Spotlight
Four Seasons A+ January School Newsletter
Four Seasons Calendar
- January 17, NO SCHOOL, MLK Day
- January 19, Picture Retake Day
- January 28, NO SCHOOL, teacher professional development
- January 31, 5:00-6:00 pm, Makers Space Community Gathering (virtual)
- February 3, 5:00-7:30 pm, APTT (Academic Parent Teacher Teams)
- February 4, 8:00-8:15 am, School Assembly (virtual)
- February 14, NAAPID (National African American Parent Involvement Day)
- February 14 - March 24, ACCESS (ELL) Testing at Four Seasons
Principal Mickelson - The Show Must Go On
When times get tough it is tempting to throw in the towel and give up. I'm sure many of us have been there or at least on the verge of being there recently. So, how do we sustain and even thrive when times get tough? Well, at Four Seasons A+ Elementary School the show must go on. Yes, we have students and staff who are absent. Yes, we are all tired of the pandemic. Yes, there are numerous daily challenges. However, we are a strong community focused on learning and growing together and this will sustain us. We've established strong rituals & routines that allow learning to take place. Our teachers are supporting students through small group instruction in both Math & Literacy. Our Arts specialists are busy dancing, singing, and creating puppets with our students. Our engineers are busy cleaning our building to help keep us safe. Our Nurse and Health Assistant are going above and beyond to coordinate quarantines on top of their regular duties. Our SPED teachers continue to support their students, write IEPs, and evaluate. Our MLL teachers continue supporting their students and our teachers using best practices for learning English as a second language. Our Nutrition Services team is ready with a smile each day to serve nutritious meals. Our support staff are busy all around the building helping our students solve problems and focus on learning. We come here every day for and with our students to maintain a positive, productive learning environment because our students deserve it! Each day I look forward to greeting our students as they get off the busses. If they aren't yawning, they are smiling from ear to ear, eager to see their friends and our staff. This makes all the challenges worthwhile...after all, the show must go on!
Sincerely,
Jennifer Mickelson
Principal
Makers Space
Makers Space is an opportunity for people in our community to share their knowledge and skills with other people in our community. Do you have a talent or skill to share? Want to show us how to MAKE something? Fill out this MAKERS SPACE FORM if you are interested in sharing with us. Details for joining the virtual meeting will be shared closer to the date.
Monday, Jan 31, 2022, 05:00 PM
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Students enjoy sledding during recess at Four Seasons.
APTT (Academic Parent Teacher Teams)
APTT Conferences February. 3, 2022 (on that date or during that week)
Participating classes:
- Grade 4/5 : Mr. Taylor and Ms. Becker
- Kindergarten: Mrs. Gaslin, Ms. Nelson (posted on Seesaw to accommodate parents/ families busy schedules)
- DHH: Kasey Corbett/Andrew Sweetman
All APTTs will be virtual. Parents should look for further information from their classroom teacher regarding whether the APTT will be hosted on Seesaw/Schoology or a Google Meet.
Absent? - Contact Us
ATTENDANCE LINE (651) 290-7595
ATTENDANCE EMAIL fourseasons.attendance@spps.org
COVID Vaccination
Vaccinate 5-12 year-old children
- keep our community safe
- keep our schools open
All Minnesota residents ages 5 and older are now eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine The CDC recommends that everyone who can get vaccinated should do so at the first opportunity available to them.
There is no cost for the vaccine. You do not need to provide a government-issued ID or medical insurance to be vaccinated, and no question on immigration status is ever asked.
Happening in the Classroom
Pre-K
Kindergarten
Kindergarten has continued enjoying our DOW (Discovering Our World) unit: Being Healthy in our World. We have been focusing on ways to keep our bodies and minds healthy through exercise, heathy eating, and dental hygiene.
We are ‘Transitioning Back to School’ from vacation break by practicing our rituals and routines and by discussing how to be respectful, responsible and safe both at home and at school. For Literacy, we are still focusing on letter names and sounds and learning new Sound and Say (letter sound) and See and Say (sight) words. Counting by 1s, 5s and 10s to 100 are our new explorations in math as well as continuing our practice on number recognition, patterning, sorting, and measurement.
With the changing season and temperatures, please help your child be dressed appropriately for the weather since we love going outside to play each and every day! Please practice how to tie your own shoe and how to zip your own coat! Just like the change in the weather, each Kindergarten student is growing and changing each day!
Mrs. Gaslin’s and Ms. Nelson’s class will be having our next APTT (Academic Parent Teacher Team ) Conferences virtually through Seesaw on February 3, 2022! We cant’s wait for your participation! Together, we can help your child succeed even more - both academically and socially. Thank you!
1-2 Grade Classrooms
In our 1/2nd grade classrooms we continue to work on our social emotional skills. Our focus lately has been bullying prevention, how to understand and celebrate the uniqueness in each of us and how to show continued acts of kindness. Leading with our hearts!
- Language Arts: Decoding words, reading books at our individual levels and strengthening our writing skills. We love books!
- Math: Developing our understanding of addition and subtraction skills. Skip counting by 10s, 5s and identifying numbers and counting past 100.
With kindness and peace in our hearts,
Ms. Pappas and Mrs. H
Grade 3
3rd graders (Ms. Long and Ms. E) are working on a money unit in math. During reading we are focused on comprehension and details in the beginning, middle and end.
Please help support students practice reading daily. It makes a difference.
4-5 Grade Classrooms
Our 4th and 5th grade team started the month of January by reviewing our routines and rituals. In literacy we are breaking apart words with syllables, and noticing when to do it between vowels. During our Read Aloud time we have discussed the parts of stories and noticed when it might reach a high, or turning point. We’ve also been continuing to work on our reading stamina and building that increased focus time. We have enjoyed our library time and being able to use those wonderful books during reading lessons! We’ve continued to use that time as well for small group, focused instructions.
In math we continue to review word problems, multiplication, and division. Our current units focus on learning about different angles and triangles, as well as displaying data. We’ve started exploring algebraic expressions and looking ahead, we will also be spending time on fractions and decimals.
For science we are finishing up our unit on Ecosystems and will switch into Social Studies and learn about our unit: Indigenous Peoples of the Americas.
Thank you for your continued support with our students using their face masks. As the number of Covid cases continues to rise, it’s extremely important that we wear them properly every day. You may receive a call from your child’s teacher if we need more support having them wear their mask. We’ve been making such progress being back in school, we would love to help everyone stay as healthy as possible. Thank you for your continuous help!
DHH ECSE
The ECSE DHH preschoolers are getting back into the routine of the school day after a long break! We are practicing following directions, taking turns, and playing together! We will be wrapping up our unit on keeping our bodies healthy and will soon be starting a new unit, Adapting to Our World! We will learn about how we adapt to changes in the seasons, with our families and in our communities.
MLL (Multilingual Learners)
Welcome back! We hope you all had a safe and happy holiday.
ACCESS testing is coming up in February. ACCESS is a test that measures your student’s progress in listening, speaking, reading and writing in English.
We are continuing to build on English development in grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing.
Counselor's Corner
Greetings Four Seasons families!
All K-5 students are wrapping up the bullying prevention unit. They learned about recognizing, reporting, refusing bullying. Interested in more information on bullying to continue the conversation at home with your students? Read more here.
The district is putting on virtual open houses as a fun way to learn more about schools that may interest you and your family. If your child is a 5th grader this year, this is a wonderful opportunity for them to learn more about their middle school and to ask questions.
St. Paul Public School Virtual Open Houses
As always, please feel free to reach out at any time if you have any further questions or concerns.
In partnership,
Brooke Hardman - K-5 School Counselor
brooke.hardman@spps.org 651-744-2018
Picture Retake Day
Wednesday, Jan 19, 2022, 08:00 AM
Four Seasons A+ Elementary, North Moore Street, Saint Paul, MN, USA
Four Seasons A+ Elementary School
Comment/Question: Leave a Message HERE
Email: karen.shanahan@spps.org
Website: spps.org/fourseasons
Phone: (651) 290-7595