Spring Newsletter 2013

Edmonds School District Deaf & Hard of Hearing Program
DHH Times
Spring 2013
 Celebrate the days
with Animal
Crackers!
 Get scientific with
TXT!
 Catch up with Étoiles
Clercs!
 Keep busy with the
middle school!
 Check out the
wonderful sponsors
for Madrona’s
Vineyard!
 Celebrate many
accomplishments
with the Warriors!
Inside this issue:
Program Director
1
Pre-School
2
Primary
3
Intermediate
4
Middle School
5
Counselor
6
High School
7
Volume 2; Issue 3
From the Desk of Alicia Carter
Dear Families,
Wow! I can’t believe it’s already April. With every passing year, I find the time
moves more quickly. This year is no exception. We are finding it hard to believe
that we are half-way through our school year! As partners in learning, we will
continue to provide your child with the support and guidance they need in this
very important time of the school year. We look forward to our combined
efforts in increasing student achievement and preparing students to take the
next best step. The more we work together the more our students will learn.
The high school has completed their state testing (HSPE in reading and
writing) and Madrona will begin theirs in the middle of April. Keep an eye out
for the testing schedule and make sure your child is well rested, feed them a
nutritious breakfast and give them your positive encouragement for the test.
We want them to do their best without any pressure.
Congratulations to our Deaf Academic Team who placed 3rd in our regional
competitions at the Washington School for the Deaf in Vancouver. They had a
large number of peers, staff, families and community members cheering them
on. Erika, Grace, Alicia and Casey then went to Washington, D.C. to compete
in the nationals at Gallaudet University. They made us proud!
We celebrated classified employee week in the schools last month and I want
to share how much we appreciate our paras and interpreters. We couldn’t do
our job without them. We will celebrate our office staff
the week of April 21st and our certificated staff the week
of May 5th. They all deserve our support and
encouragement for the wonderful things they do to
support our students.
Hope you all enjoy the April showers as we wait for those
May flowers!
~Alicia
DHH Times
Animal Crackers
Greetings from Animal Crackers! We are excited
to share that we had so much fun celebrating our
100th day of school on Wednesday, February 20th! 100 Fruit Loops!
We made 100 fruit loops necklaces, 100 paper
chains, 100th Day hats, and counting 10’s mats. We also brought our 100th things to our
Show & Tell. The kids brought various things, such as 100 puzzles and 100 Legos. We also
made 100th day Trail Mix! We mixed 10 of each marshmallows, teddy bear crackers, raisins,
pretzels, fruit loops, banana chips, cheerios, gummy worms, popcorns, and goldfish
crackers. Right now, we’re counting down how many days of school left. As of Friday,
March 22nd, we have 55 days of school left! The kids are already looking forward to their
summer vacation!
DHH Times
We celebrated our Valentine’s Day party with TXT on February 14th. We exchanged
Valentine cards, candies, and/or toys. This year, we made either a cat or dog Valentine’s
bag. TXT class came to our classroom for an hour to make several Valentine’s crafts, such as
Valentine’s card, V is for Valentine with stickers, coloring paper, and 3-D Valentines.
For Science class, we studied space, stars, and planets. We had fun using shaving cream and
white paint to make a moon. We also read a few big books about space and saw several
slideshows of space. We made a puzzle of space. We poked many holes on black papers and
used a flashlight to make it look like stars on the wall! Finally, we made an Earth by painting
the paper plate blue and cut out green lands to glue it on the paper plate.
One of our favorite weekly themes is Dr. Seuss. This honors our “Read Across America” week,
which occurred the week of Feb. 25th – March 1st. We read several books - “Hop on Pop,”
“Will You Please Go Now,” “Oh, the Thinks You Can Think,” “There’s a Wocket in my Pocket,” and “Daisy
-Head Mayzie.” We made our own Dr. Seuss page for our book every afternoon. This book
will be set on display in our classroom for Art Walk. Please come and check it out!
A couple of Animal Crackers kids joined our after-school activities. One of our students is
attending Lego class on Monday nights. He really enjoys making various Legos, such as
animals and transportations. Another student joined Jump Rope for Heart on a Friday
afternoon. He had so much fun participating in a few different jump ropes related activities.
Finally, we have a classroom volunteer, who comes in
Animal Crackers!
to help us once per week. Her name is Becca. She’s an
interpreting student at SCCC. We really enjoyed
having her in our class! She has been a wonderful helper!
Horton Heard the
Happy Spring!
~Brittney, Elise, Leila, and PJ
Page 2
Painting the moon
Volume 2; Issue 3
TXT
Dear Madrona DHH Community,
This continues to be an amazing year for members of TXT! Students have been writing their own stories.
They are learning how to introduce characters, explain the setting and develop a plot. Students are
excited for writing time each week.
In science this week we started a new unit on Air and Weather.
Students had a wonderful time doing science experiments to better
understand qualities of solids, liquids and gases. Students are
learning that solids, liquids and gases can change if they become hot
or cold. I want to thank Bridget for all her hard work with the
students on science! Your excitement about science is contagious.
In social studies, we just completed a unit on African American history. Students learned about famous
African Americans including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Rosa
Parks, Jackie Robinson, and Kadir Nelson (a popular African-American artist
and writer of today.) In addition, students are memorizing the location of all 50
States. Each person has an individual goal of learning the location of at least 10
new States that they did not know on the pre-test. Most students have learned
many more than just 10. Each child is also working on a State report to share
with the class. We want to thank Thawin for teaching us the signs for all 50
States and helping students with their State reports!
In math, students are preparing for the MSP. All third grade students will take the MSP at the beginning
of May in the areas of math and reading. We have been completing released MSP questions from past
years in order to prepare. Thank you for all you do to support the DHH Program
at Madrona!
Sincerely, ~April McGill
What’s the weather like today?
Playing with
Parachutes!
Page 3
DHH Times
Expérience Avec La Poésie Étoiles Clercs
Hello from Étoiles Clerc Center!
This school year is flying by. There seems to be so much to do this year and so
little time! Back in February we had a blast teaching our hearing friends in the
Renaissance Center how to create and sign ASL Handshape poems. First, we
created our own poems about things that inspire us. Sports and animals seemed
to be common themes. Next, we practiced our poems in front of our own class.
Lastly, we went to Renaissance and spent an afternoon showing our friends how
Making
to create and present American Sign Language poetry. We talked a lot about the
Valentines!
etiquette of presentations and how to give positive feedback to our classmates.
Étoiles Clerc class did a fantastic job of presenting their own pieces and
commenting on the work of others. We hope to collaborate with the Renaissance Center again this
year.
DHH Times
Our most recent trip to the theatre was to see The Edge of Peace at the Seattle Children’s
Theatre with part of the Madrona intermediate team and the Deaf/Hard of Hearing
Middle School class. This play was fantastic for so many
reasons. The most intriguing aspect was that one of the
characters was Deaf and the role was played by a Deaf man,
Robert Schleifer. Students were thoroughly captivated by
the use of American Sign Language on the stage. We were
given the opportunity to meet Mr. Schleifer after the show
Robert Schleifer!
and ask him questions. We probably could have chatted with
him for hours!
In the classroom we have been busy with so many different topics. At the moment we are getting ready
to start our last science unit titled Land & Water. We will get to investigate and study the interactions
between land and water. We are excited to use a stream table as a model and create hills, build dams,
and grow vegetation. We will be analyzing our information through a cause and effect lens.
Students are doing well with their nightly reading assignments. We have had some great discussions in
class based on different books that students are reading at home. It is lovely to see students inspired to
read more than the assigned time of 30 minutes per night. If you are able to sit down with your child to
spend time with them during their reading, I encourage you to
ask them questions about what they are reading. The ‘who,
what, where, why, and how’ of a story are important to
understand and chatting about it helps with reading
comprehension. Happy Reading!
Looking forward to a great spring season here in Étoiles Clerc
Center! ~ Emily & Janeen
Page 4
Party with Animal Crackers
Middle School
Volume 2; Issue 3
Spring greetings from Middle School!
We are always busy in the DHH middle school classroom and we are happy share our exciting news!
As this is going to press, we are involved in a very intensive all middle school model United
Nations simulation! DHH middle school is representing some of the countries of South
America. See our pictures below!
We also want to give a big warm "Welcome Back!" to Kyle who has joined us midsemester. We are so glad to have him back.
Following Model United Nations, we are excited to start working on the Renaissance Faire
for the end of the year. We will need costumes and props again, so be on the look out! :)
The students are also sad to see our microscope and cell unit come to an end, where we examined our
own cheek cells!! Next up, is human body systems and the whole school is practicing for the online
MSP test.
However, we also have a lot of exciting spring middle school fieldtrips coming up! Keep an eye out for
permission slips coming home for Orienteering in April, 'Romeo and Juliet' in May and Richmond
Beach in June! I can't believe we are already thinking about June!
Sincerely, ~Hillary Hubacker and Nancy Edney
Page 5
DHH Times
Madrona’s Vineyard would like to
thank these businesses for their
sponsorship! A special thanks to
ASLIN: they have sponsored two of
our events this year!
Interpreted Performances!
“Adventures with Spot”
Age Recommendation: 2 – 7
Public ASL Interpreted Performance April 27 @ 2pm
“Crash”
Age Recommendation: 8 & up
Public ASL Interpreted Performance May 11 @ 2pm
DHH Times
Jennifer’s Counseling Corner
I recently attended a workshop sponsored by the National Association of School Psychologists entitled “Cyber bullying
Prevention and Intervention: Are you Ready to Lead Change” presented by Susan M. Swearer, PhD. There were many interesting
points and I’d like to share a few with you:
According to Susan M. Swearer, PhD, she defines cyber bullying as: Being cruel to others by sending or posting harmful
material, or engaging in other forms of social cruelty using the internet or other digital technologies (Willard, 2006);
or using electronic/digital tools, like cell phones and the internet, to hurt someone by threatening, humiliating or
embarrassing, running friendships or reputation, etc.
Here are a few warning signs to be aware of, if your student is being cyber-bullied:
 Appearing sad, moody, or anxious
I will be hosting a 3rd in a series of Parent
 Avoiding school
 Withdrawing from social activities
Nights to discuss this in further detail on
 Experiencing a drop in grades
May 22nd at Madrona. Please come join us!
 Appearing upset after using the internet
It takes a village to raise awareness; make a
 Appearing upset after viewing a text message
commitment and be a positive role model to
Other interesting findings about cyber bullying:
stomp out cyber-bullying!
 Easy access to technology encourages cyber bullying
 Much of what is labeled cyber bullying is miscommunication
 High profile (athletes, student leaders) individuals are targeted often , as are LGBTQ, and other students who are
perceived as “different”
 The ability to avoid perceived consequences of actions (e.g.
break-ups) is appealing
 Jealousy and revenge can fuel cyber bullying
 Think before you hit “send!”
Page 6
Some additional resources about cyber bullying:
 www.braverytips.org
 Bully Dance Video www.bullfrogfilms.com
 www.storiesofus.com
 www.stopbullying.gov
EWHS DHH w/ Ann Shaw
from Little Bit Riding Center
EWHS Warriors!
It’s hard to believe that this quarter has flown by so quickly! Not only are we
finally done with the reading and writing portion of HSPE, we’ve had many
reasons to celebrate here at EWHS in the past few months! As you read about in the last newsletter, our students had
the opportunity to work in a one-of-a-kind workshop with Howie Seago and get tickets to the interpreted show of
War Horse at the Paramount Theater in Seattle. They all had a great time, some students comparing the quality of the
show to being better than watching a movie! It was really a wonderful opportunity and we are grateful to Seattle
Theater Group and Howie for making this happen.
DAB @ Regionals!
We are also celebrating our amazing DAB team! They won 3rd in the West Region competition and went on to
compete in Nationals at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC. They played great and had a great fan club
following them! Thank you to everyone that went to support them in both competitions or followed them on Twitter
(@EWHS_DAB) and the EWHS DAB team on Facebook! Erika, Grace, Alicia, and Casey were so inspirational to a
few of our underclassmen, they are eager to try out for next year’s team! With such a strong foundation laid this year,
who knows how far they will go next year!
Spring has a great deal in store for us with our upcoming ASL Carnival on
May 29th, and the Deaf Assembly at EWHS! Edmonds-Woodway also had
our annual multi-cultural assembly on March 20th and we had a few very
brave girls sign Christina Aguilera’s song “Beautiful” to represent the strong
Deaf community in our school! They did a great job in front of a lot of
people! We are also very excited to have several students signed up for the
Saturday Computing Class at the University of Washington, which starts right after Spring Break!
Despite the fact that our weather is saying something completely different, we are being forced to think about
summer because we’ve been hearing of so many students receiving scholarships for various camps and even some
college acceptances! All of the staff here would like to give a huge congratulations to Casey on her acceptance to the
NAD YLC (National Association of the Deaf Youth Leadership Camp), a prestigious camp for Deaf youth leaders! The
next big congratulations, to our graduating seniors, comes a little bitter-sweet. We are extremely proud of Megan for
being awarded the Presidential and Merit Scholarships for RIT! Connor will also be moving across the country to
attend NTID at RIT. Erika, Aalyiah, and Kaylie will be staying closer to home, but still doing very exciting things in
their studies. Erika has been accepted into the University of Washington, Aaliyah will be studying childhood
development at Edmonds Community College and Kaylie will be attending the culinary program at South Seattle
Community College. Aidan is also intending to stay close to home, applying to Boeing and enrolling in a technical
program. Although we are not quite ready to say goodbye yet, we know that you will all make us very proud!
~Amy, Lori, Paul, Elizabeth, and Bridget