A Note from Chris O'Toole...

Service Learning in the Beginning and Lower School

Beginning and Lower School students are actively engaged throughout the year in age-appropriate service learning projects. This is especially true in the spring, around Mt. Hood Climb Service Day, when the school community honors the memory of the Portland community’s generosity.

Many of these service projects happen quietly, behind the scenes. You know about the projects going on in your child’s class, but might not know about service projects in other grades. Here’s a sampling of projects going on in the Beginning and Lower School.

Looking ahead to Mt. Hood Climb Service Day

•Beginning School through Second Grade students lovingly decorated snack bags for the Upper School volunteers to take on Mt. Hood Climb Service Day.

•Third Graders will pack these snack bags with a piece of fruit and cookies wrapped in biodegradable wax baggies. We’re getting away from plastic baggies and water bottles!

•Fifth Grade volunteers prepared and performed Project Second Wind skits at Lower School, Middle School and Upper School Chapels last week.

•Children will fill the Project Second Wind Food Drive collection boxes in classrooms and collection areas in the Beginning School, First and Second Grade common area and the Fourth and Fifth Grade common area! Look for a reminder note in your child’s Wednesday Express envelope if you need tips on what to donate.

Service Learning Projects on Mt. Hood Climb Service Day

Second Grade: Litter Project
•Second Grade students will collect trash around SPARC, the dining hall and the dorms. Later they will sort, analyze and document data (its weight, what was recyclable trash, non-recyclable trash, etc.) using graphs. Look for a newspaper article in Wednesday Express or the Aardvark News reporting their findings. Later in the month students will create signs encouraging campus visitors to keep our campus clean by using recycling and trash bins.

Wetland Restoration
•Third and Fourth Grade students and teachers will work on wetland restoration projects with Middle and Upper School students and teachers, pulling ivy and other invasive species, maintaining trails and collecting trash. Third Graders will focus on the Nicol Road wetland and Fourth Grade will focus on the SPARC wetland.

Brownies Donate and Plant Apple Trees
•The Second Grade Brownie Troop 1060 will donate and plant two Golden Sentinel Dwarf apple trees on the Beginning School playground. Thank you, Brownies!

Other Service Learning Projects

•Beginning School friends are tending their new raised beds located on the far side of the building closest to Nicol Road. Check them out! Students look forward to sharing most of their first harvest with Neighborhood House, our local community agency in Multnomah Village.

•First Grade students and teachers are learning how to care for the planet Earth through recycling, reducing waste and conservation of our natural resources.

•Fifth Grade students have been working with Peter Langley in the OES greenhouse planting and caring for vegetable seedlings. Students will donate their young plants to community gardens later this spring.

Living the Mission
Students, teachers and parents collaboratively plan and implement service learning projects. We deeply appreciate the time and energy you devote to service and the example you set for our children. We couldn’t do it without you!

OES Mission
The purpose of OES is to prepare students with promise for higher education and lifelong learning and to enhance their intellectual, physical, social, emotional, spiritual and artistic growth so that they may realize their power for good as citizens of local and world communities.

Discovery Day 2008

Attention Primary, 1st and 2nd Graders - Are your registration forms turned in for Discovery Day? If not, you need to get them in by this Friday, May 9th to get a chance to choose a workshop you’re interested in. Have you tried to challenge yourself athletically? Want to learn more about Japan? Act with some friends in a fun play? Fill out your form now and turn it into the LS office!

Extra forms are available in the office.

All School T-Shirts--Orders due this Friday!

Click here for an order form or pick one up in the office. Youth and Adult sizes, XS-XL. Short sleeve: $10 Long Sleeve: $12

Order forms due Friday, May 9th!

Teacher Appreciation Day Letters

Deadline Friday, May 16!!

Only 9 days left to turn in your cards for Teacher Appreciation Day!!! Wouldn't it be wonderful for your teachers to receive a full gift bag of cards, notes and pictures to enjoy?? Cards come from both parents and students so make them together with your children. Please turn in the cards to the big yellow mailbox in the Lower School office or email your letters to . Please remember to include the teacher's name on the letters and don't forget to include the specialist teachers and staff (chaplaincy, art, music, PE, Spanish, science, library, office staff, EC). For 1st-5th graders, there is one last lunch recess card-making session tomorrow (Thurs, May 8) - please stop by the 1st/2nd grade wing where we will have all kinds of fun card making supplies. Thank you so much for your participation!

Only Two Weeks Until GOBS – Are You Ready??!

The 2008 Great OES Book Swap will be held in the Lower School Library on Tuesday, May 20th and Wednesday, May 21st , 7:30 am to 4 pm.

The last day to donate books is NEXT TUESDAY, May 13th. FOESL volunteers will collect books at the Lower School walkway from 7:30 to 8 am. Please label your bags and boxes of books in order to receive book-swapping points.

Points are assigned by book types – 1 point for children’s paperbacks, 2 points for children’s hardbacks and adult paperbacks, 4 points for adult hardbacks – and credited to individual student, parent, or staff member. For purchasing, points are redeemed one-for-one for your first 25 points. If your book donations total more than 25 points, redemption for your 26th through 100th point is at 1/2 value. And, if more than 100 points are donated, those points beyond 100 are worth 1/4 value. (Need clarification? Please contact , 503-238-6209 - or other GOBS volunteers.)

On the first day of GOBS, you may only purchase books by redeeming points. On Day Two, points or cash may be used. Prices are set by book types: 25 cents for children’s paperbacks, 50 cents for children’s hardbacks or adult paperbacks, $1 for adult hardbacks. Happy Swapping and Shopping on May 20th and 21st!

(GOBS is a biennial event brought to you by FOESL, especially to encourage summer reading, and to raise money to support OES libraries, bring guest authors to school, and promote reading within the extended OES community.)

Soccer Classes

No soccer after school next week! Our teacher, Scott Corris, will be assisting our 5th graders at Camp Hancock. He will do makeups the first week in June. If your child attends on Tuesday, their last day will now be June 3 and if Thursday, their last class will be June 5. Please call the EC office (503.416.9249) if this changes your child's after school plan.

Interested in Cub Scouts?

If you have a boy who is seven years old, or starting in first grade next year, and is interested in the Cub Scout Program at OES, there will be an informational meeting on Thursday, May 15 in the Lower School Common Hall from 6:30 to 7:00 PM. You and your boy are welcome to stay for the Pack Meeting that follows at 7:00 PM. We will discuss the activities planned during the Summer and next school year, recognize the boys who have earned awards and have some fun.

4th and 5th Grade Music Informances

Here is a chance for parents to see their children learning. Come to the Music Informance for your 4th or 5th grader and witness what they are doing in music class. Both grades will demonstrate songs, games, learning activities and recorder. 5th graders will also demonstrate dulcimer.
Music Informances take place in the Common Hall.

Dates are as follows:
5th Grade Music Informance: Friday, May 9th, 8-8:45 am

4th Grade Music Informance: Tuesday, May 13th, 8-8:45 am

Volunteer Celebration! Fun, food, frivolity, door prizes!

OES treasures all our incredible volunteers. If you have volunteered at OES this year, even for an hour, come for breakfast, fun, door prizes and a great time with other volunteers, on Tuesday, May 13, at 8:15 am in the Dining Hall. We hope to see you there!