NOTE: No School for Pre-K students on October 4 th due to home visits.

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1 News From Pre K- Ms. Liane Sanchez Pre-K is an exciting time for students as it is the first year for some students to be in a school setting. Our Pre-K program is designed to teach students the context of building relationships with family members, teachers, and caregivers. We want our Pre-K children to feel safe and secure. We want the students to learn to communicate verbally and nonverbally in a positive and caring atmosphere. Please feel free to drop in anytime to help and volunteer in the classroom. As part of the program requirements, parents and caregivers should volunteer 90 in kind hours a year. Home visits are scheduled for October 4 th and 5 th. Please contact me at ext 267 to make an appointment if you have not already done so. NOTE: No School for Pre-K students on October 4 th due to home visits. The prime purpose of being four is to enjoy being four- Of secondary importance is to prepare for being five Jim Trelease Kindergarten Article- Mrs. Stone We re starting out a great year in kindergarten! Students are working hard and learning fast. We are learning to recognize the sounds and form of each letter and are learning to write, share and cooperate with one another. Nightly Read and Respond are going very well and we are learning to recognize the kinds of stories we like and others we like not quite as much! We are especially excited about our Science unit on the weather. We have studied cloudy, windy, sunny and (finally) rainy days! We are having a lot of fun in Social Studies with Ms. Moore and Mrs. Maestas in the afternoons. We would also like to say, Thank you to all our parents for supporting us and our teacher by visiting our class, helping with breakfast and making sure we start our days with a smile!

2 News From the 1 st Grade Class- Mrs. Maestas First grade has been fantastic! We are taking a different approach to practicing math and reading skills. This year, we have begun to practice fluency and sight words by playing fun games like Kaboom and Sight Word Power Tower, where students are taking turns reading and learning new sight words. We have also begun to use number sentence puzzles that teach us to count on from the larger number. These types of activities are beginning to demonstrate your child s ability to apply a concept in a more hands-on approach. Please ask your child about these learning games. If you would like to find fun learning activities to help your children with math and reading concepts, explore sites like education.com. To value his own good opinion, A child has to feel that he is a worthwhile person He has to have confidence in himself as an individual Sidionie Gruenberg

3 News From 2 nd Grade- Ms. Moore In the 2 nd Grade, we have spent the last month creating a classroom we all want to be a part of, getting to know each other and practicing respect. Exploring the lives of some important historical leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez, we ve been talking about citizenship and how to make our community healthy and happy for everyone. Students are learning how to be successful readers, discussing and writing about what they read. We have just started a new math unit on addition and subtraction, and students need to be practicing their math facts regularly. A new online tutoring program is available that students can access from home to practice math and reading skills. A letter with more information about the program was sent home. Students should complete at least one assignment, four times a week. If you do not have regular access to the Internet, please let me know. Our science unit covers plant growth and development. Students planted seeds at the beginning of the school year and have been busy caring for their plants. They also made bee sticks to pollinate flowers, and learned about how bees make honey. We are looking forward to a great year full of fun and successful learning. Please contact me to find out how your child is doing.

4 THIRD GRADE- Mrs. Manzanares We would like to welcome everyone to a new school year. Hope you all had a restful summer. The semester has gotten well under way. There are many exciting things happening in third grade. We are working hard in math learning place value and money. We will soon be going to addition and subtraction. Second nine weeks we hope to get into multiplication. I know math can be hard but as long as the students are on task and trying, it will become easy. Science has been a lot of fun. We have been studying the human body. We have looked at different bones from different animals to help us understand how the body functions. The students had the opportunity to study owl pellets. They found many animal bones to help them learn their names. We have studied the joints, and will next study the muscles of the body. We will soon be implementing Skills Tutor, which is a computer program that covers all areas to help students who are having problems in class and to also challenge students who may be advanced. I will soon be sending you information on this. This program may be used at home as well as at school. It will take the place of First in Math. We want to welcome parents to the classroom anytime. There is always something interesting happening.

5 News from 4 th & 5 th Grade It s been a very busy year for the 4 th and 5 th graders so far. We have been working on building multiplication facts and division strategies that will help each student with the more difficult math concepts to come. Our science unit is on Microworlds in where we have been practicing observation and scientific sketching skills, and identifying properties of various objects including nonliving as well as living microorganisms. Also, one of the main goals of the language arts areas this year will be to focus on the writing process. We expect to have a very productive year "Say what you mean, mean what you say, but don't say it mean." - Unknown Hello From 6 th Grade We are off to a great start with 21 students this year. Our big news is that Las Clinicas del Norte has donated 22 ipads to our 6 th grade class. We are so grateful for this opportunity to use technology in our learning adventures! We have all set up our district s new computer tutor program ( Skillstutor ) and are all practicing our math facts fluency. The students are using the noetpad app to keep their math vocabulary and formulas handy. I m sure we will be watching some videos to supplement our social studies content and health curriculum. We will be using the ipads as e-readers. We will be taking pictures and making our own videos, tuning our guitars, and discovering other uses we haven t thought of yet. I think the students are teaching the teacher in this subject and they love it. What a great gift to this class!!! Thank you Las Clinicas! Mr. Kempes

6 News From Ms. Mary The afterschool program has been serving 15+ students on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. It is a great time to get extra help, finish your homework and practice your skills. Starting next week we will be using the new Skills Tutor computer program to hone our reading and math skills. Mr. Johnny Garcia and Ms. Mary Shoemaker are the teachers who work with this program. Starting October 1st we will have Mr. Bruce Smith and Ms. Caroline helping out on Mondays. Caroline will help with reading and Bruce will help with 6th grade math. We are proud of the kids who have been attending and can't wait for the sixth graders to join us. News from Mrs. Terrazas The school year is well underway and the students have been very busy in every classroom. The Science Kits have proven to be very effective. The students are engaged and motivated to learn. We currently started a new computer program that some teachers mentioned in their news article. The feedback from students regarding the new program has been very positive. We are concentrating on Reading, Math, Writing and Problem Solving across the curriculum. We believe that providing the students a strong foundation in these areas will help them as they progress through each grade. PTO meetings will take place the first Thursday of every month at 6:30 p.m. in the Teacher s Conference Room in the main building at El Rito Elementary. Please join us to share your thoughts, ideas and concerns. Parent, teacher organizations are designed for everyone to get together to discuss our school and the goals we have for the year. We look forward to visiting with each of you. October 4, 6:30 p.m. is our first meeting! Why shoot for the moon when you can reach for the stars! Important notes: Dismissal time is 3:30 p.m., if you are picking up your child at school, please wait in the lobby area for your child to be dismissed as it can be very disruptive to student learning. You are welcome to come in and observe, however, the end of the day is often a very chaotic time in the classrooms. Basketball and Cheerleading Practice has begun and we are looking forward to our first game which is tentatively scheduled for October 19 th away with Holy Cross. Go EAGLES!