December 2015 - SCOPE Academy

School Newsletter
December 2015
U P C O MI N G
E V E NT S
Holiday Music
Concert
“Peace & Harmony”
December 17
6:30-7:30 p.m.
Maranatha Church
auditorium
Featuring SCOPE
Chorale!
Winter Break:
Dec. 21-Jan. 1
School Resumes:
Monday, Jan. 4
No School:
Martin Luther King
Jr. Day
Jan. 18
Art Auction
Feb. 25
Like us on
FaceBook!
Scope Academy
School Phone:
330-945-5600
Ext. 511281
Thankful for YOU!
Dear Families,
All of us at SCOPE are truly grateful for YOU! You remind us who we can be
in our best moments by so often being the best you can be for our school. We value all our families and are inspired by the goodness that you demonstrate so
often.
You are the reason we created this place we call “school.”
You are the reason that we remain passionate in the work of leading children to their finest moments, discoveries, potential, as they unveil and discover
their talents and build their knowledge and skills.
We hope that you will join us in celebrating the season and closing the
2015 year with great reflections of what our children and families have been able
to do thus far.
We anticipate the amazing journey that will unfold as we move into 2016.
May you find the magic of the season and enjoy the holiday break.
Merry Christmas from all of us at SCOPE!
PAGE
Fall Festival Fun!
Our families enjoyed our annual
Fall Festival with
lots of fun activities,
art projects, delicious food and
dress-up photo
booth!
CiCi’s Pizza Night
The Parent Exchange sponsored a
fundraiser night at CiCi’s Pizza in Green
in October. Thanks to all the families
who attended and helped raise money
($186 in proceeds and tips!) for SCOPE!
2
PAGE
Christmas at the Pond!
Shout-outs!
Our Parent Exchange for all they
do for our staff and students!
Tireless Library Volunteers: Kristin Jones, Marcy Venarge, Kristen Woodruff, Melissa Emch.
Shorter Shots for donating
$300 in photo proceeds which
paid for our Maranatha Church
rental and sound system so we
could hold our Dec. 17 music
concert at their location.
Springfield Schools for fixing
our parking lot!
Parent Corner
with Kristen Woodruff and Beth Simpkins
Thanks to our After School Programs for donating their time
this fall:
-Colleen Miller for Chorale
practice
-Jamie Parmelee for Writer’s
Workshop. The students wrote
and created a Thanksgiving
booklet that was provided to
each family in our school just
before Thanksgiving break
-Portage Lakes Librarian Elaine
Melvin
-Bricks 4 Kidz
Greetings from the SCOPE Parent Exchange! We are so excited
about all that has taken place this fall and all that is yet come this year
at SCOPE! This fall we helped with preparations for Fall Festival, held
our first fundraiser at CiCi's Pizza, got the first Box Tops collection
ready and planned the first SCOPE Family Business Showcase.
If you are interested in joining us in planning for our upcoming
events, the Parent Exchange meets the first Thursday of every month
at 2:00 in Room 111. We will be preparing for the Art Auction in February, our final Box Tops collection, our second family fundraiser, and
Teacher Appreciation events.
We want to say thank you to every SCOPE family for all of the
ways you help make this school great!
We will be offering the following
classes After School this spring:
 Fitness Club
 Bricks 4 Kids
 Sewing Club
 Portage Lakes Library
Upcoming Parent Exchange Meetings
January 7
February 4
March 3
April 7
May 5
3
Preschool
PAGE
4
News from Miss Cathy’s Class
What a great start to the
school year we are having in preschool!
Our curiosity and wonder guide us
everyday. We began the year following
our interests by investigating wind. The
hot temperatures led us to bring in a
few more fans into the classroom. At
play, the children were testing
Cathy Ahrens
different items to see how they moved
in the wind created by the fan. This led
us to the question, “What moves in the
wind?” We then spent weeks exploring
kites, airplanes, hot air balloons,
blimps, helicopters, wind chimes, and
pinwheels. We created an airport play
area in our classroom and pretended
to take trips on an airplane and a
helicopter. We had a flight attendant
Valerie Hilliard
visit our classroom and we were able
to Skype with a helicopter driver. We
learned a lot of information about how airplanes and
helicopters move in the wind and how they work. We
even took a field trip to the KSU airport to extend our
thinking about airplanes and airports.
As November came, our interests took a new
turn, “Why do people wear glasses?” We were noticing
different children in our school who wear glasses, even
our teachers wear glasses sometimes. We decided to
conduct a survey and see how many children at S.C.O.P.E.
wear glasses. We collected tallies in each classroom and
found that 23 children wear glasses! We continued our
learning by investigating how people see differently with
different lenses as well as learned about contacts. We
created an “Eye
Hospital” where an
eye doctor could
check our eyes and
a “Glasses Store”
in our classroom.
We have recently
read the story,
Pete the Cat and
His Magic
Sunglasses by
Emma buys a ticket from Tiana
Kimberly and
at the airport.
We were so happy to go to a “real airport”
after creating a pretend airport in our classroom!
James Dean. The
children noticed how
the characters were
feeling throughout the
story and said “WE can
help them!” When I
asked how we could
help them, they said
we can go into the
story and help them.
This got us thinking
about creating a play.
We are looking
forward to creating
our own costumes and
taking on roles to act
out the story! As
December comes to an
end, we will also be
saying goodbye to our
wonderful student
teacher, Miss Kayleigh.
She has been with us
since last January!
Have a wonderful
holiday season with
your family!
Miss Cathy and
Miss Valerie
Sawyer tests a scarf in the
wind from the fan, while
Xander tests out the kite he
made.
Wyatt and Simon retell the
“Pete the Cat” story.
Preschool
PAGE
Miss Anne’s Class News
Our class has been
engaged in two projects this year!
We began the year learning about
restaurants.
Children played
restaurant in
our dramatic
play area. The
restaurant was
named “The
Bunny Hop” by
the children
Anne Reiman
and served
food from
around the
world!
Children
learned about
and tasted food
from Mexico,
China, Italy and
the United
Gina Klebs
States. They
loved using chopsticks to eat their
Chinese food and they got to
make tiramisu when we studied
Italy! We also had a real chef visit
our classroom and he taught us
how to make whipped cream!
Towards the end of the project we
began talking about children who
do not get enough food to eat. We
brainstormed ways we could help
these children. We came up with
lots of ideas but settled on a
lemonade and chocolate milk stand
where a canned food would serve
as the payment. We worked hard
advertising our fundraiser, making
and pouring the beverages, serving
the beverages and collecting the
cans. By the end of one week we
had collected 169 cans! All cans
were donated to the Akron Food
Bank.
After our restaurant
project had come to a close
children began showing interest in
animals and the zoo. We decided
to turn our dramatic play center
into a zoo. Children researched an
animal of their choice and then
created zoo exhibits for their
animals based off of what they
learned about their habitats and
food preferences. We made their
animals out of clay and painted
them to represent their color and
Counting cans from our canned food
drive.
special features. We have been
learning about animals in different
parts of the world and habitats
including the jungle, Arctic,
Australia, and African savannahs.
Children have been playing “zoo”
by enacting the roles of
zookeepers, veterinarians, and
curators. This week we are visiting
the Akron Zoo for a real-life
experience!
Miss Anne’s class has
been studying alphabet letters,
rhyming words, sight words, and
parts of a sentence. We are
learning how to stretch out words
and write using letter sounds.
During writing workshop we write
and draw our own books and then
share them with the class in the
Author’s Chair. All children are
becoming excellent authors and
illustrators.
Happy Holidays!
Miss Anne, Miss Gina and our
Kent State student Miss Rachael
Making pancakes
during our restaurant
project.
Michel uses binoculars
to take a closer look at
the zoo exhibits.
5
Kindergarten
PAGE
Miss Hilbert’s Classroom News
It’s been a busy year in kindergarten as we have
explored the forest! We started our study with wolves,
which led us into exploring caves! The caves piqued our
interest in bats, and the bats got us
interested in many different animals
of the night. We spent many weeks
exploring night and day. We learned
about why we have night and day,
and what is means to be nocturnal or
diurnal. We learning which animals
come out during night and which
during the day.
After that, we moved onto
Kelsey Hilbert
studying living and nonliving things.
We learned that living things need food, water, and air
to survive. We also learned that living things grow and
change. We discussed different animals’ life cycles and
talked about how we grow and change, too. We used
our baby pictures and pictures of us now to make our
own timelines.
We’ve discussed the different seasons, and how
trees change throughout the year. We discussed the
differences between coniferous and deciduous trees
too! We also learned about worms and did a study on
gummy worms and earth worms to compare living and
nonliving things.
Over this time, our project corner has really
developed. We have added both deciduous and
coniferous trees, many forest animals and their habitats,
and now we are changing our forest into a winter forest!
We have discussed what the forest looks like in the
winter, and we are learning about hibernation and
migration.
We are learning how to become better readers,
writers, and researchers everyday! Everyone is making
great progress
and has been
working really
hard. I can’t
wait to see
what the rest
of the year
holds!
Emma Hill and Addy explore the difference
between living and nonliving things.
Kat is makes snow for the forest while Emma Achmoody makes a campfire to keep
warm.
Blake creates a
fall scene with
play dough.
6
First Grade
PAGE
News from Mrs. Spencer
What an amazing time I have had learning and
growing with my first grade class at SCOPE! We have
embarked into an in-depth study of endangered
animals and the level of student learning has been
impressive. Through the use of rich literature, source
texts, videos, and websites, students have learned
about a variety of animals that are classified as
endangered. The students had prior knowledge about
animals and animal habitats which helped to pique
their interest and drive their level of
involvement each day. They can now
confidently tell you about the plight
of one or more animals that are
classified as threatened,
endangered, or critically
endangered. They have an
understanding that an endangered
Deanne
species is any type of animal that is
Spencer
in danger of becoming extinct. The
students naturally wanted to learn more about these
animals and ways to help. Through our explorations
students have learned about the major role that
humans have played in the drastic decrease in the
numbers of animals such as the golden lion tamarin,
the Sumatran orangutan, and the blue whale. Through
research using a variety of sources, students learned
important details about their chosen animal such as
habitat, physical features, special characteristics,
geographic location, and threats.
Our Project Approach study of endangered
animals project has grown to encompass all content
areas and has engaged us throughout the entire day.
Students have used maps and globes to explore an
endangered animal’s location; this fostered learning
about continents, countries, and oceans. Students
have learned about economic issues around the world
that have prompted the hunting of and capturing of
endangered animals for financial gain. Students have
learned how the destruction of animal habitats for
development and timber have caused animals to live
in increasingly smaller areas affecting food availability
and habitat needs that allow animals to thrive. We
have explored what global warming is and how it has
affected arctic animals such as the polar bear. This
Preparing to present our play to save the
golden lion tamarin.
type of curriculum delivery truly supports our
philosophy of solution-based thinkers. To demonstrate
math skills, average height and weight has been
recorded and students have used measurement tools
to get a sense of how big or small their animal is in
comparison with themselves.
The amount of reading and writing that
students have engaged in throughout this project has
been extensive! We started by reading various sources
and recording information and drawings in our
journals. Students completed a research packet about
their chosen endangered animal. Students have
engaged daily with leveled readers at their
independent and instructional levels about animals.
We have engaged with the collective writing and
acting out of an endangered species play about the
golden lion tamarin and the 7 Habits.
The final phase of our project has involved the
writing of a magazine article. The students’ work will
be bound into a book that will be donated to our
library so that other students at SCOPE can learn
about endangered animals around the world and how
they can be saved. I feel that this project has not only
helped the students to increase their proficiency in all
content areas but has created a passion for learning
that has continued to grow each day. Their work
inspires me!
7
First Grade
PAGE
8
News from Mrs. Moxley’s Class
It has been a great start to our school year! I
have never worked in a school that is so warm and
welcoming to new staff members. I appreciate the
support of SCOPE families and staff
that enabled me to adjust to my new
classroom and truly enjoy learning
with the students during the first few
months of school. I love the walking
trail and the opportunity to spend
time exploring the outdoors with the
students. I look forward to getting
into the garden this spring and
Bernie Moxley
seeing where that leads us.
The students were very busy this fall interviewing
staff members at SCOPE in order to create posters that
will serve as a staff
directory. We spent a lot
of time preparing for the
interviews by reading
about how to do an
interview, learning how to
write good questions,
reading various biographies
and source texts, and
practicing with a peer. The
focus on biographical
writing also allowed us to
study the lives and works of
many great artists including
Hannah, Kailey and
Vincent Van Gogh, Georgia
Jayla work on their
O’Keefe and Piet Mondrian.
procedural drawing.
When the day finally arrived to do the interview
the students were nervous but felt prepared. All the staff
members involved reported that the students were
professional and prepared. This was just the first step.
Next, we used the information we gathered during the
interview to write a page about the staff member. This
page was edited and revised many times until we felt that
our final product was ready. As you walk through the
halls of SCOPE this month keep your eye out for our
posters!
One of our biography posters.
We have moved on to creating delicious drink
recipes and looking at how to use procedural texts. This
has been a super fun project that has lead us into reading
recipes, creating recipes, tasting recipes and drawing
using procedural text. Our reindeer pictures hanging
outside our room are just one example of this type of
drawing.
Local author, Dr. Tony Manna, talks to firstgraders about the book he wrote, The Orphan: A
Cinderella Story from Greece.
Second Grade
PAGE
9
Miss Wise’s Classroom News
I cannot believe how fast the first part of the
school year has flown by! The year began with so much
excitement about learning, exploring, and investigating
and the excitement continues to grow each day. The
second-graders have been very busy making observations
on how to improve the school garden habitat for animals,
teaching others about their learning, and becoming
leaders in the community.
The learners started off the year
exploring our garden, the walking path,
and the community garden. They
compared and contrasted the
environments and explored the plants
and animals found in these areas. From
their explorations and observations, the
students came up with their wonder
question of “Why are there not many
Sam Wise
animals in our garden?” The learners
were off researching a variety of animals and plants that
we have spotted in our school surroundings, their habitats,
and how to improve the garden habitat to benefit Ohio
animals and native
Ohio plants. The
students created
informational
writing such as
activity books,
brochures, maps,
and finders that will
be located in a
cabinet in our
Miss Jamey from the ODNR
garden for visitors,
discusses group presentations
families, and other
with the students.
students to use to
investigate our
natural
environment.
We spent a lot of
time reading,
writing, researching,
and becoming
experts on our
school’s natural
environment. The
David, Talia, Junior, Sam, and
learners created
Lana show fox furs to Miss
their final
Hilbert’s kindergartners.
publication of their
Celebrating our success with Socktober!
writing, added an element of support to our garden for
either plants or animals, and developed a presentation
for Ms. Jamey who works for the Ohio Department of
Natural Resources. The learners were able to present
their information and findings with her. They were so
excited to be able to share their research with an
expert. To extend their learning even further, Ms. Jamey
supported the students with materials to learn from
such as owl pellets, animal furs, and skulls. The secondgraders then shared the owl pellet investigation, furs,
and skulls with Miss Hilbert’s kindergarten class who
has been learning about wolves, owls, and forests. This
was a great way to wrap up our study on animals and
plant habitats in our garden!
The learners in my classroom have really been
working on their leadership skills in and out of the
classroom. They have become very interested in Kid
President and how someone so young can have such a
positive influence and impact on the world around
them. Socktober was a perfect way to allow them to see
that they can also be leaders in the community. Thank
you so much for your donation of socks for Socktober!
Your donations and my second-graders hard work and
leadership allowed for 346 pairs of socks to be donated
to both Haven of Rest and The Access Shelter. Both
organizations were so appreciative of the donations and
what a positive influence our school is making in the
world. So thank you again for all of your support!
We cannot wait for what the rest of the year
has instore for us and the adventures and excitement
that will come along!
Second Grade
PAGE
10
News from Mrs. Kulcsar’s Class
What a great start to the school year it has been!
Our class has been learning about so many different
things, and we have been having such a wonderful time
expanding our knowledge!
In Reading, we have been
discussing a number of reading
strategies that the students can use
when they are reading a text in order
to help them better understand what
they are reading (i.e., using their
schema, making inferences, asking
questions, making predictions, etc.). In
Ashley Kulcsar
Writing, we have been working on the
basic fundamentals of writing (using capital letters at the
beginnings of sentences, punctuation at the ends of
sentences, finger spaces in between words, making sure
our writing makes sense
and is not missing any
words, etc.) as well as rewording questions to start
off our responses. In Math,
we have covered a number
of topics so far this school
year including, addition,
subtraction, measurement,
and place value.
Luke and Avery make
For Project, we
their ornaments for the
began the school year
Giving Tree.
studying the garden,
discussing what our garden
needed to thrive, what types of plants and animals live in
our garden, what types of plants we could plant in the fall
compared to the spring, and we even spent some time
weeding our garden. As we finished up talking about the
garden, students were very interested to continue
discussing animals and habitats around SCOPE, which
then developed into learning about different habitats
around the world. Students studied forests, rainforests,
oceans, grasslands, and marshes for their research
projects, information booklets and brochures, which they
then shared with the first grade classes.
Currently we are studying biographies, inventors
and inventions. We began discussing the creators of
Crayola crayons, Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith, and
went on to talk about the creator of the yo-yo, Pedro
Flores, as well as the inventor of The Ladybug Game, kid
Our class with the Giving Tree.
inventor Kylie Copenhagen. Many of the students brought
in some everyday items that they use at home that were
invented for the purpose of helping people accomplish a
specific task (i.e., telephone or cell phone helps people
communicate over long
distances, silverware helps
people eat different types of
food easier, etc.). This sparked
some great conversations in our
classroom! Students have been
reading biographies about
different inventors (i.e., Albert
Our inventions.
Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell,
Milton Hershey, etc.), and have been learning about
timelines and biographies maps which will help them
organize their research of specific inventors within this
project.
Recently our class organized a school-wide effort
of collecting items to donate to a local homeless shelter.
Items that the students wanted to collect and donate
included hats, gloves, scarves and blankets to help keep
the homeless warm during the winter months. The
students made ornaments with words on them that
reminded them of what the winter season meant to them
(love, joy, giving, etc.). The students used these
ornaments to decorate one of the school’s holiday trees,
which they then named the Giving Tree. The students also
put together a class video to spread the word to other
students, teachers, parents, and families.
I can’t wait to see what the rest of the school year
brings to our classroom learning!
PAGE
Third Grade
Mrs. Ringeis’ and Mrs. Weaver’s Class News
The third-graders have been working on a new
project about Ohio “pests.” Each student created posters,
with leaflets attached, to persuade others that some socalled “pests” are actually important to our environment
and well-being. Each student chose an animal to
champion. Our goal was to encourage other students to
think differently about the animals they are afraid of.
During the reading and research phase of our
project we studied powerful public service campaigns. We
learned how to use slogans,
characters, songs and more to be more
persuasive. Our favorite campaign to
study was about Smokey the Bear and
his role in helping Americans prevent
forest fires. We learned the truth
behind many of the animals we
encounter in our neighborhood.
A fellow SCOPE parent, Mr.
Natalie Ringeis
Morber, came in to talk to the class
about his pest removal business. We
also learned about stray animals from
a volunteer from the Summit County
Humane Society. Meeting people from
our community helped us to gain a
deeper purpose for our writing. The
third graders hung their posters
around the school and encouraged
Angela Weaver their schoolmates to take copies of
their leaflets. The third grade wanted
to give a special thanks to Mrs. Dodson’s fourth-graders
for helping them revise and edit their writing for this
project!
Mr. Morber
visited our
class to
discuss his
pest
removal
business.
A volunteer from the Summit County Humane Society
shared what we should do
when we encounter stray
animals.
11
Fourth Grade
PAGE
12
News from Mrs. Dodson’s Class
“When given the choice between being right or being
kind, choose kind.” —Dr. Wayne Dyer
The learners in fourth grade began the year
reading the book Wonder by R.J. Palaccio about a fifthgrader with severe facial deformities and the difficulties
he faces when attending a mainstream school for the
first time. The quote above is one of
many found in the book and led to
our class goal this year to be as kind
as we can be. Wonder is an excellent
book to learn about points of view
and the fourth-grade readers love
discussing their thoughts about the
different characters, comparing their
traits and often reacting quite
Debbie Dodson
emotionally about some of the not-so
-kind characters!
Some of the fourth-graders’ favorite things to do
are to read and write, so participating in the Global Read
Aloud and Primary Blogging Project allowed us to add a
little more fun to our reading and writing. We joined
thousands of other learners around the world reading
Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. As we read we
connected with friends from Texas, Illinois, Michigan,
New Zealand and the Grand Cayman Islands to share our
thoughts on the book, through Skype and digital writing
platforms. Many of these classes were also a part of our
blogging project plus a class from Indiana. We
participated in Mystery Skypes, asking geography-based
questions until we were able to guess their location. We
then wrote on our Kidblogs and took turns commenting
on each other’s blogs. We have made some great
connections and hope to continue to communicate.
Our studies of the books Wonder and Fish in a
Tree both fit well with developing our leadership skills.
Michael
proofreads his
group’s
monarch
brochure.
A highlight
of our year
so far was a
field trip to
CVNP to prepare for a
future investigation of
erosion.
We are finding that being kind, working together and
understanding others’ feelings and ideas are the
foundation of a good leader. We are planning several
projects to help us share our skills with others and
spread kindness in our community.
The garden kept us busy at the beginning of the
year. We were surprised that we only found a couple
monarch caterpillars this year so we began a project to
inform others about the problems monarchs are facing
and sharing ideas on how to help. Learners researched
and practiced their informational writing skills as they
work in groups to create amazing brochures that we
hope to distribute this spring with milkweed seeds we
collected.
Currently we are working on procedural writing
projects, and have turned our room into a toy factory!
The toymakers have learned about creating structurally
sound toys that others can easily duplicate using readily
available household materials. They are writing “howto” booklets so that other children can have fun making
their own toys. Who knows - we may have the next “it”
toy being invented right here in Room 120!
Valerie and Evelyn
test out toy ideas.
Performing Arts
PAGE
13
News from Miss Lindsay and Mrs. Miller
I have really enjoyed
Our next theme was called
becoming a part of the Performing
“Science of Dance” in which we
Arts Program here at SCOPE!
examined how two unlikely things
We started the year off with
such as science and dance are
our “Dancing with Emotions” unit
connected. We read a story called
using inspiration from the movie
“Water Dance” which explained
“Inside Out” to examine our
the water cycle and used the
different
keywords from the story such as,
emotions and
rain, stream, mist, and rainbow to
how we use
inspire the movement behind our
dance to express
own choreographed water cycle
ourselves. We
dance. We also used dance to
started with
express insect metamorphosis,
“Joy,” and then
animal adaptions, and anatomy.
Fourth-graders construct a skeleton
moved on to
I like to have a theme or
from
natural
elements
for
their
unit to be working under, but
Lindsay Stacy “Sadness,”
Anatomy unit.
followed by
classic dance technique is instilled
“Anger,” “Disgust,” and “Fear.” It
throughout the year. Each class
was very interesting to discover what emotions the
starts the same every week with our warm-up and
students were feeling and how to tap into them through
stretching to establish routine and increase flexibility.
dancing. The happy jumps and lively skips of “Joy” were
In the next few weeks we will be learning about
much different than the heavy stomps and thrashing
the nutcracker and choreographing holiday dances using
arms of “Anger.” We ended the unit with making
styles from around the world. I can’t wait to see what
Feelings charts where we filled our head outline on a
our students come up with next!
paper with things that caused reactions or specific
emotions.
We have been having a blast in
Performing Arts class! Since the
beginning of the year the students have
been learning about dynamics and
rhythm, including percussion
instruments. Our composers of the
month have been Bach, Beethoven,
Vivaldi, and now Handel (just in time for
Colleen Miller
the holidays!). In November, the
students continued to practice rhythm
and we merged their new skills by beginning to read
music and perform with drums, cymbals, shakers, and
more. Also, we started rehearsing songs for the holiday
concert. In December, we are learning about melody and
harmony, and are incorporating harmony and rhythm
instruments into our concert performances. I’m excited
for you all to see what the students have put together!
SCOPE Chorale practices for the Holiday Concert.