Everybody is Somebody @ TCE!

Hi TCE families, 

Welcome to the first post for the year with our Town Center Elementary Principal's Blog!  I can't believe we are already moving into the middle of September!  We have had an amazing start to the year and we are all excited at TCE as we look forward to a year full of learning, fun and building relationships with all of our learners and families! 

My blog will be a great place to go in order to find out about what is happening at TCE as well as I will be elaborating throughout the year on instructional strategies and resources concerning our lesson design and learning with STEM!

Write-A-Check

Our PTO has kicked off our Write-a-Check for the school year!  Please remember that any donations go to help our school in supporting learning and resources for our learners inside our classrooms and around the school!  
The goal this year is $20,000!  
Many companies will match dollar donations given to schools, so you might check with your business or work to see if they might help us in supporting TCE!

 

Safety Patrol

Thank you to all of our 5th graders who have volunteered to help support TCE this year and for the parent support in getting them here early and picking them up late each day!  Please make sure and have your kiddos tell them thank you each day as they help with our morning and afternoon dismissal! 

 

Author Visit - Don Tate
We will be having an author visit for all of our learners this week on Thursday, September 17th!  Mrs. Montgomery our librarian/media specialist has sent home the following form for ordering any books from the author.  Looking forward to hearing all that he has to share!

 

Book Fair
We will be having our TCE annual fall book fair in the library the week of September 21st-25th!  We hope all of you will get the chance to swing by and see all of the wonderful literature offered!  They will be open each morning starting at 7:30am and will close each afternoon at 3:15pm. They will also be open on Special Friend's Day! 
    

 Special Friend's Day

We will have our TCE Special Friend's Day on Friday, September 25th.  This is a day where you can have a parent, relative or other family friend come up to the school and visit your child's room and the school!  Our TCE learners love having their special friend visit and see what they have been learning as well as seeing the school!  You will check in at the front of the school during your grade level's time slot.

Here is the schedule for the day:

4th- 8:30-9:30am

Kinder- 9:30-10:30am

3rd- 10:30-11:30am

1st- 11:30am-12:30pm

2nd- 12:30-1:30pm

5th- 1:30-2:30pm

Fall Family Picnic
Our annual TCE Fall Family Picnic will be 
Friday, September 25th from 5:30-7:30pm.
  
This is a wonderful evening to come out and relax with the family and enjoy some great food truck vendors!  Make sure and bring cash if possible for the food trucks and then a chair or blanket for your family to sit on.  We will have a DJ again this year that will play us some tunes as we enjoy this fall family night of fun and relaxation!

Fall Raffle
 All of our families and the community will have an opportunity to participate in the PTO fall raffle!  
See the following info about how to go about purchasing tickets and prizes!  
You will also be getting this information sent home in the next few days in your child's take home folder!

 Twitter

Please make sure and follow us at our 
Town Center Twitter handle:
@TCETEXANS

There are many tweets already posted on our Town Center website as well as many of our teachers have Twitter handles that you can follow as well to see learning in action at TCE!

Texan Town

We will be starting our Town Center Texan Town jobs and clubs on October 1st!  We are currently looking for volunteers to help us with running a club or helping to facilitate a club!  Please contact me at aapplegate@coppellisd.com if you would be able to help with this fall session or like to discuss an idea for a club!

(Dates for the Fall Session of Texan Town:  October 1st, 16th, 30th, November 6th, 13th and 20th, December 4th)

Look for more Town Center Elementary Principal News to come your way soon!  
   

Moving Into Spring. . .

We are quickly moving on into spring, even though the weather sure hasn't felt like it this week!  Please check out the following to see what events are coming up as well as other info for TCE!

Jump Rope for Heart

Don't forget about our annual Jump Rope for Heart service learning project supporting the American Heart Association.  Your child/ren will be jumping tomorrow, Friday, February 27th, during our specials times. You are more than welcome to come and jump or help cheer on our kiddos!

4th grade:  9:30am-10:20am 

3rd grade:  10:20am-11:10am   
5th grade:  11:10am-12:00pm   
1st grade:  12:30pm-1:20pm   
Kinder:  1:20pm-2:10pm   
2nd grade:  2:10pm-3:00pm

We have currently raised $14,200.00 and are trying to reach our goal of $20,000! 

If we do get to $20,000. . .Mr. Shelby and myself will be showcased at our next spirit rally.  He will be decorated as a cupcake and I will have a cake placed on my head! (for our 20 Year Birthday of TCE!)  So, keep those donations coming to help others in need and bring a smile to our teachers and kiddos faces at the spirit rally!

Book Fair

Our spring book fair will be going on all next week in our library!  We will once again have our Donuts for Dad's/Mom's  on Tuesday (last name A-L) and Wednesday (last name M-Z) mornings from 7:30-7:50.

  We are also looking for more parent volunteers to please help out during this event.  If you can help in any way during this week, please click the link below to sign up for a time slot! 

Click here to help volunteer

Open House

Please remember that our TCE Open House will be on Thursday, March 5th from 5:30-7:00pm.  We hope you can make it to come see some of the amazing learning that has taken place this year!  

New Technology Tools for TCE

We are very excited about an opportunity presented by the district for our campus to have 1:1 iPads for our 4th and 5th grade learners. These tools will be distributed to each learner for use during our school day as needed during instruction.  

All CISD elementary campuses are receiving these tools to use in learning.  A nice benefit for our campus is that these tools will add to the wonderful technology that we already have purchased for our learners through donations and our matching funds efforts.  So this addition of devices will help to benefit not only those 4th and 5th graders, but also our K-3 learners as we redistribute some tools.  

Our campus currently has many devices including macbooks, iPads, itouches, etc. used in learning and our STEM lesson design.  Many of you had the opportunity to attend our TCE Technology Showcase Night or our TCE Parent/Community Tours to learn more about how we use these devices in our learning.  There will also be several projects, presentations, and digital portfolios showcased at our Open House for you to see how technology is being incorporated into our learning.   

More info will be sent out to our 4th and 5th grade parents about these tools next week on Wednesday, March 4th.  Please be on the look out for this information through an email as well as a paper copy.  In preparation, if you are a 4th or 5th grade parent, please go into the parent portal and make sure we have a current working email address for you.  Thank you!

Arrival/Dismissal Parking and Safety

We are having a few troubles with cars pulling into the parking lots, dropping/picking up kiddos and then cutting across our car lines. (especially in the cafeteria parking area)  Also, we are still having some troubles with cars dropping off kiddos in the public library parking lot and stopping instead of actually pulling into a spot to let their child out.  

Safety is of utmost concern for our children.  If you could please help us out in keeping our kids safe by watching out for others in the loops and being respectful of our procedures for arrival and dismissal.  If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me or Mr. Shelby. 

Engineering Extravaganza 

We had an amazing time at our first ever TCE Engineering Extravaganza event during this month!  Here are a few pics from this night!  We are hoping to make this an annual event for our kiddos and families!

Twitter

If you aren't following us on Twitter, you may want to start!  

Follow us on Twitter @TCE Texans.  

Check out our Twitter feed #TCETexans.  

(you can also view our feed on our TCE Webpage)

Engineering, Hearts, Recycling. . .and More!

Hello everyone!  Hope you all have enjoyed January, because believe it or not we are already moving into February!  We have started off 2015 with amazing learning experiences for your kiddos and are very excited as we move on into the rest of our spring semester!   

Teacher Appreciation Week

I would like to give a big shout out to Cindy Hargrove who helped to set up treats in the lounge during our TCE Teacher Appreciation Week!  As well as the parents who helped decorate several areas of the school, those who helped cover the day of the luncheon and our room moms for coordinating an exceptional week of appreciation for our TCE staff!  Thank you for all you did to help to make our staff feel loved!

Parent/Community Tour Groups

 We had the opportunity to have many parents and community members join us for our tour during the month of December.  They were able to come in and see the types of learning and resources provided each day in the classroom as well as got a feel for what our children are engaged in daily at school.  We are going to have another tour offered later on this spring semester, so be looking for more info to come.   Thank you again so much to those who were able to attend the December tour!

 Districts Touring TCE

We have been working with several districts who are touring our campus to see the types of learning happening with our STEM initiative.  This week we had a group of administrators and educators from Grapevine ISD (Cannon Elementary-STEM campus).  

We will have several other groups touring this month including:  Marshall ISD, Hurst-Euless Bedford ISD, Highland Park ISD, McKinney ISD and other Coppell campuses.  These tours allow us a wonderful opportunity to share with other districts the kinds of learning strategies we are using with our learners.  It also is a great opportunity to connect with other educators in which to collaborate and share ideas across our district and with other districts!

Coding and Technology

We have had a wonderful opportunity as a campus to investigate ways to incorporate coding into our classrooms this year.  We had a day where we participated in coding across the building as well as educators are looking at how our learners can use coding in design and problem solving within their classrooms.

Here are a few pics showcasing coding and a few links you may want to check out with your kiddos to learn more or have fun coding as a family! We also have a Texan Town Club, Scratch, led by Craig Warner where our kiddos have been working on their coding skills as well!  

http://code.org 
http://hourofcode.com/us/resources/how-to 
https://www.madewithcode.com/ 
http://studio.code.org/s/frozen/reset
https://code.org/educate/k5
http://studio.code.org/s/course1 
http://studio.code.org
http://csedweek.org/learn 
https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/hour-of-code/hour-of-code-tutorial/v/welcome-hour-of-code
http://www.tynker.com/hour-of-code/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/an-hour-of-code-for-every-student

Engineering Extravaganza Night
As you know, TCE is a STEM campus in which we focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics as critical components of our learning.  We are also constantly working on having our learners use the engineering design process in all avenues of learning.  

We are very excited to announce that we have incorporated an evening event in February that is focused specifically on engineering, challenges and problem based experiences!  

We will be having our first "Engineering Extravaganza Night" on Wednesday, February 11th from 6:00-7:30pm.  During this night, we will have various stations throughout the classrooms with challenges.  We will also have an exhibit area in the gym where several Coppell High School STEM learners will be sharing projects.  

If you are interested in helping facilitate a station or would like to be involved in this event, please email me at:  aapplegate@coppellisd.com

More info to come about what stations will be available for your family to explore next week!

Innovation Station Supplies
Speaking of engineering. . .we have been in the process of gathering up our supplies for our new Innovation Station room!  This is an area in which we have numerous building tools for learners to use in construction with projects aligning to our curriculum and units of lesson design.  

A BIG shout out to Tim Tidwell who has been helping us to get shelves put together in the room!

We are asking for each person in the class to please donate one or more of the following supplies to help us get everything up and going for use!

You may have your child drop these off in their classroom or you can also drop off at the front office!   

**All classes: empty toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, packing fillers (styrofoam peanuts, bubble wrap, etc), any size cardboard boxes

                    

K1 Vincenzo	cotton balls
K2 Torti	straws
K3 McGraw	popsicle sticks
K4 McKinney	popsicle sticks
1A McShan	clothespins
1B Peccarelli	yarn or string
1C Brehm	paper plates
1D Rice	paper bowls
2A Sork	paper bowls
2B Judd	paper cups
2C Bowman	paper cups
2D Yates	rubber bands
3A Wagner	index cards
3B Garnier	model magic or playdoh
3C Parker	fishing line or twine
3D Seifert	felt or fabric remnants
4A Martin	tape
4B Kemp	tape
4C Hruby	glue sticks or glue bottles
4D Rohani	foil or saran wrap
4E Jordan	nuts, bolts, or washers
5A Tonemah	brads
5B Taylor	q-tips
5C Natherson	toothpicks
5D Burks	nuts, bolts, or washers

 

Jump Rope for Heart
We have kicked off our annual Jump Rope for Heart service learning project which supports the American Heart Association.  Last year our campus helped to fund two grants specifically working on new ways to enhance various heart surgeries.  Our hope this year is to raise $20,000.  
(Since this is our BIG 20 Year Anniversary for TCE!)

We hope you can join us for our event on Friday, February 27th as our whole campus will be jumping that day!
You are welcome to come watch or jump too if you like during your child's Move N' Groove Time!

And. . .if we reach our goal. . .this year Mr. Shelby our Assistant Principal will be letting some of the top fund raisers decorate his head as a cupcake!  I will also be taking part in the fun. . .by having a big birthday cake placed on my head. . .

Recycling and Food Donations
We continue to have numerous recycling efforts at TCE and wanted to make sure you were aware of what we are doing to help our world!  We currently have new recycle bins added by the district in which we can now collect paper, cans, bottles and plastic bags as a part of our recycling efforts. We have areas in our cafeteria designated for recycling as well as in all classrooms.  Our 2nd grade helps to maintain several recycling efforts as well as our Green Team.  

A huge shout out to Beth Reynolds who has helped to maintain several of our initiatives and is also working with other PTO members at various Coppell ISD campuses to help implement similar systems at their schools.

We are also excited to announce that we are taking on another service learning opportunity in which we can help others in need.  We have had several students and parents notice the amount of food being wasted at times in the cafeteria each day due to getting food on trays and then the items not being eaten.  We are trying to raise our students awareness of how to not waste food, but also how we might help others in need.  We are putting in place a program where certain unopened items from the school lunch program may be donated to Metrocrest.  

Metrocrest Services provides programs for individuals, famililes and seniors that lead to self-sufficiency and foster independence.  They aid individuals in Carrollton, Farmers Branch, Addison, Coppell and the city of Dallas in Denton County.   

There is also information on other programs similar to the one we will implement on the link below:   
Donate Don't Dump