April 2024

Principal Message

Families,

I hope you all had a refreshing and relaxing Spring Break! It’s hard to believe we’ve already made it to April, and are stating the final stretch of the 23-24 school year.

This month, our PE team will kick off our biking unit! The biking unit will take place between April 8th and April 19th. During these weeks, our front main parking lot will be utilized and not accessible for the majority of the day. Parents and visitors will need to utilize our secondary lot during the day. We will not open up the parking for car-pick up until 2:35 daily. Please be mindful of this as we cannot have traffic backed up on Main Street. We will send home additional information later this week.

Our fine arts team has been working hard in planning and preparing for our Fine Arts Festival that will take place on Friday, May 3rd. This event is a combined music concert and art show that will showcase all CGS students. Keep an eye out for more information soon!

April will bring warmer weather, fun field trips, and lots of new learning. We’re excited to welcome this new month at CGS!

Thanks for your continued partnership,

Jesse Starr

Principal

Cottage Grove School

CGS School News

Eclipse Viewing

On Monday, April 8, a partial solar eclipse–when about 87% of the sun will be covered by the moon–will be visible across Wisconsin. While this is a fun and exciting event with plenty of learning opportunities, student safety is our priority!

In our area, the eclipse will start around 12:50 pm; this means that afternoon 1st grade recess will be held indoors. The maximum portion of the eclipse will take place around 2:06 pm (and last about 2 and a half minutes), and the eclipse will be complete by 3:20 pm.

In order to keep everyone’s eyes safe, students in grades 4K-2 will not have an eclipse viewing. If you have a student in grades 4K-2 and want them to view the eclipse, you are welcome to pick them up from school for that time. Please let our school office know if you plan to do this.

Students in grades 3+ may have the opportunity to view the eclipse depending on their school schedule and what their teacher has planned. In order to avoid injury, any student viewing the eclipse must wear appropriate eye protection in order to view the eclipse.

Some families have offered to donate eclipse glasses to classrooms. Any donations of glasses to classrooms in grades 3-12 must meet the ISO 12312-2 (sometimes written as ISO 12312-2:2015) international safety standard. Filters that are ISO 12312-2 compliant not only reduce visible sunlight to safe and comfortable levels but also block all but a tiny fraction of solar UV and IR radiation.

Please talk with your student about the importance of keeping their eyes safe and protected during the eclipse on Monday and never looking at the sun without appropriate eye protection.

Fine Arts Festival

Join us Friday, May 3, 2024 for the Fine Arts Festival at CGS! This combined music concert and art show will showcase all students.

ALL family members are invited to celebrate this event! Please check the concert and art show times carefully as different classes are scheduled to perform at different times.

Superintendent Search

We are nearing the end of the superintendent search process! Make sure to check out the website to stay up-to-date on the process.

April Safety Drill

Cottage Grove School will hold a Shelter (tornado) drill on April 11 for all students and staff. This is a state-wide drill.

SEL/SJ

April marks Autism Acceptance Month, a time for our school community to foster understanding, acceptance, and support for individuals on the autism spectrum. For the month of April, students will be learning about kindness, embracing differences, and how to welcome all people.

All three of these topics are essential skills for our learners as they continue to develop. Lessons about embracing people who are different from us, being kind, and welcoming everyone are great ways to build empathy.

The three SEL topics that will be explored this month are flexible thinking, practicing self-control, and problem solving.

Flexible thinking helps students to develop a growth mindset when they are feeling stuck and are struggling to think of alternative routes to accomplish a task.
Practicing self-control teaches kids how to make good choices even when they don't feel like it.
Discussing problem solving skills allows students to examine scenarios as a bystander outside of a situation in order to thoughtfully choose the best way to solve a problem.

School Wide Read Aloud

Cottage Grove School started School-Wide Read Alouds for Building Positive Culture in March. Each month all students will listen to a read-aloud by their classroom teacher. The first book that was read to all students was The Circles Around Us by Brad Montague. We are extending this learning to the CGS families by sharing the following link that families can listen to with their child(ren). Enjoy the March Read-Aloud!