Stoney Creek News
Growing Kind Hearts & Minds While Inspiring Personal Success
From the Principal
Dear Families,
We are officially half way through this school year. We can't thank you all enough for the work you do at home and the support you provide our staff and students. Our Watch Dogs are going strong and showing up to make our lunch room and playground much safer, as well as encouraging our community of learners to build healthy relationships.
Staff worked very hard on Friday in our Professional Development to build groups of students for our reading blocks to meet the diverse needs of each student with the abundance of resources this district has been gifted. That also includes teaching to the above benchmark students to move them further along our continuum. Thank you for the gift of time to process with our grade levels as you entertained your children for the 1/2 day. We understand half days aren't always convenient on families, so THANK YOU! Our Para Educators and itinerant staff met with our Kent ISD coaches to discuss behaviors and following our PBIS model for positive supports in all situations. They had an incredible experience with highly trained behavior specialists. We are excited about implementing all the learning Monday!
Our Talks with Tiffany is coming this week and we will discuss some behavior and mental wellness this time. Please join me and other parents for this topic.
Cub Club is also coming up next week and all of our students will be in groups of 10 and will do an activity with their leader that pertains to our Habit #1- Be Proactive. Ask your child what was their favorite part on Friday :)
Educationally yours,
Tiffany Jackson, Principal
School Closings
Spring Pictures
2nd Grade Music Notes
Talks with Tiffany
Kindergarten 2020-2021
Building Healthy Communities Update: Cold Weather Fun
Although the warmer fall weather has long faded away, you and your child can stay active and get moving indoors! Try acting out a story that you and your child have read together. Create an obstacle course to get your child moving and have a fun time indoors. Or move the activity outdoors with sledding, skating, building a snow person or even shoveling snow. Winter is also a great time to cook soup with your child.
Music Notes
Music students can practice musical standards with some games through: https://musicplayonline.com/student-login/
username: snow
password: 2020
Also, encourage your student to utilize my symbaloo page at: http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/mrshitesmusic
Finally, mark your calendars for our 2nd grade show on May 5 at 6:00 p.m. at Comstock Park High School!
Healthy Kids Club Notes
As a part of Stoney Creek’s participation in the Building Healthy Communities Program we will be starting an afterschool program open to all K-2 students on February 3rd. This program will add to our efforts in creating a school-wide focus on health, which is already occurring in our classrooms, on our playground and in our gym!
This afterschool program offers a free safe, supervised and noncompetitive setting where students can learn about healthy eating and be physically active with friends while practicing
making healthy choices!
Please see the flyer here and permission slip here.
Tech Notes
Phonological Awareness - Part 1
You may have heard elementary teachers use the term, “phonological awareness.” What are teachers talking about when they use this term?
Phonological awareness is the ability to hear, isolate, and manipulate sounds. Rhyming words is one type of phonological awareness. Another is identifying words with the same beginning sounds or the same ending sounds. It does not actually require any print. While it may not sound important, phonological awareness plays a critical role in learning to read. It helps children learn to recognize similarities and differences in words; to automatically read different words in a word family; to spell words accurately. This is not something just for kindergarten. Phonological awareness skills should continue to develop and progress each year!
How can you help at home? Phonological awareness activities are simple to do because they require no print or materials. You can practice them in the car, at the store, or when you’re doing other chores at home. Try some of the activities listed below. If one activity is easy - or too difficult - for your child, move down the list to try another level. Make sure they are short and fun; avoid allowing your child to get frustrated. In the next newsletter, I’ll suggest a few more activities for you to try!
Clap and count words in a sentence
You say a short sentence, then your child repeats the sentence, clapping for each word. How many words in the sentence?
e.g . “The brown dog barked.” Child repeats sentence, clapping along...4 claps.
Clap and count syllables in words
You say some single and mixed syllable words, then your child repeats each word, clapping for each syllable. How many syllables in each word?
e.g. chap-ter (2 syllables); pen-al-ty (3 syllables); top (1 syllable)
Rhyming words
You can say two words and have your child determine whether or not they rhyme.
e.g. Tape-shape (yes); tape-floor (no); tape-top (no...they begin with the same sound but they don’t rhyme)
You can say a word and have your child think of a word that rhymes.
e.g. You say dog...your child could say any rhyming word, such as log, hog, frog. If your child says a nonsense word that rhymes (rog)...it’s not a real word, is it? But, yes, it does rhyme.
Read books with rhymes. Teach your child rhymes, short poems, and songs.
Nursery Rhymes: Mother Goose rhymes can be fun to recite and sing. You can sing the rhymes, read nursery rhyme books, and use finger plays to act out a rhyme (i.e. The Itsy Bitsy Spider). Ask your child to tell you the rhyming words they hear in the nursery rhyme.
Sing Songs with Rhymes. Have your child figure out which words rhyme.
Mid-Winter Break - No School February 17 & 18, 2020
Upcoming Events
January
28 Talks with Tiffany @ 10:00 a.m.
February
14 Valentine's Day Parties
17 & 18 No School
25 PTO Meeting @ Pine Island
March
5 Spring Pictures
13 1/2 Day of School Dismissal at 12:05 p.m.
17 Parent Teacher Conferences
19 Parent Teacher Conferences
23-26 Hearing & Vision Screening
25 Kindergarten Screening & Round Up
26 Kindergarten Screening & Round Up
31 Talks with Tiffany
April
3-10 No School Spring Break
May 25 – No School
June 3 – ½ Day of School
June 4 – ½ Day of School, Last Day of School