the Orca Splash

October 9th....26 days of learning together this school year

Hello Viewlands Families!

Orcas MOVE week was a great week! Ollie the Orca visited twice this week! It is always a great week when Ollie visits! Thank you to our volunteers, VEPTSA, and Coach Lauren for helping make the Move-a-thon a huge success! Students had a great time moving their bodies, walking, running, skipping, jogging, and occasionally rolling! If your family opted into the fundraising component of the move-a-thon, thank you! The funds from VEPTSA support important parts of our Viewlands school community! We appreciate your support. Thank you to the Viewlands bike bus team, volunteers, community partners, and VEPTSA for supporting the Fall Bike, Walk, Roll event on Wednesday! The Viewlands Entry Pavilion was lively and festive!

On Thursday evening we hosted our Multilingual Family night at Viewlands. This event is a loved event at Viewlands. Thank you to all the families that were able to attend. We shared about our lived stories, we learned about the program together, and communed together with pizza and brownies! It was a beautiful night! Our diversity is our strength at Viewlands. Thank you to the multilingual educator team at Viewlands, other staff, and VEPTSA volunteer that attended, coordinated, and supported this event!

The big highlights this week were the move-a-thon and Multilingual Family night. A few other highlights from my visits in classrooms and with students this week include: reading stories in their Emerge student companions with 1st graders; seeing 2nd graders hone their hula hooping and rock climbing skills in PE; and listening to 4th and 5th grade students discuss their ideas around vocabulary words during literacy and how to use context clues in text to support your understanding of unknown words.

Your children are bright, inquisitive, and creative thinkers. We will continue to seek ways to make every student feel known, valued, and empowered through the year.

In Partnership,

Carrie Wheeler | Viewlands Principal

Viewlands Picture Day

Thursday October 22nd

School picture day is coming up in a few weeks!

Every student will take a picture. Pictures will be in the yearbook unless a family opted their student out of appearing in the yearbook. School pictures are also available for purchase through the O'Connor studio. They only accept online orders. You can pre-order photos now.

To Order Photos:

1. Visit the website: https://www.oconnorphotographystudio.com/

2. Click the "2026-2027 Fall Pictures Order Now" button at the top of the site.

3. Click on "Elementary"

4. Scroll down and click on "Viewlands"

5. Enter your e-mail

6. Order photos

There will be a retake day for students that were absent on picture day.

VEPTSA is coordinated a couple volunteers for picture day. O'Connor does offer free photos for the small number of volunteers needed. Volunteer sign up will be on Konstella.

Viewlands Annual K-5 Zoo Fieldtrip

Friday, October 30th

It is an annual tradition to go to the Woodland Park Zoo on or near the last day of October. This has been a school tradition since Viewlands reopened in 2011 after being closed for 2 years. We do not do Halloween celebrations or costumes, instead we focus on a fun fall activity, by visiting the zoo. We love this tradition at Viewlands! A school day at the zoo is such a fun way to celebrate fall. We will do our all-school fieldtrip to the zoo on Friday, October 30th this year.

We will need volunteers for this fieldtrip. You must be an approved volunteer to chaperone a fieldtrip. Please see the volunteer approval process below if you are not yet an approved volunteer. Once approved, the approval status lasts for 2 years. If you are an approved volunteer and want to check when you need to renew, please log into the Volunteer Portal and check your renew date.

The costs for our students, staff, and some of the family chaperones is free because we are a Title 1 school. We also receive subsidies for our busses for the same reason. We cover the remainder of the costs with support from VEPTSA for the remaining chaperones costs and transportation costs (not all of the busses is covered through the subsidies that we receive based on our Title 1 status).

The fieldtrip permission forms came home in your child’s red folder with the start of school forms on Friday, September 11th. It was one of the required green forms. Every child needs this completed. If you are unsure if you turned it in, you can reach out to your child's teacher. Classroom teachers and the office team will also be reaching out to families that still need to complete the fieldtrip permission form.

The cover letter with information about school lunch and volunteering for this fieldtrip came home at the beginning of the week. If you have not returned his form, please return on Monday!

VEPTSA Updates

EVENTS:

VEPTSA Fall General Meeting - Monday October 19th 6:30-8pm in the library.

These meetings are for all members of the PTA and anyone in the school community who is interested in learning more about the PTA. Principal Wheeler attends these meetings, provides an update and answers your questions. Free childcare is provided by Creative Kids and generous snacks and beverages are provided as well!

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED:

● Want to volunteer at Viewlands? Please start the process with SPS to be a volunteer now. We have opportunities coming up soon, including Walk, Bike, Roll Day, Move-a-thon and the all-school Zoo field trip. Your volunteer approval is good for two years but the process can take 4-6 weeks so please start this right away!

● The Family Ambassador program is still looking for parents/volunteers especially for fourth grade. Family Ambassadors spend 2-4 hours per month supporting classroom teachers. This is a great way to dip your toe into the PTA and get involved in the Viewlands community. If you are interested to learn more contact - face@viewlandsptsa.org.

UPDATES

Move-a-thon was a success! THANK YOU! The kids really brought their Orca Spirit to the field and were so excited to help their school community through your generous pledges.If you didn’t have the chance to donate, you still can! The GiveBacks portal will accept donations through the weekend - Considering Donating HERE. All your donations go toward providing essentials such as playground supervision, orca experiences, school snacks, field trip opportunities, and more!

New SPIRITWEAR is HERE!

Each year talented Viewlands parents design custom Spiritwear for our school. This year Maddy Porter put together a vintage inspired design honoring Viewlands Elementary 1954 roots while embracing its exciting future. 10% of every order goes to support Viewlands Elementary!