From the Desk of Mr. Yoshida
Birdneck Elementary March 4, 2018
UPCOMING EVENTS
March 5-10
School Social Worker Week/Natl.School Breakfast Week
March 6 - Kindergarten Vision/Hearing ScreeningMarch 7 - SCA meeting 3:00-4:15
March 8 - Innovation Night/Ice Cream Social 6:00-7:30 pm and Book Fair Preview
March 11-16
National Girl Scout Week
March 12-16 - Book Fair open
March 13 - March Madness: Donuts with Dad's 7:45 am in our cafeteria
March 15 - Book Fair Family Night 4:00-6:00
March 15 - Parent Connection Workshop at Corporate Landing MS 6:30-8:00
March 18-24
National Poison Prevention Week
March 22 - Grade 2 Fieldtrip to Sandler Center
March 22 - PTA Executive Board Meeting 5:00pm
March 22 - (Change in Date) General PTA meeting/Spring Musical 6:00pm
March 24 - Kindergarten Francis Land House Fieldtrip
March 27 - Grade 4 IPT testing
March 29 - End of Quarter 3
March 29 - Lifetouch Spring Pictures
March 30 - Staff Day: No School for Students
*****SPRING BREAK: APRIL 2-6*****
A MESSAGE FROM YOUR PRINCIPAL
Hello Birdneck Community,
Spring is just around the corner and we are excited about the success of our students at Birdneck Elementary. We have been focusing on academics and social emotional learning with the support from our teachers and community. We were fortunate to have Master Lee join us last week. On Monday, we sent home a flyer with a video link from Master Lee sharing ways we can work together to build reationships between home, school, and the community to help our students grow. I hope you were able to bring your child to his studio at Joonbi Taekwondo on Saturday to receive your childs next belt. Master Lee infused discipline, respect and goal setting with students as he taught them taekwondo with Mr. White in PE class. This is aligned with PBIS in our school as we teach Safety, Ownership, Attitude and Respect (SOAR Behaviors). The discipline procedures that we have been focusing on are student/child centered causing students to take ownership and responsibility of their own actions. Master Lee has some great suggestions about how to shape behavior with students. If you did not have the opportunity to view his video, I included it below for your convenience.
Safety is our number one priority! We are now implementing our access control system and are locking our doors during the school day. All visitors are to enter through the front of our school building and are to check in with our security assistant. While we may know you by face, it is important to still check in with Mrs. Hinson and have your ID scanned. Our staff are required to question all visitors without a badge or printed visitor sticker and will ask them to return to the security desk to sign in. Many of you may have heard about rumors and threats that have occured in middle schools and high-schools the past couple of weeks. VBCPS and our local authorities take all threats seriously, whether the threat is verbal or in writing. As shared on the news, students have been arrested for such actions; dire school consequences may also occur for threats of violence or other harmful actions. This is a great reminder for us to work with elementary students on the appropriate use of social media and the impact of what they post can have on others and themselves. Mr. Dzendzel, our instructional technology specialist, has been sharing information and lessons on digital citizenship with our students. Please view the VBCPS internet safety tips below.
Below you will also find our 3rd quarter objectives. Our students continue to improve academically and data from our quarterly assessments shows that we are rising up when compared to other schools. Our teachers have been focusing on differentiating for each student in small group instruction. As students complete their assessments teachers have been anaylizing data and planning remediation and enrichment.
Our students have been fortunate to learn in our Innovation Lab this year and are proud of the work they have done. Students are eager to share what they have been creating, learning and sharing with one another with you on Thursday night combined with our Ice Cream Social and Innovation Night on March 8, 2018 from 6:00-7:30. I hope you can join us to see the AMAZING things our kids are doing.
Have an amazing day,
R.V. Yoshida
DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP - SAFETY TIPS
Basics of Internet Safety
- Keep the computer in a high-traffic area of your home.
- Establish limits for which online sites children may visit and for how long.
- Remember that Internet technology can be mobile, so make sure to monitor cell phones, gaming devices and laptops.
- Surf the Internet with your children and let them show you what they like to do online.
- Know who is connecting with your children online and set rules for social networking, instant messaging, e-mailing, online gaming and using webcams.
- Continually dialogue with your children about online safety.
Blogging
- Establish guidelines with your child before allowing him or her to blog, such as reviewing your child's blogs before posting.
- Ensure that your child is using privacy settings.
- Have your child remove any identifying information from all postings—full names, ages, locations, phone numbers and school names.
- Caution your child about the dangers of posting inappropriate or provocative information or images. Once something is posted online, it cannot be taken back.
- Encourage your child to come to you if anything on the blog site makes him or her feel uncomfortable.
Signs an online predator may be connecting with your child
- Your child becomes withdrawn and isolated from family and friends.
- You find inappropriate material on the computer.
- Your child receives mail, money or gifts from unknown people.
- You see unknown phone numbers when reviewing the phone bill.
Cyberbullying
- Tell your child not to respond to rude e-mails, messages and comments.
- Save the evidence, such as e-mail and text messages and take screenshots of comments and images. Also, take note of the date and time when the harassment occurs.
- Contact your Internet service provider (ISP) or cell phone provider. Ask the website administrator or ISP to remove any Web page created to hurt your child.
- If harassment is via e-mail, social networking sites, IM and chat rooms, instruct your child to "block" bullies or delete your child's current account and open a new one.
- If harrassment is via text and phone messages, change the phone number and instruct your child to only share the new number with trustworthy people. Also, check out phone features that may allow the number to be blocked.
- Get your child's school involved. Learn the school's policy on cyberbullying and urge administrators to take a stance against all forms of bullying.
- Make a report to www.cybertipline.com and if you feel something illegal has occurred, inform law enforcement.
Help children stay safer online
- Know who your child is communicating with online.
- Open a family e-mail account to share with younger children.
- Work with your child to brainstorm screennames and e-mail addresses that do not contain information about gender, identity or location and that avoid being suggestive.
- Teach your child never to open e-mails from unknown senders and to use settings on IM programs to block messages from people they do not know.
- Be aware of other ways your child may be going online - with cell phones, laptops or from friends' homes or the library.
- Tell your child not to share passwords with anyone but you to help avoid identity theft and cyberbullying.
- Familiarize yourself with popular acronyms at sites like www.netlingo.com and www.noslang.com/.
3rd Quarter Literacy Focus
KINDERGARTEN:
The following priority objectives will be the areas of focus this quarter:
• Retell familiar stories using beginning, middle and end.
• Identify simple facts and information relevant to the topic in a nonfiction selection.
• Write in a variety of forms, including writing to inform/explain, to offer an opinion and to narrate an experience (personal narrative).
When entering classrooms, observers might see students engaged in reading, writing/drawing and discourse centered around retelling stories
using beginning, middle and end and identifying topics and facts in nonfiction texts. Students should be expressing ideas in complete
sentences and taking turns discussing one topic. Observers should see students asking and answering questions about what is read and using
story language when discussing characters, setting and events. When writing and responding to reading, students should use letters and beginning consonant sounds to spell phonetically. Students should be referencing and using words from a word wall to support writing and using capitalization and ending punctuation.
FIRST GRADE:
The following priority objectives will be the areas of focus this quarter:
• Retell stories and events using beginning, middle and end, including key details.
• Retell nonfiction texts, identifying the main idea and important details.
• Identify the main idea or theme.
• Generate ideas and write in a variety of forms, including writing to inform/explain, to offer an opinion and to narrate an experience
(personal narrative) focusing on one topic.
When entering classrooms, observers should see students engaged in reading, writing (including editing/revising) and discourse focused on
retelling both fiction and nonfiction texts, and asking and answering questions about reading and writing. Students should be using text
features to enhance their understanding of nonfiction texts, not simply identifying features. Observers should see students writing about what
they are reading and recording important information in graphic organizers.
SECOND GRADE:
The following priority objectives will be the areas of focus this quarter:
• Draw conclusions based on the text.
• Identify the main idea and important details.
• Summarize a nonfiction reading selection using important details.
• Explain the author’s purpose.
• Write in a variety of forms, including writing to inform/explain, to offer an opinion and to narrate an experience (personal narrative) and revise for clarity.
Students will continue to build on and apply their knowledge of
reading strategies to increase comprehension of text. In fiction, the focus will be on drawing conclusions to identify main idea/theme and make inferences about characters. In nonfiction texts, students will analyze text to explain the author’s purpose, draw conclusions, identify
main idea and summarize.
THIRD GRADE:
The following priority objectives will be the areas of focus for this quarter:
• Make, confirm, or revise predictions in fiction text.
• Draw conclusions and make inferences about fiction text.
• Identify the main idea or theme and supporting details in various texts.
• Identify the author’s purpose in both fiction and nonfiction.
• Ask and answer questions about what is read in nonfiction text.
• Determine important information to support main idea, opinions and conclusions in nonfiction.
• Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to the task, purpose and audience with a focus on functional writing and a performance-based assessment.
• Revise writing for clarity of content using specific vocabulary and information.
When entering classrooms, observers should see instruction focused on the application of reading strategies in both fiction and nonfiction.
Scaffolded instruction using the gradual release model should be evident through the use of think-alouds, graphic organizers and frequent
opportunities for guided and independent practice in a wide variety of texts, including text related to the content topics of American Society,
Rome and Simple Machines. Fiction instruction should be centered around drawing conclusions and theme, and in nonfiction the focus should
be questioning and determining importance to support main idea, opinions and conclusions.
FOURTH GRADE:
The following priority objectives will be the focus for this quarter:
• Identify and explain author’s purpose.
• Determine important information to support main idea, opinions and conclusions.
• Summarize during and after reading and include supporting details in fiction and nonfiction texts.
• Identify the main idea in fiction and nonfiction texts.
• Ask and answer questions while reading fiction and nonfiction text.
• Describe character development in fiction text.
• Write expository text including function text.
• Generate opinion-based and persuasive writing.
• Gather information from multiple sources.
• Edit and revise writing for content clarity.
Students should be reading, writing and engaging in discourse daily. While reading, students should be stopping to think about text, asking questions, drawing conclusions about the author’s purpose and summarizing using graphic organizers. All students should have access to a wide variety of appropriate fiction and nonfiction resources. Students will be engaged in daily writing (shared, guided and/or independent).
During Units 5 and 6, students will write in a variety of forms, including functional texts and opinion-based essays. Additionally, the science and social studies content units may be explored through the lens of language arts by reading content-rich texts, determining importance and summarizing. Communication, media, reading and writing objectives will also be addressed through Being a Writer lessons and assessments.
FIFTH GRADE:
The following priority objectives will be the focus for the first quarter:
• Summarize during and after reading and include supporting details.
• Draw conclusions and make inferences from text.
• Describe how an author’s choice of vocabulary contributes to the author’s style.
• Identify structural patterns in nonfiction.
• Determine important information to support main idea, opinions and conclusions.
• Identify the main idea or theme in various texts.
• Understand and apply knowledge of text structure.
• Explain the author’s purpose.
• Write expository text.
• Edit and revise writing for clarity of content and publish a writing piece to share with an audience of peers.
When entering classrooms, observers should see students engaged in reading, writing and discourse related to the priority objectives of questioning, drawing conclusions, determining importance and explaining author’s purpose. Students should engage in close reading to draw conclusions and answer text-dependent questions. Independent literacy tasks will be differentiated for students.
Quarter 3 Math Focus
Kindergarten:
Students will begin the quarter by gathering, displaying and answering questions about data. After this unit, students will continue practice with counting to 100. In addition, students will decompose numbers less than or equal to ten in multiple ways and will compose and decompose numbers 11 to 19 throughout their numeration unit. Next, kindergarten students will begin their measurement unit. Here, they will identify coins and will count collections of pennies and/or nickels up to ten cents. Students will use digital and analog clocks to tell time to the hour. They will also explore measurement tools and make comparisons for length, height, weight and temperature.
Grade One:
In the data unit, students will investigate and interpret data using tables, picture graphs and object graphs. Next, students will begin their first measurement unit with counting and writing the value of a collection of coins up to 100 cents. Students will use clocks to tell time in hours and half hours and will extend their knowledge of the calendar. Next, students will begin to explore rational numbers. Students will identify and represent fractions for halves, fourths and thirds using both region and set models.
Grade Two:
Students will begin their study of measurement. Here, they will count and compare collections of coins and appropriately use the cent symbol (₵), the dollar symbol ($) and the decimal point (.) when writing the value of those sets. Students will explore time, read temperature on thermometers and apply their understanding of calendars. Next, students will extend their understanding of whole number computation from the second quarter. Here they will solve problems with or without regrouping and will use tables, picture graphs and bar graphs to solve one- and two-step addition and subtraction problems. The concept of multiplication will be introduced, but only as repeated addition.
Grade Three:
In this quarter, students will continue their study of geometry. Here, they will compare and contrast plane and solid geometric figures and describe the concept of congruence. After geometry, students will explore rational numbers. Here, they will name, write and model fractions, improper fractions and mixed numbers. Students will use models to make comparisons between fractions. Models will also be used as students begin to add and subtract fractions with like denominators.
Grade Four:
Students will continue their unit on rational number numeration followed by rational number computation. Students will solve both single- and multi-step problems involving addition and subtraction with fractions and decimals. Upon completion of this unit, students will begin their study of measurement. Here, they will extend upon their previous knowledge of elapsed time in hours and minutes within a 12-hour period. Students will also estimate and measure length, mass and liquid volume. Students will explore equivalent units of measure between units within the U.S. customary system and the metric system.
Grade Five:
During this quarter, the measurement unit will have students working to identify equivalent measurements within the metric system. Time will be spent differentiating among perimeter, area and volume and this understanding will be applied when solving for each. In addition, students will extend previous knowledge of elapsed time in hours and minutes within a 24-hour period. After the measurement unit, students will begin to explore variables, expressions and equations. Here, students will learn about and apply their understanding of the order of operations, become introduced to variables and model one-step linear equations.
3rd Quarter Social Studies and Science Focus
Kindergarten:
Science/Social Studies — Students investigate plants and animals, including classifying objects as living and nonliving, describing life needs and simple changes in life cycles. Students should also demonstrate an understanding of geography using positional words and identifying the elements and purposes of maps and globes.
First Grade:
Science/Social Studies — Students investigate plant characteristics, including needs and functions of parts. Students also distinguish between past, present and future by describing how people of the past made decisions that affected their communities.
Second Grade:
Science — Students investigate characteristics of magnets, including describing the reaction of the poles, comparing natural and artificial magnets and identifying important
applications of magnets in everyday life.
Social Studies — Students demonstrate knowledge and understanding of life in ancient Egypt, including location and physical features, the relationship between resources and economic activities and contributions.
Third Grade:
Science — Students investigate simple machines, including describing their functions and identifying them in everyday life.
Social Studies — Students demonstrate knowledge and understanding of life in ancient Rome long ago.
Fourth Grade:
Science/Social Studies —Students investigate the structure of Earth and how the surface is constantly changing, including major layers, plate tectonic boundaries, the rock cycle, weathering, erosion, deposition and the study of fossils.
Fifth Grade:
Science — Students investigate the application of basic sound and light concepts and the vital characteristics of cells.
Social Studies — Students demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the influence of key Virginia documents in the political development of the United States and life in Virginia during and after the Civil War.
Join our PTA
Support Birdneck Elementary students by joining the PTA. Our PTA is AMAZING! We collaborate together to create opportunities for our students and community to learn and have fun in the process. Don't miss out on the benefits from joining the PTA. Receive over $300 in savings... all for just $5 for a membership. Check out the PTA website at http://birdneckpta.weebly.com/
Our goal is to have 100% participation!!!!!!!!!
Ten Marks
We will be using TenMarks, an online math program to provide your child with opportunities for additional math practice.
On TenMarks, your child can practice and master math concepts one topic at a time. They can work on assignments that their teacher makes or choose to practice on their own anytime. While they are practicing, your child will have access to hints if they get stuck, as well as a short video tutorial if they need more detailed explanation.
Teachers have set up your child with their own individual account. Students can access Ten Marks from any computer or tablet to continue working on the program at their own pace. Teachers can monitor and review your child's progress, assign work, and give them feedback.
For students to access the digital resources from home, they should go to https://clever.com/in/vbcps, and click “Log in with Active Directory.”
Students will be prompted to provide their username and password. Your child’s username is his/her lunch number. If your child does not remember his/her password, please contact your child’s teacher.
Login: Student#
Password: Assigned by the Teacher
Once students have successfully logged in with Clever, they will be able to access the resources provided by the school system. For Ten Marks you are looking for the icon in the corner of this message.
HOMEWORK HELP PROGRAM
The Homework Help program will be provided by the City of Virginia Beach during the 2017-2018 school year.
Through Homework Help, students receive after school assistance from state certified teachers. Homework Help operates from 3 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday. Students can access Homework Help at the following City of Virginia Beach website: https://www.vbgov.com/government/departments/libraries/kids/Pages/homework-resources.aspx
BIRDNECK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
BIRDNECK MISSION
The mission of Birdneck Elementary is to dedicate ourselves to the success of all children, preparing them to meet today's expectations and tomorrow's challenges.
BIRDNECK VISION
Children are our future. We are dedicated to their success.
BIRDNECK BELIEFS
We believe in a collaborative community in which teachers, administrators, students, and parents work together for student success.
We believe in creating a safe, nurturing, and positive environment in which all students can strive for excellence and achieve their individual potential.
We believe we will prepare our students for success by providing 21st century learning and developing within our students critical thinking, effective communications and problem solving skills.
Website: http://www.birdneckes.vbschools.com/
Location: 957 South Birdneck Road, Virginia Beach, VA, United States
Phone: 757-648-2120
Facebook: facebook.com/birdneckes
Twitter: @BNESeagles