Brown Elementary School
2nd 9 Weeks Campus News Letter
Principals Message
We celebrated the ground breaking of the New Brown and are excited about the progress we are making on the building. The School Boundary Advisory Committee (SBAC) has been hard at work and will be prepared to present the proposed boundaries for the new Brown at the November 13th School Board Meeting. The final boundaries will be approved at the December School Board Meeting. Should you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact me at schwartzl@whitehouseisd.org
The first 9 Weeks included our open house, fall book fair, grand friends day, and our 9 week student led awards ceremony. We were so proud of our 2nd and 5th grade classes for planning, preparing and presenting our awards. Our focus is not only to ensure that are students are academically prepared for the next step in their lives but also to provide them with opportunities to develop their self confidence through public presentations.
As we move toward the 2nd 9 weeks weeks we will have a number of exciting activities for you to join us for.
- November 3, 2017 - Strong Fathers Bring you Dad to School 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.
- November 9, 2017 - Book Character Parade 8:20 -9:00 - Back drop off circle
- November 9, 2017 - K-5 Literacy Night 5:30 -7:00 Brown Classrooms
- November 10, 2017 - Veterans Day Program 2:15 -3:00 in the Brown Gym
- November 18-November 26th - Thanksgiving Break
- December 8, 2017 - PTO Paint Night - 6 -8 p.m.
- December 12, 2017 - Winter Musical 1st and 2nd grade 6 p.m. in the Gym
- December 20 & 21, 2017 - Classroom Christmas Parties TBD
- December 21st - early release
- December 22 - January 8 - Christmas Break
Assistant Principal's Message
We have had a great start to an amazing school year at Brown! It is hard to believe it is almost time for Thanksgiving!
Below are some “nuggets” that are essential for readers. As adults we do these metacognitive strategies automatically as we read, but our students are being taught how to utilize them in their own reading for any subject and at any time.
Good readers use the following 7 Keys to unlock meaning:
Create mental images: Good readers create a wide range of visual, auditory, and other sensory images as they read, and they become emotionally involved with what they read.
Use background knowledge: Good readers use their relevant prior knowledge before, during, and after reading to enhance their understanding of what they’re reading.
Ask questions: Good readers generate questions before, during, and after reading to clarify meaning, make predictions, and focus their attention on what’s important.
Make inferences: good readers use their prior knowledge and information from what they read to make predictions, seek answers to questions, draw conclusions, and create interpretations that deepen their understanding of the text.
Determine the most important ideas or themes: Good readers identify key ideas or themes as they read, and they can distinguish between important and unimportant information.
Synthesize information: good readers track their thinking as it evolves during reading, to get the overall meaning.
Use fix up strategies: Good readers are aware of when they understand and when they don’t. If they have trouble understanding specific words, phrases, or longer passages, they use a wide range of problem-solving strategies including skipping ahead, rereading, asking questions, using a dictionary, and reading the passage aloud. Good readers use the same strategies whether they’re reading Reader’s Digest or a calculus textbook.
Excerpted from: 7 Keys to Comprehension: How to Help Your Kids Read It and Get it!
Thank you for all you do!
Mrs. Noble, Asst. Principal
Counselor's Corner
The second nine weeks will be spent focusing on Respect and Determination. Students will receive several lessons on what it means to be respectful at school and home, and to use their determination to solve problems and to learn through their persistence. Power Paws will continue to be rewarded for exhibiting these positive traits.
The week of November 27th all Kindergarten students will be taking the Cognitive Abilities Test in their classroom with their teacher.
Nurses Corner
If it is necessary that a medication be given during school hours, the following regulations must be followed:
Antibiotics or other medicines ordered to be given three times per day should be given before and after school and at bedtime.
- Medications must be brought to school by a parent/guardian in its original container with the appropriate label intact. Controlled medicines will be counted with the nurse.
- Parent/guardian must sign a permission slip granting the school nurse permission to administer medication according to regulations.
- It is the responsibility of the student to report to the designated area to take his/her medicine.
Ask your pharmacist for an extra bottle to be kept at school when you are bringing prescription medicine. Over the counter medicine must be brought in its original, sealed container. All unused medicine will be destroyed if not picked up by the parent by the last day of school
Pre K Spot Light
his nine weeks Pre-K will be covering the following: literacy-letters G-L,math- numbers 0-9, science- life cycles and energy, social studies-maps.
Events: Christmas Party December 21st at 10:30am.
Kindergarten
Language Arts - We will continue to work on identifying letters and the sounds they make. We will also begin applying those letter-sound relationships to begin reading simple words. Our Kindergarten students will explore the purpose for reading across different genres as well as work to further understand the purpose of reading and writing to communicate.
Math - We will continue adding and subtracting to both 5 and 10 as well as recognizing and representing the numbers 11-15. We will begin to explore gathering data to make graphs and reading graphs. We will also work on being able to count to 90.
Science - We will continue to explore Force, Energy, and Motion including how objects move, magnets, and positional words. We will also explore Earth materials such as rock, soil, and water. Finally, we will explore and observe different types of weather.
Social Studies - We will continue to work on our School community as well as our community, geography, and map
First Grade News
It’s hard to believe we are already starting our 2nd Nine weeks of school! Boy, does time fly by when you are busy at learning!! In Math this 9 weeks we will be working on addition and subtraction to 20 as well as building our place value skills with numbers up to 99. During Science we will be continuing our study of force, energy and motion, and will move to studying rocks, soil, and natural resources. In Social Studies we will continue our unit on voting and citizenship and will end the 9 weeks learning about maps and globes. We have been working hard in Writers Workshop developing our skills as we carry ideas across several pages to create a book. In Reading, we will focus on words with blends and long vowels. We will also look at compound words. In our Genre study, we will be learning about story elements and aspects of Poetry. This is a jam packed Nine Weeks, with fun filled Reader’s Theatres and engaging activities for our Firsties!
Second Grade News
We enjoyed starting the second nine weeks by leading Celebration for the first nine weeks with a Hollywood theme! We learned about being responsible students, and now our character trait is respect. In Language Arts we are responding to the author’s purpose in various genres. Parents, you are invited to our second Reader’s Theater that gives a humorous side to Thanksgiving on November 17. We are also becoming stronger problem solvers in mathematics, while focusing on adding and subtracting two and three-digit numbers with many different strategies, along with comparing 2D and 3D shapes, and understanding fractional parts. Your children are finishing a social studies unit about citizenship and then learning about our city, state, and national government. We are also investigating in science the topics of energy, force, and motion, and then earth materials and natural resources. Thank you, parents, for your help and support, and remember that you can contact your child’s teacher through Class Dojos or email on our WISD website.
Third Grade News
Third grade has a full nine weeks ahead of us. Our students are working so hard in all aspects of the day.
In Reading, students will examine the structure and features of a variety of expository text. Expository text provides the avenues to allow students to learn how to make inferences, draw conclusions, and provide textual evidence during their reading experiences. Students will continue to examine teacher-selected and self-selected literature based on individual interest and abilities providing opportunities to make important personal and world connections within and across different contents.
In Math, students will collect, organize, represent, and summarize a categorical data set with multiple categories using a frequency table, dot plot, pictograph, and bar graph with scaled intervals. Students will use their understandings of multiplication as the framework for developing an understanding of division. Students will use symbolic notation to describe fractions represented using concrete objects, pictorial models (including strip diagrams), and number lines.
In Science, students will investigate forces, including pushes, pulls, magnetism and gravity, and their effects on the motion of objects. Students will learn about forces of nature that shape the physical features of the Earth. They will investigate rapid changes to the Earth’s surface, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and landslides. They will explore and record how soils are formed by weathering of rock and the decomposition of plant and animal remains. Students will identify and compare landforms.
In Social Studies, students will study cultural celebrations and special events which celebrate the culture of an ethnic group. They will compare the similarities and differences of locale traditional celebrations with those of other cultural groups in Texas, the United States, and the World.
Fourth Grade News
Math and Science: This nine weeks we are covering division, geometry, and data representations. Please encourage your student to use strategies we are learning in class on their homework. If you have any questions, check out my classroom website. In Science we are investigating the types of energy. We will also learn about Earth and natural resources.
Reading and Social Studies: We are beginning Unit 3 in reading, which covers informational text. We will focus on nonfiction text features, as well as strategies for reading and understanding informational text. Please encourage your child to do their reading log every school night- this includes reading for 20 minutes and writing about/responding to what was read.
We are continuing to read Wonder by R.J. Palacio! We are learning about plot, theme, and character development as we read.
We are learning about European Exploration and Mission Life in social studies. We had a fantastic time learning about Texas at our 4th grade roundup.
Writing: We are beginning expository writing this nine weeks! Lots to learn and we've got some explaining to do! Lol! Thanks for a great first nine weeks.
In spelling we are focusing on prefixes... re- in- im- sub- , and some Greek and Latin roots.
Fifth Grade News
5th Grade ELAR
- Analyzing and drawing conclusions from persuasive texts using a variety of persuasive techniques
- Identifying the author's viewpoint/position in a text and understanding how the author chooses to persuade the audience
- Understanding and inferring informational/expository texts
- Analyzing the organization patterns of a text to show the relationship between ideas
- Using text features and visual graphics to deepen an understanding of a nonfiction text
- Continuing the study of language components and the writing process
5th Grade Social Studies
- A New Nation: Founding the United States of America
- An American Identity: Becoming the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave
- Migration Westward: Expanding the United States westward
5th Grade Math
Multiplication and division of problem situations with products and decimals to the hundredths with the use of concrete objects, pictorial models, and area models
Estimate to determine products and quotients, solve for products and quotients, and simplify numerical expressions that include multiplication and division of whole numbers and decimals
Develop fluency in adding and subtracting positive rational numbers, including fractions
Continue to simplify numerical expressions that involve adding and subtracting fractions with unequal denominators.
Investigate multiplying a whole number by a fraction as well as dividing a whole number by a unit fraction and a unit fraction by a whole number
Represent a product of whole number and a fraction referring to the same whole using concrete and pictorial models, including area models and strip diagrams
5th Grade Science
- Energy forms and functions
- Changes to the Earth's surface overtime
- Alternative energy sources
Spectacular Specials
Mrs. Taylor: We are off to a great start in computer. We will be focusing on typing more by learning finger placement on the home row and learning the basic keyboard functions. Students will also be able to challenge each other in math and language arts by using Education City.
Mrs. Struble: The library will be hosting the annual book fair Oct. 23-27. Family Night is Tuesday, Oct. 24 from 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. Grandparents’ Day is Thursday, Oct. 26 from 7:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. We will close Friday morning at 11:00 a.m.
Ms. Bryan: We will learn about the other half of the physical fitness equation as we talk about nutrition during the second nine weeks. We will be learning to jump rope, perform Tinikling (2nd-5th) patterns, and continue throwing, catching, kicking and trapping (K-1st). We will also play our favorite games of kickball. As always, we expect GREAT things out of our GREAT kids!
Mrs. Shaw: We have a lot of things going on in music this nine weeks. The kindergarten program, “Saddle Up and Sing!,” is Tuesday night, October 24, at 6:00 p.m. in the gym. Our 5th grade students will be performing at the Veteran’s Day program on Friday, November 10. The Pre-K program, “Gobble, Gobble”, is Thursday, November 16. Finally, the 1st and 2nd grade winter musical is Tuesday, December 12, at 6:00 p.m. in the gym.