Swanson
Elementary School

5th Grade Debate Club

'For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument and debate.'      

-Margaret Heffernan, Entrepreneur, CEO, and Author

For the past several weeks, the 5th Grade Debate Club has been building arguments around hot button topics such as fast food in school cafeterias, technology in classrooms, and year-round school.  Teams work together to develop the introductions, reasons with evidence, rebuttals and conclusions of their arguments, then face off following formal debate guidelines. Through this work, students learn the value of substantiating claims by researching, then respectfully debating their positions.  This type of learning extends well beyond the classroom!

Author Paul Noth visited Swanson on February 1, 2019.
His cartoons have appeared regularly in The New Yorker since 2004. He has created short animated films for Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and he has been an animation consultant for Saturday Night Live.

We concluded the Elmbrook District Spelling Bee last week, All three of our Swanson students did very well! We have two Swanson spellers advanced to the regionals.

Swanson 4^th Grader Maadhav Karun from Mrs. Leis class was announced as the 2^nd place Champion at the district bee and will move on to the next level, the CESA #1 Regional Spelling Bee on February 18!.

Swanson 5^th Grader Inika Dwivedi from Mrs. Fatla's class placed 6^th among the group of Top Six District Spellers who will also move on to the Regional Spelling Bee.  

Congratulations to Maadhav and Inikia!  Maadhav's championship word was "indelible”.

Swanson Elementary has kicked off February with visits from two incredible authors, Paul Noth and Stef Wade!

Parent Drop Off hours are 8:32 to 8:45 only.

Also, please remember that school begins every day at 8:50.  Parent drop off closes at 8:45, students need to be in their classrooms ready to learn by 8:50.  Students arriving after the 8:50 bell will be marked tardy and parents will need to park in a designated parking spot and sign their student in.  We appreciate your help ensuring that students arrive on time every day.  Students need to be walked in by their adult, not dropped at the sidewalk.  This is to ensure their safety.

To ensure the safety of all in the parent drop off line, please wait for the cars in front of you to unload before exiting the drop off area.  Pulling out around vehicles is prohibited.  Students are expected to get out of the car on the passenger side of the vehicle, but in the event they don't, it's safer for our children if cars do not pass. 

Middle Grade author and New Yorker cartoonist Paul Noth will visit the Milwaukee area and speak to Swanson Elementary's Third, Fourth and Fifth Graders on Friday, February 1, 2019. He is the author of How to Properly Dispose of Planet Earth, the second title in his illustrated series about a boy, his wacky family, and an out-of-this-world adventure. 

Paul is originally from Milwaukee, and he attended MPS. When not writing Middle Grade fiction, Paul Noth creates animated films for Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and a Google search of his name will turn up the humorous cartoons he pens for the New Yorker. 

Incoming kindergarteners and their families are invited to attend Kindergarten Information Night on Tuesday, January 29, from 6-7:30pm at your neighborhood School District of Elmbrook elementary school!

Eighth graders from Wisconsin Hills Orchestra, Chorus and Band treated Swanson to a concert this morning.  

This week fifth-grade students at Swanson Elementary participated in a cutting-edge art experience. Through Virtual Reality (VR) technology, students were able to walk through the world of Vincent Van Gogh's painting The Night Cafe.