Westside Elementary

It's Monday. Only two days of school this week due to Thanksgiving Break. What do you think 5th grade is doing? Playing outside? No way! Our 5th grade students are hard at work! Mrs. Frost's class and Mrs. McGill's class are hard at work!

This year has been filled with chatter of how hard 2020 has been. And, that is undoubtedly true. But, as we observe Thanksgiving today, let's remember there have been moments of wonder, beauty, and celebration in 2020 as well. We have met new people and learned new skills. We experienced new ways of seeing the world, impacting lives, and helping others. Let's not forget the cherished time spent with family. And, maybe, just maybe, these tough times have allowed us the sacred opportunity of growing. One of the most beautiful things is how people have come together to support each other. Drive-by birthday parties, companies sharing resources for free or at discounts to help educators do great work even though they were facing the unknown. Parents sending extra hand sanitizer, tissues, and gift cards to show their support and love for teachers. Restaurants feeding first responders and healthcare workers. These moments have been inspiring. Yes, there have been some gruesome moments in our world this year, but there are moments that are worth holding onto with a very tight grip. Let's be great curators of the moments deserving our attention. We may not be sitting around the table together, but we do hold each other in our hearts and consider each of you a blessing in our lives. #CPSZEBRAPRIDE

Do you remember being in elementary school and painting with a watercolor set? How much fun was that? These kids are making memories right here. This is Mrs. Edinger's First grade class. They are creating colorful turkeys for Thanksgiving. I hope this reaches you over your Thanksgiving break and brings a smile to your face.

These Kindergarten turkeys want to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! Aren't these coffee filter turkeys beautiful? Wow! Great job Kindergarten!

Claremore Public Schools is continually committed to developing an atmosphere of trust among parents and the community in our ability to provide not only a positive and enriching educational experience but a safe place for students to thrive. That is why we have partnered with @FamilyZoneUSA, a leading provider of cyber safety products and education, to ensure your kids are cyber safe while at school. Claremore Public Schools is already using Family Zone to block inappropriate content and to identify red flag search terms from students. However, students do need access to sites like youtube for institutional purposes. Once on those sites students can be exposed to content that may be questionable. It is important that caregivers monitor students when they are on their devices. As a parent or caregiver of our school district, you receive free access to the Family Zone Cyber Safety Hub, which includes articles, videos, courses, and more to help monitor and educate on various cyber threats, apps, etc. This week's #TechTipTuesday is access to this free service. Click “sign up” below to get ongoing materials and education from the platform we trust to manage cyber safety across our entire district. https://claremorek12.familyzone.com/ #CPSZEBRAPRIDE

Mrs. Stones and Mrs. Nickses classes created projects to represent their Native American Tribe that they were given. They did a fabulous job!

November is PTA Healthy Lifestyles Month. We call our Parent Organization the PTO. I asked the PTO to send pictures of them with their families outside being active! I got the perfect photo back! This is Austin Lyons out hunting with his dad. What a great way to be active in the outdoors! Back in the day, it wasn’t hard to lure children outdoors to play. But with cellphones, social media, video games and the like, more children are turning into couch potatoes — and at earlier ages. PTA Healthy Lifestyles Month takes place every November. This year’s theme is “Get Off Your Apps.” Let’s encourage children to turn off their devices and connect with family and friends through constructive play, family exercise, and physical education programs at school and at home. Take a picture of your family this weekend outdoors being active! Upload it to our Facebook page! We'd love to see what you all are up to this weekend!

🦃 No school November 25th - 27th for Thanksgiving Break. 🦃 As you celebrate, please make safe decisions to help reduce the spread of COVID-19: 👐 wash your hands, ↔ watch your socially distancing, and 😷 wear a mask when you are around others. 💖 Particularly during this holiday season, we are thankful for the opportunity to serve you, your family, and our community. #StaySafeStayInSchool - we look forward to seeing students again on Monday, November 30. #CPSZEBRAPRIDE

Traditional students that would like Holiday Weekend Meals please place your order by Tuesday (11/24/20). Pick up will be Wednesday 11/25/2020 from 10:30 AM -12:30 PM at the Enrollment Center located at 101 W 11th St. https://forms.gle/qx3XdeRL6E4VTZ529 Janna Ragland Child Nutrition Claremore Public Schools

Westside's Library Media Center is holding an Online Book Fair! Order while you can!! 📕📗📘📙 https://www.scholastic.com/bf/westsideelementaryschool13

Need an extra gallon to take to your Thanksgiving holiday dinner? Go by and grab a gallon of sweet tea and lemonade from Chick-Fil-A! This month Chick-fil-A will donate $1 to the Claremore Public School Foundation. CPSF funds class and teacher grants district-wide. #CPSZEBRAPRIDE

Miss Peighton Barnes models her beautiful freckles for us today for "Love your Freckles Day" celebrated around the world! Love Your Freckles Day, on November 22, is all about celebrating and flaunting freckles. Commonly found in redheads or those whose parents are respectively dark and fair, freckles are cute, sunkissed spots that make most of those blessed with them look wonderfully unique and natural! Synonymous with youth, and sported by beauties including model Adwoa Aboah, ‘Big Little Lies’ star Zoë Kravitz, and the actor Lily Newmark, the freckled face offers an idiosyncratic alternative to those flawless Instagram selfies where make-up is applied in thick, opaque layers. On this day, make sure to appreciate freckled faces all over the world. HISTORY OF LOVE YOUR FRECKLES DAY It’s time to celebrate sunkissed marks on Love Your Freckles Day. Even though freckles are considered to be ‘trend’ recently, it wasn’t always that way, even historically. Freckles — dermatologically called ephelides — are small, brownish, well-circumscribed, spots on the skin occurring most frequently in red or sandy-haired individuals. The variants of the MC1R gene that are linked with freckles started to emerge in the human genotype when humans started to leave Africa. The variant Val92Met arose somewhere between 250,000 and 100,000 years ago, long enough for this gene to be carried by humans into central Asia. Freckles occur in people with heritage from around the world. While it’s true that such a mutation in people of Celtic heritage causes the stereotypical dot-dot-dots in fair redheads, variations of the MC1R gene lead to freckles in Chinese, Japanese, French, Mediterranean, Israeli, and certain African ethnic groups as well. By the ’90s, freckles were beloved as a more youthful appearance, an association that continues over 20 years later. In fact, Chanel was the first company to market a product designed to create faux freckles in 1995. Now, freckles are widely seen as unique and beautiful, which is why they should be celebrated not just on Love Your Freckles Day, but every day! We hope all our "freckle faced" students at Westside love their freckles as much as we do! :)

Even as children we knew there was great power in being a teacher. Remember playing school and fighting over who was going to lead the group? Future Teachers of America Day, celebrated annually on November 20, was made to celebrate just how great teachers are. It’s sponsored by The Future Teachers of America, an organization that helps future educators prepare for the classroom and become a part of a professional community. Through mentorship and teaching opportunities, they help teachers hone their skills and become wonderful educators. Our own Miss Gentry Pilant is going to school to become a teacher. She's a para in Mrs. T's Pre-K class this year, and we are so excited for her to become a teacher! Several other Teachers in our building were also once paras, some at Westside and some at other schools! Nicole Woods, Tracie Frost, Rachel Hammack, Karly Banks, Hannah Barlow, Kellie James, Cynthia McCaughan, Cynthia Nicks, Andrea Ratcliff, Sayre Whitaker, Kaitlyn Hink, to name a few! Sometimes teachers already have their teaching certificate when they become paras. And sometimes like in the case of Miss Gentry, they are still in college earning their degree. Either way we are SO happy to have them! They're help and dedication to our students are appreciated and valued! To Honor Miss Gentry for Future Teachers of America Day you can participate in one of these 3 activities! 1. Give Miss Gentry a gift certificate. If you know someone hoping to be a teacher, getting them a gift certificate for office supplies would be a great idea! Any teacher will put that to good use in their studies or in their classroom. You could get her a gift card to a local coffee or bagel place. The school day starts early, and this will encourage her to be her best! 2. Write a thank you note. Take today to write an encouraging note to Miss Gentry. Be sure to let them know how much you appreciate them taking on the awesome task of educating children and shaping tomorrow’s citizens. If you want to be a superstar, attach that same note to a box of doughnuts or a bag of candy and give to Miss Gentry. It will be just the encouragement our future teacher needs! 3. Play school Maybe you're too old to play school with your own friends, but your children aren't! That’s why, this Future Teachers of America Day, you should introduce your children to this hallowed game. Provide them with some paper and colored pencils and let them be in charge of you, giving assignments and home work. Not only will they get great pleasure out of telling their parents what to do, but you just may inspire them to become a teacher. Thank you Miss Gentry for all you do! You are a wonderful person to work with! And we are all hoping we get to work with you as a teacher some day in the future!! Happy Future Teachers of America Day!

Introducing Mrs. Katy Cummings Kindergarten Teacher Thank you for your dedication to Westside!

Westside Kindergarteners celebrate National Princess day! November 18th every year is National Princess day. These girls of course are princesses everyday but today is the day to celebrate them! The definition of a princess is constantly changing. From the 1930s until the 1990s, princesses were meant to be saved by a prince and live happily ever after. Nowadays, princesses create their own happily ever after, save the prince, and then put the prince squarely in the friend zone.

Meet Ellyssa Walter, Ed.S. Certified School Psychologist Hello! My name is Ellyssa Walter, a school psychologist at Westside Elementary. I am happy to be part of the Zebra family! My family and I moved to Oklahoma this summer from Wisconsin. I am married with 3 wonderful daughters. I graduated from Kansas State University with a Bachelors in Psychology and my Masters in Education and Education Specialist Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Stout. The best part of being a school psychologist is the unique opportunity to work with children, families, teachers, and administrators to support students' social, emotional, and academic learning in school and life. I absolutely love collaborating, problem-solving, and celebrating our students' successes! #CPSZEBRAPRIDE #SPAW2020 #WellnessWednesday

To celebrate National School Psychology Week (last week), throughout the day today, we highlight our school psychologists and the critical work they do to help our students and staff thrive and discover “The Power of Possibility.” Possibility, chance, likelihood, probability - all things that inspire hope, expectation, desire. With their training, tools, and techniques, these staff members empower and equip our Zebra family to not only aspire to succeed but take action steps to accomplish those dreams. #CPSZEBRAPRIDE #SPAW2020 #WellnessWednesday

Just a reminder Grab & Go Meals CPS offers FREE Meals to all students. Virtual, Quarantined, and Distance Learning meal need to ordered by by Wednesday: https://www.claremore.k12.ok.us/page/child-nutrition ALL Meals are picked up at 101 W 11th St. If you have questions please feel free to contact the CN Office at 923-4243 or jragland@claremore.k12.ok.us #CPSZEBRAPRIDE

For our Fall Food Drive we are needing some items. Can you help? Please send the following items ASAP! We need instant potatoes, desserts, mac and cheese, & stuffing mixes. Fall Food Drive ends soon!

Introducing.... Mrs. Brenda McClurg Kindergarten Teacher Thank you for your dedication to Westside!