Reminder: There is NO SCHOOL
November 27th or 28th
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7:40 - 7:55: Students should not arrive prior to 7:40. All students enter through the main doors. Breakfast is served. Students may not enter the building until the bell rings at 7:40.
8:00 am: School begins
2:35 pm: Dismissal for all walkers and parent pickup
2:40 pm: Dismissal for bussers
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November
3 - PTA Meeting @ 7:15 in the Pinecrest Media Center
7 - Family Movie Night
27-28 - No School: Fall Break
December
1 - No School - Staff Development
1 - 10 - 10 Days of Giving Food Drive
8 - PTA Meeting @ 7:15 in the Pinecrest Media Center
24-31 - No School: Winter Break
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Pinecrest has been the big winner for 2 years in a row!
Help us make it 3 so we can win Culver's Custard and help Hastings families in need! |
Apply for Educational Benefits- Support Your Family
And Our School!
“Educational Benefits” are about more than just free or reduced meals—they open doors for families! Qualifying can connect you to WIC, Metro Transit Assistance, affordable internet options, and discounts or scholarships for camps, sports, and child care.
Every application matters! When families apply, it helps Pinecrest earn funding, become eligible for grants, and access programs that benefit every student in our community.
Link to apply: https://frapps.horizonsolana.com/HASS01
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October PRIDE Winners
These students were winners in our PRIDE ticket drawing for the month of October.
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Thank you for your support in making our Pinecrest Read-a-thon a success. Students read over 46,000 minutes, and raised nearly $12,500 to help cover the cost of field trips! We’d also like to acknowledge the efforts of our PTA for organizing and promoting this event! |
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School Safety
Our updated safety procedures are designed to strengthen our overall security. One change that was implemented is our process for picking students up early, dropping students off late, and dropping off items. In these instances, we ask that parents remain in the vestibule. If you are dropping off an item, we ask that it is left on the table in the vestibule.
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We are committed to providing a safe, welcoming, and respectful school environment for all students. Bullying and other harmful behaviors will not be tolerated. When concerns arise, the school will take appropriate steps to investigate, respond, and support students. Together, we can ensure every student feels safe, valued, and ready to learn.
514 Bullying Prohibition Policy
Bullying Report Form
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Cell Phones and Smart Watches |
Cell phones should not be out of backpacks during the school day. Smart watches, including all wearable electronic devices capable of sending/receiving messages and phone calls, or accessing the internet are prohibited for use in this capacity during the school day.
For more information, please read District Policy 524.1 Phones and Electronic Devices
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End of Day Transportation Changes |
When there is a change to your child’s normal dismissal plan, please contact the main office at 651-480-7280 by 1:35 pm if possible so we are able to get a message to your child and their teacher before the end of the day. |
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Family movie night is November 7th at 6pm. The movie will be decided by student vote closer to the date. The options are: Elio, Wild Robot, and Dog Man. Stay tuned for details! Please check the lost and found while you're here. Everything left after the movie night will be donated. |
We are still looking for a few volunteers to help with Movie Night! |
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Join the Pinecrest PTA! Meetings are held the first Monday of each month at 7:15 pm in the Pinecrest media center. New members are always welcome!
Visit our Pinecrest Elementary Community Facebook Page for more information!
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We have had a great start to the year as we have reviewed the music concepts we learned last year and have begun to work on some new music concepts with everyone.
Our students in Kindergarten are discovering their voices and many of the different sounds they can make with their voices, as well as matching pitch. We are focusing on the concept of steady beat and using our bodies, instruments, and icons to demonstrate that we have mastered this concept.
Grade 1 has reviewed high and low, fast and slow, loud and soft, the steady beat, and our different types of voices as well as the different types of instruments. Because we are big first graders now, our music vocabulary has grown too. Ask your student what the words, presto and largo mean as well as piano and forte. We just discovered that musicians use their own type of written language (rhythm) and are learning how to read and write tah, and ti-ti! (These symbols are known as the quarter note and eighth note.)
Grade 2 has reviewed the concept of the steady beat, along with the strong and weak beats. In addition, we have been working on our rhythmic and melodic reading AND writing. We have read “tah”, “rest” and “ti-ti” as well as sol, mi and la. We just learned a new house on music street, “Grandma Do”.
Grades 3 and 4 are reviewing canon echoes, steady beat and reading the rhythms of “tah, ti-ti, rest, half note, half rest, and tika-tika (sixteenth notes). We have been reviewing our melodic concepts, specifically the pentatonic scale and doing quite a bit of part-work. Be sure to ask your student what the word “ostinato” and “canon” means. We have already sung in 2 parts using both of these types of harmony.
Pinecrest Choir rehearsals occur every Tuesday at 7:15am in the Pinecrest Music Room. Our next big performance is on Saturday, November 29 at 4:45pm in downtown Hastings for the Holiday Hoopla! Mark your calendars for our Holiday Show on Monday, December 22 at 12:30pm in the Pinecrest Gym. Hope you can join us!
Fine Arts Happenings Around the District
November 6-7: Middle School Fall Musical - Annie Jr. 7:00pm HMS Auditorium
November 11: 7th & 8th Grade Band Concert 7:00pm HMS Auditorium
November 14-15 / 16: High School Fall Play - Our Town 7:00PM / 2:00 PM HHS Auditorium
November 21: 5th & 6th Grade Band Concert 6:30 PM HMS Auditorium
November 29: Pinecrest Choir @ Hastings Holiday Hoopla 4:45 PM Hastings Downtown Pavilion
December 22: Pinecrest Choir Holiday Show 12:30PM Pinecrest Gym
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We have had a blast creating new projects in the art room!! Between all the grade levels we have started exploring new ways to create art- with some being inspired by the season of fall!
Fourth grade artists have been creating their own self portraits inspired by the famous American filmmaker and artist, Tim Burton. He is known for producing movies such as Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride, and Beetlejuice. We watched some movie clips and studied the characteristics of the movie characters to create our own self portraits!! They are turning out awesomely spooky!
Third graders have been working on a couple of projects during the previous month!! First they made a connection to the artist, Hokusai, and his famous woodblock print, The Great Wave Off Kanagawa. Which they learned about in their classrooms! We then created our own paintings inspired by Hokusai’s, which you may have seen hanging up during conferences! We recently finished up our painted 3D crayons. These started off with just a few days of painting, but the real magic didn’t start happening until we added highlights, shadows, and of course all of the awesome details! A handful of these are being displayed in the front office!
Artists in second grade used ripped strips of paper, chalk, and oil pastels to create their own mummy collages!! We first looked at how to draw our eyes and then used oil pastels to mix and blend the colors together to make them look realistic!! Then the fun part started– ripping up strips of paper to cover our paper, making our mummies appear all wrapped up!
First graders spent some time learning all about self portraits before drawing their own! We learned about the famous artist, Frida Kahlo, and how she used self portraits as a way to express how she was feeling!! We talked about proper placement for each facial feature and how to include our own individual characteristics!! I think the most fun part of this project was adding the crazy hair to the tops of each head!!
Kindergarten artists have been doing an amazing job following each step to complete a project. We most recently learned ALL about the rainbow. We learned a couple songs, talked about all of the colorful things that we see, and then painted our own rainbows! We finished these off by adding the blue sky with chalk and a couple clouds at each end!! Kindergartners did a fabulous job working on their own rainbows!!
I can’t wait to see what the rest of the year brings!!
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October has been a busy and exciting month in our STEM lab! Students across all grade levels have been diving into hands-on projects that challenge them to think like scientists and engineers.
Kindergarten spent October experimenting. We started the month observing worms and testing if they prefer light or dark and if they can climb up a stick. Students enjoyed touching and holding the worms - there were lots of big smiles! We then spent some time working with forces, specifically with rolling different shapes—cylinders, spheres, and circles—down ramps. Students determined which items were great rollers and which items were not great rollers. This project will continue into November as we investigate what happens when we adjust the ramps to help the poor rollers roll. This will include adding wax paper to the ramp, adjusting the slope of the ramp and adding sides to the ramp. We plan to begin our Trash Collector Design project mid-November, with more detailed information about this unit coming home with your student when we begin.
First Grade began testing different materials for their bandage design challenge, focusing on the two parts of the bandage: the sticky part and the soft pad. We tested 5 different types of tape to hold our bandage on and 5 different types of soft material to provide absorption as the pad. Below are pictures of first graders practicing working with pipettes for the pad absorption testing and rubbing different bandages in dirt to test the design of the bandage.
Second Grade learned why bees are such amazing pollinators for pumpkin flowers and started testing materials to create their own hand pollinators. Students used baking soda as the pollen and tried six different tips to pick up and drop off the pollen. Students then tested five different handles to determine which handle would be best for their hand pollinator. Below, students are testing potential handles for control.
A student in Mrs. Larson’s class brought a special visitor to go along with our pollinator unit. Matt Chandler, a local beekeeper and uncle to a student in the class, was kind enough to come talk to us about bees. He brought lots of equipment and explained each piece and its function to the class. The students learned so much and asked lots of great questions. A sincere thank you to Mr. Chandler for your visit and sharing all your beekeeping experience and knowledge with us!
Third Grade experimented with magnet attraction and repulsion to solve a unique engineering problem—design a dog door for an animal shelter that will open and close for the dogs, but keep the rats out! Students are using attraction to keep the door closed and repulsion to open the door. Below are some students testing magnets for this project.
Fourth Grade explored solar ovens as a resource-saving solution for a family in Botswana. They investigated what makes an effective insulator to help their ovens harness the sun’s energy and which material has the least impact on the environment. Just as engineers in industry face compromise, students are trying to balance the goal of keeping heat in their solar oven while impacting the environment as little as possible. Below, students are observing the temperature change of various insulation materials to determine what they might select for use in their oven.
We’re so proud of our young engineers and scientists for their curiosity, teamwork, problem-solving and creativity. Stay tuned for more STEM adventures next month!
Coming up in November:
Kindergarten: Engineering Trash Collectors
First Grade: Complete bandage and begin coding with Blue Bots (programmable robot)
Second Grade: Complete hand pollinator and begin using the Scratch Jr. application to create animations
Third Grade: Finish the dog door project and begin coding with Edisons (programmable robots)
Fourth Grade: Finish solar oven testing and begin using the Scratch application to design computer games
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Order your Spirit Wear! Can be customized to our school! |
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