Do you ever ask your child about how his or her day went and get a one-word answer? Read this article to find out 10 questions that are great conversation starters!

“The trick is to ask about things that are specific, but still open-ended. Move beyond ‘fine’ and ‘nothing’ by asking your child to describe his world.”

Click here to read more.

Please remember to DRIVE WITH ALOHA! As a community, we all share our school road. Please be mindful of your speed, passing with care (only if necessary), and practice patience in one-lane areas.

We love to see learning “al fresco” at Alaka’i O Kaua’i.

Why is learning outside so important? An article entitled The Benefits of Learning Outside the Classroom states that direct experience outdoors is more motivating and has more impact and credibility.

The results from learning outside the classroom can be instantaneous as well as active and, therefore, impact behavior as well as tap into the learning styles of the more kinesthetic learner.

Through skilled teaching, interpretation or facilitation, learning outside the classroom can readily become a stimulating source of fascination, personal growth and can lead to breakthroughs in learning.

Active learning readily develops the learning skills of inquiry, experiment, feedback, reflection, review, communication, problem solving, an enterprising attitude and cooperative learning.

Quality learning experiences in “real” situations have the capacity to raise achievement across a range of subjects and to develop better personal and social skills. When these experiences are well planned, safely managed, and personalized to meet the needs of every child, they can:

• Improve academic achievement
• Provide a bridge to higher order learning
• Develop skills and independence in a widening range of environments
• Make learning more engaging and relevant to young people
• Develop active citizens and stewards of the environment
• Nurture creativity
• Provide opportunities for informal learning through play
• Reduce behavior problems and improve attendance
• Stimulate, inspire and improve motivation
• Develop the ability to deal with uncertainty
• Provide challenge and the opportunity to take acceptable levels of risk
• Improve young people’s attitudes

We love seeing our keiki immersed in learning!

All our keiki had a wonderful time at Field Day last week! We had a wonderful time playing field games, running in the sprinkler, going down the Slip N Slide, and playing more games in the gym with the Tapias! Mahalo to everyone who came out to celebrate the end of the school year with us. We look forward to making this fun event an Alaka’i O Kaua’i tradition in the many years to come.

This Friday, June 14th, we will be holding a schoolwide Field Day and End of Year Celebration. Field Day activities will take place between 9-11 a.m. All parents are welcome to participate and join in the fun!

If you would like to help facilitate the field games, we are looking for helpers. Please contact Claire at claire.woolger@alakaiokauai.org if you’d like to support your child’s class games!

After our field activities, from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., there will be a whole school picnic, followed by an ice cream social and other treats! Families are all welcome! We will end our celebration with an assembly in the gym before dismissal. We hope everyone will be able to join us for our End of Year Celebration on Friday!

On the week of April 8th-12th, Alaka’i will hold its first Penny War! This simple fundraiser is a fun way to involve the whole community in raising money for our school. This particular fundraiser will be to raise funds to buy a full class set of ukuleles!

How Penny Wars Work:

The basic premise of a penny war fundraiser is that learners bring spare change to school for a set period of time, usually a week or two, and deposit it into containers. At the end of the collection period, the change is donated toward a cause, for a purchase within the school, or to an outside charity. The class that nets the most is rewarded.

Each penny is worth one point and counts “positively” toward a group’s point total. Each silver coin or dollar bill gets points based on its value (a nickel is worth five points, a dime is worth 10, etc.), but counts “negatively” toward other groups’ totals. So in a competition between classrooms, learners who want their class to win will place pennies into their own buckets and place nickels, dimes, quarters, or dollar bills into other classrooms’ buckets. In some penny wars, dollar bills are counted positively along with pennies.

It’s official, Alaka’i O Kaua’i is a “Box Tops for Education” school! Many of you have probably heard of this program, but for those of you who haven’t, here you go.

In 1996 in California, General Mills wanted to start a program to help raise money for education. They came up with the box top idea, where people could clip box tops on select products (initially only on several big name cereals such as Total, Cheerios, and Lucky Charms) and send them in to receive money for their school. The program was such a huge success that it has since expanded to include hundreds of different food and non-food products, including Pillsbury, Green Giant, Ziploc, Hefty, and many, many more.

How you can help: Clip box tops! Ask your friends and family to clip and give you their box tops! They can be found on so many different products, and it is not only food anymore. Garbage bags, toilet paper — you name it! We can almost guarantee you have an unclipped box top in your house right now.

Please be aware of the expiration dates on the box tops and turn them in to your child’s facilitator or the office. Katie Horgan is our school’s coordinator for this program. You can use the attached form or just turn them in in an envelope or baggie.

The money raised from Box Tops for Education will be used for school supplies, field trips, technology, and more. Thank you all for your help on this. Every little bit helps!

• MAHALO to the Berginz family for our school’s new guitar!
• MAHALO to the Salamey family for our school’s first ukulele!
• MAHALO to Christine Ferguson, Leia Makaneole and the Tapia family for coordinating our first Spirit Week!
• MAHALO to all our amazing volunteers who show up EVERY week to support our school!

Alaka’i O Kaua’i is celebrating its inaugural SPIRIT WEEK, starting tomorrow, Monday, March 11.

Families are encouraged to send learners to school dressed up throughout the week in order to participate.

• MONDAY is Super Hero Day
• TUESDAY is Pajama Day
• WEDNESDAY is Wacky Wardrobe Day
• THURSDAY is Aloha Day
• FRIDAY is School Colors Day (Purple & Green)

Two assemblies will held during the week — one on Monday morning at 9 a.m., and one on Friday afternoon at 12:30 p.m. Parents are welcome join in on the fun!

To close our fun festivities, we are excited to host a schoolwide potluck on Friday afternoon at 1:15 p.m. We are asking families to help by bringing something delicious to share, as assigned by class:

• Kindergarten: Fruit
• 1st grade: Drinks
• 2nd grade: Desserts
• 3rd grade: Appetizers
• 4th grade: Side dish
• 5th grade: Main dish

Mahalo for participating and helping us make Alaka’i O Kauai’s first Spirit Week great!

There are lots of exciting changes underway at Alaka’i O Kaua’i, including expansion into new parts of our campus, adding: a new health room, staff lunch room, learner work room, and meeting room. We are also in the process of renovating our enormous gym, which will hopefully be ready for use by the end of February. Having access to our gym will provide lots of new opportunities for our school community, including an indoor recess space, all-school assemblies, and after-school programs.

On Friday, the “School Quality Survey” form from the Department of Education was sent home with each child. The purpose of this survey is to provide the State Charter School Commission with one indicator of parent satisfaction with Alaka`i O Kaua’i Charter School. Please do your best to complete and return these surveys with your child by the end of the week. Thank you!

• Please do your best to be on time to school! Students need to be dropped off no later than 8:10 a.m. every day. (The earliest drop-off time is 7:30 a.m.) Late arrivals are disruptive to the start of the school day, so please do your best to make it on time (without speeding on our road!).
• Dismissal is at 2:25 p.m., Mon-Thurs, and 1:40 p.m. on Fridays. Please do not arrive early to sign out your child before 2:25 p.m. unless absolutely necessary.

At Alaka’i O Kaua’i, our school-wide discipline policy is based on the foundational skills of Love and Logic. Love and Logic is a philosophy founded in 1977 by Jim Fay and Foster W. Cline, M.D. It is the approach of choice among leading educators, parents, and other professionals worldwide, as it is dedicated to making parenting and teaching fun and rewarding, instead of stressful and chaotic. Alaka’i O Kaua’i believes:

Respect, appreciation, and love prevents potential problems

• When learners feel respected, appreciated and even loved by their teachers, they are far more motivated and cause far fewer problems.

Freedom to problem-solve and make decisions fosters motivation

• Learners are far calmer and more motivated when their faciltators allow them to make choices and solve their own problems within limits.

Focusing energy on problem prevention is rewarding

• Successful educators focus most of their energy on simple tools for preventing misbehavior or keeping it small, rather than trying to provide consequences for every problem.

Showing empathy and compassion is effective

• When consequences are necessary, effective educators provide them with sincere empathy or compassion.

Linda Krystek will be offering “Parenting with Love and Logic, Part 1” at Alaka’i O Kaua’i on Tuesday, Jan. 15, from 2:45-4 p.m. in the Library. Join us to learn how to show love and empathy while setting limits and holding children accountable with logical consequences. We will be diving deep into the Five Core Principles of Love and Logic and learn practical tools and skills to help develop well-behaved, happy, and responsible kids. Please RSVP to linda.krystek@ileadschools.org.

We have some great Alaka’i O Kaua’i bumper stickers and pencils for sale in the front office. They are $2 per sticker; $1 per pencil.

Now that we are in the heart of mud season here at Mount Kahili, please be sure to put an extra change of clothes in your child’s backpack so they are able to change if they get muddy or wet.

We are also happily receiving clothing donations of all sizes/genders for children who do not have extra clothes! Extra shoes/slippers are also welcomed and kept as loaners in the shoe rack right outside the main office.

Please check the Lost and Found right outside the office for any items that may belong to your child. Any items not recovered by Winter Break will be donated to charity or discarded.

Please note that school begins at 8:15 a.m. Please drop your child off by 8:10 a.m. so they make it to class on time. This is very important for the flow of our classroom schedules and their morning meetings.

Similarly, we want to remind you also that dismissal is at 2:25 p.m. Please do not sign your child out early unless absolutely necessary. We also discourage parents arriving early to pick their children and lingering in the corridor outside the classrooms before 2:20 p.m. — this is disruptive to the classes and distracting for our students.

In the interest of safety, please notify your child’s teacher or the office If your child is going home with someone other than the regular parent or carpool driver.

Please make sure that the valet sign with your child’s name and teacher is located in the upper right-hand corner of your vehicle so that we can easily read it to help facilitate the valet line. If your sign is missing or damaged and you would like a more durable laminated sign, just let us know. We will be happy to give you a new one!

Lastly, please DO NOT park in the front circle, especially during drop-off or pick-up — it creates blockages for the flow of traffic. Parking is to the side of the school building, up by the gym (the less muddy option), or down the hill in the lower parking lot.

Our K-6th learners have been hard at work in the school garden this week in preparation for the Presentation of Learning on Dec. 14. Mr. Jon, our wonderful facilities manager, rototilled the soil, added amendments, and created rows so the ground was ready for our learners to plant seeds and plants. In the months to come, we will be harvesting various types of peppers, onions, lettuce, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, spinach, and herbs.

Linda Krystek, the Interim Director, took Miss Katie’s and Miss Amy’s classes on walking field trips of our beautiful grounds, where learners discovered tangerines, oranges, bananas, guavas, grapefruit, ginger root, taro, and macadamia nuts growing at Mount Kahili Park. Each learner left with at least one sample of the produce growing here on the property!

We are actively working to expand our school and classroom libraries. We welcome new or gently used children’s books, ranging in level from kindergarten to middle school, of varying topics and genres. We are especially in need of chapter books. Just drop them in the designated box in the library!

The Giving Tree in our front office is to show our appreciation for all the hard work and time our facilitators at Alaka’i O Kaua’i invest with our keiki. In the main office, you will find a Giving Tree with paper ornaments that include teacher’s name and what they may be needing or hoping for in their classrooms. Pick up your ornament today, and please be sure to return it attached to your wrapped gift, to the large wrapped box located by the Giving Tree in main office by no later than Dec. 20th. Please join us in saying thank you to our awesome facilitators!

School photos went home yesterday with our learners. If you ordered photos and did not receive your child’s packet, please let us know.

Our Photo Retake Day has been rescheduled to January 17th (It is no longer on 12/12). If your child was absent on the previous photo day, or you would like a picture retake, please put this date on your calendar. Order forms will be available at the front desk once we return from Winter Break.

Please note that school begins at 8:15 a.m. Please drop your child off by 8:10 a.m. so they make it to class on time. This is very important for the flow of our classroom schedules and their morning meetings.

Similarly, we want to remind you also that dismissal is at 2:25 p.m. Please do not sign your child out early unless absolutely necessary. We also discourage parents arriving early to pick their children and lingering in the corridor outside the classrooms before 2:20 p.m. — this is disruptive to the classes and distracting for our students.

In the interest of safety, please notify your child’s teacher or the office If your child is going home with someone other than the regular parent or carpool driver.

Please make sure that the valet sign with your child’s name and teacher is located in the upper right-hand corner of your vehicle so that we can easily read it to help facilitate the valet line. If your sign is missing or damaged and you would like a more durable laminated sign, just let us know. We will be happy to give you a new one!

Lastly, please DO NOT park in the front circle, especially during drop-off or pick-up — it creates blockages for the flow of traffic. Parking is to the side of the school building, up by the gym (the less muddy option), or down the hill in the lower parking lot.

Our learners love hanging out together at our school’s buddy bench. A buddy bench is a simple idea to eliminate loneliness and foster friendship on the playground. Alaka’i O Kaua’i wants to spread the message of inclusion and kindness! Girl Scout Troop 823 helped make this possible, and we thank them for this generous gift!

Click here to read The Garden Island’s article!