Making a Difference the Dino Way

"When I ask teachers why they teach, they almost always say that it is because they want to make a difference in the lives of children." - Arne Duncan

Our Community
The month of September was full of community activities.  For the third consecutive year, PTA continued our partnership with Boosterthon to host our PHE Fun Run.  Did you know that in addition to the week-long fundraising extravaganza, Boosterthon provides character education videos that we use during assemblies throughout the year?  Due to this tremendous fundraising effort, our community was able to bring in more than $40,000 to support programs at our school.  I want to send out a heart-felt thank you to our PTA and all the parent volunteers who helped make this event a huge success!

Last week, our community joined PTA to Make a Difference at PHE!  We had a wonderful turn out of families, staff, and community members who put in hours of hard work beautifying our campus.  Our dino prints are a little brighter, campus is a lot cleaner, and invasive plants are a lot tamer.  Our neighboring church, Oak Park Christian Center, also sent over a large group of volunteers and shared use of their green waste bin to hold all of the plant waste.  I am always awed by the generosity and caring of our community!  Way to go Dinos!

Student Assemblies
Our school has many systems in place to support student learning and positive behavior.  One way we set school-wide behavior goals and expectations is through our bimonthly Character Assemblies.  Last month, the focus was on helping students recognize when they are upset and practice some calming strategies like Stop & Breathe.  We also held an assembly that introduced Hispanic Heritage Month (9/15-10/15) and highlighted a wide array of celebrated Latin Americans and their respective careers.



Learn, Grow, Innovate!
Through community activities, assemblies, and classroom lessons powerful student learning is always our focus.  Both inside and outside of the classrooms students have been actively engaged in robust learning activities.  As I have walked around campus and in and out of classrooms, I have witnessed some incredible learning opportunities.  In math, second graders applied their knowledge of place value as they played math games, and third graders thoughtfully used that place value knowledge to help determine how to round large numbers.  Students across our campus built their reading stamina and critical thinking as they read from leveled books.  From our youngest students who are learning how to bring books to life as they decode words, to our oldest students who are collaboratively deciphering complex science and social studies texts, minds at PHE are continuing to grow!



Now that October is here, it's time to get ready for Halloween!  PHE will continue to celebrate this holiday with our PTA-sponsored Carnoween (10/26), and Halloween Spirit Day (10/31) following our established guidelines.  I can't wait to see how our students continue to learn and grow during this upcoming month!

Upcoming Events:

• Principal Parent Coffee 10/8
• School Site Council Meeting 10/17
• Great Shake Out 10/17
• Dance Under the Moon 10/18 - PTA Sponsored 
• PTA General Meeting 10/22
• Make Up Pictures 10/25
• Carnoween 10/26 - PTA Sponsored 
• Halloween Spirit Day 10/31