Message from the Principal

As the new calendar year begins, many exciting things continue to happen at Pikes Peak Prep, including our first high school boy’s basketball team and our first high school graduation. Our students are in the midst of preparing our annual yearbook. On January 13, 2010, students performed for a gym full of audience members with our Winter Music Concert, comprised of our full choir, the recorder ensemble, wind ensemble, and the concert band.

Parent/Student/Teacher Conferences are being conducted on January 29, 2010, as the semester ends.

Read below to learn more about the special things happening in Kindergarten class through High School seniors.

Kindergarten is learning even more in 2010 with Ms. Sherman and Ms. Trox. “Learning again in 2010” is their motto for the new year!  Currently students are working on learning about coin and dollar bill value in math; they love learning about $$money$$.  Students began an African unit starting with Martin Luther King and continuing into February to celebrate African American History.  Kindergarten is an exciting place to be at Pikes Peak Prep!

Ms. Murray’s first graders are learning how to tell time and count the minutes. This helps with the daily question, “What time is snack?” Children are studying the earth and spatial sense in social studies and habitats and the earth in science.

Second graders in Ms. Eivins class just completed writing Bio Poems about themselves.  In the process they applied their knowledge of nouns, verbs, and adjectives.  They are beginning their second research project about Famous Americans who took a non-violent stand, used their “big” words, and impacted our world.  Look for their “big” words appearing in their classroom.

Third graders are beginning a unit on soil, rocks and erosion and will have an expert guest to present and do a project with them on this subject.  Students have been assigned their final Rome project where they create an artistic and informational poster to present in front of the class. For the presentation they will dress up as a Roman citizen or build a model of the coliseum or an aqueduct. Ms. Studebaker is very excited about her students doing these two projects!  

Ms. Wright’s fourth graders, have been reading stories that focus on foreshadowing and flashback. The stories are designed to help students become better readers and writers.  They have also started reading Savvy by Ingrid Law.

Fifth Grade is reading the Newbery Award winning novel “Walk Two Moons” by Sharon Creech. Students are concentrating on figures of speech and are learning one new idiom a day. In Math, students are working very hard studying grids and are mapping ordered pairs.

Ms. Hall’s Sixth Grade students are beginning a unit on Ancient Greece and Rome. Each small group is studying one aspect of Greek culture and will become specialists in either government, philosophy, Persian or Peloponnesian wars, Gods, myths and religion, architecture, food, clothing, art and literature, Athens and Sparta, and the Olympics. All groups will teach the rest of the class their findings using a variety of media. Parents are invited to attend the presentations.

Fifth and sixth grades have been chosen to represent Pikes Peak Prep as  Super School News newscasters and reporters for Rocky Mountain PBS. Super School News is a newscast written and produced by 5th and/or 6th grade elementary students. Two news anchors and up to four reporters share stories about their school and community. Stay tuned for more details.

Under Ms. Gray’s art instruction, second and third graders are learning about geography while enjoying designing their own flags.  This exciting project allows children to learn more about countries and climate while they hone their design skills.

In Middle and High school, students are creating their own flipbook animations.  This project is giving students the opportunity to learn how basic animation works, as well as watching their own drawings come to life.

The art club, along with Concrete Couch, is currently working on a large mural at the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store on Wahsatch and Costilla, just a block away from our school.  The theme of the mural is “home”, and it has some fantastic three-dimensional elements.  Students anticipate finishing the mural on January 27th.  We plan to hold a reception on the 27th from 4:30pm – 5:00pm at the Re-Store to celebrate the artwork and encourage everyone to walk in and check out our students’ amazing work!

In Mr. Willmann’s Music classes, fourth grade will be starting concert band with brand new instruments.  This is a four-year-long journey into music theory and music performance. 
 
Eight graders are finishing their science/music cross curricular study of the solar system and acoustics.  Their final is creating their own instruments from what they learn about sound production. 
 
In Mr. Jamie’s Spanish classes, students from K-6 are learning songs that will help them with class content such as De Colores (of colors) and Los pollitos. Los pollitos is a traditional folk Mexican song that conveys idiomatic expressions, and is a break through in cultural differences. Students in 7th and 8th grades have completed an in depth review of greetings, introductions, and exchanging of personal information. They are working with the Bienvenidos (Welcome) unit to their world, Los Estados Unidos (United States, Mi mundo). Spanish I and II are conjugating verbs in present and past tense. In this Unit students will learn differences of the verb To Be…SER O ESTAR  “which that is the question.” Also, they are working on verb conjugation of verbs ending in AR, ER, and IR in Spanish.  

History Happenings in Ms. Levicki’s classes
7th grade:

The 7th grade class has been studying the Russian Revolution. Students explored the events leading up to the Revolution, and gained understanding of the causes of the Revolution due to the effects of social injustice and oppression resulting from absolute monarchy. Different periods of the Revolution were studied, as well as its premier players: Lenin, Marx, and Trotsky. Students also studied the geographical expansion of Russia over several centuries, and its effects on government and culture, as well as creating a map project.

World History:

In World History, students have been studying Ancient India. As is found with most state level societies, a rise in the cultivation of agrarian resources often leads to a surplus with an eventual population increase. The scenario of the Indus valley follows much the same principle. Students have studied the earliest civilizations of India beginning with the Indus valley civilizations, the Golden Age, through the Gupta period. Students viewed many different images of Indian ruins, examples of architecture, and artworks.

Science Classes with Ms. Duran

Biology, Chemistry and Earth Science will be taking a field trip to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  Students will have the opportunity to reinforce their learning by viewing exemplars of science in Earth, Life and Physical Science.  They will observe rocks and minerals, examine the various biomes of the World, and view how the body works and how Egyptian Kings were mummified.   This is exciting because many students have not had the experience of the Denver Museum.
 
Eighth Grade is taking a peek in the universe by studying the planets and the many heavenly bodies in our solar system we call the Milky Way.  They are learning about the many theories behind the formation of the solar system and differentiating between stars and planets and how stars make their own light through Nuclear Fusion.  Students visit the Mitchell High School Planetarium as a culminating activity which will enhance and enforce their knowledge of our vast universe.
 
Seventh Grade will be studying chemical reactions and how mixtures and solutions are formed.  However, in order to understand the reactions that can take place, they must understand matter.  Students are discovering that all matter has mass and volume.  All matter exists in four states: solid, liquid, gas and plasma.  Of course, plasma, which we find on Earth in our TVs and light bulbs, is responsible for 99% of all matter in the universe- stars and the heavenly bodies.  Additionally, students discovered that matter is made of atoms- the smallest particle comprised of protons, neutrons and electrons.  Atoms are the basic structure of all elements and without elements there would be no matter.  Students will be creating a class Periodic Table as one of their Chemical Reactions project.

Ms. Nace’s English Classes

High school students submitted final writing portfolios that they have been developing over the course of the semester. Students will publish seven papers (as well as a reflective letter) that cover writing purposes as summarizing, autobiographical narrative, rhetorical analysis, and reacting to a film. In doing so, these students will exceed the college-level writing requirement by two writing assignments.

Middle School students completed a Holiday Challenge research assignment. Working in teams, students competed to locate correct answers for a series of fifty-eight seemingly unrelated questions. Research was the feature skill of this activity, but listening, following directions, and correct spelling skills determined the difference between two teams with the same number of correct answers.

Yearbook Staff conducted a fundraising activity before Winter Break. Students coordinated a Secret Santa Candy Cane sale in which they were able to raise $45 toward the printing of our school yearbook. In addition, students were excited about adding some holiday spirit to our school at such a festive time of year.

In Mr. Fry’s High School Life Skills Class, students are using Google Apps at www.pikespeakprep.net to create, store, and share letters, resumes, and documents online. Students are using GIMP, an open-source photo editing application, to generate and manipulate images and photographs. These students also walked along the ice filled creek for Team Building and Exploration.

With Mr. Britton, all Mathematics classes are engaged in an intense 2-week study of Geometry during this month.

Under Coach B’s direction, it’s time for Boys Basketball.  The first high school boys basketball team ever in the history of Pikes Peak Prep and practiced hard for their first game against Life Academy from Monument, on Friday January 15th.

The fourth and fifth grade boys’ team started practice on Tuesday, January 19th.  The 6th, 7th, and 8th grade boys’ team is practicing as well.  The first game for both teams is February 4th.  Game times are 4:45 pm and 5:30 pm for the 6-8th grade team. 

Student Council

Student Council is planning a dance in February. The tentative date is set for Friday, February 19th after school. The theme will be Valentine’s Day. Music will be provided by a DJ and refreshments will be served. More information to follow about this event.

With boys’ basketball starting up this coming Friday, Student Council will be cooking hamburgers for sale and other food items. Support Student Council at the games.

Spirit Club

The Spirit Club is new for Pikes Peak Prep and active in building school spirit and participating at athletic games. Students must be in 4th, 5th or 6th grades to be able to become a member of this group. Building effective leaders and teaching students about making change and dealing with money is an important skill we are trying to impart with our students.

This club is active in sponsoring the School Store in the mornings from 7:30 – 8:00 am. Pens, pencils, paper, erasers, highlighters, and puzzles are just a few of the items for sale.

In the last meeting of French Club with Ms. Levicki as sponsor, students were introduced to a number of different French foods. Students enjoyed three different types of French cheeses: Brie, Camembert, and a goat cheese. In a previous meeting, students had learned the proper procedure of cutting cheese, and it was really fun to see their cultural knowledge put to the test! Students also had the opportunity to sample paté, which is a mixture of different meats – very bad for you, and VERY delicious! We also tried different olives, cream puffs, éclairs, and the students’ favorite: Nutella on French bread. Along with learning cultural knowledge, the students also practiced proper table etiquette. It was a delicious meeting! Bon appétit!

Sincerely,
Dr. Patricia Arnold