Bruneau Elementary Newsletter
January Issue 6
Upcoming Events
January 13th Report Cards Sent Home
January 16th Martin Luther King DayJanuary 23rd Teacher Inservice
January 24th-27th MAP Testing Grades 3-5
January 31st IRI Testing K-3
Inclement Weather
Children should dress appropriately for the weather each day. Children are expected to go outside except during extremely cold days (10 degrees or colder). Children need to have fresh air and exercise as a part of their school day. Please ensure that your child is appropriately dressed. All children will go outside for fresh air and a classroom break. If they are well enough to attend school, they will join all other classmates outside.
If school is canceled due to inclement weather, families will be notified via all-call and the school's closure will be posted on the school website.
Winter Carnival Baskets
Bruneau's Winter Carnival will be Saturday, February 11th.
Please send in items to help fill our Winter Carnival Baskets. Monetary donations are also accepted.
Pre-K Idaho Basket
K/1 Building Basket
2/3 Road Trip Basket
4/5 STEAM Basket
Classroom News
Pre-K Mrs. Merrick
We hope everyone had a great break! We are going to start off the new year by reviewing the letters and numbers we have covered so far this year. We will also review our classroom procedures and how to be a great friend and Bruneau Elementary Student! Please watch for updated monthly folders and flashcards to be sent home next week. Welcome Back!!
K/1 Miss Wampler
2/3 Ms Prucker
4/5 Mrs. Kangas-Hanes
Fluency is not just for Reading
This month the 4th and 5th graders are beginning to dedicate classroom time and homework towards raising their mathematical fluency. Math fluency is recognized by a person’s ability to think flexibly about the relationships between numbers. An important skill at this age is the ability to recall 40-60 multiplication facts in a minute. Being able to navigate “the times tables” without fear or stress allows our students to use their energy in learning very complex concepts and creative strategies, to answer real-world questions, and to successfully arrive at calculations.
One of the innovations that has been brought about by brain research is the realization that students are more successful and fluent when they learn the “math facts” through concept study. Your student will be coming home with practice cards over the next few weeks. These are very similar to the “flash cards” many of us practiced with when we were going to school; but they have an interesting innovation, the math expression is on one side of the card and on the other are four to six different ways to think of the fact. Why is innovation necessary in our beloved flash cards?
Through brain research we have discovered that our brains fire in at least four different areas as we solve simple problems. Two of those areas help us think conceptually; in the very same way our brains fire when we read or create a work of art! So the “math brain” theory is no longer valid.
Through the use of concept cards our students see the values involved in a simple multiplication problem. They relate the symbols to the real size of the number…think “dozen”…many of us see in our mind’s eyes a carton of eggs, or a box of cookies. This process is referred to as “number sense” and helps us with our accuracy in computation.
I will be expecting your child to practice their math facts first using their concept cards no more than 5-10 minutes a day. Please help them make this fun, remind them that we grow more neurons when we experience mistakes and that this will not be a permanent practice habit.
In class, our students are buddied up with someone to study with, each time a student proves that they have improved their fluency by 5 facts they will add a token to a jar in the class. Our goal is to fill our class jar with tokens and celebrate our success together this spring as we watch our fluency grow. If you have any questions about how to help your child, please call me anytime. You may, of course, contact me at the school, or please feel free to call me in Bruneau at 845-2126 any time before 9 pm and in the mornings after 4 am. You may contact me at the Bruneau number or my Donnelly number, 208-325-8136 on the weekends. Remember you are welcome in the classroom anytime…no advance call needed, please drop by! Here’s to our math fluency success in 2017!
Community Groups: Caring
In our Kelso Character Building, we continue to discuss what it means to be a caring and empathetic person, and how we care for one another in what we say and do each day.
We have discussed empathy vs. sympathy, and how we use empathy to genuinely care for one another. While sympathy is when you see how someone is feeling and feel sorry for them, empathy is when you understand how someone is feeling by putting yourself in their shoes.
We don’t have to do HUGE things to care for one another - it’s lots of little things that add up…that help develop our school’s climate.
November and December Students of The Month
Kindergarten
1st Grade
Second Grade
3rd Grade
4th Grade
5th Grade
2017 Roaring Reader Program
Kid Questions
The interview questions were asked by our kindergarteners Casen Aquiso, Cruz Colyer, Rigo Farfan, Brogun May, Ily Gennette, Wyatt Lisle, and Rodrigo Sierra.