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What’s going on in your Kyrene schools ...

Middle Schools

Kyrene Middle School

Seventy-five Kyrene Middle School students participated in this year's school spelling bee, which was held in the KMS Media Center on Friday, January 7th. KMS students watched on KMSTV as participants were asked to spell words such as "reprieve," "caustic," "chivalry," "scrupulously," and "ubiquitous." Many KMS students lasted into the fifth and sixth rounds, at which point several students were eliminated. Eighth grader Andy Robinson emerged victorious by correctly spelling two difficult words -- "roulette" and "precipice" -- consecutively.  Congratulations to Andy and also to runner-up Julia Shumway (Team 6B). Congratulations to Andy and Julia and to all those students who won their classroom bees and participated in this year's competition. 

Kyrene del Pueblo

Classroom Activities

The 7^th grade Jaguars team’s Spanish class learned about the history of piñatas as well as how to make them. Students had a great time creating their own piñatas, and even more fun breaking them open to reveal the candy inside.

Generation 8 students completed their Future Cities projects last month. Ten Pueblo teams went on to participate in the regional competition in Phoenix.

Motiv8or students are currently involved in projects for the Science Fair, which will culminate on February 25^th.

Pueblo’s Social Studies classes are looking at the contributions of many people from all races, including Dr. Martin Luther King. Although Black History month officially begins in February, Pueblo students kicked off their celebration in the library with the celebration of Martin Luther King Day.

To raise money for their annual trip to California, the music department at Pueblo has begun their candy bar sale. All candy bars are $1, and proceeds go directly towards funding their trip.

The Jaguar Team participated in a Mock Congress this week. Students had to use their knowledge on the bill process and Congress, which included writing bills, working on committees, debating the bills, and voting.

Next week, 3rd quarter "choice" PE classes will participate in the N-School Skate Program.  This company provides students with in-line skates and safety gear for a nominal fee. Skating lessons and activities are given daily. 

School News

Pueblo’s Poetry Contest is officially under way.

The transition process for 8^th graders to high school has already begun with high school orientation under way.

During the month of February Pueblo students will be looking at censorship and designing posters celebrating the freedom to read the books of our choice. Friends in Canada will share their posters with Pueblo and display Pueblo poster on their Web site. This is a great opportunity to share and to learn.

Due to the hard work of one of our Pueblo students and continuing cooperation from all students, lunch was held on Wednesday outside with music provided by the Student Council.

Elementary Schools

Kyrene del Cielo

Kyrene del Cielo’s third graders are mastering their multiplication and division facts in order to solve real world problems. Writing structured paragraphs continues to be integrated into various subject areas to create competent writers and thinkers. Students are becoming fluent with four of the six traits of the Six Trait Writing model. Teachers have focused their attention on Ideas and Content, Word Choice, Organization, and Conventions.

During science time, classes have explored many areas of study. Mrs. Manley’s class has learned about metric measurements; Mrs. Saylor has focused her students’ attention on nutrition; Mrs. Walsh’s students have been researching scientists; Mrs. Whitaker’s class has investigated geology; and Ms. Maloney’s students are analyzing life structures.

All classes have been showing improvement on our school’s identified goals that are listed in the Cielo Site Improvement Plan. Cielo continues to appreciate the parents who volunteer their time to work with students and to assist teachers preparing classroom materials and activities.

The student body held a Read-A-Thon on the 100^th day of school to generate funds for the Tsunami relief effort. Students gathered pledges for the time they read. Their goal was to read for 100 minutes on January 24^th. The money was donated to the American Red Cross. 

Kyrene de las Manitas

The third grade classes at Manitas are crazy about Poetry! We are busy learning about different types of poems--looking at examples and then writing our own! We are learning about acrostics, haikus, limericks, diamond poems, cinquains, and more! This unit goes along with our District poetry contest that is concluding at the end of this month.

Manitas Elementary School is hosting two local authors January 25 and January 27. Jean Ekman Adams is an illustrator and author and has written a series of books about Clarence the pig and Smoky the horse. The setting is Out West and the background for the bright illustrations looks very much like Arizona. Ms. Adams will be speaking to all of the kindergarten through second graders on January 25. Conrad Storad is returning to Manitas on January 27. Mr. Storad was at Manitas two years ago and the children all enjoyed his informative and entertaining presentations. Mr. Storad has written numerous nonfiction books about plants and animals of the desert. He has also written four rhyming books about animals of the desert. His presentation will be called "Fangs and Stingers" and he will be presenting to the third through fifth grade students. This is the third year Manitas has hosted authors from around the country. The Manitas PTO has generously funded these events.

Kyrene de la Mirada

Classroom Activities

Randi Malin and Erin Henderson's classes are doing a poetry unit with Kate Munn, the media specialist. They are learning about left and right brain functioning, and how to access their right (creative) brain for poetry writing. Students are writing metaphor, autobiographical, alliterative, color, haiku, free verse, and cinquain poems. They are publishing anthologies of their poems in an electronic format, PowerPoint or in a book. There will be an Open Mike night on February 17th in Mirada's Media Center, and Mrs. Malin's class will share their poetry.

Student Achievement

Two 3rd grade students will be presenting their artwork during the February 8 Kyrene School District Board meeting. The students will be showing scratchboard work that they produced as part of their Australian art unit. The students learned about x-ray drawing and Papuna dot painting.

Parent Involvement

Thanks, thanks, and thanks some more. Randi Malin, Merideth Swenson, and their 5th grade students would like to publicly express their gratitude to the wonderful volunteers that have made an impact on their learning. Parents Robin Meyer and Renee Monroe come in every week and volunteer their time making books for student publishing, grade papers, pull intervention papers, put up student work, run homework, etc. Alice Burba comes in once a month to teach students Art Masterpiece. Under her guidance, students have studied the works of Georges Seurat, Salvador Dali and Wassily Kandinsky and expressed visions of the artists' works in their own creations.   

School News

Mirada's Tsunami fund raiser, "Dollars for Disaster" was a great success. The school‘s goal was to raise at least $1.00 per student.  The school has approximately 750 students and ended up raising $1040! Many students brought in money they had been saving from their own allowances. It was so wonderful to see the outpouring of donations for this very serious crisis effecting countries surrounding the Indian Ocean. Mirada's student council donated the money to Food for the Hungry. Food for the Hungry's relief effort is an on-the-ground service that provides food, blankets and shelter. They are also administering clean water to prevent the spread of disease. If you would like to learn more about this relief effort, log on to www.fh.org. 

Kyrene de los Niños

School News

Regional Community Forums for parents and community members will be conducted in the evenings during the week of February 7-11 in the MPR of each school site.

February 7 @ Akimel A-al from 6:30-8:00pm

February 7 @ Altadena from 6:30-8:00pm

February 7 @ Aprende from 6:30-8:00pm

February 10 @ Colina from 6:30-8:00pm

February 10 @ KMS from 6:30-8:00pm

February 10 @ Pueblo from 6:30-8:00pm

Each session will be scheduled for 90 minutes. The focus of the forum will be to educate community members about the current state of Kyrene and how the Compensation Study Design Team and K-8 Programming Study are working to help move the district forward. Time will be provided for community members to seek clarification, ask questions and provide input for the work currently taking place.

Parents are invited to help celebrate Niños Friendship Day on Monday, February 14^th. A picnic lunch will be offered to parents and students as part of our Friendship Day celebration. Please call the office for lunch times and cost of lunch.

Ninos PTA hosted ChildsPlay for grades 1-5 on Monday January 24^th. ChildsPlay presented the delightfully quirky play called ‘Interrupting Vanessa”. As described by ChildsPlay this is a wonderful journey about Vanessa, her imaginary friends and Timmy Fibbins. This play deals with loss, as seen through a child’s eyes.
Monday, January 24^th had a lot of classrooms buzzing all about the number 100. Some of the ways Niños students recognized 100th day was by counting pennies, counting 100 cereal pieces then using the pieces to create a necklace to wear and  other students brought in a variety of 100 items to share and count with their classmates.

As a reminder to parents, there will be no school for students on Friday, February 11^th.

Kyrene del Norte

Classroom Activities / Parent Involvement:

All of the Kindergartners at Kyrene del Norte have been busy learning about farm animals and farmers and how they help all of us. Students made a visit to Crow's Dairy Farm in Tolleson and had a very exhilarating and exciting learning experience!  They all got to see, touch and smell a variety of things. They learned so much about cows and other farm animals; got to try out a milking machine with their thumbs; pet the baby calves, fed carrots to the cows and rode on a hay wagon.

The students learned about Chilidog and Sofia, two Crested Chinese Hairless dogs who rode on the hay wagon with them and live at the farm. Farmer Wendell Crow was just full of interesting and humorous information! Aunt Lisa and Aunt Annette took special care of us as we toured all around the farm. General JD (a big black and white turkey named "Just Dinner") strutted around  and showed off his very handsome uniform (feathers).

They went to the chicken coops and saw a variety of chickens and eggs (sizes, shapes and colors). They brought home five dozen eggs to incubate in their incubato. Aunt Rhonda gave them an emu egg to bring back to our classroom; it is very big, and very green, and very heavy! The students will have many more "egg-citing" adventures as they learn about incubating, hatching and chicks!

DyAnn O'Brien, Leah Kimmerle, Julie Harris, Kim Scheitlin, and Jacque Brendible are the Kindergarten teachers who accompanied this group of one hundred kindergartners, parents, siblings, and grandparents on this trip. Hats off to all of the wonderful people at Crow's Dairy Farm who made this fieldtrip such a great learning experience for everyone.

Kyrene de la Paloma

Classroom News

Paloma kindergarten students are heading to the farm. The children will be visiting a working farm as a springboard for their study of plant and animal life cycles, classification of animals, and learning about the origin of food. The children will visit each area of the farm on a hay wagon pulled by a tractor, where they will see the processes of feeding, milking, and they will visit the chicken coop and see eggs in the nests. Each class will bring home fertile eggs to place in their classroom incubators. The children will observe the lifecycle of chicks from beginning to end, and each child will have the opportunity to candle the eggs to see the embryos’ development. It won’t be long before they are hearing the sound of “cheep, cheep,” from the kindergarten classrooms.     

C.I. Waggoner

Classroom Activities

First grade recently received a visit from their 6^th grade reading buddies from Kyrene Middle School. The students studied Chinese culture and worked on a math tan gram art project together. They also enjoyed fortune cookies as a snack and the 6^th graders helped their buddies create a paper fortune cookie.

School News

In recognition of the 100^th day of school, students had the option of collecting 100 coins to help the victims of the Tsunami. Once a student turned in 100 coins, they were able to read for 100 minutes. Teachers participated by donating money for every 100 math problems their students got correct.

Students will be participating in read-alouds along with a Library Recess Reading Program during February and March that allows students to read the nominees for the Arizona Young Readers Award.

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