This week Miss Smith's fifth grade class performed the play A Christmas Carol. The students worked hard and put on a fantastic production! 

Yesterday the kindergarten students put on a wonderful program, singing songs and telling about the meaning of Christmas in both English and Spanish. Great job kindergarten kids!

This month a group of 5th grade students got to meet Ranger Cinimin who has been their classroom National Park Ranger during the first half of this school year. The students were excited to ask questions about her experiences and expertise as a National Park Ranger at Guadalupe Mountain National Park in Texas. Her involvement with Westide has been part of UVU’s Nature to the Classroom group.

This week Mrs. Oleson's class received a grant through Donor's Choose for three mini-ipads. They are so excited be be able to use this extra technology in their classroom, and so grateful to the people who donated to make it possible!

Congratulations to Miss Balli, who was chosen to receive the School Leadership Award for the 2016-2017 year, chosen by the faculty of Brigham Young University in the Educational Leadership and Foundations Department. Miss Balli is a phenominal educator and facilitator who loves the students and supports the faculty and staff. She is an asset to our school, and we are so grateful to have her working at Westside! 

To finish off the month of November, Westside had our Gobble-Off assembly today. Each class nominated one person with a great turkey gobble to represent them, and then those representatives gobbled in a school competition. Also at the assembly, kids' names were also pulled out of a drawing if they turned in their November reading punch card, and were able to pick a prize. Great job to all of our school turkeys! And great job to everyone who turned in their November reading punch card!

Last week Westside had the incredible opportunity to learn more about Native American cultures through music and dance. Buffalo Nation, a group of drummers, accompanied dancers performing several different kinds of dance. Among the dancers were three of Westside's students, as well as Shelly and Patrick Willey, who placed fourth in the world championships of hoop dancing. In addition to music and dance, the students also learned about Native American dress and symbolism. We are so grateful to everyone who shared their talents with us in this wonderful assembly!

We love having all of our students here at Westside, and today, we celebrated with a perfect attendance party for all of those who were here each day during the first term. The kids who attended spent some time with Mrs. Robbins, one of the technicians at our school, playing games. Great job to all of those kids, and we'd love to see even more kids with perfect attendance for term 2!