A couple of weeks ago, the Lego Robotic team competed in a tournament. It was the school’s first competition and although the teams didn’t advance, the scores were quite impressive. A big thank you to Dr. Becher and Mrs. Suggs for their support of the program.

Eventhough it was a short week, rigorous learning was still happening! In Mr. Cumings' class, students had to complete several different science experience. Below, students are working on the computer to solve their science questions.
Here the boys are making a light circuit.
Below, this group of girls were making magnets.


Mrs. Nowakowski-Grimm's glass celebrated with a "Thanksgiving Writers Coffee House". Students read stories and poems they had been creating over the past several weeks.


In Ms. Atkinson's class, students were using iPads to practice multiplication facts.
OHE celebrated our annuaul Pajama Day. Below is Mrs. Robert's class with their PJ's on.


The OHE PTA honored the staff with pies. Yum! I have never seen so many types of pies!

Last Saturday, many of our 5th grade students attended the Texas Science and Engineering Festival. It was a great weekend field trip and everyone had lots of fun and learned lots of science.


On Tuesday night, parents came to learn how to put together a quality science fair project. At OHE, all students will complete a science fair project. In grades PK-2nd, it will be a class project unless the student wants to complete an independent project as well. 3rd - 5th graders are required to submit an independent project. More information will be forth coming about science fair.

As I walked the kindergarten classes this week, it was great to see the our students active in learning.
Students were:
Making Words


Practicing Reading


And, working on patterns. AB, AAAB,

On November 1st and 2nd, our first graders learned about Dia De los Muertos (Day of the Dead). This is a Mexican holiday celebrated throughout Mexico and around the world in many cultures. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to remember friends and family members who have died. Students brought in pictures of loved ones.

What another great Fun Field Day. The weather was a little cool but the students had lots of fun. Thank you Mr. Emerson for the great action shots.

Today the 5th grade students listened to presentations from the Magnet Middle Schools, Kealing, Fulmore, and Ann Richards. If you are interested in the possibility of your child going to a magnet school, please check with your child. They should have received applications. Also remember to start saving work samples. Since teachers return all the work to students, you will need to decide which work samples to submit.

Today was also our first Cafeteria Lunch Bunch. The class per grade level with the best cafeteria behavior gets a reward - popcorn. Each day the cafeteria monitors give Gold Paper Chain links to classes that demonstrate appropriate behavior during lunch. Then at the end of the month, the monitors tally the gold links. The class per grade level with the most win. Today it was Mrs. Lumbreras, Mrs. Fraser, Mrs. Lauri, Mr. Hoover, Mrs. May, Mrs. Juusola, Mrs. Baxter and Mrs. Wiley's classes.

Next time your on campus, look at all our new signs. Mrs. Suggs has painted teacher name plates for all the classrooms and room name plates for areas such as the cafeteria, office, computer lab, conference room, nurse, etc. Thanks Geeta!

Once again HEB is honoring the accomplishments of outstanding public schools, teachers, principals, and districts across the state through the HEB Excellence in Education Awards. Anyone can nominate by going online at www.heb.com/education. With such an awesome staff here at OHE, I feel confident there should be lots of nominations.

Don't forget tomorrow is PTA Skating.

At OHE, we celebrated Halloween in different ways. We began the morning with Ms. Brown leading us in the "Monster Mash".

A tradition at OHE is for the 4th grade students to perform safety skits for the younger students.

On Thursday, the 1st graders performed their musical.  It is fun to watch the students to see which ones "shine" on stage.

Starting on Monday, OHE will continue with our annual UNICEF fund raiser. As part of Oak Hill's 15 year tradition, the fifth grade class passes out the UNICEF boxes to each student in the school. The 5th grade students give a brief presentation about the importance of helping others, especially other children. For the last five years, Oak Hill has raised over $1,500 to help needy children around the world.  You child should have received their UNICEF boxes today.  Please fill with coins and return.  

I know that I always say exciting things happen at OHE, but it is really true, especially during our Friday assemblies.  Today the OHE choir made their first school performance and sang several songs.  With the last game of the World Series tonight, I thought it only appropriate to share the following song.

Also during assembly, an appearance was made by our "OHE" skaters.  It was a way to encourage students to sign-in up for the PTA Skate event November 5th.  If you watch all the way to the end, you might even catch a glimpse of me.  I was really scared of falling and hung tightly to Mrs. Barre.

After all the excitement from assembly, the Oak Hill Rotary made their annual presentation of dictionaries and thesauri to the 3rd and 4th graders.  A tradition that has been around for many years.

Then during my daily trip to the cafeteria to see how lunch was going for students, I caught a glimpse of the following sandwich.

The things Moms (and maybe Dads) do to make their children smile.  What a clever idea!

Remember that even though Monday is Halloween costumes are not appropriate for school.  It was be a regular day as will Tuesday.  At least as normal as we can make a day after Halloween.

On Wednesday this week, Jose-Luis Orozco a bilingual author, visited the campus.  Our students are fond of his books, De Colores, Diez Deditos — Ten Little Fingers, and Fiestas.  Sr. Orozco had our students and staff dancing. 

It has been a wonderful opportunity this week having two authors visit our campus. 

 Thursday evening the Austin City Council recognized Oak Hill as a "Partners in the Arts and Humanties". We received the award because of our partnership with the Dougherty Arts Program and Creativity Club. Stop by my office if you would like to see the certificate and award.

Today was the Student Council's first spirit day.  There were twins everywhere. 



 Teachers even got in the act.  Below is Ms. Atkinson and Ms. Dillon.

 What a 5th grade extended team!  Always ready for some fun.

 They look like twins but they are our 1st grade triplets!

 Ian and Ryan aren't twins but brothers.  Maybe one of these days I'll remember which is which.

Today students listened to the Bluebonnet award winning author, Willy Claflin. Thanks to our librarian Ms. Underwood for setting this up! He was AWESOME!!! The kids LOVED him!  Here is a pic of the Bentley Butterflies with him.

This week, the Texas Business and Education Coalition (TBEC) released its annual honor roll, and, out of 253 schools throughout the state that made the list, six were from AISD! This schools that made the TBEC Honor Roll represent less than 4% of all public schools in Texas, and include 34 high schools, 38 middle schools and 181 elementary schools.  Texas TBEC considers only the school’s commended performance, the state’s highest standard for academic achievement, and sets specific targets for schools based on grades served and student demographics. In this, the last year for using the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) performance data, TBEC’s standards were the toughest in the 12 year history of the award. Congratulations to OHE for being named to the TBEC Honor Roll!

The 2011-2012 PTA Reflections Program deadline was Monday. This year's Reflection theme was "Diversity Means..." Children could express what diversity means to them in one of six categories: Visual Arts, Photography, Literature, Film Production, Musical Composition, and/or Dance Choreography. However, they were not limited to just one category-they may enter as many as they'd like. Your child should have received a packet earlier this year that included an entry form and other important information regarding this program. If your child has not submitted his/her project, please do so immediately.

This week began with parent conferences on Monday. This is an opportunity for teachers to share beginning of the year information with you regarding your child(ren). If you have not scheduled a conference please do so. It is my expectation that every teacher meet with each parent.
Also on Monday, the PTA hosted a soup luncheon for the staff. I always forget how easy and tasty soups are especially when made in a crock pot.
Thursday Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten students participated in Read for the Record Campaign.  Students across the nation read Llama, Llama Red Pajama and our OHE students did too. It was lots of fun.
Tonight PTA hosted a Movie Night. I am sure everyone had lots of fun and enjoyed the movie and food.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Today during the assembly, we had some special guests appear.  Two of our student council board members dressed in Eagle costumes, which were donated by Devin and Brooke.  The students were excited as Calvin and Kael walked down the aisle and helped Mrs. Keller-Bergh with some exercises. 

Our new school song flag finally came!  I definitely think the singing was much louder today because of it.

This afternoon we had the student council installation ceremony.  These are the 3rd grade representatives:

Here are the 4th grade representatives:

And here are the 5th grade representatives:

One of the great OHE traditions is for the past student council president to officiate the ceremony and install the new officers. Joseph, the former president, did an excellent job and obviously, Calvin loved being named president.

This week, 4th and 5th grade student council representatives campaigned for Executive Board positions. The halls were lined with posters. Today, those students running for office gave their speeches.  I was truly amazed by the confidence of these young students.  The pressure to be in front of peers and speak is something I still get nervous about doing.  Yet, one would never know these students were even nervous.  They did great.  Below are the students who ran for office.  After their speeches, the student voted in their classrooms.  The following students were elected:

President = Calvin
Vice President = Daniela
Secretary = Claire
Treasurer = Kael

I also wanted to recognize another one of our 5th graders.  Recently during lunch, a student was choking on a piece of broccoli.  A friend sitting next to him, Phillip, noticed and asked if he needed help.  The student shook his head yes.  Phillip immediately conducted the Heimlich on the boy and the piece of broccoli flew out!  I am so impressed with Phillip's fast thinking and ability to perform in an emergency situation.  That is even difficult for some adults.  Thank you Phillip and the other student was is doing fine. 

As you can see, we have amazing students here at OHE!  Plus, they are successful in intense situations.

I just had to share our "Bring Your Dad to School Day" photos.  We had about 350ish Dads, Moms, and family come and visit classes today.  After the classroom visits, visitors met with me in the cafeteria and shared observations about the morning.  Comments such as, "Do you really have this many students in the cafeteria each morning without mayhem?";  "The teacher just followed the daily schedule and I had to write a story!"; "I never really likes music class before but that was fun." 

Thank you all for coming and enjoy the pictures. 

As I walked into class throughout the week, I continually saw students learning at rigorous levels. 

In Mrs. Robert's kindergarten class, students were writing names and determining which names had more letters.  The information was recorded on individual student charts.  What a great way to combine math and writing skills as well as letter recognition for some students.

 Mrs. May's second grade students were practicing creating 3 digit numbers, identifying the place value, and saying them in both English and Spanish.  (I had some difficulty with the last part of the tasks.  My Spanish wasn't so good past 50)!

 As I walked through 5th grade social studies, I was intrigued by the laptops on the students' desk.  Students explained to me that they were about to begin a research project on states and they were using the computers to find information. 

Also this week, student council elections began for 3rd - 5th grade.  This week individual classes elected representatives.  From the group of representatives, 4th & 5th grade students can run for office.  These positions are President, Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary.  Representatives must let their teacher know Monday which position, if any, they are running for this year.  Then starting Tuesday, students can begin campaigning.  Speeches will be delivered Friday morning at 8:00.  Good luck!

There has been lots of learning here at OHE. 

 In Mrs. Mendrek's kindergarten class, they share their learning from "Kitten's First Full Moon" by recording their discussion on stickie notes.

 Mrs. Faulkner allows her students to become the teacher and edit the daily message.

 During a Friday assembly, Mrs. Keller-Bergh had all of us 'dancing to the beat'.  What a workout even if we were sitting on the ground.

 Winners of OHE's summer reading challenge.  Although we didn't quite reach our goal of 5000 books, we were close.  One of our kindergartners read over 200 books and Mrs. Calabrese read 22!  I thought I was doing good with my 5. 

 In Mrs. Conaway's class, students used their senses to determine if the food items were sweet, sour, salty, or bitter.

We ended the week with our annual Ice Cream Social.  The weather was wonderful and we a great turn out.  Thanks PTA!

I hope that you are settling into the routines of another school  year.  Although there haven't been too many changes for OHE, we are adjusting as well.  There has been a strong emphasis on procedures and expectations. Students have spent lots of time practicing these things so that they become the norm.  That way later in the year, we can just move through the day seamlessly. 

Everyone has been supportive with the creation of a new class and the over/under crowding of other classrooms. We have already begun to level classes at the campus level.  This is where one class at a grade level was over but another class was under the 22 student ratio. Hopefully by Tuesday, I will learn the district's plan regarding the classrooms that can't be resolved in a similar way.

Don't forget that Back-to-School Nights are next week.  The teachers are excited about the opportunity to share with you their plans for the year. 

Have a great and relaxing holiday weekend.