Hello Sugar Creek Families,

Spring has sprung, and with that brings all kind of weird Wisconsin weather. Snow, wind, rain, sun....we've seen it all here in April. Please be sure to dress your kids in layers as it could be snowing at 7 am and 50 degrees by 2 pm! The Spring is a busy time here at Sugar Creek. Please read this month's newsletter carefully for lots of great information about our fun Spring upcoming events.

~Mr. Brunner and Ms. Houghan

Friday, April 18th-Swim Unit Ends

Monday, April 21st-Late Start Monday

Monday, April 28th-Late Start Monday

Thursday, May 1st-Community Gathering @ 7:30 am

Monday, May 5th-Late Start Monday

May 5th-May9th-Teacher Appreciation Week

Thursday, May 8th-Kindergarten Tours @ 8:15 am-9:15 am and 5:00-6:00 pm

Thursday, May 8th-Art and Reading Night @ 5 pm-7 pm

Friday, May 9th-Spring Music Concerts

Monday, May 12th-Late Start Monday

Monday, May 12th-PTO Meeting @ 6:30

Monday, May 19th-All School Walk @ 9:00 am

Monday, May 19th-Late Start Monday

Thursday, May 22nd-Safety Patrol Field Trip

Saturday, May 24th-Madison Forward Soccer Night

Each year Sugar Creek uses a grant from Epic to create two long sessions of an after-school program of many activities for students (primarily for those in Fourth and Fifth Grades). This year, under Mr. Justin Rippl’s leadership, we had 21 staff members offer 19 different classes that served 279 students! We greatly appreciate this support from Epic, and appreciate our super staff members who teach these classes!

To this end, we recently added another member of the Gandia Perez family to our staff. Pictured here are all four siblings, all of whom work at Sugar Creek! Left to right there is: Yessenia our Head Cook, Aldino a part-time cook, Nixida also a part-time cook, and Jenniffer a Kindergarten teacher in our Two Way Immersion program. But wait - there’s more! Nixida’s husband Luis also works at Sugar Creek, as a special education assistant, and Jenniffer’s son is a former Sugar Creek student!

• If you are looking for a way to support a teacher or staff person in honor of national Teacher Appreciation Week, please check out our wish list: Amazon Wish List Link.

All schools are carefully watching changes and proposals at the federal level, some of which quite possibly will impact public schools. Here’s an interactive map from the Department of Public Instruction that you may find informative, and here’s a report about how some federal funding is used in VASD.

The USDA recently cut approximately $1 billion in funding for programs that support local food purchases for school meals. This cut will impact many farmers and schools, but VASD hasn't been a recipient of these funds. We are hoping to continue our farm-to-school efforts, such as last week’s home-grown Wisconsin radishes from a Sheboygan farm, pictured here.

In spring, our teachers carefully create the following year’s class lists. Then, around the first week of August, VASD elementary schools email families their teachers’ names to families (always ensure we know if you change your email address.) Let your teachers know if you have any questions about this. In addition, we work with Badger Ridge Middle School staff to assist them in their placement process for our current Fifth Graders.

Have a new neighbor?

If you have a new neighbor with children, have them call our school office at 608-845-4100 or the VASD Registrar at 608-845-4361 so that we can help ensure their children can attend school!

Moving away?
If you are moving away from Sugar Creek, please be sure to let us know right away so that we can assist you and your new school to ensure the transition goes smoothly.

One of the responsibilities of being a Student Council member is to be willing to give tours to prospective families. Pictured here is Kira, who stayed after school one Friday to give a family from Indiana. One of the family members is a professor of mathematics, and Kira did VERY well answering his questions!

Our VAHS TWI student advisory committee's first fundraiser is meant to build community within our VASD TWI student body. We would love to see our 940 TWI students represent their TWI pride around the Verona and Fitchburg communities in their TWI shirts. Please buy one today by filling out this form and making your payment on this Classmunity page. Thank you!
https://forms.gle/XzzdAhdCwduTRck99

La primera recaudación de fondos de nuestro comité estudiantil de TWI busca fortalecer la comunidad dentro del alumnado de TWI de VASD. Nos encantaría ver a nuestros 940 estudiantes de TWI representar su orgullo por TWI en las comunidades de Verona y Fitchburg con sus camisetas de TWI. Compre una hoy mismo completando este formulario y realizando su pago en esta página de Classmunity. ¡Gracias!
https://forms.gle/XzzdAhdCwduTRck99

Not only are jokes fun, but they're a great way to engage kids in thinking and reading. We’ve been telling a joke a day on the morning announcements at Sugar Creek since the pandemic (a time when we all needed some humor in our lives). There’s even a “joke jug” in the office for students to submit their best ones.

Sugar Creek Elementary has three Free Little Libraries INSIDE our school! We are always looking for children's book donations in gently used condition, including Spanish titles. Feel free to drop any donations at the Sugar Creek office on the book shelf right inside the office door. Contact the Sugar Creek Reading Teachers hoffmant@verona.k12.wi.us or doberstr@verona.k12.wi.us with questions. Thank you!

March Golden Award Winners:

Golden Lunch Tray-Ms. Laube's Class

Golden Shoe- Ms. Miller's Class

Golden Recess- Ms. Steiner's Class

Golden Dustpan-Ms. Cartwright's Class

Sugar Creek’s all-school Dia de los Ninos (Children’s Day) celebration was a great event. A special thank you to our community partners: Verona Bounce, Magic Rob, A La Brasa restaurant, and Ms. Keare Armenta.

This winter, Sugar Creek supported a VAHS student and local Eagle Scout candidate on their important final project by the creation and installation of bat houses on poles on the hill behind our school. Hazel Wheelock of Troop 40 (pictured here) completed all the necessary steps to this detailed project!

Every year Sugar Creek celebrates National Reading Month with different reading-themed activities, including an All School Read, where all classes read the same book. This year’s book was My Papi Has a Motorcycle by Isabel Quintero, provided in English and Spanish. The story is about a girl who rides a motorcycle with her Papi. This book was chosen not only for its bilingual availability, making it inclusive of our monolingual and Spanish-bilingual classrooms, but also because of its essence. The Spanish version of the book already immerses the reader into the cultural content of the character, and the English version carries that essence through beautiful examples of translanguaging between English and Spanish. Translanguaging is a practice of our multilingual staff and students on a daily basis. To see this in a published book, opens the door of future possibilities to our multilingual students, allowing them to recognize their language abilities as a valuable and gifted asset.

Sugar Creek ended our Reading Celebration with a special event to celebrate our love for reading! We wanted to provide our learners with the real life experience of the sights and sounds of real motorcycles. This experience would create/activate background and prior knowledge for everyone to make connections with later on when reading/discussing the book. We recognize that we each have access to different life experiences and that by providing the opportunity to see motorcycles up close and personal, we facilitated access for all to make deeper connections with the story.

On Thursday, April 3, we had two members of the Madison Forward soccer team visit our all-school Community Gathering. They shared important lessons about good sportsmanship, including how important it is to play by the rules at recess, treat all others with kindness and respect, and to remember we are all one big team at Sugar Creek. Many of us surprised them by dressing in their team colors for the day: blue and pink!

Madison Forward will host a Sugar Creek night on May 24th! See here for information about purchasing tickets, should you be interested.

At our school, Fourth and Fifth Graders are given a chance to participate in Continental Math League (CML) with Ms. Jamie Schultz. CML is a national mathematics problem solving competition. We recently learned that Fourth Grader Cayla Hopp was one of only 33 CML students in the nation (out of an estimated 7,500+ tested) who achieved a perfect score in Euclidean Math! Her classmates, teachers, and Ms. Schultz recently gathered in our Step Room to surprise Cayla with her medal and certificate!

CML engages students in activities that enhance analytical thinking and problem-solving skills and prepare for five math “meets.” Prior to each meet the students have the opportunity (at school and at home) to solve CML problems from previous years to explore various problem-solving strategies and become familiar with the types of problems they may see during the meets. During the math meet, students have 30 minutes to complete six challenging multiple step math problems independently. (Students have homework expectations for CML.)

Spring Concert

We are excited to announce our upcoming spring concert at Sugar Creek Elementary. Students in Grades 1st through 5th will present their concert entitled, “Moving to Music” on Friday, May 9th, 2025 in the Sugar Creek Gym. Our musicians are busy rehearsing and are so thrilled to perform for you. The concert times for each grade level are listed below:

Grade 1: 8:00-8:20 am

Grade 2: 8:45-9:05 am

Grade 3: 9:30-9:50 am

Grade 4: 10:15-10:35 am

Grade 5: 12:30-1:00 pm

Here is a link to a helpful Parking Map. Please be sure to give yourself plenty of time to find a parking spot, get to the entrance, and then find a seat in the gym. (Kindergarten students will perform at their picnic on the last day of school. More information about this fun event will come from their teachers.)

Please be aware that students will perform during their portion of the concert and then they will return to their classroom. We would like to request that no siblings of student performers be pulled out of their classroom instructional time to attend the concert or art show. All students will be able to view a school only recording of the entire concert during their music classes. Thank you for being understanding. If you have any questions regarding our concert, please contact us. We look forward to seeing you there!

‘Sing’cerely,
Marie Kyle, Music Teacher, kylem@verona.k12.wi.us

Spring Art Show-"Kaleidoscope of Color"

In conjunction with the spring music concert, we look forward to celebrating each and every one of our student artists. Classes are busy creating artwork for the show “Kaleidoscope of Color” and we are excited to share our artistic creations with you.

Our entire collection of colorful artwork will be available for viewing in the auxiliary gym at various times. We hope you will pick a day that works best for you. Please note the the following times:
 

• Thursday, May 8th (5:00-7:00 pm) - Kindergarten through 5th Grades

This evening is dedicated to viewing and enjoying all the artwork alongside your student artist.
 

• May 9th (Before or after grade level music concerts - See concert times listed above)

While families may view artwork at this time, students will not be available to view along with them as they will be engaged in concert prep and/or classroom work.

We look forward to seeing you and sharing the artwork from each of our students!

Ann Kruse, Art Teacher krusea@verona.k12.wi.us

Tiffany Laxton, Art Teacher laxtont@verona.k12.wi.us

Biking Unit

Hello Sugar Creek Families,

On behalf of the Physical Education Department,

we would like to share information with you about a

new unit that will begin on Tuesday, May 27, 2025.

Sugar Creek students in Grades 2-5 will be part of

our district-wide Cycling Unit.

The Sugar Creek Bike Unit will be held from

Tuesday, May 27th to June 9th in the front parking

lot at Sugar Creek throughout the school day.

Students love this unit and enjoy it forever!

During our Cycling Unit, students' learning focuses and

objectives are connected to DPI Physical Education

Standards 3 and 5. Additionally, students will learn about

traffic signs and bicycle safety. Throughout the unit, they will

be provided with visual aids and technical/skill adjustments to

help them gain confidence and comfort.

For health and safety reasons, students are required to wear helmets and closed-toe shoes

throughout the school day. VASD provides helmets to all students, but if you prefer your student to

bring their own safety equipment, they have the right to do so. The front parking lot at Sugar Creek

will be marked and closed Monday through Friday from 7:55 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. to ensure a safe and

minimally restrictive learning space for all students. The parent drop-off and pick-up lane will be

available for student drop-off and pick-up throughout the day. Thank you for your understanding

Extra Clothes Needed

If you have any extra clothes that you plan to donate to Goodwill or St. Vinny's, please consider donating them here to the school nurse! When students have accidents or slip in mud, we like to be able to send them home in clean clothes. We are in need of pants in many sizes and socks specifically! Thank you for considering!