SHAWSHEEN SHOUT OUT! January 2018 Shawsheen Elementary 4020 W. 7 th Street, Greeley, CO 80634 www.shawsheen.greeleyschools.org Telephone: 970-348-2300 Happy New Year! It s a great time to set some New Year s Resolutions. Here are some ideas! Eat healthy and nutritious meals as a family Have a set routine to prepare for bedtime. Most elementary age children need 10-12 hours of sleep a night! Have a set routine for mornings. Make getting your child to school a priority! Exercise with your child daily Read with your child daily Limit daily screen time for both you and your child (this includes all screens not just TV Family Night January 9 th is our next Family Night! Come learn what your child has been learning about Shawsheen Elementary and the time when it was built. Fun 70 s games and activities for the whole family to enjoy. We start at 5:30 promptly so don t be late you ll want to enjoy all of the rotations. Afterwards we ll enjoy a light dinner. Battle of the Books Our 3 rd, 4 th, and 5 th graders were given the opportunity to sign up for Battle of the Books before break. Several teams have been created. Coaches are still needed to support them as they read as many books as they can on their list and prepare for competitions this Spring. If you are interested in being a coach contact Deanna Butherus at debutherus@greeleyschools.org. Just a small amount of your time could mean so much to a team! Lost and Found Items Before break we had 3 tables overflowing with lost items. We are down to 2 tables. Please check out the Lost and Found the next time you are here. Upcoming Events Jan. 5 January Birthday Snack (optional) Jan. 9 Family Night 5:30pm Jan 10 Parent Group Meeting 5:30pm (Library) Jan. 15 No School Jan. 22-26 Spirit Week (more details to follow) Feb. 2 February Birthday Snacks (optional) Feb. 5 and Feb. 8 Parent Teacher Conferences Something Fun! Make a shopping list with your child Practice the ABCs with your young child Practice math facts in the car or while doing chores together Use a cookbook to make something new together Draw a picture or color with your child Have food at dinner that starts with the letters in your child s name Have a family game night How many can you complete this month?
More Important News On time. All day. Every day. This is our motto! Punctuality is a great life skill. So far we have hit our goal of 98% school-wide attendance or higher only 3 times. Last year we hit is 22 times, so we have our work cut out for us this second semester. Many students, in fact 10% of them, are 5 minutes or less tardy each day. Please do not wait until the horseshoe is open to drop off your children. Teach them the importance of being on time. Students must be in their classroom at 7:50, not walking in the front doors, to be on time. News from the Teachers! Special Education News: We hope everyone had a great break and is ready for second semester! We will have an IEP day on Wednesday, January 10th. If your child has an IEP on that day Ms. Fisher or Mrs. Krueger have been in contact with you. Homework is sent home on Thursdays for math and Reading homework is sent home nightly. Please make sure your child is bringing homework back. Library News: Thank you all so much for supporting our winter book fair. We were able to get 25 new books for our library and 60 books in our classrooms. We also blessed the teachers and students at Meeker. Last month their school flooded, causing them to lose their entire library. We were able to gift to them 65 books. Our next book fair will be February 5th -9th. PE News Intramurals will start back up again for the 2nd half of the year on Tuesday January, 6th. Tuesdays and Wednesdays grades 3-5 and Thursdays grades K-2. Make sure you are here by 7:15 to participate! We will be starting our Dribbling with Hands unit in a couple of weeks. This will be to prepare grades 3-5th for Tri Star Basketball Competition on February 6th after School! 4th grade will be working and studying in the month of January for their 4th grade PE Assessment that has to do with Fitness and living a healthy lifestyle. Feburary is a huge month in PE because we will have Tri Star, Jump rope for heart, and 5210 going on! Lets be the champs again!!! Stay Active, stay happy, Volunteer You can become a volunteer at Shawsheen! Simply come to the office and register on-line. We need all different kinds of support. No matter what your schedule is, we can use your help! Don t forget to attend the next Parent Teacher Group meeting Jan. 10 at 5:30. That, too, is a GREAT way to support your child s school. Six for 6 Parent Commitments 1. Encourage my child to do his or her best in school every day and make graduation the goal. 2. Promote reading for 30 minutes a day. 3. Honor the start and end times of the school day. 4. Talk daily with my child about school, including homework and activities. 5. Communicate regularly with my child s teachers. 6. Support the school rules and dress code.
Art News: Happy New Year! It is my hope that everyone had a wonderful and safe holiday break. Before the Christmas break fourth and fifth grade students finished up their poinsettias and holiday bells for the holiday concert. First grade is working on some collage techniques. 3 rd grades are working on a new and challenging skill of paper weaving and creating a loom to weave on. 2 nd grade students are hard at work with painting and collage techniques. Kindergarten students are so excited to begin painting and working on brush stroke and basic painting skills. Kindergarten News: We are having a great time in Kindergarten! We are learning and growing so much! In Math we will be learning about number bonds and how to break apart numbers. In Reading we will be reading story books and reading whole words and sentences at a time. Reading every day is very important, please read with your child as often as possible. During Writing, we are continuing to add to our word wall and add words every week. We are starting to write sentences and stories with more detail! In Handwriting, we are working on pencil grip. We will keep practicing writing letters and getting to know letter names along with numbers. If your child has a birthday during January, your child s teacher will be in contact with you. First Grade News: Reading: We currently have five RMSE groups and each group is making progress. We continue to work on building phonics skills and building fluency. We are excited to have a group of students starting the transition to 2 nd grade RMSE and beginning SIPPS lessons, reading multi-syllabic words. Please make sure you are reading nightly with your child and he/she is returning their homework with a guardian s signature. Math: We are just beginning a unit on ordering and comparing length measurements as numbers. Additionally, we continue to work on building fluency with numbers within 10 and adding and subtracting numbers to 20. Students are enjoying time on the Chromebooks doing ST Math. Writing: We continue to work on handwriting daily and continue to emphasize the importance of using conventions in writing (capital letter at the beginning of each sentence, period at the end, etc.). We have noticed a lot of growth as our classes develop as writers. As always, thank you for all your support and everything you do for your child to make sure they are successful in learning. We hope you all had a happy holiday season! Second Grade News: January will come in with a bang! Here is what we have in store! Writing: We are starting a new genre in writing. We will be exploring and writing non-fiction pieces. Our emphasis will still be on writing sentences starting with a capital letter and ending with correct punctuation. Math: We will finish Mission 4 mid-month and begin Mission 5 on Zearn. Mission 5 will focus on addition and subtraction within 1,000. Thank you for reading the weekly parent letters that explain our math program and how you can better support your child s learning at home.
Literacy: We are beginning a new unit in literacy. Our focus will be on the main topic and key details that support the main topic. We will also be introducing and practicing the use of contractions. Science: We will continue to study air and weather. On Friday, March 9, we will be going on a field trip to the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster. We will need parent volunteers to assist on this trip, so if you need to request time off to do this, we wanted to give you plenty of notice! More information will be coming soon. No siblings (older or younger) will be allowed to attend. Third Grade News: Reading: Unit 3 One of a Kind Character Traits and Actions Third grade students are continuing on their literary journeys as they learn to describe characters traits, motivations and feelings. Explaining how a characters actions contribute to the sequence of events will be a skill they will soon take on. To support your child at home, you can ask them about a character they are reading about in their nightly reading. Ask them how they would describe the character and what are some of the actions the character exhibits in the story. Writing: Opinion We wrapped up our Fictional Writing Unit just before Winter Break. We have launched our Opinion Writing Unit in which students are learning to form and opinion, write about it and support their opinion and beliefs with strong reasons. You can support your student at home by asking their opinion about different topics and ask them why they feel that way. Encourage them to elaborate on their feelings and reasons why they feel that way. Math: Multiplication and Area Students will explore area as an attribute of two-dimensional figures and relate it to their prior understandings of multiplication. The module will end with students being able to determine the area of rooms in a given floor plan. Science/Social Studies: In third grade, we have three week rotations for Science and Social Studies. Mrs. Wagner teaches Science and Mrs. McDowell and Miss Sano teach Social Studies. Our current units are: Science: Physical Science Changing States of Matter: Solids, Liquids and Gases Social Studies (McDowell): Our Environment Social Studies (Sano): Our Communities Class Dojo: We have been sharing a lot of wonderful news on Class Dojo. If you have not connected with your child s classroom, please contact his/her teacher right away to get your login code. We wanted to take a moment to wish you and yours a very happy 2018 filled with togetherness and joy. It is hard to believe the school year is halfway over! Your children have been working extremely hard and it has been such a thrill to watch them grow and learn. They are sure maturing into focused and motivated learners.
Fourth Grade News: January birthdays will be celebrated tomorrow, Friday, January 5. Please send in one, SMALL snack, if you'd like to celebrate with the class. In Math we are doing fractions. If you could have your child help with cooking/baking at home, that would be helpful. The Science Fair will be March 22. YOUR CHILD IS REQUIRED TO DO A SCIENCE EXPERIMENT. There was a LOT of information that was sent home right before Winter Break. Although it may feel like there is a lot of time before this has to be completed, get started now. It might sneak up on you! Remember, a volcano is a PRESENTATION, not an experiment. We are accepting experiments only. If you have questions, please ask your child s teacher. Please be sure your child's reading card is ACCURATE. We can tell who the students are who have been reading consistently, as their DIBELS scores have gone UP!!! Please supervise their reading, so that the recorded times are accurate. Fifth Grade News: Math Students will be reviewing adding and subtracting fractions for their next test coming soon. Our next module will be on multiplying and dividing fractions. Please help your child with their math facts to help with their confidence while mastering 5th grade math. Writing Students will work on writing opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and facts. Literacy Students will continue working on determining a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text. This includes how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic. They will begin determining two or more main ideas of a text and explain how they are supported by key details. Service Project Students will be learning about Shawsheen community history with the town. They will also be learning about the importance of the time Shawsheen opened. Students will get to speak with retired teachers, will get to experience artifacts, and will get to experience what the students were like in the 1970 s. Homework Continue to encourage your student to read nightly, 20-30 minutes each night and continue to work on their homework packets. The homework packets will be sent home every week in their Thursday Folders and expected to be returned the following Thursday. Students also have access to Zearn to work on math concepts at school and at home. Extra Date January 8th: 5 th Grade Museum to you