DOUGLAS DRAGONEER

Douglas A+ Creative Arts & Science Magnet Elementary School

Week of September 25 - 28

 

                 

Upcoming Events

 

 

Sept 25      Reading Workshop, 7:00 pm

Sept 26      Spirit Night at Chick-fil-A, 4-8 pm

Oct 9         Meet the Specialists & PTA Mtg, 7:00 pm

Oct 16        McTeacher’s Night, 5 – 8 pm

Oct 23       Arts Night and Dinner

 

Magnet Corner

“The Essentials Behind Douglas”

 

Installment #3: Essential Evidence: Curriculum!

Third in 10-part series

 

What are these Essentials that I keep hearing about?  Douglas, like all of the other schools in the A+ Schools Network, has a common set of beliefs and expectations about what makes an A+ School A+.  These beliefs and expectations, known as The A+ Essentials, were developed by the A+ Schools themselves when asked, “What are the characteristics that all A+ schools have in common?”  These essentials - there are eight of them - help us to guide our instructional philosophy, develop our schedules and planning times, nurture our students’ unique ways of learning, and maintain our positive environment.

 

This week, we’ll take a look at one of these essentials – Curriculum.  At Douglas, just like every other school in Wake County and across the state, we use the North Carolina Standard Course of Study (NC SCOS) as our curriculum.  All of the curricular objectives that are taught in grades K-5 come directly from the NC SCOS.  But at Douglas, we bring these objectives together, across disciplines, in a unique way in order to reach all of our children.  To do this, teachers at Douglas use curriculum maps to align curricular objectives and create integrated thematic units of study.  They develop “essential questions” that illustrate the overarching ideas within the unit and help to guide student learning. They plan together, along with the Multiple Intelligences (MI) team, to increase cross-curricular connections and ensure “curriculum-meaty” lessons.  One Douglas teacher commented, “we’re not changing our content, we’re just teaching it better!”

 

What’s curriculum without assessment?  Find out in the next installment in the series, The Essentials Behind Douglas.

 

Reading with your Child Workshop

 

Would you like to help your child learn new things and explore new worlds?  Come and learn how to help your child read!  This workshop is for parents who are interested in helping their children learn to read and learn to read well.  Find out what questions to ask and what prompts to give so that your child will succeed in reading!

 

Join our Douglas Reading Teachers tonight, Tuesday, Sept. 25th at 7pm, to learn how to help your child.  Contact Mrs. Hill at 881-4894, or via email at rchill@cwpss.net for more information.  Spanish translation will be available.

 

Spirit Night at Chick-fil-A!

 

Remember to save Wednesday night, the 26th,  for dinner at Chick-fil-A of North Hills from 4 to 8 pm.  We will kick off our first Spirit Night of the year with a contest to identify the class with the most participation.  The winning class will receive a chicken nugget party!  The Chick-fil-A Cow will be on hand to celebrate too.  Remember to present the yellow flyer your child is bringing home today and a percentage of your purchase will go to Douglas.    Remember, we'll be there until 8 pm, so come early or late!

Volunteers Needed

 

Lisa Milliken, the AG teacher, is in need of some parent volunteers to proctor testing for her throughout the year.  If interested in helping, please email lmilliken@wcpss.net and Ms. Milliken will contact you.  Thank you!

 

 

Douglas needs a person to share responsibility for translating some of our PTA letters, posters, etc. to Spanish.  We want to provide and communicate effectively with all of our Douglas children and their families.  If you are interested in this position or want more information please contact Trish Stutts at 676--5456 or Alice Spickard at 877-0490.

 

 

Douglas Dragons' Cookbook

 

If you submitted either of the following recipes, please contact Andrea Mouw at armouw@earthlink.net so we can credit you for your recipe!

 

·         Shrimp and Artichoke Strata

 

 

Target Red Card Link

 

Our school has just received a donation from Target for over $200.00!  Target gives us money for each purchase made with a linked Target Red Card.  It costs you nothing and does not affect your discounts.  If you have a Target Red Card and want to contribute to the next donation just visit their website, Target.com/tcoe, and click on "find/designate a school".  Our school ID is 81061 or just type in Douglas Elementary.  Click on "Designate this School" to put your card number in!  For help or to have it done for you call Susan Steltenpohl - 788-0941.

 

 
Thank You

 

Thanks to Dale Luke and Raleigh Racquet Club for providing tennis balls for the chair legs in our Learning Cottage! 

 

Thanks to Claudia Dickson, coordinator, and all of the parent volunteers who helped with the first staff Breakfast Cart last week!

 

Thanks to Kelly Henry for drawing our dragon and torch for the front PTA bulletin board.  (Check him out when you are at school and watch his flame grow as we meet our participation goal for Dragon Fire.)

 

Thanks to Jan Bottomly and Jennifer Andrews who have been volunteering behind the scenes with the PTA!

 

 

Dragon Fire Unveiled!

 

Our children passed the torch last week to launch our Dragon Fire Campaign.  Check out the letter in your child’s backpack to read the details.

 

The highlights of this Fall Fundraiser Campaign:

 

q      No sales this year.

q      Our goal is at least 75% participation among our families

q      If we reach our goal, Dr. Spivey will kiss a pig at Arts Night!

q      Class with most participation each day will get to have the torch for that day.

q      Class with the most participation overall will win a celebration!