Our First Grade Operas  are an opportunity for students to learn how to write not only a story but a Libretto.  They learn about characters, settings, problem and solutions.  All the ideas and work come from the students.  Props, artwork, and movement all come from their ideas and hard work.  In First Grade, this process takes several months.  We are thankful for the support from Utah Opera and their efforts in composing the music from melodies the students create.  

New York Times best-selling author, Ridley Pearson, spoke to third through sixth grade students on Tuesday, April 2.  He shared his “epic new series that follows the Super Sons of Superman and Batman as they struggle to find their place in a rapidly changing world”, Super Sons: The Polarshield Project.  He spoke about his writing process and how important editing is to creating a piece of literary work of which to be proud.  He is the author of over 50 other books, such as the Kingdom Keeper Series and the Lock and Key Series.  This visit was sponsored by The Kings English Book Store.

Our Kindergarten, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me!” program was a lot of fun and a highlight of our year! We prepared for the big day by creating art using all kinds of shapes, colors, patterns and textures. Kindergartners loved the music and movement and the different beats, tempos and rhythms of each song. The best part of our program was the focus on friendships and the time we spent together! Thank you to our music teacher, Cary Berg, and our art teacher, Julie Davidson. Thank you also to our pianist, Nancy McClellan, our guitar player, Sarah Berg, and our soloist, Annie Stringham.

Dilworth 5th Grade presented their annual U.S. History and Patriotic Program on February 21st. They performed before a large crowd of family members and community members as well as Dilworth students. Fifth- graders explained the history of the United States through words and songs. Included was a video “What the Constitution Means to Me,” the beloved military slideshow which honors students’ family members who are currently serving or have served in the military, recognized families who have immigrated to the United States, and honored one student whose father is currently serving in the Middle East. The program was written by 5th grade social studies teacher, Linette Sheffield, and the music was conducted by Cary Berg. Students produced artwork under the guidance of Julie Davidson, art teacher. Their paintings of American Heroes and our U.S. Flag were fabulous!

We are asking parents of students who are in Dilworth boundaries and will be in kindergarten next school year (2019-2020) to come into the office (7 a.m. to 3 p.m.) to fill out an information sheet. The forms to fill out will be available beginning tomorrow, Feb. 5 through the month of February, ending Thursday, Feb. 28. We need this student information this month so we can determine how many neighborhood students will be attending Dilworth next year. More information about our Kindergarten Orientation will be mailed to you after we’ve collected these information sheets.

During the month of December, the Peer Leadership team at Dilworth Elementary is focusing on how we can each lend a ‘helping hand’ to make a difference in our community. The students decided to hold a food drive to benefit the food pantry at Highland High school. They learned that roughly half of the student body at Highland live below the poverty line, and over one-third of the school’s teenagers and their families live in food insecurity. We discussed what this means, and how we at Dilworth can lend a ‘helping hand’. Peer Leadership students visited classrooms at Dilworth to raise awareness about the needs of students in their local student community. Dilworth families and students rallied together to collect food, school and hygiene items for the pantry. The response and donations from Dilworth have overwhelmed our friends at Highland High, and have shown students that each of them really can make a difference!

The First Grade at Dilworth Elementary participated in a Halloween Program. For this program we incorporated poetry/choral reading, instrumental rhythm, movement, and the arts. This has been a great opportunity for the kids to learn more about their own talents and skills, the excitement of performing and how to work as a team. Happy Halloween!

A huge Thank You to our community for supporting our Dots for Dilworth campaign. And many thanks to Veronica Hill and Meredith Harding for their efforts to make the fundraiser amazing. We had 39 kids go on the limo lunch! We handed out 39 science kits. Mrs. Hall’s 2nd grade class won the class pizza party. The ice cream party winners are Ms. Bitner’s Kindergarten, Ms. Nelson’s 3rd grade and Ms. Park’s 4th grade classes. Thank you, again, for all your support to make this a success!! We want your feedback on the fall fundraiser, so look for a survey soon.

The Dots for Dilworth fundraiser allows each dollar contributed to be used by the PTA to support community events and extra school activities, such as Red Ribbon Week, which is this month. We are also able to support the new mindfulness approach being taught to students and used by Mr. Chatterton and the faculty. These are just two of many! We were made aware of a misprint on our scratch cards and posters that states this fundraiser supports our Art and Music programs. The Art and Music programs are sustained by its own Art/special programs budget, which Art Night fundraising supports. If there is any question of how these funds are being used, please contact our PTA and we would be happy to clarify or shift your donation. Thank you for all you do to support our students and school! Go Dragons!

Dear Dilworth Families,

Welcome back for another great school year. This year we are changing our daily bell schedule to provide more short breaks for students throughout the day. Our faculty spent a lot of time on this issue last spring and through a lot of hard committee work we were able to come up with a schedule that we feel will benefit students.

This idea started as we were discussing what type of schedule works best for kids. Through our research we found that recent studies show that kids do best with frequent breaks throughout the day.

“Regular breaks throughout the school day—from short brain breaks in the classroom to the longer break of recess—are not simply downtime for students. Such breaks increase their productivity and provide them with opportunities to develop creativity and social skills.” (Terada, 2018)

As a result we have created a schedule that provides four 10 minute recesses throughout the day, as well as a 20 minute recess at lunch time. Research shows that we need to give our brains time to consolidate and process all the information that’s come in.  Even without scheduled breaks the brain will naturally take breaks each hour through day dreaming or “zoning out”.

We have worked hard to make this transition as smooth as possible, but we would appreciate your support as we work out any problems that may arise. If you have any questions please contact me. Thank you for being such a great community…Go Dragons!

Warmly,

Jeremy Chatterton

Principal

801-481-4806

I am attaching links to 2 of the articles we used for our research.

https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/47909/how-kids-learn-better-by-taking-frequent-breaks-throughout-the-day

https://www.edutopia.org/article/research-tested-benefits-breaks