Central Primary School
November Newsletter
A Note from the Office
It is hard to believe that we are getting close to the end of our first quarter here at Central Primary School. We are honored to be part of your child's education whether it be in blended learning or fully remote. Be sure to get signed up for a Parent/Teacher Conference so you can hear about all of your students' learning so far.
- CPS Picture Retakes: Monday, Nov. 2nd and Wednesday, Nov. 4th
- No School: Election Day, Tuesday Nov. 3rd
- End of 1st Quarter: Friday, Nov. 6th
- Beginning of 2nd Quarter: Monday, Nov. 9th
- Report Cards Available via Skyward: Friday, Nov. 13th
- No School: Remote Planning Day: Monday, Nov. 16th
- Vision/Hearing Screening: Tuesday, Nov. 17th-Friday, Nov. 20th
- Parent/Teacher Conferences: Monday, Nov. 23rd 12:00pm-8:00pm
- Parent/Teacher Conferences: Tuesday, Nov. 24th 8:00am-1:00pm
- No School: Wednesday, Nov. 25th-Friday, Nov. 27th
Please remember to keep your students home if they are exhibiting any COVID related symptoms. See the Central School District 51 COVID-19 Guidelines below.
PTO Update- Mrs. Stephanie Redlingshafer
Social Emotional Learning Corner- Ms. Gail Massa
Miss Massa wrapped up her October classroom lessons this week. October’s counseling lesson focused on the different emotions and how to identify feelings.
This month’s focus will be on kindness. November 13th is World Kindness Day. World Kindness Day is a “global day that promotes the importance of being kind to each other, to yourself, and to the world”. This day has the purpose to “help everyone understand that compassion for others is what binds us all together”. Being kind can improve mental health, too! Read more below:
Why Random Acts of Kindness Matter to Your Well-Being
How Does Kindness Affect Your Mental Health?
Interested in even more resources on a variety of topics? Check out the Central 51 Counseling website:
Interventionist Corner- Mrs. Kris Mertens and Mrs. Breanna Guse
We are now on a roll this year and really spent some time getting to know the kids. We have met with all teachers and discussed who might need some additional support in the classroom.
Math goals with intervention students has a main focus of Number Sense. What this means is I will be looking at their ability to compose and decompose numbers and utilize strategies to help with facts. The depth and focus of this changes with each grade level individual student.
Reading goals for intervention are mostly focused on reading text accurately and recognizing when mistakes are made (we call this self-monitoring and self-correcting). The specifics of these goals are dependent on the student.
If your student was discussed at our teacher meetings, you would have received a phone call from your classroom teacher. Teachers should be following up with you regarding decisions for intervention, if they have not already. If your student was not chosen to receive intervention, our intervention team will meet with their teacher to discuss classroom interventions. As an intervention team, we will then check in on their progress and support the teacher in their interventions as needed.
We would like to provide some activities over the course of the year that you can work on with your child in a fun way at home.
Math Activity for Fun
Number Top-It is an easy to play and fun math card game which teaches kids number recognition, comparing numbers and you can also throw some fact fluency in this game to continue to make it challenging for all ages and levels. You play it similar to a WAR game. Kindergarteners can work just on single digits, 1st graders can add the 2 cards together and see who has the higher amount, 2nd grades can make 2-digit numbers and compare and 3rd graders can multiply the cards together to see whose product is greater. All you need is a deck of cards, which I bet you already have. Card games are a great, low stress way to practice math skills with your kids. You get a little quality family time as well as helping your kids learn their math facts.
Reading Activity for Fun
Sight words are an important part of reading. You can work with students on recognizing sight words at home. You can turn any game into sight word game by making your student read a sight word before they are able to move. For instance, if you are playing Chutes and Ladders, spin the dial, then have players read a sight before they are able to move their spaces. If you are not sure of what sight words your child should be working on, feel free to reach out to me or your child’s teacher.
CPS Library Update- Mrs. Katie Mann
SCHOLASTIC BOOK FAIR
Thank you for supporting our Fall Book Fair and making it a memorable experience for students!
Over 1,000 books were sold!
Happy reading Central kids, and we'll see you at our next Fair!
Visit the CPS Library website at:
https://sites.google.com/central51.net/cpslibrary/home
DESTINY DISCOVER
With Destiny Discover, you can view the wide selection of books that our Central Primary school library has to offer! You can also check your student’s account to see if they have returned their library books!
Our library’s website has several slideshows that take you step-by-step on how to use Destiny Discover and access all of its features!
A little Note from music class…. Mrs. Kathryn Cunningham
We are well into our school year, we have found our groove in music class. Here is a bit of what each grade level has been up to in music class.
Kindergarten has been learning that beat is the heartbeat of music. They have also learned about their own personal instrument- their voice. We have had fun learning fall songs and moving to music .
1st Grade students have been learning how to organize our beats into measures. They have been focusing on learning to hear and feel the strong and weak beats. We have also had fun learning our Halloween songs.
2nd Grade students have learned how to identify the meter of a song by listening to the strong and weak beats.
3rd Grade students have started to learn how to read the treble clef staff and are learning the note names of the lines and spaces.
Also we have a college student that has been joining music class on Group 1 days. He would like to introduce himself.
Hello Parents!
My name is Noah Hire and I’m a novice teacher from Bradley. I’ve been working with Mrs. Cunningham since the term started and just wanted to let you know how much I have been enjoying and how valuable it has been for me to be working with your children! They’re teaching me just as much as my classes at Bradley and I am super excited to continue working with them throughout the semester. Thank you so much!
Noah Hire
Art Corner- Ms. Lacey Gleason
Coming soon!!! Student's Art to Remember artwork has shipped! Please be on the lookout for these order forms coming home in your student’s folder soon. All orders will be online and we will not be taking any money orders this year, thank you for your understanding. The order deadline is Friday, November 13th. Thank you for your continued support!
In the classroom - Kindergarten is working on shape and line. We are building Frankenstein in our art lab! First grade is exploring line, texture, and color with Texture Pumpkins. Second grade is in the middle of an artist study on Georgia O’Keeffe. We will be starting a O’Keeffe Skull project next week! Ask your second grader to tell you a fun fact that they learned about Georgia O’Keeffe! Third graders are studying the artist Pablo Picasso. We will be creating our Witchcasso drawing and looking at things through Picasso’s eyes! Ask your third graders if they know – How many names Pablo Picasso had?
Miss Gleason
PE- Mr. Chris Dalberg
With the weather starting to turn we have been inside more often and have been utilizing our new projector and sound system in the new CPS gym. We have been using body weight strength training, yoga and just dance to continue working on students fitness and flexibility. Our primary focus is to continue to promote different activities for the students to be active and heart healthy. Just a reminder that when participating in PE class students need to have tennis shoes that tie, velcro and stay on their feet. With the lower temperatures, rain or snow students will need to bring a change of shoes if they wear boots to school.
Technology with Mr. Robert Deatherage
A few things to remind your children of, please do not eat and then use dirty hands on the Chromebooks and if you are transporting water to school do NOT leave it right next to the Chromebook. These devices are very hard to dry out and require immediate attention if we want to have a chance to save it. Thank you for your help with this. If you need Chromebook help, do not forget about techsupport@central51.net to have your Chromebook needs addressed. This Google site, CPS Online Resources, contains most but likely not all of the resources we are utilizing both in the classroom and at home.
Mr. Deatherage
Central Primary School
Website: central51.net
Location: 1400 Newcastle Road, Washington, IL, USA
Phone: 309-444-3580