"Our Lady of Guadalupe School fosters Gospel values, inspires academic excellence, and develops service and leadership. We face this as a sacramental community united and empowered by the Holy Spirit."
OLG Newsletter – June 18th
June 18, 2014
Dear OLG Families,
As the dust settles after a busy end to the school year, this final 2013-14 newsletter gives an opportunity to reflect back on some of the highlights, through the highlights and memories from each of our classes and Ann Manning’s Parent Org re-cap. Thank you, Ann, for all that you did to make this year a smooth one. I know that I have appreciated your positive energy and organization, your wisdom and insights, and your historical perspective about all of our OLG traditions! What a full year it has been, and each of your contributions and participation mattered. Thank you for being such a wonderful parent community and for all that you do for our students and in support of our staff.
Speaking of staff, although a well-deserved break is in order, this week most of us are at a three-day Leadership Institute (“Further Implementing the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts with Diverse Learners in Mind”) at Seattle University, co-sponsored by the Office for Catholic Schools of the Archdiocese and the School of Education at Seattle University. On Friday, we’ll be having a math training at OLG. Both will provide food for thought and curriculum planning over the summer, mixed in with some refreshing time outdoors, traveling, and with family and friends! You’ll be hearing more about our spring/summer research and plans in the area of math early next fall; we’ve been busy! It’s exciting to have the financial resources from our auction “March Mathness” fund-a-need; thank you for your generosity and support!
At OLG, we are very blessed to have an anonymous donor who provides a generous travel and enrichment stipend for a teacher or staff member to gain experiences that are both personally enriching and can be brought back into the school to enrich our whole community the following year. Last year’s recipient was Ms. Heidi Ehrenberg; she traveled to Whidbey Island to participate in several week-long art workshops. Heidi will continue working with our students to create “rivers of salmon” up both stairways in the school. Outside of school, Heidi also has two art shows of her own lined up for the fall! If you’ve seen her work at our auction, you know how beautiful her work is!
This year’s recipient of the Distinguished Teacher/Staff Award is Mrs. Janet McClelland. Congratulations to Janet! She will be embarking on an in-depth, summer exploration of Washington State – learning about the history and geography, and preparing a multi-media instructional unit about our diverse and beautiful state. Have a wonderful trip, and we look forward to having it shared with us next year!
This summer at school, work will begin in our Langen Library and Learning Lab to make it a more up-to-date and flexible space for a variety of learning, exploration, and research activities. We are able to embark on this project, thanks to our community’s generosity in last year’s School Annual Fund Drive.
I have truly enjoyed my first year at Our Lady of Guadalupe. I’m so grateful for this special community, the high value placed on academic excellence, service, faith development, and the arts. I wish you and your family a fun and restful summer and some good family time, and I’m looking forward to next year!
Wow. What a great group of parents, guardians, teachers, staff & community we have here at OLG. Thanks to all of you, we were able to accomplish the following during the ’13/’14 school year:
Fundraising – The Parent Org was tasked by the School Commission to raise $115,00 to help defray the cost of tuition, provide scholarships & assist with the general operating fund. Huge thanks to our fundraising chairs for taking the lead on the following!!
This is how we did:
Auction – $70,808
Jog-a-Thon – $25,000 (and counting)
e-Scrip/Safeway Club Cards – $14,000 (and counting)
Gift Card Sales – $1000
Mixed Bag – tbd
We raised a approximately $110,808 (matching funds and rebates are always trickling in) and by the time we close the books at the end of June we will have met our target. In addition, we raised our paddles high to bring in $29,850 for the Auction Fund an Item “Math Madness.”
Community – We started the school year by welcoming students and their families with popsicles as they dropped school supplies off. The first day of school we hosted coffee and pastries after Mass. October was the ever popular Halloween Carnival – one of our ‘fun’ raisers of the year, December saw the Parent Org hosting brunch after the Feast of OLG Mass. January was the OLG Open House during Catholic Schools Week, then Bingo, another ‘fun’ raiser and Family Math Night (with the help of our wonderful teachers and staff). This past Monday we welcomed our New to the School/New to Kindergarten families at “New Family Night”.
Through out the year, the Parent Org Class Reps organized & hosted a variety of events, from arranging appreciation lunches for the teachers & staff, welcoming visitors during Catholic Schools Week, organizing lunch for the students during Field Day and hosting New Family Night.
Behind the scenes we had our Treasurer keeping track of the funds (and keeping us on track), our Secretary taking notes on what happened during Parent Org meetings, people washing & sorting used uniforms to be repurposed, and folks clipping, sorting and sending in Box Tops and Label for Education.
My thanks to each and everyone of you for your support over the last year – you made my ‘job’ easy and enjoyable. As Erin Stampe assumes the role of Chair for the Parent Org, I know that you will support her as you did me.
I leave you with HELP NEEDED = COMMITMENT HOURS = GETTING TO KNOW THE WONDERFUL COMMUNITY CALLED OLG. Get involved – it’s a good thing!
2013-14 Classroom Memories
Pre-School Memories:
Making new friends
Music with Ms. Sager
Fishing off the climber
Show-n-Tell
Bringing snack for everyone
Star of the Week crowns and Line Leader
Art time every class
Recess time with the kindergarteners
Seattle Children’s Theatre
Ms. Kramer giving us snack
Pre-Kindergarten Memories:
Lots of field trips
Westside Baby service project with the 3rd graders
Learning so many new things
Art Class with Mrs.Belia
The Seed to Plant play
iPad Masters
Mr. George’s visits
Library reading buddies
Letter/Sound of the Week
Family Groups and our 8th grade buddies!
Getting ready for Kindergarten
The 8th grade play -Cinderella
Blitz and the Jog-a-Thon
Alki BBQ
Working in small groups
Kindergarten Memories:
We love Kindergarten! Especially playing in the house area, building tall structures with the blocks, math games, EDC, quiet reading time, making paper in science, and marble play.
Our favorite stations were float and sink, ramps and marbles, iPads and computers, measuring our body parts, icky insects, our Mama Mary book, puzzles, and unfinished folder work, the pumpkin patch, the low tide field trip, the Jog-A-Thon, collecting trash around the campus for our Stewardship project, and celebrating Mr. George’s Birthday. Drawing dinosaurs and elephants, learning Spanish, and making ABC books all added to the exciting of the year.
First Grade Memories:
Religion: Making cards for the residents at Mt. St. Vincent, doing Promise Weekly activities, hearing readings from the bible, making “Welcome Jesus signs and prayer rugs, doing the Stations of the Cross project, learning about Jesus’ life and about God, playing games, and reading our religion books.
Reading Groups: Learning new words and tapping out syllables in words, learning to read, reading stories, especially detectives stories and Tucker’s story and learning about volcanoes and anacondas.
Writing: doing the alphabet songs and writing books, especially poetry books, mom stories, “If Dad was Super Hero!” and the important incident story.
Math: Problem solving and word problems, adding and subtracting and doing quick recall, ordering numbers least to greatest, creating “big” numbers, telling time, measuring, counting money, studying shapes, symmetry, and fractions, calendar math time and taking tests.
Science: Doing experiments! Flying parachutes and balloons, learning about all the lifecycles, studying insects, hatching butterflies, and holding mealworms, raising and releasing the salmon, learning how to help the salmon, and doing the salmon chant.
Art: making winter trees, salmon, portfolio covers, seascapes, aboriginal artwork, didgeridoos, and stained glass crosses, and learning how to draw things like elephants. It’s all fun!
Spanish: Playing the hot-potato game and performing the play and learning how speak Spanish.
Library: Checking out books and learning how to find books.
PE: Running, practicing for field day, learning new games like Tunnel Tag and kickball, and playing games like Four Corners, Line Tag, and 54
Music: Learning new songs and doing concerts!
Centers: We love free choice!
Field trips: Going to the blacklight puppet show, S.C.U.B.A., seeing the salmon spawn in the fall and then releasing the salmon in the spring.
Doing the auction project!
Talent Show!
Learning!
Family groups and family meetings! We loved making scarecrows!
Having 6th grade buddies and doing the Nativity scenes with them.
Having a new teacher!
First grade was fun!
Having a new teacher!
First grade was fun!
Second Grade Memories:
We have so many fun memories from 2nd grade! Our favorites include:
Practicing for & Receiving First Communion & First Reconciliation
Learning about:
Plants – planting lima beans, field trips to the arboretum
Japan – writing our names in Japanese characters, visiting Kubota Garden
South America – South America projects & presentations, going to the Zoo
Solids & Liquids
Bees – having Mr. Gary visit & painting the beehive
Math – using lines & boxes for regrouping
Making First Communion Banners
Cleaning the Church and praying & learning in the Small Chapel
Getting to see inside the Tabernacle
Making rosaries for the 8th graders
All of the classes we had – Art with Mrs. Bellia, Music with Ms. Sager (Winter & Spring concerts), Library (checking out books), Spanish with Sra. Blanca, Heidi Time
Going to Stations of the Cross on Good Friday (with the 5th graders)
Having the 5th graders learn with us when Ms. Hobbs was stuck in New York
Writing Small Moment stories & Haiku Poems; making our own books
Catholic Schools Week — Pajama Day, Special Person’s Day Mass
Reading Information Texts and Chapter Books together
Going outside to read in the park
WOW squares & Party
Watching our friends in Plays – Sound of Music, 8th grade play, & the 4th & 7th grade Spanish plays
Special events, such as: Jog-a-thon, Field Day, Talent Show, Halloween Carnival, Jump-Up Day, Free Dress days, 8th grade/Teacher volleyball game, having Blitz visit
Using iPads for learning – making collages, practicing math & spelling, making movie trailers
School Masses
Making Creation circle
Playing with our friends & having lots of fun!
Third Grade Memories:
Saint project
Classroom auctions
Read-in
Ms. Savio playing with us at recess
Playing kickball at Field Day
Watching Kid Snippets
Earning SAVIO BUCKS
Ms. Savio – She’s awesome!
Going on trips to Africa (Storypath), China, Seattle, Scandinavia
Pike Place Market field trip and seeing Rachel, the piggybank.
Listening to stories about Logan, Bella, and Gabi (FaceTiming Gabi on her birthday)
Crayfish and bess beetles
Ms. Savio celebrating her birthday with us
Water rockets
Father Jack blessing our uniform rug
Mystery Readers
Mustache Thursdays
iPads – iMovies, educreations
Special Person’s Day
WestSide Baby with PreK buddies
Playing hangman with Ms. Savio
Playing Poison Dart Frog, Quack Dilioso & Chief
Reading Matilda, Thunder Cave, James and the Giant Peach, & Timmy Failure
Fourth Grade Memories:
Going West on the Oregon Trail, typing, Measurement Unit, studying the fur trade, bowling with Ms. Ramos and Fr. Jack, publishing personal narratives, Halloween Carnival, Veteran’s Day, Magnetism and Electricity, Washington State Map Project with our families, Oral Presentations, Spring Concert, Talent Show, Jog-a-thon, Field Day, Parties, Speeches, Pirates of Grammar Island, Lent, Veteran’s Essay Contest, Special Person’s Day, Time for Kids, Seahawks Parade Day, Learning Dead Monkeys Smell Bad, Winter Concert, Fr. Jack’s 40thanniversary, Student vs. Teachers’ Volleyball Game, Wonderful Wednesdays, Picture Day, Fabulous Fridays, poster making, Thrilling Thursdays, Terrific Tuesdays, Marvelous Mondays, Eighth Grade Play, Spanish Play, Problem Solving Fridays, Spelling Tests, Weekly Quizzes, the day when Blitz came, Sound of Music, Santa Pictures, Beanie Baby Drive, Pink and Say Play, Anti Bullying Assembly, Auction Project, Frontier House, Open House, Bingo Night, Chorus
Fifth Grade Memories:
The Over 65 Dinners
Board Games with Ms. Heidi
Learning about the Human Body
Band with Ms. McKamey and the Band Festival
Reading Hatchet
The field trip to the Science Center
iPads, in particular iPad projects on Keynote and iMovie
Daily Writing
Making boats in science during the variables unit
Literature and literature circles
State Reports and Colony reports
Singing “Frozen” in class
Tickets and drawings
Seahawks parade day at school
Recess – 4 and 8 square and football
OLG Sports
Jog-a-thon winners!!
Sixth Grade Memories:
Playing cards during class picnics and recess
Camp Hamilton, Noah’s wave, Sean and the 49ers, Red Hoodie, new friends, yelling across the big puddle, canoeing, Kell-coon, flashlight wars, sleeping in the cubbies, singing T-Swift, saying Cock-a-doodle-doo in cabins, capture the flag, Mr. Franck’s friend rock on the canoe, Corrigan, TN nicknames, the awesome TNs.
Snowshoeing, building a snow fort, snowball fight
Mr. Franck’s stories about childhood, pet cats, 6th grade almost girlfriend, and everything tasting like chicken
Science class: bird mating dances; head bob, not the sneak attack; looking at spit under a microscope, are you a super taster?, killing the guppies (oops!)
5/6 grade baseball championship, track state finalists
What do you want? and What do you call sleepovers these days?
“Oh hi Mark”
Interpretive and nae-nae dancing
Repatreasurer, headbands, pony-tails, paper New York,
Spanish Class: interesting conversations
Singing “Friday” on Fridays
Silly human tricks and breaking the teacher
Raising and releasing salmon, first grade buddies, watching the Salmon Chant
Seventh Grade Memories:
All the New things:
Dances
Speech Class
Class Economy
iPads
All the Leadership opportunities:
Stations of the Cross
Field Day (and the water-balloon fight)
Family Groups
All the ways we helped:
Angelines’ homeless center service
Winning the penny drive!
Almost winning several others
All the ways we grew:
Cultural Beginning oral presentations
Writing, and writing, and more writing
Dissecting cow eyeballs
Exploring literature: Romeo and Juliet, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, and The Hobbit
Exponents and pre-algebra
And all the fun:
Superbowl celebrations
Baseball Champions
Band Festival
Acting games
Bowling
Spirit days
Hex-bug battles
The Taco truck
Soccer with Mr. Franck
Our inside jokes: ‘Motif’, Din Thai Fung song, Super E, Chicken-pops, Muzzy, T.P lesson
Eighth Grade Memories:
Fun we’ve had: bursting into song and dance randomly; laying on the field with our heads together with a rainbow; extra recess football with Franck and Santos; Mr. Santos dancing to One Direction (no one will ever see the video! Wait… there is no video.); karaoke lunches and the cotton-eyed Joe Dance; all our field trips, including dim sum, the Cathedral, snowshoeing with Mr. Franck and the US Courthouse.
Stuff we’ve learned: the best History of Christianity documentary ever!; the sentence clause showdown with Billy the killer gardener, err, Kindergartener; servant leadership through the Juan Diego Project (and the ensuing pizza and ice cream party); good advice from Mrs. Hieger; Mrs. Sutton typing on our computers; and Cinderella with Ms. Sager!
CURRENT BAND MEMBERS: Summer checklist…
Have you signed up for the Kennedy Catholic Elementary Band Camp July 7-11th yet?
An experience you don’t want to miss!
Join the Musical Fun with Miss McKamey!
Hurry! Deadline is approaching!
Questions? Contact Miss McKamey at Kennedy Catholic:
206-246-0500/ext. 370
To all our band members and parents: Thank you for a Wonderful Year!
Our theme this year, “Companions on the Journey” reflects our community of sharing, learning, and stewardship. Speaking to our graduating class of 2014, Mrs. Ramos reflected on this theme, as well as just how beautifully our 8th grade students have supported one another, have been leaders of the school, honed and developed their skills academically, and strengthened their self awareness and compassion for other. Using the analogy of preparing for and going on a journey, our principal, Mrs. Ramos, underlined the essentials.
“As you now leave OLG and head out to high school and new adventures, I know that you are well prepared for this next phase of your journey…
First: Think about who your companions will be. How will you keep up with your classmates from OLG? What qualities will you gravitate toward as you make new friends in high school? Who are the people who help you to be your best self? Will you seek out and learn from mentors along the way?
Next: Pack the essentials: a sense of humor, your skills and academic strengths – whether they be in writing, public speaking, science or math…” Mrs. Ramos also spoke of the need to pack – leadership qualities, the ability to listen well and be a faithful friend, and to take along ones moral compass – to help make decisions in line with personal values.
Also suggested, is to lighten ones load and leave behind judgmental thoughts about ones self or others. Leave behind impatience about inevitable “flight delays.” Once you’re on your way, be open, with curiosity and a sense of discovery to what life has to offer…” In speaking of gifts, Mrs. Ramos added, “When traveling, sharing gifts from your home community and culture helps to open doors and build relation-ships. Your gifts of dance, music, artistic creativity and more will undoubtedly help you find kindred spirits along the way. And finally, as I’m sure you know, the best way to have a rich cultural experience when traveling is to speak the language and get involved in the local community…. “So, remember—
Choose your companions well
Pack lightly and be prepared
Be open to what life has to offer
Share your gifts
Connect with others and share your leadership in making the world a better place!
Thank you Mrs. Ramos. Wonderful tips for our graduates, and for each of us as well.
Traveling or not, I wish all OLG families a safe, fun, and relaxing summer!
Youth Migrant Project: Spots Available
The youth at St. Mary’s Catholic Church are going to spend a week this summer participating in the Youth Migrant Project, working with, serving, and getting to know migrant workers in the Skagit Valley. They want you to join them! There are spots available for high school youth (incoming 8th graders through graduating seniors) who would like to participate in this amazing experience! The trip is July 20-25 and the cost is $200 per person (scholarships available; free for accompanying adults over 21). Contact Nick Reynolds (513.374.6425).
Dedication and Blessing of Parish Peace Garden and Labyrinth
Mark your calendars for Sunday, June 29th at 9:45, for the official dedication and blessing of our new Parish Peace Garden. Join us as we thank all of the wonderful benefactors, businesses, and volunteers who helped to create this wonderful parish space. Refreshments will be provided.
Are You Curious About Pope Francis and His Message of Joy and Mercy? Would You like to Learn More About the Catholic Christian Faith? You are invited to come to an ongoing inquiry group that meets on Wednesday evenings, to ask questions and learn more about Catholicism (no strings attached!) For more information, please contactHelen Oesterle. You can also find out more on ourparish website.
Congratulations to our OLG 5th/6th and 7th/8th grade 2014 CYO Baseball Champions…and to our OLG CYO Track Team for winning the sportsmanship award this year. We’re proud of our OLG players and coaches!
Our Lady of Guadalupe School & Parish acknowledges that we are on the traditional land of the first people of Seattle, the Duwamish People past and present, and honor with gratitude the land itself and the Duwamish Tribe.
