TITAN NEWS Harrington School Newsletter December 2014

Kindergarten & 1st Grade with Mrs. Sanford

December brought many activities to our

classroom. We would like to thank our families for

helping us decorate and build graham cracker

houses. The finished products turned out great!

We would also like to thank all of the volunteers

who helped with our Santa’s Workshop. We

appreciate you and know that our families will

enjoy the very special gifts that we were able to

make for them.

Please remember to send your child dressed for

outdoor play during the winter months. We will be

going outside for recess daily. Thank you!

Take time to enjoy your precious children over the

vacation and don’t forget to read together daily.

Have a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New

Year!

How are your elves? For Christmas I would real-ly like Infinity X-box and Tony Hawk X-box games. I also want a toy stuffed Rudolph and a toy Olaf and a real puppy. Thank you and Merry Christmas!

Your friend,

Macrae Larmer

How are your reindeer?

For Christmas I would really like an Easy Bake Oven and a real skateboard. Thank you and Merry Christmas!

Your friend,

Scout Sewall

Dear Santa... Dear Santa,

How are you doing? For Christmas I would really like a Go Go toy dog, a Sofia floating parlor and Elsa roll-er skates. Thank you and Merry Christmas!

Your friend,

Claire Ikehara

Dear Santa,

How are your reindeer? For Christmas I would really like a Hot Wheels toy car. I also want a dump truck and a toy tractor. Thank you and Merry Christmas!

Your friend,

Donavin Zerkle

(continued on page 4)

K/1 preparing for Santa’s Workshop

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PRINCIPAL’S CORNER

Dear Harrington Families:

As we move into this busy pre-winter break week, I

thought how I had missed part of the holiday

season already. This is my favorite time of year

and I don’t want to miss everything that is going

on. So I had to remind myself to consciously slow

down and watch, experience and absorb all that is

going on around me.

Over the last two weeks…All 8-12 students

attended the career fair in Odessa. I attended a

principal conference in Seattle. FFA built pig pens

for January. Science students visited the NOAA

weather station in Spokane. Harrington had its

annual holiday concert. The freshman had a

celebration party for winning the food drive. We

had our first home basketball game. Staff and

students readied themselves for the upcoming

Santa’s Workshop. These are just a few of the

MANY things, in ADDITION to classroom teaching,

that have been happening just over the last two

weeks here in Harrington. I am consistently

impressed with our students and staff with all that

they are able to accomplish.

When we return from break, it will be a quick end

to the semester (January 23rd). Please make sure

that you and your students are checking their

grades and keeping up with their work. Seniors

will be completing their Senior Projects this

semester, which is a graduation requirement.

Please be on the lookout for a community meeting

in January. This will be a time to come together

and discuss how the year has been so far – both

successes and challenges. This will be a chance for

you to share your thoughts about what is working

and what is not working here at Harrington School.

Of course you are always welcome to share your

feedback with me at any time – through phone

calls, emails or visits.

Please take the time to enjoy this break and help

your children return to us safe, refreshed and

ready to continue their hard work and learning.

Merry Christmas,

Justin T. Bradford, Jr.

Principal, Harrington School

Elfis and his Crew!!! (our 2/3 students)

High School Band at the Holiday Concert

Jack Plaskon plays in Flutists Brianna Hester & Izabelle Burke

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Santa’s Workshop was held on Thursday,

December 18th. A variety of projects were

completed by the Kindergarten – 12th grade

students to take home to give as Christmas

gifts. We would like to thank the Harring-

ton School Board for the grant that made

this project possible. We would also like to

thank the many volunteers who helped dur-

ing the workshop. We would not be able to

do this without you! Another wonderful

benefit to a small school! Thank you!

Thank you! Thank you!

2014 Santa’s Workshop Volunteers

Stacey Rasmussen

Sue Shear

Charley & Linda Colbert

Jim Gooley

Debbie Roberts

Randi Roberts

Kyle Niehenke

Kaycee Hennings

Alyssa Mann

Gayle Mann

Elaine Cronrath

Rollie Behrens

Grace Moeller

Virginia Marchand

Kaeli Shockley

Megan Weirauch

Harrington PTA

(provided treats for our volunteers)

Kim Kruger

Alan Tanke

Heather Slack

Amy Foley

Holiday greetings to all,

I want to start by thanking all who came out to our

“Holiday Concert” on December 9th. It was great to see

so many there enjoying our music and production. The

K-3’s had a great time with their performance, and the

three bands also enjoyed the evening. I also want to

take this opportunity to thank the Harrington PTA for

providing a wonderful selection of refreshments after

the program. They are always so willing to help out

and support the kids in any way they can.

As we move on from our performances we will be re-

turning to our music curriculum which sees the K-1’s

continuing to explore melody with their voice and find-

ing and keeping a ”beat” to develop a foundation for

further rhythm studies. The 2-3’s will continue the

process of learning to decipher written rhythms and

perform them. We will also introduce them to the re-

corders.

In the 4th-6th grade bands we will continue our tech-

nical development on their chosen wind instruments

and also the skills to play wind ensembles.

The 8th-12th grade band will be busy as we head into

the basketball season and continue our preparations to

attend a music festival in March, the Bi-County Honors

Festival and our trip and performance in Disneyland.

We will also be “fund raising” with the continued run-

ning of the Liquid Assets coffee cart, serving dinners at

basketball games and some others to be announced

later.

We want to thank everyone for their continued support.

Our wish to you and yours is a very merry Christmas

and a wonderful new year.

Performing Arts with Mr. Nighswonger

Elementary cast in joyous song

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4th & 5th Grade with Mrs. Clouse December is such a quick month for us and we have

been busy! In reading we have been working on

identifying the author’s purpose, making inferences

and comparing texts to each other. In math, we have

been working on long division in fifth grade and two

digit times two digit numbers in fourth grade. Both

take a lot of hard work! The fourth and fifth graders

have been learning about Christmas Around the World

and what different cultures do during the holidays. In

writing we have been writing personal narratives

about experiences we have had and things that are

important to us. We are looking forward to Santa’s

Workshop and the fun projects we get to make for

our family and friends!

From the fourth and fifth grade class, we wish you a

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

6th Grade with Mr. Larmer The class is just finishing up Little House on the Prairie

book. They have found the projects to be quite

interesting with all of them being related to life on the

prairie.

In math, the class continues to learn about decimals.

They are currently dividing whole numbers into

decimals and dividing decimals into decimals.

In writing the class has just finished writing an

argumentative paper. The paper was about something

that really bothered them, and there were quite a range

of ideas. One paper dealt with the problem of dry erase

markers. Another paper tackled the school uniform

issue. In this writing project they had to cite three

sources to help produce their paper.

This quarter they are currently studying the regions of

the United States. The first region is The East. The

class will study the climate, economy, people and the

states of each region. Each section of the region was

divided up into groups where each group will produce a

poster explaining what they learned.

I hope you and your family have a Merry Christmas and

prosperous New Year.

Dear Santa,

How are you doing? For Christmas I would really like a dog and a remote control helicop-ter.

Your friend,

Kade Roller

Dear Santa,

How are your reindeer? For Christmas I would really like a wheat truck and a swather. I would also like a stuffed Elsa. Thank you and Merry Christmas!

Your friend,

Christopher (CJ) McNeeley, Jr.

Dear Santa,

How are your robot teddy bears? For Christ-mas I would really like an X-box with Mine-craft. I also really want a 4-wheeler. Thank you and Merry Christmas!

Your friend,

Turner Slack

Dear Santa,

How are your elves and Mrs. Claus? For Christmas I would really like an Easy Bake ov-en and roller skates and Elsa and Ana stuffed dolls. Thank you and Merry Christmas!

Your friend,

Bella Mattozzi

Dear Santa,

How are your reindeer? For Christmas I would really like a teddy bear, a Batman cos-tume and a Christmas tree. Thank you and Merry Christmas!

Your friend,

Ryan Kennedy

5 2nd & 3rd Grade with Miss Roberts

Dear Santa...

I want for Christmas a my little pony shirt and pants, a my little pony set of ponies, my little pony activity set, my little pony stuff. I love Christmas. I love waking up and seeing gifts and candy and seeing that you came! Signed Katie

How are your elves? We are doing an elf play. Can you get me an ipad, ipod, hamster, and a bird. If you can’t it is okay. Can you tell me about Mrs. Claus? Does she go with you to give kids presents? How old are you? I am 8. How old is Mrs. Claus? Have you watched Santa Hunters? Love Maddie

I love toys but I want an ipad! Thank you for Christmas! I hope you give me something special. I love Christmas. Love Sami

I love you so much. Can you please give me toys? Who are the reindeer? I want a turtle sub, purple 3DS, iPad, Lego batman, xbox one, inquisitor, light saber, tablet, costumes, 3DSXL, DS, and Legos. Your kid to watch, Randy

I want 9 toy reindeer, an ipad, a toy cat, Monster High, make up set, one of your reindeer, and a J-animal. One Christmas Eve, I spied on you and you turned around and I hid. I think you didn’t see me! Did you see me? I want cupid because I was nice to Skyla. Did you know that Christmas is about Jesus and not you? But he gives you elves. From, Jerrila

P.S. You still rock in my life so don’t cry!

I want the same lava lamp I had last year. And a transformer. The doggy dodo game. And some more balloons for the game boom boom balloon. I want a Ipad mini. How old are you? Because I’m 8. From Maddox

This is what I want for Christmas: Skylanders, trap team, Ultimate Spiderman Lizard toy, and a star wars general grievous toy, and Obi-wan Kenobi, and a ultra car driver. Love Aaron

I want a B.B. gun and a real gun and a cow truck and a toy bazooka. Questions, can I see you on Christmas night? From Brody

For Christmas I want a TMNT battle shell

Leonardo. Can your elves also make PS3s and

Xboxes? If they can, hurray for the elves! One

thing I need is a helicopter. They are fun to fly!

One question, am I on the good list or the bad list?

From Lane

Pre-K little Pilgrims celebrating Thanksgiving Isabelle and Kamryn wishing you a Merry Christmas!

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MS/HS Social Studies with Mr. Cronrath

Eastern Seaboard Trip 2015 . . . Get On Board and Make the History Real!

The deadline for signing up for this amazing trip is only a short time away! The cost of the trip will only

get higher in years to come, so this is a perfect time to see some incredible history. We are also picking

out the Broadway show that we are going to see on our trip. Among the choices are Phantom of the

Opera, Matilda, An American in Paris, and Finding Neverland. If you sign up now, you can help influence

which show we go see. The Broadway shows are just the beginning. There are so many more things to see

and do on this trip. We’d love to have you join our group! If you are interested in the trip, contact Mr.

Cronrath directly (MCronrath@harrsd.k12.wa.us) , or go online at www.efexploreamerica.com. Our tour

number is 1478257RE.

It is amazing to think that the Christmas Season is

already upon us!

The year 2014 has been a wonderful one here at HHS.

I am really looking forward to seeing what great things

will happen in 2015.

In the classroom, we are working hard in 7th-World

Cultures on the United States and Canada. Before

long, we will begin our look at the Latin American

culture region. The 8th-Geography class is busy with

their study of Southern and Central Europe. The 9th-

Graders in U.S. History I have completed their study

of the English Colonies and are working through the

Revolutionary War while the 10th-Graders are finishing

a massive unit on the Civil War in U.S. History II. The

12th-Graders are continuing to work on Recent

American History as well as current events. The

Government class is just finishing their comparison of

Capitalism, Socialism and Communism as governmental

and economic systems.

Encourage your student to prepare for first semester

exams in January. They can do this best by re-reading

their sections. Encourage them to read aloud to you,

for even just a few minutes a day.

Have a blessed Christmas Season!

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7 Superintendent News with Dr. Perry

The definition of community, according to Miriam-Webster is:

the people with common interests living in a particular area

a group of people with a common characteristic or interest

living together within a larger society

I think both of those stand as a great definition of the community

of Harrington and the smaller community that could be regarded

as Harrington Schools. I believe that neither community could

survive without the other. Large communities will never get to

experience what we do here in Harrington. How on any particular

night most of the town can be found in the gym watching the

youth participate in an athletic contest or how packed the multi-

purpose room can be for the annual Christmas program. As we

head into the holiday make time for extra special attention to all

of those we care for and let them know how we feel. I am so

thankful to work in a great school with fantastic people that love

your children and desire only the best for each and every one of

them. Please join me in thanking each of them publicly for their

tireless efforts. Please have a safe and enjoyable holiday season

from all of us at Harrington Public Schools.

Sincerely,

Dr. Mike Perry Ed.D.

Superintendent

This year Harrington High School is offering students the

chance to earn college credit in the classroom through Eastern

Washington University! Similar to a program called Running

Start, students can earn college credit without the need to

travel to a college campus. College In The Classroom is a pro-

gram that several Washington state colleges are offering

where the high school teacher is allowed to teach a class under

the supervision of a college professor. Chapter tests, finals

and scoring criteria are provided by the college and the high

school teacher does the instruction. This year five Harrington

students qualified to earn 10 free math credits in Pre-calculus

through EWU. Students are duel enrolled earning math credit

for high school and college credit through EWU. On a recent

trip to EWU to see To Kill a Mockingbird, student’s also re-

ceived a campus tour and five of the students went to get their

official EWU student I.D. card which allows them all the privi-

leges of an Eastern student on campus. One student has al-

ready taken advantage of attending a football game without

needing to pay admission!

The picture shows the students who are currently taking Pre-

Calculus for college credit and they are displaying their EWU

I.D. cards and the Eastern Banner! This has been a challeng-

ing course for the students but also a great opportunity to

earn approximately $1800 worth of college credit at no cost to

the students!

MS/HS Math with Mr. Edwards

Pre-Calculus students: Derek Montgomery, Vanessa Larsh, Jordyn Tanke, Caitlin

Kennedy and Jacob Montgomery

Christmas dinner Harrington family style

8 Counselor’s Corner with Ginny Lathem

Ah yes, the new year. In my house, we follow the southern tradition of eating black-eyed peas cooked in ham

hocks and collard or mustard greens which is supposed to bring good luck and prosperity. Since I still have a

child in college the good luck abounds but not so much the prosperity! She is going to graduate this spring and

is in the process of discovering what she plans to do with the rest of her life….or at least the summer before the

rest of her life! This period of transition reminds me of the things we are working on here at school; the steps

we are taking to move toward the next events in our world.

At the elementary, the 4/5 grade class is working on building empathy with each other using a series called,

“Second Step.” This program uses photographs of kids in a variety of situations so students learn to pay

attention to three things: what a person’s face looks like, what his/her body is doing and what the situation/

surroundings may be. Using these three facets, students make better choices in understanding why someone

may not want to play together at recess or why someone might need some extra kindness. In the sixth grade,

students are learning about using a technique called, “Refusal Skills.” This sequence helps students keep

friends while having fun and staying out of trouble.

It is transition time for seniors as well. Again this year, we have been included in Davenport’s FAFSA night. The

12th graders have the invitation information, but just in case, it is Wednesday, January 14 at 6pm in room 8.

Prior to attending, please go to: www.pin.ed.gov to obtain the required pin for both you and your son or

daughter. Please contact me if for some reason your child did not bring home the FAFSA information as there

are a few other items to bring.

For the junior class, it is time to look at career and college planning and either the ACT or the SAT. Earlier this

year, I gave them an article about the differences between the two. Please take some time to have your child

look at either: www.collegeboard.org or www.actstudent.org to register for either the SAT or ACT this spring

in Spokane. Even if s/he isn’t planning on attending a four year school right away, taking these assessments

gives one an idea of areas of strengths and areas for improvement. This is also a great time to begin looking at

career and college sites.

We continued the career speaker seminar in December with a reporter and photographer who came and spoke

with 8-12th graders about careers in journalism.

These are just some of the things we are doing in this transition month from the old to the new. We continue to

explore becoming the best people we can be and explore how giving to others enriches our own lives. Happy

New Year to all!

Technology, Yearbook & FBLA with Mrs. Kruger

It wasn’t all just fun and games during the “Hour of Code” although most of them were having fun in a game-

like scenario. Each of our 1st-12th grade students joined in with about 80 million others during Computer Sci-

ence Week, They were using logic, sequencing, problem solving, geometry, trial and error, debugging and many

other skills as they “coded” the movements of their own characters in games such as Angry Birds, Flappy Bird,

Lightbot and CodeCombat. Some were using visual or drag and drop tools while others were actually typing the

code using languages such as JavaScript, Python or Scratch.

These were quotes from some of our students:

“I want to come here more and more and more…it’s AWESOME!” ~Claire Ikehara

“I’m good at it” Dylan Shockley

“It would be kind of cool to decipher it.” ~William Mann

“I liked it. It was easier than I thought” ~Delani Smith

“It’s the greatest thing in the whole wide world!” ~Randy Mahrenholz

The goal of the Hour of Code was an introduction designed to “demystify computer science and show that any-

body can learn the basics.” With an ever-increasing need for skills in this age of technology, we need to prepare

our students for the many great jobs that are going unfilled because of a lack of people trained with computer

science skills.

Yearbooks are now on sale and FBLA will be selling more Krispy Kreme Doughnuts at the Saturday home games

on the 10th and 24th of January and in presales. Get yours while they are fresh and help support the FBLA.

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Students joining in with the world-wide “Hour of Code” during Computer Science Week

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SCHOOL BOARD

Darren Mattozzi, Chair

Mark Kramer, Vice Chair

Linda Mielke

Brad Simpson

Alan Tanke

SUPERINTENDENT

Dr. Mike Perry Ed.D.

PRINCIPAL

Justin Bradford

Harrington School District #204 P.O. Box 204 Harrington, WA 99134

Harrington, WA

Permit No. 1

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Non-Profit Org

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POSTAL PATRON

The Harrington School District #204 complies with all federal and state rules and regulations and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender or disability. This holds true for all students who are interested in participating in educa-tion programs and/or extracurricular school activities.

Thank you to the Harrington School District Staff and community members who participated in the Tree of Sharing this year. Because of your wonderful donations many children and families in the community will have something under their tree this year. Also, thank you to the US Bank for coordinating this great event, which brings our community closer together. We wish the Har-rington Community a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

-Santa’s Elves