Hello Summer!

Director Sara and Scottie Dog Millie!

It's officially summer for Highland Park!  Three full weeks of teacher designed camp offerings ran the gamut from Lacrosse to Games, Games, Games to Recreation Destinations to Manipulating Math to World Class Foodies to Espanol y mas.  And just like Spanish camp...much, much more.  I'm thrilled that our campus served approximately 150+ campers each and every week due to the diligence of  Scottie Camp Director Sara Henslee.  That girl is uber-organized and on top of things! 

We also had wrap-around services for campers, which went a long way in helping things run smoothly.

Thanks teachers, thanks kids and parents, and thanks Sara.  Check out some of the camp pics below and definitely check back with this blog in early August for my first posting of 13-14.  Lots of information on new staff, STAAR performance, Any Given Child Year III, and other things you will want to know for the start of school.  In the meantime, I encourage you take a look at the recent The Heart of the Matter report brief, film (very well done!), and press conference video from The Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences.  This bipartisan report speaks volumes on  much of the why behind the what we strive to do on campus each and every day.  I believe you will find great value in the recommendations to the major question it poses - Who will lead America into a bright future?   Definitely food for thought.     http://www.humanitiescommission.org/



Ms. Marques at Survival Skills Camp

Ms. Matetich at Lacrosse Camp

A pillow design awaiting final touches

Student created balances at Manipulating Math Camp

Last but not least - Mr. Robenhorst @ Math Camp!

Best wishes and we'll miss you

Last few days of school are always a whirl of activity.  If ever there was a time for variety, these days are it.  Here are some images from our last few days of school.

Our end of day breakfast on Thursday gave us the opportunity to have a bit of fun (the infamous Mr. Happy awards), as well as say goodbye to several folks leaving HP.  Teacher assistant Kristina Carmona has accepted a teaching position within AISD, TA Joe Alati is headed to a middle school campus, and ASCC staff member Kate Smith is leaving for new horizons in her professional endeavors.  Much success to all.

PE teacher James Supak will be joining another AISD elementary school as a full time PE teacher, while Kinder teacher Christina Ryan will be working part time with our own AISD Early Childhood and Science Departments. Thanks for your contributions to our school. And last, but certainly not least, we said a tearful goodbye to much loved fourth grade teacher Anna Lundy.  The Lundy's are moving from Austin due to exciting, new opportunities and we simply couldn't be happier for them.  Take care.  We will miss you.

New staff members will be introduced in August and we'll keep you posted when we know these positions are finalized.

Other images...


Kindergartners on the breezeway, cleaning house and playing games.  Havin' fun while doin' good.  Cool.






















Mr. Gay coordinating relay races on the soccer field for second graders.  Thanks Mr. Gay! You always make me smile.

Fourth graders pondering the perfect advice to give to the third graders for next year.  I know next year's fourth graders will appreciate receiving those letters! 

 

Sarah Murphy showing her winning art with teacher Ms. Maca, who tells me, "Wow! Our 5th grader, Sarah Murphy, has had her Chalk and Glue Beetle Bug chosen to be in the Children in Nature calendar for next year! Out of the entire Youth Art Month show (1600) artists that were displayed downtown, they chose 16 for this calendar!"  Children in Nature Collaborative of Austin is a non-profit organization dedicated to creating social change so that kids throughout Central Texas have easy and frequent connections to nature.   Their annual Celebration of Children in Nature awards ceremony will take place September 17, 2013, presenting attendees with a calendar featuring children’s artwork that reflects the natural world.  Keep that creativity alive Sarah! 

Fifth graders demonstrating a truly amazing array of talents during their annual talent show on Tuesday.  The teachers always try to make this a low-key, fun event, but honestly, it has grown to the point where there are now many more adults in the audience as the wide variety of talent has made it one of those must see events.  Even for non-fifth grade parents.  Original compositions on the piano, original choreography by talented dancers and gymnasts, original rap lyrics performed by trios, soloists, duos performing their own sketches, hilarious dance moves that had us all laughing along, and so much more. Our big take-away however was not so much about the impressive talent.  It was the self-confidence these students showed - "I am who I am and ready to show you what I love to do!" - as well as the support those students showed other students during each performance.  That's the real highlight of the day for me.

                                                                                                                               

And finally, fifth grade promotion.  What can I say?  It's always moving, I celebrate this milestone, but also get a little sad (just a bit) about these students moving on to new things.  Hard to let go, but so much to be thankful for in this rite of passage. This year's ceremony was a packed house, starting with a final walk in the halls, then a slide show marking the years gone by, before moving on to the  awards presentations.  Lots of tears from parents and grandparents at the realization that this first school step is now behind them.  We ended with a talent show wrap-up for those who did not get a chance to perform the day before and I must say, even though it was not originally on the program, this was the perfect ending to the ceremony.  Griffin's solo of a Bruno Mars song was kind of surreal (that kid is good!) and Julia Kay's original surprise poem for her teachers brought it home.  As I alluded to in my brief speech at the beginning, I'm going to miss these fifth graders.  I'm really going to miss them.




Anticipating the Greek Mythology Award Presentations!

 

Last days of the year...

Fourth and fifth grade continued to have big culminating events this week. Fifth grade rolled out of here early Tuesday morning for their annual  3 day Camp Allen trip and I hear it all went off without a hitch.  When the campers returned Thursday afternoon, one young man told me "It was the best and I caught my first fish".  Cool.  Great way for our kids and teachers to do some last minute goodbye bonding before they all scatter for summer, then on to other schools.  Bittersweet.



Fourth grade also celebrated all things Pioneer Days this week, with lots of quilting, candling, and more happening in their rooms.  The Buffalo Soldiers made their annual appearance and there was some singin' and hoe-downin', along with the Founders Day Picnic on the lawn.  This year, there were even individual student recorded family histories for parents to enjoy.  Love that idea!  I even hear that fourth will attempt to return to their original end of day expanded performance for next year as well.  Love it!

Cari Land and parent/Texas Health & Human Services Center for Disproportionality Program Specialist Melonee Carter finished lessons this week in third grade on all things stereotypes as our No Place for Hate initiative.  I was able to pop in only at
the lesson beginning, but we will continue the discussion in mid-June with Cari, Melonee, and Kealing Principal Robin Lowe.  Looking forward to the conversation ladies!









Finally, the PTA Board official changing of the guard happened early Friday morning in our library, with outgoing PTA president Debbie Esterak passing the Scottie Gavel to incoming President Shannon Ratcliff.  Debbie had some candy treats for all of us, matching candy choices to either our roles or our personalities (ie Kerren, who knows just about everything regarding HP past and present, received some Good 'n Plenty, cause her institutional knowledge is all good and very plentiful).  Thanks as always to a tireless parent base who give so much of their time, energy, and resources to our school.  All good in the hood...

  

Still in high gear!

The Dragon from The Paperbag Princess

I had a fantastic start to my week.  Happy to say I spent Monday with a group of HP teachers, as we participated in Round II of full day DBI training.  Held at UT, Sarah Coleman and Lara Dossett led this second K-5/special ed teacher cadre through a similar activity that our first group went through earlier in the semester; our goal is for all teachers, including special areas, to have their own professional development day, seeing an entire 1-5 day lesson arc, centered around the TEKS in content areas that have the most meaning for them.  For example, the two days completed so far have been based on language arts objectives and our math and science folks on campus, though they have individual strategies they can pull from their proverbial toolbox, are at a place where they need (and are asking for!) this type of "big picture" look with their content areas as well.  This day was again a very meaningful experience for all of us - Mrs. Pappert shared that she was "so inspired, I changed my biography unit plans" - with teachers seeing how the experts in the work put it all together.  Again, showing us where to build in low and high emotional moments, how to wring learning moments from transitions, what to develop as possible final products and/or assessments that show kids got it and can extend the learning.   Powerful, with teachers spending time at the end revising lessons with materials they brought with them.  Ready to keep rolling in the fall.

Second and third graders, along with about 75 parents, were able to travel to The State Theatre as part of our work with Paramount's Story Wranglers.  As you know, our third grade language arts students have been working intensively all
year with several teaching artists, developing their skills in creative writing, critical thinking, and much more.  These kids are motivated to write!  Once they put their ideas on paper, the Story Wranglers put it all together and perform stories that student groups wrote. They were hilarious and those of us in the audience could see that kid humor on full display! Lots of creativity and lots of joy, with students able to introduce their stories before they were performed!  Thank you Story Wranglers for a great year at our school and we'll see 'ya next year!

Thursday morning was definitely out of the norm as well.  In an earlier blog post, I mentioned Kinder student Alistair Sharp's winning HEB Toasted Oats art entry.  And that prizes could be in store.  Happy to say, his

entry was the big elementary age winner chosen out of  1,000 entries. We were floored when contacted last week by HEB reps that not only had Alistair won a year's supply of cereal and his artwork would be featured across the state on a special Toasted Oats box (with HP mentioned on the back of the box), but that our school would receive a free cereal breakfast for all, a free t-shirt for all with Alistair's winning pic on the shirt, plus $5,000 donated to our school.  Wow!  So, bright and early yesterday morning we ate, we donned our t-shirts, and we were presented with our donation.  The monies will help support continued arts initiatives at our campus for next year, along with beautification efforts at another elementary campus.  Thanks Alistair for thinking of our school, and big 'ol thanks to Leti Mendoza and everyone at HEB for your support of keeping creativity alive in our schools.

And of course, we wouldn't get to late May without 5th grade's annual Greek Mythology Unit.  Students have been reading Greek plays, writing Greek plays (written much earlier in the year with

help from Pollyanna Theatre, creation tales, such as How the Peacock Came to Be, The Story of Io), and finally, developing their individual Greek projects for display in our halls (along with a fairly in-depth Greek Mythology assessment I'm told).  Today was performance day, it was a packed house, and again, we were all amazed at the quality of the writing and performances.  This is our second year of working with Pollyanna and it has made a tremendous, high quality difference in the level of sophistication and skill building surrounding the art of play writing, staging, costuming, acting, and much more.  Life long skills being honed on and off the stage.

Ocean Odyssey 2.0

Last Saturday, several of our 3rd-5th grade students participated in the AISD Music Memory contest at Austin High School.  The listening selections chosen would stump many of us I'm sure, but happy to say several of our students walked away with those coveted Malcolm Gregory pins, given to students who had a perfect score.  The kids were very excited about those pins, as well as other awards given during the morning event.  Way to go Scotties, Mrs. Satterwhite, and Mr. Briones for all you accomplished this year.  Keep the music flowin'!




In and around our annual team leader and intervention team retreat days - we accomplished so much! - our district celebrated teachers and all the other wonderful staff who help support students.  Back on campus after the big night, Alyssa Absher, our TOY nominee received an additional surprise from the district - a couple of pretty cool certificates detailing the recognition.  Very proud of Ms. Absher and thankful for all she does each and every day for kids.






And those Process and Product Displays are almost 100% complete for the year.  We have some folks waiting on end of unit wrap-ups, but Mrs. Matetich's 5th grade scientists dived into the topic of biomes, adaptations, and potential effects of global warming on our world. Student reflections show evidence of critical thinking around this hot button topic and the work they did was hands-on and engaging. There was also a bit of teacher DBI instructional strategy in use as well.  Love it!



 

Finally, I can't give enough gratitude to the folks at Creative Action, music teachers Mrs. Satterwhite and Mr. Briones (yep, busy people!), and first grade teachers and students for their pumped up Ocean Odyssey performance yesterday afternoon.  It was a full house, it was our first run at something different, and each class was able to show the audience what they had learned during their study of ocean animals.  Otis the Seagull figured prominently in every classroom skit, there was humor, there were songs, there was an avenue provided for students to practice presentation skills, make deeper meanings, and have fun while doing it.  Cool end to the day.