PTA Home Calendar News & Events Fundraisers Service Projects Enrichment Executive Board Organization

Enrichment

  1. Math Superstars
  2. Reflections
  3. Art in the Classroom
  4. Music in the Classroom
  5. Science Day
  6. Science Fair
  7. Destination Imagination
  8. Cultural Arts
  9. Chess Club
  10. Robolab
  11. Runners Club
  12. Environmental Awareness
  13. Multicultural Fair
Math Superstars: is a math enrichment program. The worksheets are due almost every Tuesday starting September 21st, 2010. Students get points or 'stars' based on their grades for papers turned in on time, and can write their names on the Math Superstar posters (posted on the wall underneath the main staircase) when they reach 100, 200, 300 and 400 stars. Please ensure that your child does not turn in sheets ahead of time, as this makes it difficult for our parent volunteers to grade and track points. Thanks for encouraging your child to participate in this program! For more information about Math Superstars, please click here.

Click the link by due date and grade below to pull up and print the two page .pdf file for your student. Once you print the sheets, they will be numbered by week (not due date) and by planet (not grade level). However, after SUNSHINE MATH at the top-left is a hyphen and then the grade level (K, 1-5). Each planet also associates with a grade level as follows: Kinder ~ Mercury, 1st Grade ~ Venus, 2nd Grade ~ Earth, 3rd Grade ~ Mars, 4th Grade ~ Jupiter, 5th Grade ~ Saturn.

Week
Kinder
1st Grade
2nd Grade
3rd Grade
4th Grade
5th Grade
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
**
23
**
24
**
25
**
Reflections Program 2010-2011: This year's theme is “Together We can…” Think about the theme. Then select a category. Students can submit entries in literature, musical composition, photography, visual arts, dance choreography, and/or film/video. Put on your dancing shoes, grab a camera, or pick up a pen or paintbrush and create! It’ll be fun! Work may be done at school or home and you may enter as many times as you like. Local Award of Excellence winners have a chance to move on to council, area, state and national PTA award levels. For general Reflections rules, click here. For rules specific to each type of entry, please click on the entry types in the sentence above. Please carefully adhere to the rules, especially on the Presentation Section to ensure that entries will qualify for judging. For Entry forms, click here, and please fill out an entry form for each submission. Our deadline for entries is Monday, November 1, at 3:30PM in the school office. It's not too late to participate, and everyone is welcome.

Art in the Classroom:  This is a program designed to bring art history and art appreciation to the students. Volunteers present short, age-appropriate lessons to classes during their regular Art period. These presentations include information about a given artist, style, or period of art, followed by a hands-on activity related to the subject matter. Time commitment - 1 hour meeting to learning about the subject matter and how to present it. Volunteers then sign up to make one or more 15-20 minute presentation to the Art classes. Many volunteers sign up to present during their own child’s class. There will be presentations in the fall and spring semesters. No art background is necessary. Everybody is welcome to volunteer.
Music in the Classroom:  This program is designed to bring music appreciation into the classroom. Volunteers are needed to help in researching the composer, preparing the presentation, and presenting the composer's music or a style of music to the students for 20 minutes. Volunteers attend a 1-hour meeting to watch the display / design for various grade levels before the presentation. For presentation, volunteers can work in teams. Two composers are presented a year. Time commitment - 1-2 hours per composer. This program is lots fun. Definitely no musical background is needed.
Science Day: The volunteer has the opportunity to direct students through a "hands-on" science experiment in their classroom. The experiments are simple and have been used successfully by parents in our classrooms for the past two years. Time commitment - one day of school, plus time needed to learn the experiment ahead of time and purchase materials (4 hours). Volunteers work in sets of two or three per experiment. They will either be the classroom leader or an assistant.
Science Fair: Do ants like to eat diet soda? Do batteries of the same brand last the same amount of time? Does warm water freeze faster than cold water? Does your child ask questions like these?

The Science Fair is January 19-20, 2011. That’s only a few short weeks after the holiday break and registration is limited to the first 100 children who sign up, so don't delay! See this flyer, click here for more information, or here to register online. If you have any questions, email ScienceFair@CanyonCreekPTA.com.

Destination Imagination 2010-2011: This is a creative problem-solving program, which meets after school once weekly. Each group can have up to 7 students and must have two volunteer coaches. The program encourages students to nurture and express their creativity. Volunteers coach the students in learning the rules, exploring their imagination, leading the discussion, organizing the schedule, etc. For more information about the program and an enrollment form, click here. If you have any questions, please contact Mathavi Shankar at DestinationImagination@CanyonCreekPTA.com.
Cultural Arts: The officeholder schedules local cultural arts performers for in-school performances of music, theatre, dance, etc., and typically one field trip to a Ballet Austin. She schedules the shows with the performers and with the school secretary, coordinates payment with the PTA treasurer and sees to the performer’s needs on the day of the show.
Chess Club: The Club's mission is to provide an environment for children who are interested in playing chess.
Robolob: Robolab teaches students to consider and solve our world's greatest problems by creating autonomous machines to react to these problems. The students use sophisticated Lego NXT Mindstorm kits. They are taught to write programs to add movement, speech, reactions, and more to their robots. The designs incorporate touch, ultrasonic, sound, and light sensors as well as motors wired to a 32-bit processor called the NXT. Each grade completes different designs which include a solar powered ferris wheel, a bumper car equipped with an ultrasonic detector, a power saw, a light sensing car, a stinging scorpion, a catapult, a walking robot, and more. Many parents volunteer in their own child's classroom to help students follow instructions for prepared designs as well as help with student creations. No training or previous knowledge is required! Signup information and class times will be provided by the teachers to volunteer on volunteerspot.com. Students begin Robolab in the spring of 2nd grade and return once a semester through 5th grade.

Runners Club: The Canyon Creek Runners Club meets on Wednesdays after school from October through April. We meet in the gym after school, stretch and refill water bottles, and then head out to the track once the car line has died down. We run for about 25 minutes and finish at 3:30. See more information here on the sign-up sheet. You are welcome to join us at any point in the year - we ask only that you provide the emergency contact and pick-up information on the sign-up sheet so we can safely care for your child. You can return the sheet to your child's teacher, put it in the PTA office in the Runners Club folder, or email the information to sign up.

Please consider volunteering for runners club! If we do not get enough volunteers or a lead volunteer, or the weather is bad, we will email on Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning of each week to cancel. Please make sure we have a valid email address and that you check it regularly on these days! (If you don't hear by noon on Wednesday, we are meeting.)

Water Bottle - Please bring a water bottle every week, as it takes away from the supervision of the other children when volunteers have to walk individual children inside to the water fountain.
Pick Up - If you choose H for 'Hold until pick-up' on your registration form for after-care, we need you to walk to the track where the volunteers are congregated, and pick your child up from us promptly by 3:30 or 1:30 on early release days. Children who are awaiting pick-up by 3:40 will be escorted to the office and left in the care of Becky Klaus. If you would like your child to walk to the street to meet you or be allowed to walk home, please indicate R for 'Release' on the after-care selection of the registration form.
Early Release - We have early release on several of our meeting days. We will meet at 12:45 and finish by 1:30 (lead volunteer by 1:45).
Bad Weather - When the weather is bad, please check email to find out if we are meeting. We will make the call as early as possible; if you have not heard by noon on Wednesday, you can be certain we are meeting.
Attendance Policy - please read! - This is the kind of activity where you can come when you can, and if you have to miss a week it's ok. With that said and given that we are an all volunteer, unpaid activity, we are not intending to track down children who sign up for runners club but don't show up one week. Please be sure to review after school plans with your child and make sure he or she knows what to do in case you aren't where your child expects you to be after school. If you have questions or concerns about this, please email runnersclub@canyoncreekpta.com and we can discuss.

Environmental Awareness: We are excited to announce that our school is expanding its recycling program on campus . Paper and cardboard recycling can be deposited in the cardboard bins found in the hallways or in the blue bins located outside of the cafeteria. Plastic containers & Caps #1 through #5, tins, steel & aluminum cans can be recycled in the cafeteria.

Please talk to your children regarding our recycling program in the cafeteria and where to look for the recycling symbol on their food packages. Help the school reach its goal of reducing trash going to the landfill, by sending less disposables in our lunch boxes. Reusable containers for snacks and sandwiches will help reduce trash. Talk to your children about what foods they can bring back home to eat, if unable to finish their packed lunches, to reduce waste.

If you have any questions regarding Recycling, contact kalpanadangi@yahoo.com, Environmental Awareness Chair

Rethink-Reduce-Reuse-Recycle

Multicultural Fair: Multi-Cultural Fair Planning Committee MULTI-CULTURAL PLANNING COMMITTEE is meeting on the following dates to plan this year's event.

WEDNESDAYS, February 9, 16 and 23rd at 7:45 am, Parent Resource Center. VOLUNTEERS ARE NEEDED FOR THE EVENT, March 25, 2011.

GO TO http://www1.mysignup.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?datafile=multicultural_fair_2011 AND VOLUNTEER FOR THE EVENT!! If you have any questions, please contact Marissa Alexander: malex77@austin.rr.com for more information.