THE CHALKBOARD: Valley Vista Vikings host a fall feast

Valley Vista’s Vikings are kicking off the fall season with their annual Harvest Festival & Pasta Feed on Friday. The event invites students, families and friends to enjoy dinner together and participate in a variety of fun-filled activities, including a cakewalk, ring toss, face painting, gunny sack races, popcorn bar, and more. Students on campus are also excited for the launch of their 2016 School-Wide Read, according to principal Catina Haugen. “Author Roald Dahl would have been 100 years old this year so library coordinator, Jackie Hoppes, selected his book, ‘The BFG.’ Each Valley Vista family received a copy of the book in their home language. Together, students and their family read one chapter each night, and we announce a school-wide question each morning for discussion. Written responses are entered in a drawing each day. Students proudly carry their copy between home and school. It is wonderful to hear about this shared literacy experience between students and their families.” Haugen said she keeps the home/school connection going by sharing chapter announcements and discussion questions on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram during the reading program.

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Red Ribbon week comes to Sonoma Mountain Elementary. SoMo’s campus is decorating the school and getting ready for community presentations during the week of Oct. 23-31. This year, the theme for Red Ribbon week throughout the local school community is “Be Drug Free / YOLO (You Only Live Once)” Students participate in activities learning awareness, advocacy and resources as part of the national drug prevention campaign.

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Harvest Christian School third-graders took a field trip to the Tolay Fall Festival last week and gathered up some amazing pumpkins just in time for Halloween. Students in the fourth and fifth grade at Harvest took their adventure a little farther away by heading to San Francisco to The Exploratorium where they enjoyed a wide spectrum of science based activities. Also happening at Harvest was the school’s Walk-a-thon fundraiser, which raised more than $42,000 - more than any other year - when the students’ enthusiasm translated into more pledges per student than the teachers have ever seen. With the extra money, Harvest was able to get a new turf installed in the playground area on campus.

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McKinley Elementary School is busy with school-wide character trait activities. In the month of October, students are focusing on respect. From Oct. 3-14, all McKinley Mustangs participated in a “bucket challenge.” Based on the book “Have You Filled A Bucket?” by Carol McCloud, students will practice caring for one another and appreciating one another. The challenge culminated Oct. 14 with a staff vs. students eraser football game at lunch.

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McKinley’s Petaluma Accelerated Charter School students made bread dough and learned about yeast during their food science instruction. Students then observed how the yeast “grew” over the next week. McKinley thanks Mrs. Harvey, from Dierk’s Parkside Cafe, for leading this activity for the students. Students in the program’s seventh grade finalized their first science unit of the year a few weeks ago with a simulation called Science Fair. Principal Matthew Harris shares that during this simulation, students reviewed the scientific method and were introduced to the necessary components of a successful science project all while they worked in learning teams to unlock the mystery of who stole the science projects at the fictitious Brightsville School. Kudos to the two groups that were able to use their deductive reasoning skills to successfully identify characters Tommy and Carol as the culprits. “Students worked diligently to piece together all the clues and make their final predictions,” said Harris.

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Fourth-graders at St. Vincent de Paul Elementary School have been sharing their creative vision in art class. Last week, the students studied the life and artistic style of Paul Klee, whose work reflects his dry sense of humor and sometimes child-like perspective, shares teacher Marla Pedersen. Students then created their own personal artwork, which demonstrated his artistic style. Children picked an inspirational message and wrote it in a grid pattern on paper using oil pastels. Then, they painted over each grid square using watercolor paints. This style of art, called watercolor resist, according to Pedersen, was the most common method used by Klee. Fourth-grader Will Stiveson loves Disneyland, so his message read, “Life is a long roller coaster.” Sadie Smetana’s message used a play on words with, “Earth is not earth without art.” Many fourth-graders chose to write about their favorite sport, such as Gwendolyn Brockett’s, “Keep calm and love gymnastics.” Mrs. Pedersen feels that, “It’s essential to a student’s learning to first study artists throughout history, and then tie it into their own personal world, so it will be significant and memorable for each child.”

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(Maureen Highland is a Petaluma mother and executive director for the Petaluma Educational Foundation. She can be reached at schools@ar guscourier.com)