Foxboro Falcons Newsletter

Transcription

1 Foxboro Falcons Newsletter Volume 2 December 2015 Dear Parents and Students, Merry Christmas to all of you and your family! Wouldn t it be wonderful if everyone had the anticipation and wonder that children possess with Christmas. Their excitement is wonderful. This is a special time of year for everyone. Share your time with your children and family. Write a letter to an old friend. Laugh a little more. Look around at the beauty of the earth. Enjoy the Season! Thank you for coming to your child s SEP Conference the first week in November. We had 98% participation from parents and students. We only had 11 parents that did not come. I hope and encourage those that did not meet with their child s teacher to make an appointment and talk with the teacher. Our school had the wonderful opportunity in November to have a traveling exhibit called the Center for American Values come to our school. This exhibit consisted of each class receiving a lesson about what makes America great. The lessons were on subjects such as Medal of Honor recipients, Emigration and Ellis Island, the Code of the West and Everyday Heroes. The students also got to see a piece of the World Trade Center that was destroyed on Thank you to all of you for supporting the Foxboro Student Council s Food Drive during November that was in conjunction with all the feeder schools of Bountiful High School. Thank you for volunteering to help in classrooms and with the PTA. As I walk around the school I see mothers and fathers volunteering in the classrooms. Some volunteers are working with individual students, some are working with small groups, some are teaching art lessons, some are making things for the teacher. I appreciate your service. I know the teachers do also. Your volunteering benefits the children in countless ways. I am happy that many of the children our reading as part of the Ken Garff Road to Success reading program this year. The goal is that each child will read 20 minutes each night minutes a week minutes for the year. Kindergarten and 1 st Grade students can have their parents read to them. Each week I select a student from each class that has recorded reading minutes in the Reading Program to come to the office for prizes. The more a student reads the better they become in both fluency and comprehension. If you do not know how to log your child and record their minutes on-line, please let your teacher know. We have about 60 students that have not registered this year yet. Your teacher can give you a code to log in. If you have forgotten your child s password, let me know and I will reset it. (Unfortunately the teachers cannot do this.) Congratulations to Mason Klingler! He has read more than 10,000 minutes and has recorded them in the Road to Success Reading Program. This is a big accomplishment. He has worked hard. You can easily check how many minutes your child has read by logging in to the Road to Success program at

2 Congratulations to Taya Piquet! She is the winner of a brand new bike and helmet from UDOT. In September she as well as many others from our school participated in the School Neighborhood Access Program called Walk More in Four. Those that participated in the program turned in a chart showing they had walked or biked to school 4 days of the week each week during September. Taya s name was picked out of the drawing of those that turned in the forms. Friday, December 18 is the last day of school before Christmas and Winter vacation begins. Dismissal will be at 1:25. School reconvenes on Monday, January 4, I wish each of you a joyous Christmas with your family and loved ones. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Kevin Prusse Thank you Volunteers for helping with our book fair. It was a great success and we were able to buy books for the teachers and library. It is so wonderful to have parents volunteer and help us out. As we came back from Thanksgiving break we had our 2nd annual Santa's Secret Shop. This was such a fun way for the kids to be able to purchase gifts for their loved ones and for it be a secret until Christmas morning. The kids had a great time being able to pick out gifts. Thank you to those of you who helped and volunteered hours with this fundraiser. We were able to raise enough funds to help with our Field day and art night. Without volunteers these events are not able to happen. If you would like to help with activities please the PTA at foxboropta@gmail.com. Shannon Neslen PTA President NO SCHOOL PTA BOARD President- Shannon Neslen President Elect- Melanie Vernon Secretary - Christy Castleberry Treasurer -Jenny Draper VP Public Relations - Breanna Larson VP Students - Breanna Tagge VP Fundraising - Becky Canfield Teacher Rep - Jolyn Metro There will be no school due to Christmas on Monday, December 21 st -January 3 rd.

3 AIR QUALITY INFORMATION This is the time of year when we are all concerned with air quality. Foxboro Elementary has a School Flag program to increase awareness of air quality monitoring. Air quality is looked up by Office Staff before every recess in the winter and colored flags posted centrally reflecting the air quality numbers. Changes are announced. Measurements are in P.M. 2.5 ug/m 3 or the amount of small particulates in the air that can be harmful to the body because they are not filtered well by the respiratory system. The flags are designed to make everyone more aware of air quality so we can know when to reduce burning and driving. We have also correlated them to the recess guideline numbers that help us know when certain individuals should stay inside for activity. Sometimes we have a no burn day when the air quality is green or yellow because an inversion is coming but it is still safe to go outside. FLAG COLOR PM2.5 Recess Guidance Action Green 0-12 Good for everyone Check news for voluntary and mandatory action alerts (burn) Yellow Orange Red Good for most Sensitive students should remain indoors* Sensitive students and those with any respiratory symptoms stay in Decrease driving and burning and check news for alerts. Check news for voluntary and mandatory action alerts (burn) Purple Above 90 Everyone should stay in (Note- These colors correlate to Utah Recess guidelines vs. National guidelines which allow Red numbers to be higher) *Sensitive students may include those with asthma, cystic fibrosis, lung disease, heart disease etc. If your student has asthma or other respiratory conditions it is still your responsibility to communicate with the teacher when you want your student to stay inside. We normally send all students outside in the Green and Yellow zone unless there is another reason for them to stay in. Since each student with asthma is different, we don t have a mandatory requirement for them to stay in until the purple zone so please communicate their needs with the teacher. For links to air quality and good information about asthma see School Nurse, Lorill Solomon RN losolomon@dsdmail.net

4 READING MAGIC Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever by Mem Fox One of the best books I have ever read about teaching reading to children is written by Mem Fox, a children s book author. Each month in the newsletter I will post interesting things she has written in her book. As the title of her book implies, reading aloud to your child will change his/her live forever. Here is what she has said: When children are struggling to read one word at a time, we need to remember that for them it s like reading down a cardboard tube, or even a straw. They see only one or two words at a time. This stops them from reading correctly because they re reading too slowly to make sense. If we were to try reading down a straw ourselves, we d see that we are barely able to make meaning from the page we re looking at. If it s difficult for us, imagine how much harder it must be for beginning readers to make any sense of what they re trying to read! If we happen to be listening to a child who is struggling to read aloud and getting nowhere, we should stop the child, go back to the beginning of the story (tactfully), and read a few pages aloud ourselves. This will provide enough information for the child to get a grip on the plot. READING ALOUD TO YOUR CHILD WILL HELP YOUR CHILD TO BE A READER OR A BETTER READER. Each night read three picture books to your child. This is for babies up to 3 rd grade students. Picture books are not too young for older students. They can also read from children s novels (read aloud to your child or partner read for 20 minutes.) This will not only increase your child s reading ability (fluency), but also his reading comprehension and vocabulary. You can discuss what is happening in the story and talk about new or unfamiliar words that you read. Experts tell us that children need to hear a thousand stories read aloud before they begin to learn to read for themselves. A thousand! That sounds daunting, But when we do the sums, it isn t as bad as we might think. Three stories a day will deliver us a thousand stories in one year alone, let alone in the four or five years prior to school. The ideal three stories a day are: one favorite, one familiar, and one new, but the same book read three times in a row is fine also.

5 HOW IS YOUR CHILD MEASURING UP? These are what we want your child to be able to do by the end of the school year. You can help at home and check his/her progress also. If your child can do this earlier than the end of the year that is Wonderful! KINDERGARTEN Reading - Recognize all upper & lower case letters and sounds fluently and in random order Read first 25 high frequency words fluently (you can get these from the teachers) Math - Count to 100 by ones and tens. Model with manipulatives, basic addition and subtraction to 10 Writing - Write all upper & lower case letters & numerals using proper form. Write a 3 word sentence with capital and period FIRST GRADE Reading - Read a first grade passage at 47 words per minute Read 107 Zeno words with automaticity (you can get these from the teachers) Math - Add 27 basic facts (0-18) in two minutes Subtract 27 basic facts (0-18) in two minutes Writing - Write a paragraph with beginning, middle and ending and consisting of at least three sentences correctly punctuated. SECOND GRADE Reading - Read a second grade passage at 87 words per minute Math - Add 37 basic facts (0-20) in two minutes Subtract 37 basic facts (0-20) in two minutes Writing -Write a paragraph with 20 correct word sequences in 3 minutes from a picture prompt. Paragraph will have a main idea sentence and 3 supporting detail sentences. THIRD GRADE Reading - Read a third grade passage at 100 words per minute Math - Add 42 basic facts (0-20) in two minutes Subtract 42 basic facts (0-20) in two minutes Know all products of multiplication up to 9 x 9 Writing -Write a paragraph that includes an introduction, 3 sentences with supporting details & conclusion. Paragraph will indentation, capitalization, spelling, punctuation and grammar. FOURTH GRADE Reading - Read a fourth grade passage at 115 words per minute Math - Add 45 basic facts (0-20) in two minutes Subtract 45 basic facts (0-20) in two minutes Multiply 40 basic facts in three minutes Divide 35 basic facts in 6 minutes Writing - Write a paragraph with 39 correct word sequences in 3 minutes from a picture prompt. Paragraph will have a main idea sentence and 3 supporting detail sentences. FIFTH GRADE

6 FIFTH GRADE Reading - Read a fifth grade passage at words per minute Math - Multiply 40 basic facts in one minute Writing - Write a 5 paragraph essay based on an argument. Each paragraph will have a topic sentence, supporting detail sentences and a concluding sentence. SIXTH GRADE Reading - Read a sixth grade passage at words per minute Math - Add 50 basic facts (0-20) in one minute Subtract 50 basic facts (0-20) in one minute Multiply 50 basic facts in one minute Divide 50 basic facts in one minute Writing - Write 3-5 coherent paragraphs with clear development, organization, and style using correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar