Restaurant on a Riverboat to dock in St. Charles

St. Charles City Council Tuesday unanimously approved a lease agreement with the owner of the Lt. Robert E. Lee, a riverboat that will operate as a floating restaurant in downtown St. Charles.
The four story boat will moor at the city-owned docks just south of Frontier Park.

Adoption Day

bringing home kitty

 

Chris and I decided to adopt a kitten.

We had hoped to get an abandoned kitty my uncle Gary found near his house, but sadly, the little white and orange furball died before we could get him.

We went looking on Saturday to see what kitties needed a home. The St. Charles Animal Shelter had a whole room full of cats- tiny new ones and older grumpy ones. My sister Shannon took a liking to a black, calm cat named Jim, but Chris and I decided to keep looking.

We went to the St. Charles Humane Society in St. Charles. I did a story in the journal earlier this year about how the Humane Society is running out of funds at a time when people are surrendering their pets more often.

They don’t have a lot of space for new kittens but we found a little 3 month old named Nova. She came over and sat on my lap.

I went to pick her up Tuesday night. She mewed the whole way home, but seemed to like the space in the guest bedroom (I guess I’ll have to call it the kitty’s room now).

This morning, however, I had red eyes and a sniffly nose. Let’s hope it’s not allergies, but I suspect it will be. What to do?

But more importantly, what to name kitty?

Her stats:

Born on April 1, 2009. Long haired. At the moment, sneezy because she has a cold. Enjoys looking out the window. I suspect she will be a big fan of the Harry Potter movies.

Suggestions welcome.

St. Charles School District offers pre-K readiness classes

Program designed to teach children foundational skills

BBC’s 100 books

I have loved to read books since I was pretty little. And when I was old enough to start making lists, I have loved to do that too. So here’s a combination of both of my favorites: A list of 100 books compiled by the BBC. My friend Mallary Tenore had it on her blog along with a check mark next to all of the books that she’s read.

I decided to pilfer it and repost it on my blog below: I’ve read those with an X next to them. (46 total)

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen X
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien X
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte X
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling X
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee X
6. The Bible (Parts, but not the whole thing.)
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell X
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens X
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott X
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier X
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien X
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger X
19. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger X (wonderful book, an beautiful love story)
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald (Started it, couldn’t get through it)
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame x
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy X
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens x
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis X
34. Emma – Jane Austen x
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen x
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis X
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden X
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne X
41. Animal Farm – George Orwell X
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown x
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving X (another great one)
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery X
47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood X
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding X
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel X
52. Dune – Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen x
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens X
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon x
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck X
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold X
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas x
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding x
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville X
71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens X
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker X
73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett X (One of my favorite books!)
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses – James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession – AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens X
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White X
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Alborn x
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare X
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl X
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo X

Orchard Farm School District celebrates 50 years

On Feb. 14, 1959, fifteen school districts from around the Orchard Farm area voted to combine and form the Reorganized School District of St. Charles County.  Saturday marks the 50th anniversary of Orchard Farm School District and they have scheduled several events to celebrate during the upcoming year. 

The events scheduled include: a community anniversary festival for patrons from 1 to 100 featuring games, rides, a tractor show and a car show on September 18-19, 2009; an employee reunion variety show and dinner on November 21, 2009; a Board recognition program for all current and former Board members on February 19, 2010; and an alumni reunion basketball tournament and dance in March of 2010.

Crafters interested in participating in the community anniversary festival please contact Stephanie Knobbe at stephaniestephk@sol.com and/or 636-899-1249 or Mary Johnsen at mrjohnsen@sbcglobal.net and/or 314-566-1275. Patrons who have memorabilia that could be displayed as a part of the celebrations should contact the district offices at 636-250-5000. For more information about the 50^th anniversary celebrations please visit the district webpage at www.ofsd.k12.mo.us.

If you or someone you know remembers the school district’s reorganization please call me- I’d like to talk to you.

Kalen Ponche – schools reporter (636) 946-6111 ext 240

an apple a day

The St. Charles County Journals are starting a new column called “An Apple a Day” which will run on page A3 every other Wednesday. The first one is about the Foundation Grants that were awarded to 10 teachers or pairs of teachers Thursday Jan. 15.

An Apple A Day will feature stories about interesting things going on in the classroom. Have a suggestion? Let me know!

P.E. time, credits

For the second board meeting in a row, a board member has raised concerns about the amount of physical activity students are getting in school.

This month, Board President Linda Schulte suggested the board consider raising the number of required physical education credits at the high school level and increasing the amount of time middle school students at Jefferson Middle School spend in P.E.  You can read more about that in my story which ran Sunday.

 A group of teachers at Jefferson Middle school who are working on the schedule for next year have come up with several options that would encompass a move to daily P.E. But the minutes that would go towards giving students more P.E. time would have to come from somewhere, such as specialty courses, like foreign language or leadership class, or from core courses.

That has led some the board to put the brakes on a change until administrators and the board can more fully examine the ramifications of such a move.  School board members themselves decided to push off a decision until next month. 

At the school board meeting Schulte expressed frustration at the slow pace that the board sometimes moves by pushing issues off into study by a committee.

What do you think should happen?

Working with the people who are still flooded

I’m working now on a story about some of the people who are still dealing with the aftermath of the flooding that happened over the summer throughout the St. Louis area.

There are still people who are not yet back in their homes although it’s been about six months since the waters receded.  Some of their homes were damaged so much that the owners can’t move in until they  raise their home to a level that is above the height of the 100-year-flood, or one with a 1 percent likelihood of happening in a given year.

The other option they have is to raze the home and start over. Depending on their circumstances, people who live along the Mississippi are choosing to walk away from their properties or, in one case, to live in a trailer next to their damaged house as they save money to have it raised and completely rebuilt.

These have to be made less immediately than the ones that people had to make when the flood water rose within inches of the tops of levees. At that point they  could abandon their homes and belongings and seek shelter or stick it out, moving boxes out of the basement and praying that the levee would hold.

People in the city of West Alton who decided to wait it out were fine. The levee held up and the water came down. Further west along the Mississippi River, homes that were in lower areas or right along the river had water pouring into their basements, garages and in some cases halfway up the walls.

Many of those residents are still making tough decisions about whether to rebuild or move. When you look out at the Mississippi River, it’s hard to imagine how it was inside these people’s homes not very long ago. Right now it’s frozen solid and beautiful.

I’ll post my story when it’s done- here are links to some of the stories and a video I did this summer:

Floodwaters prompt residents to prepare for flooding

http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/articles/2008/06/16/news/sj2tn20080614-0615stc-flood00.ii1.txt

Portage de Sioux prepares for rising waters

http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/articles/2008/06/17/news/sj2tn20080617-0618stc-flood0.ii1.txt

Rising Floodwaters: Mississippi pushes farther into St. Charles County

http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/articles/2008/06/25/news/sj2tn20080624-0625stc-flood0.ii1.txt

Residents, National Guard shore up West Alton, Portage des Sioux levees

http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/articles/2008/06/29/news/sj2tn20080628-0629stc-flood0.ii1.txt

River’s crest brings relief, waiting game

http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/articles/2008/07/02/news/sj2tn20080701-0702stc-flood0.ii1.txt 

Park still closed due to flood damage

http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/articles/2009/01/13/stcharles/news/1114stc-close0.txt

Foundation awards 10 grants

Members of the St. Charles School District Foundation awarded teachers with $5,445 in grants for their classrooms today. Lower interest rates have affected the amount of money the Foundation’s endowment has generated, which in turn affected how much they could give out. 

Another interesting thing to note are the number of projects that involve technology. For example, Susan Hoernschemeyer (Lewis and Clark Career Center) received a $764 grant for an overhead document camera.

At Monroe Elementary School, Janet Stahlschmidt now has $437 to spend on flip cameras for global awareness. Second grade teacher Kathy Barnett received a check for $494 to spend on MP3 player stations and podcasts.

Annette Stamm (Jefferson Middle) was awarded $317 to buy books to help instill a love of science in the students she works with.  Mary Lou Montgomery, also of Jefferson Middle, was out sick today so her colleague Becka Rich received a check for $459.89 on her behalf. The money will go to buy renewable energy kits for students.

The other winners were:

Amy Brandes and Anne Bosenbecker, of Null Elementary, $415 to start an after school Spanish Club.

Jenna Tate and Carol Ahlemeyer, Lincoln Elementary, $368 for sensory integration tools for a kindergarten class.

Rachel Martin, Coverdell Elementary, $700 for discovery bags.

Kevin Dill, St. Charles High School, $928 for a 3-Dimensional scale model project.

Ruth Fannon, Juvenile Justice Center, $559 for a Wii game system.

Starting early with bilingual education

Starting early with bilingual education
Preschool in county offers classes in Spanish

 

Roy Sykes photo — Kyle Romero, Charlie Vonderheid, Carter Regan and Grace Menconi read a book with their teacher at Los Ninos preschool and child care in O’Fallon.

By Kalen Ponche
Saturday, January 3, 2009 11:09 AM CST
Jill and Vince Pinon weren’t looking for a bilingual school for their twin daughters when they saw an ad for Los Ninos preschool. They were just trying to find quality child care.

But Vince Pinon, whose grandparents are from Mexico, saw an opportunity for his girls to learn something he was never taught.

“My husband does not speak Spanish,” said Jill Pinon. “I think he always regretted it, so it’s something he wanted for Avery and Ashlynn.”

The 2-year-old twins seem to understand and respond when their teachers speak to them in Spanish after spending just a year and a half there, Jill Pinon said.

“I’m glad we did find it,” she said.

Many metropolitan areas across the country have foreign language immersion preschools that offer chances for children to learn Spanish, Mandarin Chinese and French.

But the trend has been slower to catch on in the St. Louis region.

Los Ninos preschool and child care, 4122 Keaton Crossing Boulevard in O’Fallon, is one of just a handful of foreign language immersion preschools in the St. Louis area and the only one in St. Charles County. In an elementary level immersion program, the instructors teach in a “minority” language, such as Spanish in the United States, for at least 50 percent of the day.

Kerry Guilliams, who owns Los Ninos with his wife, Nussi Guilliams, said the school’s enrollment has grown from fewer than 10 students in 2002 to more than 55 today. They attribute the steady growth to recommendations from parents whose children attend, he said.

Across the country, the number of foreign language immersion preschools has been on the rise for the past several years, according to Tara Fortune, immersion projects coordinator for the Minneapolis-based Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition.

States such as Louisiana, Minnesota and Oregon have large numbers of early foreign language immersion programs in a variety of languages, she said. The growth has come with increased funding from the federal government and a growing awareness of the global society following 9/11, she said.

“The key to that participating in the global community is participating in language and culture,” Fortune said. “When it comes to language and culture skills, the U.S. is behind.”

In Missouri, the foreign language immersion programs are clustered mostly in Kansas City. The Academie Lafayette in that city is one of the oldest immersion schools in the nation, Fortune said.

Through the rest of the state and the southern part of the country, foreign language immersion programs for young children are less common. In St. Louis, a group is planning to open a French and Spanish immersion elementary school in 2009.

“The idea of using a language other than English for schooling seems to have been a harder sell in (the South),” she said.

Guilliams said he thinks local parents aren’t as aware that foreign language immersion could help their children to develop critical thinking skills.

“If the parents knew the benefits of a second language and also understand that window of opportunity (for learning another language), I think we could triple enrollment tomorrow,” he said.

LEARNING LANGUAGE

Los Ninos can be hard to find amidst office buildings off Highway K near Interstate 40. Bright flowers painted on the walls and a friendly “buenos dias” from Guilliams greet parents and children when they step inside.

Every part of the facility reflects the school’s intention to immerse children in the Spanish language. Colorful posters on the walls display the days of the week, colors and numbers in Spanish.

Teachers at the school are native Spanish speakers, Guilliams said. In the classrooms for 4- and 5-year-old students, teachers use Spanish half the time as they go through the preschool curriculum, which includes math concepts and reading. During the afternoons, children have the opportunity for more unstructured play, and teachers communicate more in Spanish.

The day typically starts with circle time in teacher Maria Elena Ccoyuri-Berry’s class.

“Buenos dias. Buenos dias. Como estas? Como estas? Muy bien, gracias. Muy bien, gracias,” the children sing the welcome song together. (Good morning. Good morning. How are you? How are you? Very well, thank you. Very well, thank you.)

Most of the children respond as Ccoyuri-Berry reviews words for colors. But others act like 4-year-olds, wiggling, whispering to each other in English.

“Que pasa?” Ccoyuri-Berry says. “Behave yourselves.”

The school’s owners do not have a background in early childhood education, but their philosophy on second language acquisition has been shaped by research, Kerry Guilliams said.

Children learn a second language most easily and naturally when they are young and exposed to it through everyday communication, he said.

By the time a child has been at the preschool for several years, the teachers often don’t have to use English with him or her at all, Guilliams said.

KIDS ‘LEARNING HOW TO LEARN’

Learning any second language can also advance a child’s grammatical understanding in both languages, Guilliams said.

“They are learning Spanish, but they are learning how to learn another language,” he said.

Colleen McAteer teaches Spanish to students in third, fourth and fifth grades at Orchard Farm Elementary School as well as high school students. She said studies show it’s easier for children to learn a second language when they are young.

“The part of their brain that develops language is developing at that time so it’s much easier to catch on to more than one language at a time because it’s in the process of growing and developing,” she said.

Research also indicates children who have a strong proficiency in more than one language are more open to ambiguity, Fortune said.

“You can’t learn there are two ways of saying ‘Can I have a drink of water?’ without seeing that there is more than one way of doing something and both work,” Fortune said.

SCHOOL OFFERS CULTURAL CONNECTION

About 10 of the families who have children at Los Ninos have family members who speak Spanish, Guilliams said.

Rachael and Patricio Cordero both spoke to their daughters Natalia, 5, and Olivia, 3, in Spanish before they came to Los Ninos. After they had been there a few weeks, the Spanish conversation in their house increased, Rachael Cordero said.

“We have an interest in keeping it up because my husband’s family doesn’t speak any English,” Rachael Cordero said.

After just a month, Natalia and Olivia were able to sing a song to their paternal grandmother in Spanish, she said.

Tom and Megan Vonderheid sent their son to Los Ninos primarily because they needed good child care near their house. The Spanish language instruction was an added perk.

“Our 4-year-old is teaching us to speak Spanish,” said Tom Vonderheid, father of Charlie, 4, and Lilly, 2, who both attend the school. “He is very excited about knowing two languages. He’s progressed really well, more than I even thought.”

Now the Vonderheids are looking at whether a school offers Spanish instruction as they consider where they want Charlie to attend kindergarten. They might have to turn to a private school. The Orchard Farm School District offers Spanish classes at the elementary level, but some other districts have not yet made that available.

“We would like them both to continue their Spanish skills and language skills in general,” Vonderheid said. “If they’d like to pursue learning other languages we’d like to make sure they have that opportunity.”