The Patriot Newsletter
Brooklyn Park Elementary School- March 2019
Our Mission and Vision at BPES:
Vision: Brooklyn Park Elementary will be a place of excellence; in which we believe all students can succeed. We believe all students will achieve their full potential in their academic, creative, and moral development with the support of parents, staff members, and the community.
A Note from Principal Walker
Teacher Communication
Thank you for attending our Parent Teacher Conferences. Student success is based on a positive relationship between the schoolhouse and the family. Please continue to communicate with your child’s teacher to discuss academic or behavior concerns.
Social Media and Screen Time
As the parent of a 14 and a 11year-old, I understand social media and trying to control screen time. As a principal, I am recommending parents to closely monitor screen time and social media. The following websites are good resources:
https://www.stopbullying.gov/cyberbullying/digital-awareness-for-parents/index.html
https://www.netsmartz.org/Home
https://www.pta.org/home/family-resources/safety/Digital-Safety/Parents-Can-Prevent-Cyberbullying
Later this month, we will have a workshop on bullying and cyberbullying.
As I close, March is Woman’s History Month. I want to give a shout-out to every mother, grandmother, aunt, step-mother, great grandmother and teacher that has a positive impact in our lives. This month is your month. Have a great month of March…
Important Dates for the Month of March
March 12th Interims to be sent home
March 12th Transition to Middle School for 4th and 5th grade Special Education Parents
5:30-7:00 in our Media Center-Dinner will be served. Please RSVP (410) 222-3805
March 26th Two-hour early dismissal for all students. School closed for p.m. Pre-K
March 28th Parent Internet Safety and Information Night 5:30-See information below
PTA Happenings!
March 8 Chuck E Cheese 3:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
March 19 PTA Meeting 6:00 p.m.
March 22 Movie Night 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
April 2 Five Guys in Glen Burnie 5:00 p.m. - 10:00 p. m.
Out-of-Area Transfers
Information about out-of-area transfers can be found on the AACPS mail web page.
Mrs. Chisholm's Corner:
March: In Like a Lion Out Like a Lamb
Here in Maryland that description of the weather is very appropriate. We often have snow storms and windy days throughout the month of March, but Spring is on the way. As a family, it is a good opportunity to get outside and try something new. The days are longer and the sun is warm. Take time to take a walk, fly a kite or visit somewhere new.
For our PBIs celebration during third marking period, we will be looking at attendance and academics. It is important for students to come every day so they can learn from their teachers and school experiences.
We will have some spirit days throughout the month, so keep checking on Class Dojo for those special days.
KChisholm
Attendance matters.
Please bring your child to school every day!
February Attendance Percentages
Pre-k 92.4%
K 95.6%
1 93.3%
2 93.0%
3 93.9%
4 96%
5 93.4%
Teacher of the Month
The teacher of the month is Mr. Sheehan. Mr. Sheehan is an important member of our school community. He is responsible for organizing and assigning roles to the 5th grade safety students. He is the math team lead and works closely with Ms. Greene and Ms. Burdette to implement county-wide mathematics initiatives. He has worked hard this year to build a strong classroom community in his third grade class, and helped his students understand the relationship between hard work and learning. Thank you, Mr. Sheehan, for all you do to support the whole BPES community.
Classroom News!
Pre-Kindergarten
The month of February was so much fun in Pre-K! The animal visit was a huge hit and we truly thank you for your support in making this happen for our students. It was an experience they will never forget. As we enter March, we will be learning about the letter people; Zz, Ii, Vv & Ll. We will also start our new unit about Living Things. We will study things that grow, what living things need (plants & animals), and how animals grow and change. In math, we will be focusing on adding to 5 using pictures, stories, and manipulatives. We have a lot of fun projects coming up in March and we will share them as they occur via dojo and our weekly newsletters. Thank you for your continued support!
Kindergarten
K students had fun celebrating the 100th day of school. They are now 100 days smarter! As we are now in the third marking period, the skills that are being taught are becoming more advanced. Please continue to practice sight word identification at home to help your child with reading books independently in the classroom. Also, please practice counting to 100, addition and subtraction skills at home to prepare your child for first grade math. In order to review and practice concepts taught in the classroom, please make sure that your child completes the homework in their homework journal.
First Grade
Science/ Social Studies:
Students are learning: about communication in the past and the impact of technology on how we communicate today • About how sound & light help us communicate Activities to do at home: • Share with your students how much communication has changed in your lifetime and the lifetimes of older family members and friends (pre-cell phone, dial phones, pre-email & texts) • Spend family time creating “shadows” both inside and outside. Let your child direct the activity,
Reading/ Phonics:
Read High frequency words: across, carry, eight, once, saw, upon, walked, about, give, pretty, says, were, write , better, buy, change, move , ball, head, never, should, shout, full, poor, through, grew, house, knew, would, through, orange, grew, sure, shout, house, yellow, also, knew, air, because, would, enough, blue, great, eyes, or, know, learn, other, sound, open, until, their, always, another, warm, bother, climbed, against, four, below, poor, fall Read and spell words with long vowel word families Activities for sounds and words: Practice helping verbs including was and were Sort /ea/ and /ee/ words
Mathematics:
Welcome to Marking Period 3. To begin this third quarter your child will explore geometry concepts. They will focus on defining attributes of shapes, they will explore how to compose new shapes, and they will partition shapes into equal shares. As the marking period continues they will continue to develop strategies to add two two-digit numbers. Students will focus on adding ones with ones and tens with tens through visual models and hands on exploration. Students will also continue to explore the meaning of the equal sign by understanding that it symbolizes “balance”.
Second Grade
We are finished up testing and are impressed with the growth the students have made in reading thus far! We are looking forward to seeing the continued hard work. In math we will be adding and subtracting three-digit numbers with regrouping. Please be sure to see the parent newsletters posted on Dojo to help assist your child with homework. In writing we will be working on opinion pieces, as well as improving our conventions. In science and social studies, we will be learning about Native Americans and different cultures. Please continue to make sure your child is reading every night for at least 20 minutes and filling out their “Book-It” forms to turn in at the end of the month, as well as completing their math homework.
Third Grade
In Reading in the month of March, we will be reading both fiction and non-fiction texts. Some of the skills we will be working on for fiction texts include the following: cause and effect and explaining how illustrations support the mood of a text. Some of the skills we will be working on for non-fiction texts include the following: identifying text features and how they help us understand what we've read and identifying the main idea/supporting details. Please continue to encourage your child to read every night for at least 20 minutes.
In Math in the month of March, we are going to explore and develop conceptual understanding of multiplication and division. Through investigation and hand on exploring students will begin seeing patterns and making generalizations about multiplication and how it connects to properties of multiplication. begin to understand the Distributive Property of multiplication, and how breaking apart factors make the multiplication problem easier to solve. This discovery builds on students’ understanding of area and gives them a strategy for moving past counting individual squares to find the total area. Students will be finding the area of rectangles using these strategies. Please continue to complete homework and practice multiplication facts nightly.
In Writing class, students will continue working on writing persuasive speeches and stating their opinion. They are focusing on their audience and how they would respond to what they are saying.
How do environmental changes affect organisms? This is the question students will be focusing on in the coming weeks in Science. Specifically looking at deforestation and paper production.
Students will be learning all about resources in Social Studies. Students will be choosing a good, such as a taco, and identifying the types of resources used to produce the good. Can you figure out where each item came from and whether it's a natural, human or capital resource?
Fourth Grade
WRITING: March is National Women’s History Month. Students will have an opportunity to research some of the influential women in history. We will incorporate this in our writing unit this marking period. This month students will continue with writing opinion/persuasive essays supported with reasons, details, examples and information they have gathered.
MATH: This month we will be wrapping up our unit on Angle Measurement. Students have learned so much about classifying, measuring and constructing angles. Please encourage your child to continue to look for real world examples of the geometric figures they have studied. We will be moving into our next unit, Multiplying Fractions by a Whole Number. Students will build on their knowledge of fractions and use several strategies such as number lines and area model strategies to multiply whole numbers by unit and non-unit fractions. Toward the end of the unit, students will apply these newly learned strategies to solve multiplicative comparison and real-world type problems.
READING: In the third marking period students focus on critical thinking skills. We will focus on many of the literary standards. Students will analyze characters thoughts, feelings and actions. They will dig deep into the text to find details that support a given theme. They will determine the meaning of words and phases and explore many forms of figurative language such as similes and metaphors. Encourage your child to make personal connections to the themes in the stories they listen to during IRA, and read during guided reading.
SCIENCE: This month students will conduct many hand-on activities to explore this themes science unit Energy on the Move. They will investigate electricity by building and testing simple circuits. They will find patterns in various transfers of energy, including sound, heat, and motion.
*Look out for information about the upcoming Science Fair Project.
SOCIAL STUDIES: This month in Social Studies students will continue to explore the history of Maryland and how many of those events have shaped Maryland today. Some of the topics include Maryland’s role in the War of 1812, the Star Spangled Banner, changes in transportation and changes in industry.
Please encourage your child to complete homework on a daily basis including mastering the basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts. As well as reading daily and completing Choice Board activities in their Reading Homework Notebook.
Fifth Grade
Fifth Grade is working on analyzing the themes of poems this marking period. This work involves a lot of discussion about the meaning of words and thinking about the symbols poets use in their writing. It is very difficult work, but the students are focused. We are currently multiplying and dividing decimals. Please review your student's homework to insure that they are completing the problems correctly. Students also need to practice their basic multiplication facts to help them next year. Science is focusing on ecosystems and the food chain. Students are working in groups to create a food chain. They have used their artistic talents to create a torn paper drawing of a habitat and will begin researching the animals and plants that make up the ecosystems food chain.
Art News
Art Show News! Thirteen Brooklyn Park Artists will be represented at the Brooklyn Park Library’s Art Show during the month of March. There will be an art show reception with an activity and refreshments to celebrate the artists on March 19th from 4:30pm-6:00pm. In addition, the artwork can be viewed anytime the library is open for the month of March. Artwork from Belle Grove and Park Elementary will also be on display. I hope you can come out and celebrate the arts with us. Thank you! – Mrs. Perkins
Media News
Hello from the library! We have an exciting month lined up for March. Primary students will be learning mapping skills through the classic picture book Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey. We will also talking about the concept of storytelling with simple symbols through a picture book and tech project about the muralist Keith Haring. Intermediate students will be wrapping up and presenting their group graphic novels about a civil rights figure they researched during Black History Month, and learning some new concepts in computer coding through the website Scratch. As always, students will be reading and checking out new books every week. Ask your child about their library book-- if they are coming home without a book regularly, they may have overdue books that they need your help finding. Happy reading!
Physical Education News
We celebrated both the Kids Heart Challenge and Black History month in the gym at the end of February with 12 jumping stations designed to get students up and jumping as well as introducing them to some influential African American athletes. Students participated in a range of stations that included high jump, long jump, vertical jump, hippity hops, moon hoppers, and hurdles as well as traditional jump rope activities. We also incorporate math by having students measure how high and far they could jump and time how fast they could complete some of the rotations. Breaks were taken throughout to give students the opportunity to take their pulse and see the positive effects that the rotations had on their heart health.
In March, students will be practicing their striking skills with volleyball and tennis activities. Students will start off with balloons and see if their can progress to volleying a lightweight ball back and forth to a partner or team. We are able to borrow tennis racquets from the county, so students will be able to experience some real tennis activities designed to improve their skills. At the end of the month, we will be able to borrow the bowling equipment from the county and turn our gym into the BPES Bowling Alley.
Kids Heart Challenge:
Thank you to everyone who participated and raised donations for the AHA through the Kids Heart Challenge. Currently we have raised $3,440 to help fight heat disease and stroke. All donations were due by Friday March 1, so I will be posting our final numbers on class dojo once they have been calculated. Thank you gifts will be ordered the first week in March and will be passed out as soon as they arrive at school. Thank you again for being heart heroes!
Healthy Habits for TV, Video Games, and the Internet
TV, interactive video games, and the Internet can be excellent sources of education and entertainment for kids. But too much screen time can have unhealthy side effects.
That's why it's wise to monitor and limit the time your kids spend playing video games, watching TV, and using the Internet.
What's Recommended?
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued these guidelines for screen time:
- Babies and toddlers up to 18 months old: No screen time, with the exception of video-chatting with family and friends.
- Toddlers 18 months to 24 months: Some screen time with a parent or caregiver.
- Preschoolers: No more than 1 hour a day of educational programming, together with a parent or other caregiver who can help them understand what they're seeing.
- Kids and teens 5 to 18 years: Parents should place consistent limits on screen time, which includes TV, social media, and video games. Media should not take the place of getting enough sleep and being physically active.
Kids should have a wide variety of free-time activities, like spending time with friends and playing sports, which can help develop a healthy body and mind.
Screen Time
Here are some practical ways to make kids' screen time more productive:
- Stock any rooms that have a TV, computer, or other devices with plenty of other non-screen entertainment (books, kids' magazines, toys, puzzles, board games, etc.) to encourage kids to do something non-screen related.
- Keep TVs, iPads, and other screens out of kids' bedrooms.
- Turn off all screens during meals.
- Don't allow your child to watch TV while doing homework.
- Treat screen time as a privilege that kids need to earn, not a right that they're entitled to. Tell them that screen time is allowed only after chores and homework are completed.
- Try a weekday ban. Schoolwork, sports activities, and job responsibilities make it tough to find extra family time during the week. Record shows or save video games for weekends, and you'll have more family togetherness time to spend on meals, games, and physical activity during the week.
- Set a good example. Limit your own screen time.
- Check the TV listings and program reviews. Look for programs your family can watch together (like developmentally appropriate and nonviolent programs that reinforce your family's values). Choose shows that foster interest and learning in hobbies and education (reading, science, etc.).
- Preview programs. Make sure you think they're appropriate before your kids watch them.
- Use the ratings. Age-group rating tools have been developed for some TV programs and usually appear in newspaper TV listings and onscreen during the first 15 seconds of some TV programs.
- Use screening tools. Many new standard TV sets have internal V-chips (V stands for violence) that let you block TV programs and movies you don't want your kids to see.
- Come up with a family TV schedule. Make it something the entire family agrees on. Then post the schedule in a visible household area (like on the refrigerator) so that everyone knows which programs are OK to watch and when. And make sure to turn off the TV when the "scheduled" program is over instead of channel surfing for something else to watch.
- Watch TV and play video games with your child, to see if the programming is OK for your child.
- Find out about other TV policies. Talk to other parents, your doctor, and your child's teachers about their TV-watching policies and kid-friendly programs they'd recommend.
- Offer fun alternatives to screen time. If you want your child to turn off the screen, suggest alternatives like playing a board game, starting a game of hide and seek, or playing outside.
Talking Is Important
Talk to kids about what they see on screens, and share your own beliefs and values. If something you don't approve of appears on the screen, turn off the screen and use the opportunity to talk with your child.
Here are some suggestions:
- "Do you think it was OK when those men got in that fight? What else could they have done? What would you have done?"
- "What do you think about how those people were acting at that party? Do you think what they were doing was wrong?"
- If certain people or characters are mistreated or discriminated against, talk about why it's important to treat everyone fairly despite their differences.
- You can use programs and games to explain confusing situations and express your feelings about difficult topics (sex, love, drugs, alcohol, smoking, work, behavior, family life). Teach your kids to question and learn from what they see on screens.
Video and Interactive Computer Games
- Look at the ratings. Video games do have ratings to indicate when they have violence, strong language, mature sexual themes, and other content that may be inappropriate for kids. The ratings, established for the Entertainment Software Rating Board, range from EC (meaning Early Childhood), which indicates that the game is appropriate for kids ages 3 and older, to AO (for Adults Only), which indicates that violent or graphic sexual content makes it appropriate only for adults.
- Preview the games. Even with the ratings, it's still important to preview the games — or even play them — before letting kids play. The game's rating may not match what you feel is appropriate for your child.
- Help kids get perspective on the games. Monitor how the games are affecting your kids. If they seem more aggressive after spending time playing a certain game, discuss the game and help them understand how the violence that's portrayed is different from what occurs in the real world. That can help them identify less with the aggressive characters and reduce the negative effects that violent video games can have.
Internet Safety
- Become computer literate. Learn how to block objectionable material.
- Keep the computer in a common area. Keep it where you can watch and monitor your kids. Avoid putting a computer in a child's bedroom.
- Share an email account with younger children. That way, you can monitor who is sending them messages.
- Teach your child about Internet safety. Discuss rules for your kids to follow while they're using the Internet, such as never revealing personal information, including address, phone number, or school name or location.
- Bookmark your child's favorite sites. Your child will have easy access and be less likely to make a typo that could lead to inappropriate content.
- Spend time online together. Teach your kids appropriate online behavior.
- Monitor kids use of chat rooms. Make your kids aware that posting messages to chat rooms reveals a child's email address to others.
- Find out about online protection elsewhere. Find out about the online protection offered at school, after-school centers, friends' homes, or anyplace where kids could use a computer without your supervision.
Reviewed by: Elana Pearl Ben-Joseph, MD
Date reviewed: December 2016
Note: All information on KidsHealth® is for educational purposes only. For specific medical advice, diagnoses, and treatment, consult your doctor.
© 1995-2019 The Nemours Foundation. All rights reserved.
Images provided by The Nemours Foundation, iStock, Getty Images, Veer, Shutterstock, and Clipart.com.
Brooklyn Park Elementary School
Parent Internet Safety and Information Night
With Sarah Kivett
(Anne Arundel County Public Schools)
Where: Brooklyn Park Elementary School
When: March 28, 2019
Time: 5:30 PM
Come learn how to keep your children safe while on the internet.
Information will be shared with families about Snapchat, Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, Tik Tok, Musical.ly and any new social media apps.
Social media is changing daily, together we can keep
Please RSVP (410) 222-6590