Cascadia Elementary PTA

Thanks for all the fun, work, and learning in the Cascadia Garden!

Read all about the third graders’ spring garden experience below.

If you would like to continue gardening this summer, here are some fun possibilities:

• Help at the Cascadia Garden during the summer!
  • Sign up for summer watering: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0d4daea72ba6f58-summer1
  • Sign up to learn about other ways to help the garden: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0d4daea72ba6f58-cascadia
  • Join the Cascadia Garden email list: [email protected]
• Start a container or a small space garden. Radishes, tomatoes, and mint are all great plants to grow in a container. To learn more, check out some of these books available from the Seattle Public Library (the list also includes some of the books used during class and other fun garden-related books): SPL Garden Books
• Visit or join a P-patch. The P-patch program consists of community gardens where Seattle residents can apply for a plot to garden. Some P-patches have spaces dedicated to a Children’s’ Garden. Read about the history of community gardening in Seattle: HistoryLink: P-patch Program (Seattle)
• Visit a Seattle Learning Garden. The Tilth Alliance supports two Seattle gardens where kids can learn more about gardening. In Wallingford at Meridian Park you can visit the learning and children’s garden and Tilth Alliance’s office (located in the Good Shepard Center). The Wallingford Farmer’s Market is located at the park every Wednesday from 3-7pm, And in Rainer Beach, Tilth runs the Rainer Beach Learning Garden. On July 20th, visit the garden for Farm Fest, a celebration of urban farming and community.
• Go to a local farm. The Tilth Alliance also provides a great directory of farms in the area and includes information about u-pick, farm tours, and children activities. Many of these local farms bring their freshly picked produce to Seattle Neighborhood Farmer’s Markets.
• View the Seattle Public Library Summer of Learning video for 2019 that focuses on experiential learning in the outdoors supported by reading!

Happy summer and happy gardening!

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The Cascadia PTA is still looking for volunteers for a few key jobs.  These are great choices for either new or returning parents.If any of these sound interesting, please contact [email protected].  The PTA looks forward to working with you!

1.  Someone who loves dotting i’s and crossing t’s to make sure the PTA meets all important dates and commitments next year.  The work load is steady through the year, but never more than two hours per week, with monthly check-ins at the board meetings.
2.  Someone who loves fiddling with the back-end of websites to join our dynamic communications team.  You don’t have to love writing newsletters, but staying on top of community happenings is a plus.  This is a year-long commitment still in development and may or may not include monthly board meetings.
3.  Someone who loves handing out awards to help coordinate our recognition committees and the annual Reflections Art context.  This position is a combination of a handful of discrete jobs throughout the year.  It is still in development and may or may not include monthly board meetings.
4.  Someone who loves sending out newsy updates to help with PTA fundraising communication.  This position would involve extra work during the annual fundraiser, but no on-going duties.  Great mentors for an easy ramp-up.
5.  Someone who loves working with other people and setting schedules to help coordinate volunteers for our expanded i-Lab program.  This position will include steady work throughout the year, but can mostly be done from home.

Dragon Digest is not weekly during summer, but expect periodic communications about summer playdates, back to school events and logistics, and ad hoc updates as needed. Here’s how to know if you’re “in the know.”

Update: Additional and corrected info on the SPS website – https://www.seattleschools.org/cms/One.aspx?portalId=627&pageId=57204378

Update: The date and time has been set – Nov 7 from 8:15 to 11:15.  Nurse Kari says you can bring her the forms anytime between now and that day.

Cascadia Families,

The district has partnered with Healthy Schools Visiting Nurse Association to provide free flu shots.  The date is not yet finalized, but anticipated to be in early November. I will keep you updated on a final date November 7.

At this time the flu vaccine is available only to your children. It looks like the vaccine is egg-based and the Flu-mist is not going to be administered- only shots will be given.

If you haven’t signed up yet or received the form that was sent home with your child and wish to do so, you can register your student for the shot online at register.seattleflu.com or complete the attached form.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Thanks,
Kari Asadorian BSN RN
Cascadia Elementary School Nurse
[email protected]
Phone 206.413.2007

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My name is Adrian Watts-Driscoll. I am writing to introduce myself as your child’s art teacher for the 2017-2018 school year. I am truly looking forward to a fantastic year and am so excited to foster creative expression in our wonderful students.

Our goal is to encourage critical thinking, positive social/emotional learning and self expression, enhance skill development and inspire innovative thinking. I will do this by providing students with opportunity to explore a variety of art media, learn skills, reflect on personal progress and incorporate personal interests into lessons when appropriate. Students will explore a variety of art media throughout out the year, study several inspirational famous artists, work in collaboration groups and engage in Socratic Seminar style inquiry based discussions.

If you would like to view samples of some of the types of lessons we are doing in class and happen to be on Facebook I have set up a profile for the art program. This profile is meant as a digital easy to access place for parents and friends of the program to be able to see a few highlights of things happening in class. As the year progresses I will upload samples of some of our lessons so please feel free to send a friend request to me at Adrians Art Stars, Seattle WA.

This is only a supplemental way to share. So If you are not on Facebook, don’t worry, student work will be displayed in our beautiful new school throughout the year. We will also have a special annual arts night exhibit in the spring. At that time family and friends will be invited to visit the school and see a beautiful exhibition representing some of the wondrous creations made by students throughout the year.

Many, Many thanks to all of you who sent in art supplies to help us build up this new program. Finally, a GIANT THANK YOU for supporting our of students and making the Cascadia learning community truly great!

Adrian Watts-Driscoll, Ed. D
Art Teacher
Cascadia Elementary

Cascadia has a new Lunch Manager, Susanne Boyle, who shares the following:

Breakfast is served daily starting at 7:30am.  More information about meals, including menus, payment procedures, and free and reduced lunch details is available at https://www.seattleschools.org/departments/nutritionservices). 

We always work to ensure the health and safety of all our students. We have many students with food and other allergies. We are not a peanut-free school, but do have an allergen free lunch table and many classrooms are allergen free for snacks and class parties.

In the lunchroom: If your child has allergies or has a friend they want to sit with at the allergy free table during lunch please ensure their lunch is free of peanuts, dairy, seeds and seed butter, and Tree Nuts (including: almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, chestnuts, filberts/hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, pecans, pistachios, pine nuts, shea nuts and walnuts.)

In the classroom: Teachers will communicate to you if your child’s classroom is allergen free. Classrooms that are allergen free should follow the direction of the teacher on what type of snacks to send or any other food restrictions. In general avoid peanuts, seeds and tree nuts.

Please also never give a student food unless you have talked with their teacher or their parent.

Attention volunteers! The volunteer coordinators have made sign-up lists up for our most-urgent volunteer needs for the start of the year. We’re using Sign-up Genius for these, and you should see tabs to easily switch to all current sign-up sheets from this page–it’s not just science kits. The link is here:

We’ll be adding sign-ups on an ongoing basis over the course of the year for anything that comes up.
You will also need to update your volunteer paperwork! Instructions are on the volunteer page.

Sign up today!