The Paw Print
Cashell Elementary School - Community Newsletter
December 1st, 2017
Updates from Administration
December is here and with it comes lots of excitement for our students. They are anticipating the upcoming holidays and we also start to look forward to the possibility of snow days! As the weather may have finally turned, please help your child(ren) remember their coats, hats, gloves. It's important for students to have accessories and warm clothing for outdoor recess. Please also label these items with your child's name. This time of year usually brings an increase to our Lost and Found inventory.
School News
The Snowball is tonight! Please join us from 7 - 9pm for an evening of dancing, delicious refreshments and a fun Winter Wonderland raffle .
Would you like some help understanding your child's reading level and the grade level benchmarks. MCPS has updated a document to help you as a resource. We have added a link on the Cashell website. You can also access it with the following link:
On our school website, we have also linked other curriculum resources that are available for parents. There is great information here for every grade level:
https://sites.google.com/a/mcpsmd.net/mcps-elementary-curriculum-parent-resources/home
School System News
Superintendent, Jack Smith, updated his blog this week with a post about student learning. He describes the relevance and importance of the Evidence of Learning Framework. It is a very interesting read.
http://news.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/staff-bulletin/all-in-are-our-children-learning/
Community News
"The Greater Olney News" highlighted the Engler Family this week in their newspaper.
"The Greater Olney News" also published their December event calendar if you are interested in checking out any of the local activities.
Attendance and Reminders
I know that this time of year is extremely busy for all of us. We have also noticed an increase in the number of students that are tardy each day. Children are expected to be in their classrooms by 9:00 or they will be marked tardy from school. If you are bringing your child to school once the doors have closed, please escort them into the main office to sign them in.
Important Dates to Remember
December
12/1 - Snow Ball!
12/5 - 12/7 - Inview Testing for Second Grade
12/6 - Fire Department visit PreK 9:30 am
12/11 - Cultural Arts Performances - morning
12/15 - Interims Sent Home
12/21 - Chorus to Perform at the Pageant on the Ellipse 6:00 pm
12/25 - 1/1/18 - Winter Break!
Classroom Corner
Our PEP students are continuing their unit on community. They are now working on counting community workers.
SCB
Our students SCB students completed an art project on trees that enabled them to talk about geographical features and enabled them to practice sorting by color.
Pre-Kindergarten
Students in Pre-K have begun their work with graphs. They recently completed a picture graph about their favorite type of transportation.
Kindergarten
Kindergartners are reflecting on their self portraits. As the complete their December portrait they are discussing how they have grown and changed since starting school in September.
First Grade
Our first graders are working on a research project that requires them to learn about how people live, work and play. They are practicing completing their research and putting their details into paragraphs.
Second Grade
The second graders are continuing their work in the Operations and Algebraic Thinking measurement topic. This week they have been matching word problems to the equations they would use to solve them.
Third Grade
Our third graders are working on putting together their final copies of their thankful writing pieces. They have taken these paragraphs through the writing process and have now produced a final digital product.
Fourth Grade
The fourth grade is working to show what they know on their progress checks. They are utilizing their scratch paper and the new county system Performance Matters Unify.
Fifth Grade
Our fifth graders are starting their unit on idioms. This week they worked on defining and illustrating an idiom of choice.