Graham Mesa Elementary

Transcription

1 GME will build strong relationships that promote high achievement By motivating students, staff, and parents To engage with, connect with and explore Learning Everywhere! Graham Mesa Elementary February 2018 Newsletter Dates to Remember Jan 31st STEM Night City Market 6:30-7:30 Feb 6th PTA Meeting 6:00-7:00 Feb 7th Family Fitness Night 5:30 Feb 14th Valentines Parties Feb 17th Princess Ball (Daddy Daughter Dance) 6:30-8:30 21st Feb & 22nd Parent/Teacher Conferences School hours are Monday-Thursday 7:55-3:40. Please remember to call Linda at if your child is going to be absent.

2 Principal News PRINCIPAL S MESSAGE Parent and Guardians, I hope this newsletter finds all of you safe and warm as we are in the middle of a rather mild winter for Rifle. For me, this stretch of time between Christmas Break and Spring Break is often the most challenging of the year. We don t have many days off, teachers are being heavily evaluated, and students are preparing for the testing season. To combat the grind, we re going to make a concerted effort to celebrate positive behaviors, to honor those students and teachers who are going the extra mile, and we re going to continue to ride the momentum that our COP meetings (Communities of Practice) have created at GME with teachers experimenting with new ways of differentiating in the classroom and meeting the needs of all our students. We are so excited that our PTA will be hosting a Daddy/Daughter Dance for the entire community. It will be an opportunity for any girl out there who has a special father, grandfather, uncle, or any other male role model to create the memory of a lifetime. There is no age limit and all are welcome. Tickets are available at any Alpine Bank from New Castle to Battlement Mesa for $15 per couple and $5 for additional girls for those who have more than one daughter to bring to the princess ball. You may also purchase tickets at Graham Mesa Elementary. The event will be on the evening of Saturday, February 17 th from 6:30-8:30 p.m. There are also several community restaurants partnering with GME and offering discounts for couples going to the dance to enjoy a full night out with a nice dinner prior to the ball. The dance will be a night full of fun and activities including a free photo for each couple. It will certainly be a special evening. Don t miss it! This semester you have also seen math coming home to complete along with the nightly reading homework. We ask that you support your child in completing all of his/her homework every night as we strive to be the best version of ourselves. This includes working towards the GME school goal of having 65% of our students proficient in their math fact skills as they prepare for the next grade level. Thank you for your support in implementing math into our nightly routine with our children. We are already seeing drastic improvement in our data being assessed and evaluated by our math coach and teachers. We all know it takes everyone in a school community to create and sustain a wonderful school. As always, I welcome you to set up an appointment with me if you have concerns or ideas that might make us better. We ve been able to implement several unique opportunities this year to get the entire community involved at GME, including a second launch of our WATCH D.O.G.S (Dads of Great Students) program, and our hope is that this relationship only continues to grow and be stronger. Please know that my door is always open and I am always only a phone call away. You can reach my office at , at bsprenger@garfieldre2.net, or call/text my cell phone at Have a wonderful February! Brian Sprenger

3 SFA Success For All Do WE LOVE Reading With Success For All Our school also remains focused on clarifying and questioning. These reading strategies are another way to ensure we understand what we re reading. Please ask your child about using those strategy cards and sticky notes in their SFA class. Can they ask and answer questions about what they ve read? Thanks for all your support in completing Read and Respond homework! Please remember to ask your child what they are going to read each night and be sure to sign their Read and Respond homework log. All of our SFA classes practice fluency every day. Students are frequently timed for one minute and acquire a Word Per Minute rate. Teachers emphasize that reading with expression, smoothness, and accuracy is important. Research shows that fluent readers have stronger comprehension. When a student is a fluent reader they are focused on the meaning of the text. Please spend time with your child focused on their fluency when they are completing their Read and Respond homework for SFA. A simple suggestion is to time them for one minute and give them a rate as well as feedback on their expression, smoothness, and accuracy. Listed below are the grade level goals for proficiency on rate by the end of the school year. First Grade: 47 wpm Second Grade: 87 wpm Third Grade: 100 wpm Fourth Grade: 115 wpm Do you have your child retell what they ve read? It s a great way to check their retention of information and self-comprehension. Our Retell Rubric is included in this newsletter so you can practice this at home with your child. WINGS Retell Rubric Homework is in full swing! Your child is expected to read for 20 minutes on four out of seven nights. Please sign the Read and Respond log and ensure it s returned to school for the homeroom teacher to monitor their participation I used my own words I sequenced. I retold all of the important details. There was no prompting from my teacher or partner. I used my own words. I sequenced. I retold most of the important details. There was no prompting from my teacher or partner. I used my own words. I retold some detail. I was prompted by my teacher or my partner. I did not use my own words. I had only one detail. I was prompted by my teacher or partner. I could not retell. Thanks for all your support at home. We LOVE our GME parents! 3

4 Counselor s Corner Happy new year GME families! It was a fantastic winter break and I had a great time visiting my mother and uncle in the sunshine state, AKA Florida. I did a fishing trip in the St. Sebastian River with a local captain and I hooked my first tarpon on the fly. Right after winter break we had our 2nd quarter character assembly and there were two different student talent groups that did an amazing job performing to a packed audience. We are now working on the Success Key and we have been focusing on having students practice asking questions, including others and assertiveness. December s guidance lessons were themed around managing strong feelings and 3rd, 4th grade students watched the Cool Down video that teaches students three steps to manage their strong feelings. The three calm down strategies to go along with the Cool Down video were positive self-talk, counting slowly and taking deep breaths. Kinder, 1st and 2nd graders wrapped up Kelso s Choices and we made worksheets to review the 9 strategies to manage their small problems. We even played Kelso s Choices, Simon Says where the kiddos learned 9 hand signals to go along with Kelso s Choices. January s guidance lessons for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders were about being assertive and we reviewed and practiced what a assertive response looks like. The four parts of a assertive response are facing the person you are speaking to, head up/ shoulders back, calm/ firm voice, and use respectful words. We talked about how assertiveness helps during recess situations, in the hallways, and during group work. Students might also see the importance of being assertive if they need to ask their teacher for help. I read the book, Personal Space Camp by Julia Cook to Kinder and 1st graders which was a story about a kiddo who was having difficulties understanding what personal space is. From the story kiddos understood their comfort bubble is usually the size of a hula hoop. Please contact me directly if you would be interested in meeting during parent/ teacher conferences on the evening of 2/21/18 or 2/22/18. I will be available to talk to see how I might be able to support your child here at GME. School Counselors can help families coordinate local resources, work with kiddos who are experiencing difficulties at school or home, and have kiddos participate in a lunch bunch, skills group. Lastly, I have noticed the days are finally starting to get longer even though the cold winter temps might be still here for a bit longer. I know the mountains are in need of more snow, but I hoping spring will be here soon enough. Please make sure your child has a warm jacket because morning recess is a bit chilly before the sun goes up and it warms up for lunch recess. 4 Sincerely yours, Mr. Trumbull GME School Counselor ktrumbull@garfieldre2.net

5 Academic News from Mr. Fids Parents, In math, we continue to focus on fluency, as it is our school-wide goal. School-wide we would like at least 65% of our students completely fluent in math facts: Kindergarten writing numbers 0-20, 1 st and 2 nd Grade Addition facts, 3 rd and 4 th Grade Multiplication facts. At the end of the 2 nd quarter, our students did some benchmark testing to mark their current progress and we saw a ton of growth! Below you will see the percentage of students that are proficient in their grade level math facts. We still have some climbing to make our goal but we are getting closer. Ultimately, we hope this focus speeds up the memorizing process and ensures that students will be able to problem solve more easily. Also, by now you should ve noticed that there is math fluency homework attached to your child s typical read and respond homework (kinder excluded). Each night 4 of 7 nights per week, this should not take more than 5 minutes and can be included in the 20 minutes of reading required of your child. You will see the same math homework for at least 2 weeks at a time before it changes. Please use the 2 nd and 3 rd weeks to increase speed! Please let the school know if you have any questions or are confused by anything. Now, on to the data! Grade Skill Q1 Fluent Students Q2 Fluent Students Kindergarten Writing Numbers % 75% 1 st Grade Addition 7% 49% 2 nd Grade Addition 44% 83% 3 rd Grade Multiplication 1% 14% 4 th Grade Multiplication 4% 34% School-wide Fluency 17% 45% We will update this data near the end of Quarter 3 in March. To support at home, please ensure that your child is doing their math homework along with their reading homework 4 of 7 nights a week. Also, take notice of the strategy that is being worked on in homework, as it is our building-wide focus for those 2-3 weeks. For 1 st and 2 nd grade, they will be practicing Doubles +1 (Ex. 7+6=?. We think of this as 6+6=12 plus 1 more equaling 13.). For 3 rd and 4 th Grade, it is the Double and Double Again strategy (4 s). For example, 6x4=?. We think of this as 6x2=12 and then 12+12=24. You can ask these types of problems verbally at home while doing chores, driving in the car, riding a chairlift skiing, etc. If you ever have any questions or would like some training with me, please ask! Have a great February! Sincerely, Ryan Fideldy Instructional Coach Graham Mesa Elementary

6 Meet our Staff GREETINGS FROM THE WONDROUS WORLD OF WRITING! Hello, everyone! My name is Margaret Hesse, and I am the third grade writing teacher at Graham Mesa. This is my 6 th year at GME, and I think we have the best school, the best teachers, the best students, and the best parents in the universe! J I love coming to work every day and getting kids excited to read, write, and learn! Before coming to Graham Mesa, I taught both 4 th and 5 th grades at Riverside Middle School and 4 th grade at Elk Creek Elementary, for a total of 23 years spent in the classroom. When I m not teaching, having fun, caring for, and learning from the kids, I love to be outdoors hiking, biking, camping, skiing, and snowshoeing. I have a one year old puppy named Rosie that I adopted last May from the Animal Shelter. She has lots of energy and keeps me very busy. I also enjoy reading, gardening, traveling, movies, and cooking. I was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I have three sisters, one brother, five nephews, and a niece. After college, I decided to move west to the mountains of Colorado starting in Estes Park, then to Breckenridge, and finally to Glenwood Springs and Silt. One of the most impactful experiences I ve ever had was the two years I spent working in Central African Republic as a Peace Corps volunteer. The people I met, the languages I spoke, the places I saw, and the culture I experienced created memories that will last a lifetime. Thank you for all that you do and for sharing your precious children with us. Hope 2018 is off to a great start! 6

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