Brilliant Bear Bulletin
Baltz Elementary School * February 2019 * Volume 5
BALTZ
Believing
Achieving
Learning and
Team Building with
Zeal (Great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or objective)
School News
Please see below for a number of important upcoming dates:
Feb 13th: Last day for After School Clubs (Session One)
Feb 14th: Evening parent conferences
Feb 15th: No school (Parent conferences)
Feb 18th: No school (Presidents' Day)
Feb 21st: BPO Mother/Son Dance
Feb 22nd: PBS Character Day
Feb 26th: First day for After School Clubs (Session Two)
Mar 1st: NUT (No Uniform Today) Day
Mar 6th: BPO Meeting 6-7pm
We LOVE Reading!
As Reading Specialists, we work not only to help students improve their reading skills, but also to help them grow to love reading. We asked our 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders to share what they love about reading. Here are some of their responses:
I love to read when I go to sleep because when you read to yourself it makes you calm. -Ronnie H.
I love to read because it makes me learn better. -N'kaila I.
I love to read anytime. -Leia W.
I love to read scary stuff when I'm super bored. -Jose C.
I love Miss Kelly's books, shark books, and dog books because shark books make you an expert at sharks and Miss Kelly's books are fun. I like dog books because dogs are cool and nice. -Elias H.
I love Dogman books because they are interesting and funny. -Erik P.
I love to read Native American books because I love to learn about how they live. -Mariah C.
I love Wonder because it is relaxing. -Abril V.
I love to read because it gets your mind working. -Rafael V.
I love to read when it is peaceful and at the beach. -Makenzie G.
I love to read because books help me practice other words that I don't know and they help other people do the same thing. -Sophia S
-The Reading Specialist Team & Some of Baltz’s Best
Unified Arts/Specials
Jumping through the Winter in PE
Since our return from break, students in grades 2-5 have been working on building their jump roping skills. We have been working on strengthening their basic jumping by practicing and adding various challenges. Student’s tried to see how many jumps they could do in a row as well as seeing how long they could jump for.
Along with mastering the basic bounce, students have tried various jump roping skills. We have added jumping jacks, 1 foot hop, cross, and the pretzel to their challenge list. While these skills are still developmental for most, they have enjoyed the challenge of trying different things rather than just jumping over the rope. They have also mastered some rope skills like side swings, full twist and walk the dog.
At the beginning of February, Kindergarten and first grade began working with the jump ropes. They will practice more on becoming familiar with jump roping and developing their basic bounce. They excitement that they get from being successful with jumping rope is priceless!
In February, Healthy Heart Monthy, students in all grades will be participating in the American Heart Association's Kids Heart Challenge. Students will learn about healthy habits and the importance of being activit. Please be watching for information coming home regarding this.
Kindergarten
Hi Kindergarten Families!
We are excited to kick off the month of February and dive deeper into our ELA curriculum to begin learning about word families. This will help your child to read more fluently, as they blend the sounds of letters they have learned!
In our Science unit titled “Push, Pull, Go” we will learn about Force and Motion by building using K’NEX building sets. In Math, our mathematicians are continuing to practice addition and subtraction. We are introducing strategies to solve story problems such as circling the numbers within each problem.
During our Second Step lessons we are practicing strategies to manage strong feelings such as taking deep “belly breaths” to help us remain calm.
Special Notes: We will be celebrating the 100th Day of School this month!
Conferences will be scheduled shortly as Marking Period 2 report cards will be distributed.
Thank you for your continued support and we are looking forward to a Fabulous February!
First Grade
Fabulous First Grade
Wow! We cannot believe January has come and gone already! Our students have been working so hard at learning phonics skills such as long vowels, r-controlled vowels, and inflected endings. They have been doing a great job at applying those skills to their reading! In January, first graders also took the Dibels assessment to see how much they have grown since September. Be sure to check report cards to see how many WPM (Words Per Minute) your child is reading in the classroom. First graders are also busy being mathematicians and scientists as well. They have been solving problems with tens and ones in math and we just began our science unit about solids and liquids. We can’t wait to see what February brings!
For updates on what is happening in the first grade classrooms, follow the first grade teachers' twitter accounts:
Miss Trate- twitter.com/MissTrate
Miss Cherico- twitter.com/MissCherico
Miss Flowers- twitter.com/Miss_Flowers109
Mrs. Whiteside- twitter.com/MrsEWhiteside
Second Grade
2nd graders are working so hard to get ready for 3rd grade! After seeing all the midyear assessment information, we are very excited about all of the growth that our students have made in math and reading. Being respectful, responsible and ready in the classroom helps us to make good use of our time. In reading, we are focusing on instruction that will give students the skills to read longer passages, answer more in-depth questions and give quality answers. In math, we are focusing on solving word problems that are more complex. Ask your students about our "CUBES" word problem solving steps. We have been working on explaining the different strategies we us for solving problems. We are continuing to strengthen our fact fluency for addition and subtraction. In writing, all 2nd graders are beginning to write their persuasive pieces while focusing on each step of the writing process. Please continue to have your child read at home and practice basic math facts. This is really helpful and positively impacts their success. Please contact us if you have any questions or would like to talk about your 2nd grader's academic growth.
Thanks for all you do to help us get all these kiddos ready for 3rd grade!
Please follow us on Twitter!
Ms. Fuentes: https://twitter.com/missfuentes_213
Mrs. Klink: https://twitter.com/Klink215
Mrs. Mauchin: https://twitter.com/mrsmauchin
Mrs. Simmons: https://twitter.com/AndreaOReilly6
Third Grade
Hello Baltz Parents. We just sent home report cards at the beginning of the month and will be having parent conferences on the 14th so be on the lookout for conference forms coming home. It is also going to be Valentines Day this month. Not every class will be doing the same thing so if you have any questions please contact your child’s teacher.
In class we are continuing to work through our reading books. The unit we are reading this month has stories that talk about what it means to be unique. We will be focusing on the skills of comparing and contrasting, making generalizations, and identifying the main idea of a text. In Math we are finishing our unit on measurement. We will be working with graphs for the next week or two and then moving on to multi-digit addition and subtraction.
As always please read with your kids as much as you can and continue practicing their multiplication and division facts with them.
Mr. Glanden, Mrs. Ellis, Mrs. Staropoli, Mrs. Zuniga, and Mrs. Carr
Fourth Grade
Our Fabulous Fourth Grade welcomes February with BPO’S awesome “Candy Grams” during
the week of Monday, February 4 through Friday, February 8. It’s parent conference time so be on the lookout for a notice from your child’s teacher for either Thursday, February 14 or Friday, February 15. Your child’s teacher will send conference requests to you to confirm date and time.
School will be closed on Monday, February 18, 2019 in honor of President’s Day. Our exciting
Mother/Son Dance will be on Thursday, February 21.
In math students are working on division and soon will be moving on to fractions. Working with your child on multiplication will help with their fluency of division. In reading we will be working on reading and comprehending informational text, applying our context clues with vocabulary, and creating an “infographic” which helps students to understand and visualize textual information. In Social Studies we will continue to learn about multiple explorers to the New world and the struggles they had.
Some of our fourth graders will be busy with ACCess Testing in early February, as well as
NAEP testing. It is a busy learning month and fourth graders are motivated and ready to do their best in order to reach their academic goals.
Fifth Grade
The second marking period has come to an end. It is hard to believe that we are at the half-way point of the school year. Fifth grade has many exciting things coming up over the next few months. This is the second year the entire grade will participate in the Living History Museum. Each class will focus on a different subject area and the students will present information on their assigned person. We are looking forward to this event. There are also a few trips planned. Our students will visit the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. They will be able to apply what we have learned about the Bill of Rights and also participate in several live simulations during this trip. Information on trips and other activities is sent out three to four weeks in advance. Be on the lookout for permission slips and other information about upcoming events. We would love to have parent volunteers for trips and activities. Please consider helping out when you can. We appreciate your continued support.
Sincerely,
Ms. Hattley, Mrs. Loughrey, Mrs. Munoz and Mrs. Watkins
The Fifth Grade Team
Follow Us Online!
Email: amy.oneill@redclay.k12.de.us
Website: https://de01903704.schoolwires.net/baltz
Location: 1500 Spruce Avenue, Wilmington, DE, USA
Phone: 302-992-5560
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BaltzBears/
Twitter: @baltzbears