so much! Doing assessments for report cards is always a lot of work but it is so gratifying to see how many students have increased their reading level, increased their fluency, improved their math abilities and grown in vocabulary skills. They are doing a lot of hard work and their effort is really paying off. I am very proud of each and every one of them! The Sixth Grade: The 6th grade is delving into Shakespeare as they study their roles in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." They are studying the elements of "character" as they observe themselves and others as characters in life. Through blocking the play (deciding where and why to move on stage) they are realizing that characters do not move unless 8

wine cellar, the offices, the dessert prep, etc. What a great experience. We then headed to two boutiques, where the managers and I had planned for the students' visit. The children were to evaluate how the managers of the shops enticed consumers. This is part of learning about advertisement and persuasive language. They particularly liked the "Yap Shop" a store that sells clothes for dogs and all other accoutrements needed for your canine child. Our evening ended with Hot Fudge Sundaes and very happy children and adults---------and of course----a happy teacher! More What’s Happening…

in a circle in the water, we were off to the open ocean. But one scary thing happened to one of my classmates. Hailey Chagolla had an accident. She crashed and flipped and got scratches on her legs, but no worries she is okay, and pretty much our day was hot and fun. That night all of us were packing and getting ready to leave the next day. But our math teacher, Mr. S, who joined us to go to Catalina Island was in the mood to tell us scary stories, but they weren’t scary. Then my friend Andrea told us great, funny stories. The next day I was sad even though it was a sunny day. We all had a chance to say our good-byes to Sara. While waiting for our boat to arrive I thought that Catalina Island was the best field trip that I had ever had in my entire life.

Stay tuned for the "when and where" of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The next 6th grade Potluck Dinner and Parent Meeting is the first Thursday of April. Eighth Grade News By Jonathan Mendez, Student Recently my class and I had an amazing eighth grade field trip to Catalina Island. We were on the boat for two long hours. The moment I saw the island from the distance, I knew I was going to have a great time. I was thinking about all the activities I’d be doing with my class like exploring the land and ocean, learning about the environment of the island. When my class and I arrived at the island we met our counselor Sara, she was a very nice person. Then after our long hike to Cherry Cove where we were going to stay and camp, we got to know each other. But the best part was that we went snorkeling for the day. It was fun and cold, I saw so many fish and sea weed, and then Sara showed us a sea cucumber which was kinda nasty. After snorkeling me and my friend Yoshio decided to go and take a shower and to be honest Cherry Cove has the worst bathroom. Our second day in Cherry Cove we had breakfast, then after that Sara had a big surprise for us. We were going KAYAKING. I always wanted to go kayaking so I was ready to go. After everybody was all together

Editor’s Note We apologize for any mistakes or omissions, and appreciate your patience. We welcome submissions of jokes, student artwork, or articles of interest to families. You can bring them in to the office or email [email protected]. Landa Rosebraugh

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