Powers Newsletter
Due September 26, sending to families Oct1
Principal Message
Dear Powers Families,
Happy October! Fall and cooler weather is starting, and our school is buzzing with excitement. As the leaves change and cooler weather sets in, we look forward to fun seasonal activities and continued learning. October is also a great time to check in with your child about their school routines, friendships, and goals for the year. Don’t forget to mark your calendar for upcoming events like parent-teacher conferences on October 29, 30 and the 31st. Thank you for your continued support—together, we’re building a great school year!
If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to us. We are here to help!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Smith
Attendance Message
Powers works hard to ensure that our students love school while they are learning. Attendance is a critical piece to your child’s success and love of school. Building the expectation that school is important is crucial to your student’s overall success in school and in life. Attendance concerns can result in truancy citations or loss of Open Enrollment. Below is your child’s attendance rate this year. Please work hard to ensure your child is present everyday. Our goal is that every child ends the school year with a 90% attendance rate.
From Pupil Services
Hello Powers Pandas! My name is Mrs. Marko, and I am the new school psychologist at Turner. I am primarily at Powers, but I also help out at Garden Prairie, too. This is my 14th year in education, and I am so excited to be joining the Beloit Turner community. Don’t forget about our Family Festival at Garden Prairie on Wednesday October 8th from 5:00-7:00pm. We will have various community agencies, lots of fun activities, dinner, and raffle prizes. I can’t wait to see you all there!
4K and EC
Our 4K students have had an exciting first month full of learning and discovery! They’ve been practicing coloring, cutting safely, writing their names, and exploring the classroom materials. It’s been wonderful to see them making friends, learning routines, and using their imaginations. We wrapped up the month with a fun Panda Party to celebrate their first year as a Powers Panda!
Kindergarten
Our curious kindergarten students dove into the wonderful world of animal habitats this month during literacy time. From the snowy antarctic shore to oceans and ponds, they discovered where different animals live and how they adapt to their environments. It’s been amazing to see their excitement grow as they connect stories with the natural world around them!
1st Grade
First graders are off to a great start for the 2025-2026 school year. This month we have reviewed our PANDA rules. We have begun our reading curriculum by reading Stellaluna by Janel Cannon and learning how to solve addition and subtraction equations within 10. We have worked as teams with stand up whiteboards to solve these math problems. In STEAM Lab, we have designed robots with Legos and learned how to program Bee Bots. We celebrated Wisconsin Day and "Talk Like a Pirate Day". Mrs. Lindsay's class began our community partnership with Riverside Terrace by visiting and making an apple project. We completed our beginning of the year diagnostics. And this is just September!!!
Art
This month in art class, Kindergarten artists are practicing their skills drawing circles. They started by using tracers to make a fun project for our fundraiser, Art to Remember (more news about that coming soon.) Now they are practicing drawing circles by following a dotted line. As we progress through the year, they will be master circle artists.
In First grade art, students have been drawing beautiful sunflowers for the Art to Remember fundraiser. They have started painting over their crayon drawings with watercolor to learn about the wax resist method.
Music
Kindergarten
Kindergarteners have been starting the year off strong! We use John Feierabend’s First Steps in the music curriculum. Each lesson includes singing, beat keeping, and creative movement. We will break down a different part of our first steps “workout” in each newsletter! This month is our vocal warm up. Every lesson, we begin with warming up our voices to sing. This is a crucial step in developing healthy vocal habits and making our voice grow appropriately. This month we learned about our four voices and practiced high and low speaking voice with the poem “Big Pig.”We have absolutely been LOVING getting into a routine of singing regularly!
First Grade
First graders have been starting the year off by learning the difference between steady beat and rhythm. Steady beat is like our heart, it beats in time along with the music and doesn’t speed up or slow down during the song. Rhythm is like the pattern of the words. We tapped out the syllables and are figuring out how many sounds words have. We practiced with poems like “Bate Bate Chocolate” and “Little Squirrel.” We definitely didn’t forget Pirate Day - we did some pirate-themed activities like a pirate map and a pirate song called “How Do You Talk like a Pirate Matey?”
PE