| Cardinal Newsletter Second Semester 2007 |
| Principal News
We have been hit hard with the flu bug the last several weeks. It seems just when you think your child is better – bam – they get hit again. Now it is going through the staff and making our days extremely interesting. Everyone is ready for warmer weather. Thank you for your flexibility during the snow days and our make up times. I fear that the weather is not over yet. We will keep you informed of the make up days if there are changes. On to warmer thoughts – testing is just around the corner. Our test dates will be April 1st – April 17th . Your child will not be testing everyday during that time. We will give you a schedule the closer we get. Once again we ask that you please DO NOT schedule any appointments for your child during that time. It is important for the students to be here everyday we test. We have some great incentives for students that work hard during testing time. I’ve started a couple of incentive programs that I hope will help motivate the students to be successful in their school work as well as their behavior. Students that scored in the top level of the MAP (Advanced) become “Principal for a Day”. These students shadow me for the day and do not have to make up their homework assigned that day (their favorite part). I’ve also invited students to dine with me during lunch in the boardroom. These students are the ones that behave themselves and turn their work in on time. I’ve enjoyed my lunches with these students. It is extremely important for you to ask your children about their homework and make sure they stay caught up. We’ll continue to have more “fun activites” for those that do. Conferences are also quickly approaching. Mark your calendar for March 11th and 13th. Please plan on attending so we can share all the great news concerning your child’s school work. Last, but not least, our school carnival will be held on Friday, March 28th. If you would be willing to help, please contact your child’s teacher. It takes everyone to make this evening a success! Happy spring! --Monica Landess Kindergarten News Flu season has hit our class pretty hard. We’ve averaged 5 kids gone every day for 2 weeks! Between snow days and flu it has been a challenge to get our 3rd quarter objectives covered and keep track of who’s taken what test, etc. We sure hope everyone is healthy soon! Because of the cold weather, we have been unable to get the kids outside for recess. And, boy, do they need to get our and run! We have a new addition to our classroom since the last newsletter. I’m sure some of the kids have mentioned Mrs. Stebbins to you. She is our paraprofessional. Mrs. Stebbins is a great asset to us and we enjoy having her in our room to help us. The Math curriculum has u working on many different concepts. We are telling time to the hour, working with geobands, identifying and counting with pennies and dimes. We will do nickels 4th quarter. We are also practicing writing numbers to 50 and counting as far as we can. Many are counting to 200 or further!! The kids are doing a super job with reading. They are learning more new words everyday and always amaze us with their reading skills. They are finding the vowel sound for e and u to be a little more challenging to remember than a and i. Parent-teacher conferences are coming soon. I’m looking forward to seeing each of you again. Hopefully, it won’t snow them out!! See you soon, Mrs. Reed and the kids of K First Grade What a winter!! First, I would like to thank our parents that volunteered their time to help with the Valentine’s party. It was a huge success and the children had a lot of fun. Maggie’s Night is starting back up! The next night will be Thursday, March 6th. First Grade, Mind Trek and Special Education are in charge of working. I will need volunteers!! Please return the form when you can work. Thanks. I also need your help with the School Carnival basket. Our class theme is camping. I have only received one item for our basket. Please help and send items to fill our basket. This is how we raise money for our elementary without having to do fundraisers. We also have a student teacher this semester. Her name is Beverly Birdwell. The children have really enjoyed having her in our classroom. She will be with us until April 25th. Our class is really working hard to become great readers and mathematicians. Please have your child read daily at home. The little books that come home are great to keep and have your child read many times at home. These books focus on the spelling patterns and letter combinations that we have worked on in our classroom. Also, please continue to time your children at home on their math facts. We work on these every day at school also to help your child to memorize them. We have also been working with coins, penny, nickel, dime, and quarter. A great way to review this with your child is to get the coins out of your coin container and have your child tell you the names of each coin and the amount that each is worth. Then have them count a variety of different combinations of coins up to a dollar. A great incentive is to let the keep the money if they can count the money correctly. We are all tired of the snow and can’t wait until spring!! Please remember with the nicer weather (hopefully) coming in the near future it will be harder to have your child read at home but please keep this up. READ!! READ!! READ!! This only will improve their reading!! --Melissa Francis |