Dear Covington Parents and Community Members:
Kindergarten & New Family Information Night, this Thursday Dec.5th 7pm: We will hold our Kindergarten/New Parent information night for students entering Kindergarten or moving to our district for the 2014-15 school year. Information will be presented on our district and school programs, highlights and registration. If you have a child who will be entering kindergarten in the fall, you won't want to miss this night! Please join us at 7pm in the library on Thursday night.
Computer Science Education Week: December 9th - 13th : - a week dedicated to helping students in grades K-12 understand the importance of computer science education. A computer science website called code.org has set a goal for Computer Science Education Week of getting 10 million students of all ages (including adults!) to participate in one hour of code during the week. We are proud to announce that students at Covington School and all throughout LASD will be participating in the Hour of Code! According to code.org, "90% of K-12 schools in the U.S. do not teach computer science." Thanks to funding from LAEF, Los Altos School District is fortunate enough to be in the 10% of U.S. Schools that do offer every student the opportunity to learn computational thinking through the STEM and C-STEM programs.
How can you help?
1. Come help out in lunch clubs that will all be focused this week on computational thinking. Tuesday is 1st and 4th grade, Wednesday is 2nd and 5th grade, and Thursday is 3rd and 6th grade. Contact Mrs. Farley directly to sign up: kfarley@lasdschools.org
2. Continue to reinforce these computational thinking skills at home with the apps and activities that we will be using for the Hour of Code (listed below):
-Kindergarten: Bee bot app https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/beebot/id500131639?mt=8,
-1st grade: Daisy the Dinosaur app https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/daisy-the-dinosaur/id490514278,
-2nd Grade: Hopscotch app https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hopscotch-coding-for kids/id617098629?mt=8,
-3rd – 5th grade: Scratch http://scratch.mit.edu/,
-6th grade: Will continue with c-STEM curriculum.
Your support is greatly appreciated!
Sincerely,
Erin S. Green
Covington Principal
Important Dates – Please Note:
12/2-12/6 – Book Fair
12/5 – Kindergarten & New Family Information Night, 7pm, Covington Library
12/6 – Pajama Day
12/11 –Dine Out for Covington @ Chipotle, MV
12/13 – Indoor Assembly
12/13 – Stay and Play
12/16 – 4-6th grade music concert, 1pm
12/20-1/3 – December Break, No School
1/6/14 –School Resumes Today
If your child is out sick or will be tardy, please call the Attendance Line at 650-947-1101.
Cornerstone Club Update!
Thank you again to all the students who came out for our first Cornerstone Club event, Expect Respect, back on November 14. It was a great success and very fun to see so much enthusiasm and student initiative! We are looking forward to our first lunchtime meeting THIS Thursday, December 5, in Room 10 (Ms. Kibble's room) for fun activities and time for teaming and working on student Action Plans. The Cornerstone Club is open to ALL 4th through 6th graders, regardless of whether they participated in the Expect Respect workshop – please encourage your kids to join us on Thursday if they'd like to get involved!
Student Council News:
Friday, December 6 - Pajama Day
Add some sleep-in time to your morning schedule on Friday, December 6, because it's Covington's Pajama Day! Have your kids wear their favorite PJs and robes to school - and don't forget the slippers! See you then!
Friday, December 13 - Winter Stay 'n' Play
Have your kids stick around and enjoy some snacks with the student council on Friday, December 13 for our winter Stay 'n' Play! We'll be hanging out and munching on goodies from 2:45 - 3:10. Please remember that a parent or guardian must be present for each child at the Stay 'n' Play.
Family Giving Tree gifts are due by Tuesday, December 10th!!
Please pick a wish card from your child's class and fulfill a child's wish for the holidays! There is a big bright red bin in front of the office to collect your gift items. If you are planning on donating a gift card, etc., please leave these in the Family Giving Tree slot at the school office! Your child can pick a prize from the prize bin located in the school office for fulfilling a holiday wish of a needy child! Remember donations are tax deductible and some companies offer employee matching. Here is the link for online donations-https://vgt.familygivingtree.org/covingtonelementaryschool/
Message for 6th grade parents from Mrs. V: As you may know, I teach your child's CSTEM class that meets weekly. I have created an online newsletter to share some of the exciting work they are doing in my class. See
http://tinyurl.com/CSTEMnewsletterNov2013. I will post links to the student programs on the CSTEM site later in the year. Currently, please ask your student if they would like to show you their programs or CSTEM online notebook.
There will be a CSTEM showcase on Thursday May 1, 2014 from 3.30-5.00 pm in the Almond multi, please save the date. More details coming soon.
The sixth grade students are enjoying learning programming, and I love seeing their enthusiasm and creativity. They will learn more in the coming weeks using different languages and tools. Please do send me your feedback on the class and any questions. – Sheena Vaidyanathan (Mrs. V) 6th grade CSTEM Program
Los Altos School District
Save the Date, Covington Auction is March 29, 2014: Join us for an evening of Mystery& Masquerade!
Auction Help Wanted: We need a videographer to help with the auction. Please contact Jenny Bennett for more info jenniferpbennett@hotmail.com"
Girls On The Run (GOTR) Registration
We are excited to offer this great program to the 3rd-5thgrade girls at Covington this coming spring! GOTR will meet on Monday and Wednesday after school until 4PM, for 10 weeks beginning the week of March 3rd. The girls will train for a 5k run/walk event to be held on Saturday, May 17th in Vasona Park, Los Gatos. Registration will be ONLINE ONLY and will open on SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7th at 8:00am. Space is limited and girls will be registered on a first come/first serve basis. Check out www.gotrsv.org for more information or contact Covington head coach, Tawni Atherley (tatherley@post.harvard.edu)
LAEF End of Year Reminders
If you haven’t already contributed to LAEF, make your donation before December 31 to get your deduction for the 2013 tax year. If you have already given, thank you so much for supporting smaller classes, enrichment, innovation, and STEM at Covington School. Also, order beautiful holiday cards from TinyPrints using the LAEF storefront, and 25% of the proceeds go to LAEF! Start here: http://www.tinyprints.com/storefront/laef
LAEF Representatives at Covington are: Matt Abrahams, matt.abrahams@gmail.com, Anjana Nagarajan-Butaney, anjananagarajan@yahoo.com ,Jessica Speiser, jessica@speiser.net,
Ritu Kapoor (member at-large), ritu.kapoor@gmail.com
Make Your Tax Deductible Donation Today! www.laefonline.org
After School Art Still has Space
"Join us on Wednesday this week for after school Art Club! The Winter Art Club theme is A World of Art. Students will paint, draw and sculpt using traditional art from other cultures as inspiration. Different regions of the world are studied each session! Using a variety of mediums students will learn new techniques from CSMA faculty while they create art from around the globe!" http://www.covingtonschool.org/covingtones/4757-After-School-Programs.html
District & Community News
http://www.lasdk8.org/PDF_Files/Current_School_News.pdf
Post an Announcement in the Howler?
If you have an announcement to include in Howler, please send it to sevard@lasdschools.org. Announcements must be received by 12:00pm on Friday in order to be considered for the Howler scheduled for the following Tuesday.