October 24th, 2015

Ms. Laberge's Sub

From Ms. Laberge...

I am very pleased to be able to announce that my long term sub during my maternity leave will be Therese Schroeder, who has worked with our team for three years as a paraeducator. Therese has lots of experience working in the middle school setting, and best of all, she knows our team, our system, and our students. She is very excited for this opportunity, and we are thrilled to be able to work with her in this capacity. Please let us know if you have any questions.

Best,

Amanda & Swift House

Theater

We are approaching "crunch" time with our theater unit.  Students are focused on combining their lines, expression, blocking, music and props all into their performances.  Next we will add costume, sets and lights as we start our technical rehearsals this coming Friday, October 30th (12th Night) and Monday, November 2nd (Alice).  Please inform us of any planned absences, and we will all encourage hand washing to avoid any sick cast members.  It is amazing to see how much responsibility this young people take on as the production time approaches.

Please take note of the times for our production day, with both daytime and evening performances.  The daytime performances take place for the other teams at WCS and serve as a final dress rehearsal.  The evening performance is for you!  Remember, we are not selling tickets, simply offering "first come, first serve" seating and asking for donations at the door.

If your son or daughter still needs to bring in basic costume layers, please refer to the link here for details.

Thursday, November 5th 

10:30 - 12th Night School Performance
1:30 - AIW School Performance

5:00 pm - 12th Night- Arrive in Swift for make-up and costumes
5:30 pm - AIW- Arrive in Swift for make-up and costumes
6:30 pm - 12th Night Performance
7:30 pm - Intermission
7:45 pm - Alice in Wonderland Performance

WCS Engineering Challenge

The annual WCS Engineering Challenge will take place on Thursday, November 19th (5th and 6th graders) and Friday, November 20th (7th and 8th graders).  Students will work in groups to create machines to satisfy specific design criteria.  Events include an egg bungee, rubber band car, zip lines and marshmallow catapults.  After no more than five hours of in-school work time students will compete against the other teams in the school to determine a school-wide winner!  All competitions will take place on Thursday and Friday throughout the school day.

In preparation for building our machines, please save recyclable materials to donate to our Swift House construction efforts.  Save the items in a bag and send it into Ms. Skapof when the bag is full, or before November 9th.  Items of interest include: 

• Toilet paper and paper towel tubes
• Plastic bottles
• Bottle caps
• Old CDs
• Foam core
• Corrugated cardboard
• Cereal box type cardboard
• Anything else of these sorts

Set Building

Thank you for all of the fantastic help with set building and painting over the past two weekends.  We finished all of the "big" painting and building jobs, and now can focus on all of the smaller details.   We honestly could not accomplish the building and painting without you all.  Thanks so much!!

Work on the Alice flat

Lily, Claire and Ella paint trees

Henry and Zoey work on stained glass windows

Erin builds a nest for the pigeon

Isaac works the painter's tape

Grant and Ethan rolling the castle 

WCS at the TechJam

Swift House students, Ella B and Isaac G, represented Williston Central School at the Vermont TechJam in Burlington last Friday.  They shared games they created in their Technology Education related arts class with Leah Joly.

Ella shares her creating

Isaac shared his game with Burlington Mayor, Mr Weinberger

Scholastic Book Fair

The Scholastic Book Fair will be setting up in the WCS dining room the week of November 9th.  Swift House students are scheduled to visit the Book Fair on the following days:

• Monday, November 9th, 1:15-1:40: Mr. Hunt and Ms. Donnellty
• Tuesday, November 10th, 1:15-1:40: Ms. Skapof and Ms. Laberge/Ms. Schroeder

If your child is interested in purchasing a book at this time, please send them in with money on the appropriate day.  We will be highly encouraging the purchase of books or academic items over any small toys that may be available.