The Skipwith Communicator
Week of 2/23/2015
Quote of the Week: In honor of the New Nascar Season!
“In racing, they say that your car goes where your eyes go. The driver who cannot tear his eyes away from the wall as he spins out of control will meet that wall; the driver who looks down the track as he feels his tires break free will regain control of his vehicle.”Garth Stein,The Art of Racing in the Rain
Next Week: Upcoming Events/Calendar: 2/23 -27
Weekly Highlights: Monday morning Cafeteria Signal Blue, Math ½ day planning mtg, Access Testing, 2nd CogAT testing, RTI mtg, faculty mtg and 3-5 All Pro Dads.
Google calendar:
February at a Glance:
Monthly Highlights:½ day math planning, 2nd CogAT testing, Access Testing, and All Pro Dads.
Math Coach and Team Meetings:
We will have scheduled ½ day grade level meetings with our math coach Terri Okes this week.
Please review the schedule and plan for a substitute for these meetings. All teachers need to attend!
The meeting will focus on...
- Reviewing the benchmark data.
- Reviewing the pacing guide to see what other areas/resources your grade level may need to focus on.
- Questioning techniques that will enhance student learning.
IMPORTANT ATTENDANCE REMINDERS:
- Attendance doneby 8 am in PowerSchool. If unable to take it in PS, use paper class roster.
- You should be printing your class roster every week so there is a roster available for a sub.
- Make all Absences Absent –U, only changing to present if the student comes in with a TARDYCHIP.
- Student notes to the office include:
- The students First & Last Name, Your name and the date you received the note
Send a reminder to your parents to call the Office between 7:30-8:00 am when their child is going to be absent or late that day. If you receive an email from a parent concerning an absence, let them know they must also call in the absence. If the teacher is absent we will never receive the note.
February 23 –27: Benchmark Test review period -
- The benchmark test review period runs from Feb. 23-27, 2015.Drilling down to the specific question level is available on the IA until February 27th.
- When reviewing with students it is permissible for teachers to drill down to individual questions based upon the targeted area(s) noted in need of improvement. This information can be projected directly from the IA site and checked in/out.
Second Grade CogAT testing: Please see the following information
Second Grade will test On Wednesday, Feb. 25 – Friday, Feb. 27. Make-up test on March 2-4.
Writing Assessment News: Grade 5 HATS - Multiple choice March 17 on Interactive Achievement
ACCESS TESTING:
Testing will be February 23 – 27. Please see the attached schedule!
February – April Testing schedule
Feb 23- March 6 – Access Testing – Dede and Nota will be here ALL week testing ESL students
Feb 23 – March 4 – 2nd CogAT testing
March 17 – 5th HATS Multiple Choice Writing tests
March 30 –April 1– 3-5 Spring MAPS testing (Reading and Math)
Calling ALL teachers! Please work with your team or independently to share one of your grade level activities with Todd and he will add a new section to our Skipwith Communicator, “Our Action Inspirer”.
LAMP Report:
LIBRARY: In February the library will hold a Create a Library Stamp Contest!Encourage your students to show their love for libraries!Kindergarten will continue to enjoy a variety of fiction and nonfiction stories. First grade will continue making good choices picking out books and enjoying seasonal stories. Second grade will learn, review and reinforce their knowledge of Famous Americans. Third grade students will begin a collaborative research project in which students will research Famous Virginians in the Library, use their research to create a script with their classroom teacher and last but not least create a digital interview under the guidance of our ITRT. Fourth grade students will work on primary and secondary resources and Fifth grade students will continue to work on researching the Midwest using Google tour-builder.
ART: Youth Art Month is coming in MARCH! This is how we are going to celebrate at Skipwith:
- Art Dress Week March 2nd-6th (more information to come)
- Art Trivia Week March 9th-13th
- Music and Art Night – Mark your Tread! Students will collaborate to create a large clay tile mosaic. Each tile of clay in the mosaic will be created by students stepping on clay with their tennis shoes and imprinting unique textures and designs. The clay will be fired and during class, students will paint the tiles and they will be assembled into a large scale permanent work of art to hang at Skipwith. VOLUNTEERS WILL BE NEEDED TO HELP SO GET YOUR PTA POINTS BY JOINING US ON MARCH 12TH = SIGN UP IN THE LOUNGE COMING SOON
MUSIC: For Music, Grades K – 3 and Grade 5 will be doing songs and activities that go with Valentine’s Day and Black History Month. These songs and activities will help to teach rhythm patterns, listening (singing a capella, and listening for the music to start and stop), part-singing (class is divided into 2 groups and each group has to sing 1 part while the other group sings a different part at the same time), Call and Response, Solo singing and Choral singing, different styles of singing, and dancing (and its connection to Math). In addition, 3rd grade will have some Social Studies connections as they will be singing songs about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr.
4th Grade will continue to “race to success” with their recorders. They are racing to pass all 9 Recorder Karate belts before the end of the school year. The Recorder Karate belts help to motivate the students to learn to play 5 notes on the recorder. This is a fun way for me to do part of their county music testing, in which they must play all 5 of those notes correctly in order to pass their tests. In addition, they will be showing off their skills during Music and Art Night, when each class competes in a race to see which class plays their recorder the best.
PE: We are very excited about this year's program and hope that you and all of your kids will love it, too. Once again, the training program will be a free, incentive-based, incremental mileage program.The goal is to have children run or walk 2-3 miles per week over a ten-week period on their way to completing a full marathon (26.2 miles).
Children will be able to color (3-5 will keep their own logs/K-2 will color during PE) in the cobblestones along Monument Avenue as they accumulate miles and will be able to redeem their incentive coupons at the 5, 10, 15, and 20 mile marks. We are looking to kick off the week of January 19th. All participating children have the option to run the last mile of their "marathon" on Saturday, March 29th at the Virginia 529 Kids Run. (If children choose to run their last mile on race day, they will have to register for the event.) However, there is no obligation to participate in the Kids Run in order to complete this program.
Reading NewsK-2 teachers,Here is a decoding strategy bookmark courtesy of Allison Yandle at Johnson Elementary School. This is a great way for students to use different cueing systems to figure out a word, besides just sounding it out. Allison shared that teacher’s keep these at their teaching table and use them with students in small groups, as well as sending them home with students so that they can use these strategies outside of school.Jessica Pong
Technology
The deadline for submitting a Henrico 21/Student 21 project is a bit earlier than I had mentioned. To ensure that I have time to review the submissions, the due date is Monday, March 2nd. There is a link for submitting projects on my blog. Please let me know if you will be submitting or have already submitted a project.Also, please remember I am here to help and support you through this process. I would love for you to showcase all the awesome things your schools are doing. Thanks! Gina ITRT
Safety – Please be sure to close the back fence after entering each morning. We have some students being dropped off too early and entering the fence and building. Thanks
CREW MEMBER OF THE WEEK:
Zeke and Crew: We ALL might not be happy they cleaned the school and helped to get us back in school this week,but…Let’s all give a big hand to the C&M and Custodial crew. They braved the snow and cold tempetures to prepare the school for our return and the students after such a crazy week of weather. As you know it was very cold last week and no one wanted to be out in it. However, while most of us were in our warm homes and enjoying warm coffee and family time they were here braving the weather. Please thank them for their hard work this week. PS...It might help if we ask them to work a little slower and we could get more time off.
Announcements/Celebrations:Please let me know if you have any family or individual celebrations you would like to share with us.
You may recall that in the fall in conjunction with our United Way Campaign, we raffled off a reserved parking space. Next week, weather permitting, Kitti would like to begin her United Way prize by reserving the seventh parking spot from Skipwith Road, facing the annex. Don’t worry, we’ll place a cone on the sidewalk in front of the spot. Just look for it as you pull into the parking lot.Darcie
Proud Grammy - We are so happy to welcome our 5th grandchild, Maren Paige King, last Monday, February 9. My daughter, Meg, and her husband, Mike, are grateful for her good health and sweet disposition. Let the spoiling begin : ) Cindy Bryant
HAPPY BIRTHDAYS:Remember to “BRAKE” and wish these folks a happy birthday! Zeke Mitrovic 2/26