November Newsletter 2023

Dear Families,

We ended October with a variety of events for students and families to engage in including our Fun Run Assembly, PTA Trunk or Treat, Scholastic Book Fair and Parent Teacher Conferences. We are now solidly into the school year! Students and staff are working hard each day to progress in grade level learning intentions.

I want to thank all of our families for their patience and understanding as we navigated the incident that occured at KMS last week and resulted in a day away from school. When students returned, it gave us the opportunity to reaffirm to students the safety measures we have in place at school. I would also like to thank families for their participation in our Fall Parent Teacher Conferences. A partnership between home and school is essential for student success. The staff enjoy being able to share with families what students are working on and the goals they have for their skill development. This is also an important time to talk about questions and concerns you might have as we wrap up our first quarter of the school year. Know you can always reach out to your child's teacher at any time to talk about your child's progress at school.

This month, we will work together as a school community to understand gratitude and recognize ways we can show gratitude. This will be the focus for our November Belle Fest. We will culminate that time with buddy classrooms completing a project together. Buddy classrooms are an upper and lower grade classroom that are "buddies" for the year and work together on school wide activities. This has been very successful in the past, and is a great opportunity for older students to be positive role models for our younger students.

I would like to start out our gratitude work for the month by telling you how grateful I am to have the opportunity to work with your students each and every day. It is a privilege to watch them learn and grow! I am grateful for the amazing Amy Belle families, students and staff!

Sincerely,

Katie Kohel

It was a pleasure to see how many parents took advantage of our Parent Teacher conferences last week. Thank you! Your child’s school success is truly a partnership between school and home. If you are interested in learning more about the Guidance lessons that I provide in the classroom, you can go to the Second Step web site at www.secondstep.org and enter your the family activation key (below). There, you will find some short videos about the program and lessons. K-4th grades are still in the “Skills for Learning” Unit, while fifth graders are busy preparing for their GTalk conferences that take place in the spring.

I hope you find time and interest in this great resource, and as always there are many other great elementary parent and mindfulness sites linked on my website.

Thank you for your partnership!

Mrs. Runde

Amy Belle School Counselor

Website

Grade Level - Activation Key

Kg - SSPK FAMI LY70

1st - SSP1 FAMI LY71

2nd - SSP2 FAMI LY72

3rd - SSP3 FAMI LY73

4th - SSP4 FAMI LY74

If you are able to donate, the health room is in need of the following items. Thank you in advance!

Boys

- Pants Size: S, M, L (Sweats & Pants)

- Shirts Size: S, L (Long & Short)

Girls

- Pants Size: S, L

- Shirts Size: S, L (Long & Short)

- Underwear Size: 4T, 5T, XS, S

Shoes: All sizes

Coats: S, M, L

Boys & Girls Mittens, Boys & Girls Gloves

Reminder

Unfortunately we have entered the flu season. Remember if your child has a fever of 100 degrees or higher, diarrhea, and/or has vomited, they may not come to school that day and must stay home for 24 hours free of these same symptoms without medicine before returning. We don’t want any of our other kiddos getting sick.

The first snowfall is an exciting event in an elementary school. Along with the new snow fun comes new snow/winter rules for recess time. It is not unusual to see snow in November. We will review all the snow rules with all the students, and we would like you to be aware of these rules as well.

· Students who DO NOT have boots and snow pants are required to stay on the blacktop area only.

· Students may not play in the following areas: woods, parking lot, pine trees, or tall grass.

· Students must wear snow pants and boots to play in the snow.

· Remember the health room may NOT have an adequate supply of extra boots or sizes if needed.

· No playing or sliding on the ice.

· No pushing or running on top of snow mounds or playing on snow mounds near the building windows.

· Students may not destroy snow creations that have been built.

· No throwing snow.

Please make sure your child comes to school with the proper outerwear for staying warm and playing in the snow. We DO have outdoor recess ALL winter long unless the wind-chill temperature is zero or below at the time of recess.

Help join in the spirit of giving by donating non-perishable food items to the Amy Belle Thanksgiving Food Drive. Collection will run from Monday, 11/6 through Wednesday, 11/15. A flyer with more information. All the food items collected from this drive will be donated to St. Boniface food pantry for our Germantown community.

Outside groups/activities are being offered for students to have the opportunity to join an after school activity. Please see the following information from the Germantown Recreation Department(link) and Young Rembrandt's art class(PDF file) below.

There is still time to shop online with the Milwaukee Makers group for great items & gifts from local artists, with a giveback of 40% on all purchases. Our ordering link will be open through November 5th with delivery to school in early December.

Happy Shopping! Email pta.amybelle@gmail.com with questions.

Use the link below to order.

Fall Walking Wildcats will take place 11/6, 11/8, 11/14, and 11/16. Walking Wildcats is a fun and free program where students, staff, parents & guests walk laps around the playground during lunch recess. The students will vote on where this years destination walking goal will be. If the goal is reached after Spring WW we will celebrate with a glow lunch! Walking Wildcats promotes exercise & builds community.

See attached flyer for more information on joining your student for some exercise during their lunch recess. *Volunteers are also needed to help monitor and record the laps - use Signup Genius below.

Amy Belle School will have one Destination Imagination Team this year. The team will work for weeks to solve their engineering challenge. The team will present their solution and compete March 16h at Kennedy Middle School.

Congratulations to the team for this year:

Team Managers: Mr. and Mrs. Stage

CHALLENGE-Engineering

Cody Miles

Walter Bovee

Caitlin Dwyer-Foley

Jenna Stage

Lacie Stage

Lily Duncan

PTA Meeting - Wednesday, November 1st - 6:00 p.m.

End of Quarter – Friday, November 3rd

PTA Walking Wildcats Dates - November 6th, 8th, 14th, and 16th

Thanksgiving Food Drive – Monday, November 6th – Wednesday, November 15th

4K and 5K Students - canned fruits & vegetables,

1st Grade - peanut butter, jelly & condiments,

2nd Grade - meal mixes,

3rd Grade - personal hygiene & cleaning items,

4th Grade - breakfast foods,

5th Grade - soups and desserts.

School Board Meeting – Monday, November 6th

Veterans Day – Friday, November 11th

School Store – Will be OPEN Tuesday, November 14th

5th Grade Concert - Thursday, November 16th

Belle Fest - Monday, November 20th

School Board Meeting – Monday, November 20th

Equalization Day - Tuesday, November 21st - Follow Friday

No School, Thanksgiving Break – Wednesday, November 22nd - Friday, November 24th

School Bell Hours - 8:46am - 3:46pm

Office Hours - 7:45am - 4:15pm

Phone #(262) 628-7825

Fax #(262) 628-7292

Principal

Katie Kohel - kkohel@gsdwi.org

Adminstrative Assistants

Melissa Lietzau - mlietzau@gsdwi.org

Kim Ubert - kubert@gsdwi.org

Health Room Aide

Breyon O'Neal - boneal@gsdwi.org