From the Desk of Mr. Yoshida
Birdneck Elementary August 2019
UPCOMING EVENTS
-ECSE and Grades K-5 Meet and Greet August 29, 2019 1:30-3:30 p.m.
-First Day of School September 3, 2019
- Back to School Night September 19, 2019
- 6:00-6:30 p.m. Session 1 in classrooms
- 6:30-7:00 p.m. PTA meeting
- 7:00-7:30 p.m. Session 2 in classrooms
A MESSAGE FROM YOUR PRINCIPAL
Hello Birdneck Community,
Welcome back to school for another amazing year! Our staff has been busily preparing for the arrival of your students and we look forward to hearing about your summer adventures. Our theme for the year is "Believe in Success". We will be providing many supports for our students to help them grow academically as well as socially and emotionally. This newsletter includes information that students will be learning in the first nine weeks of school. Please use the summary of learning targets to help reinforce the skills they are learning and help to make connections with the curriculum in every day situations at home. I look forward to meeting all of our new families and seeing our returning students next week.
Have an awesome day,
R.V. Yoshida
Quarter 1 Literacy Focus
Kindergarten:
Unit 1: Building a Reading and Writing Community: Fiction and Nonfiction
This unit will establish the essential classroom routines and expectations to maintain a successful literacy environment throughout the year.
Unit 2: Exploring the Elements of Fiction
Readers will build their knowledge of fictional text structure by identifying the elements of a story and understanding fictional texts tell a story.
Unit 3: Becoming Curious about Nonfiction
This unit will set the stage for nonfiction reading throughout the
school year. Readers will explore the difference between fictional and nonfiction texts and features of nonfiction books.
Unit 4: Investigations and Storytelling
This unit will revisit fiction with a focus on story elements and retelling. Students will continue to develop their understanding that fictional texts tell stories by listening to and interacting with a variety of fiction texts.
First Grade
Unit 1: Building a Reading and Writing Community: Fiction and Nonfiction
This unit will establish the essential classroom routines and expectations to maintain a successful literacy environment throughout the year.
Unit 2: Exploring the Elements of Fiction
In this unit, readers will build their knowledge of fictional text structure by identifying the elements of a story and understanding fictional texts tell a story. A continued focus on making connections while reading is maintained throughout the unit to develop students’ comprehension.
Unit 3: Becoming Curious about Nonfiction
This unit will set the stage for nonfiction reading throughout the school year. Readers will explore the difference between fictional and nonfiction texts. Readers will practice using the title and pictures to identify the topic.
Unit 4: Investigations and Storytelling
This unit will revisit fiction with a focus on story elements, with specific emphasis on describing characters. Students will develop their retelling skills through orally retelling, drawing, writing and creative dramatics.
Second Grade:
Unit 1: Building a Reading and Writing Community: Fiction and Nonfiction
This unit will establish the essential classroom routines and expectations to maintain a successful literacy environment throughout the year.
Unit 2: Exploring the Elements of Fiction
Readers will deepen their knowledge of narrative text structure by revisiting story elements. They will continue to ask and answer questions and begin the important work of summarizing narrative texts by recalling events in sequence. Students will also begin to
make simple inferences about story elements. Students will continue the writing process in personal narrative as they learn about revision and editing processes.
Unit 3: Exploring Text Features in Nonfiction
This unit will set the stage for nonfiction reading throughout the school year. Readers will begin to identify the main idea in nonfiction texts by asking questions and focusing on previewing and using text features. Students will develop inquiry-based practices and begin to apply research objectives through an integrated performance task. Writing instruction
will focus on expository texts which are aligned with what students are researching and reading.
Third Grade:
Unit 1: Building a Reading and Writing Community: Fiction and Nonfiction This unit will establish the essential classroom routines and expectations to maintain a successful literacy environment throughout the year.
Unit 2: Exploring Narrative Text Structure
Readers will deepen their knowledge of narrative text structure by revisiting the elements of plot. This analysis will be driven by the important reading strategy of asking and answering questions.
Unit 3: Becoming Curious about Nonfiction Texts
This four-week unit will set the stage for nonfiction reading throughout the school year. Readers will begin to identify the main idea in nonfiction texts by asking questions and focusing on previewing and using text features.
Fourth Grade:
Unit 1: Building a Reading and Writing Community: Fiction and Nonfiction
This unit will establish the essential classroom routines and expectations to maintain a successful literacy environment throughout the year.
Unit 2: Exploring Narrative Text Structure
Readers will deepen their knowledge of narrative text structure by revisiting the elements of plot. This analysis will be driven by the important reading strategy of asking and answering questions. Students will begin the important work of summarizing and will also use what they know about plot structure to begin drawing conclusions by making predictions about upcoming events. Students will continue the writing process in personal narrative as they learn about revision and editing processes.
Unit 3: Becoming Curious about Nonfiction Texts
This unit will set the stage for nonfiction reading throughout the school year. Readers will begin to identify the main idea in nonfiction texts by asking questions and focusing on using text features. Students will be introduced to inquiry-based practices and the research objectives. Writing instruction will focus on descriptive texts which are aligned with what students are researching and reading.
Fifth Grade:
Unit 1: Building a Reading and Writing Community: Fiction and Nonfiction
This unit establishes the essential classroom routines and expectations to maintain a successful literacy environment throughout the year.
Unit 2: Exploring Narrative Text Structure
In this unit, readers will deepen their knowledge of narrative text structure by revisiting the elements of plot. This analysis will be driven by the important reading strategy of asking and answering questions. Students will begin the important work of summarizing narrative texts by recalling events in sequence. Students will also use what they know about plot structure to begin drawing conclusions about the elements of plot that the author may not directly address. Students will apply their knowledge of narrative texts to write a personal narrative.
Unit 3: Becoming Curious about Nonfiction Texts
Readers will begin to identify the main idea in nonfiction texts by asking questions and focusing on using text features. Students will be introduced to inquiry-based practices and the research objectives. Writing will be connected to descriptive texts and the topics students are researching and reading.
Quarter 1 Math Focus
The 2019-2020 school year will bring about the adoption of new math resources, HMH’s GO Math!, a textbook resource, and McGraw-Hill’s Redbird, a digital learning platform for Kindergarten through 5th grade students. These supplements to the math curriculum will provide support for personalized learning for students including application, remediation and intervention throughout the teaching and learning process. Focus on conceptual understanding through the use of manipulatives continues!
Kindergarten: To begin the year, in Numeration students will study numbers through ten and develop forward and backward counting skills. In Geometry, students will identify and describe plane figures, compare their sizes and shapes and describe locations relative to another. All Kindergarteners will be assessed using the VKRP assessment tool this school year.
Grade One: Students will begin the year in the Numeration unit by expanding their understanding of numbers up to 120 and identifying ordinal positions. Students will begin developing fluency with addition and subtraction through understanding part-whole relationships of numbers up to five. During the Geometry unit, students will sort and describe plane figures, classify concrete objects and work with geometric patterns.
Grade Two: Students will spend the first quarter exploring the Base-10 number system through identifying place and value, comparing numbers, rounding numbers to the nearest ten, skip counting and counting backwards. Students will be demonstrating fluency with addition and subtraction within 10.
Grade Three: Students will begin the year exploring place and value, rounding, comparing and ordering numbers during the Numeration unit. During the Computation unit, focus will be on applying strategies for addition and subtraction of whole numbers, including practical problems and using understanding of skip counting to begin demonstrating fluency for 0s, 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s multiplication facts.
Grade Four: The year kicks off in the Numeration unit with exploring place and value of nine digit whole numbers, comparing, ordering and rounding numbers through the millions. In the Computation unit, students will apply strategies for addition, subtraction and multiplication for problem solving. Students will demonstrate fluency in multiplication and division facts and begin exploring division strategies.
Grade Five: Numeration and Computation with Whole Numbers starts the year for Grade Five. Students will explore characteristics of even/odd and prime/composite numbers and apply strategies for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in single-step and multi-step practical problems. During the Geometry unit, students will measure and classify angles as well as investigate triangles, polygons and circles. Students will also explore transformations.
Quarter 1 Science and Social Studies
Kindergarten:
Science/Social Studies - Students should investigate objects that are attracted or not attracted to magnets. Students should demonstrate an understanding of citizenship skills and what it means to be a classroom citizen.
First Grade:
Science/Social Studies - Students should demonstrate an understanding of the roles individuals play in a community, how community decisions are made and traditions and symbols of the United States. Students will focus on classification, including the movement of objects, mixtures and solutions.
Second Grade:
Science - Students should make observations, use tools to collect data and draw conclusions to understand the basic types, changes and patterns of weather.
Social Studies - Students should understand and practice citizenship skills. Students should ask questions to form an understanding of how beliefs shape American culture, contributions of individuals and groups and diversity.
Third Grade:
Science - Students should conduct observations, investigate and classify the physical properties of matter.
Social Studies - Students should understand and practice citizenship skills. Students should form an understanding of how beliefs shape basic democratic principles and the role of government. Students should use map skills to understand how the geography of North America affects how we live. Students should use decision-making models to understand how people make economic choices.
Fourth Grade:
Science - Students should make observations, use tools to collect data and draw conclusions to investigate how weather conditions and phenomena occur and can be predicted.
Science/Social Studies - Students should investigate and analyze important Virginia natural resources and geographic features to form an understanding of the geography of Virginia.
Fifth Grade:
Science - Students should investigate the characteristics and interactions of moving objects, including how matter responds to force, the difference between kinetic and potential energy and the basic relationship between motion, mass and force. Students should use and create models to form an understanding of what matter is and how matter changes.
Social Studies - Students should begin by reviewing the major concepts of the fourth grade Virginia Studies curriculum, including how geography impacted the native Virginians and early settlers. Later, students should investigate and analyze the differences in perspective that led to the American Revolution and how Virginians influenced the events of the Revolutionary War. Finally, students should understand and interpret the actions, ideas and leadership of Virginians during the infancy of the United States.
Parent Pick Up
Below you will find the afternoon traffic pattern for Birdneck parent pick. Staff will direct traffic as seen in the diagram below. For safety and identity purposes, we require parents to register students for parent-pick-up so you can receive a designated car tag associated with your students. The car tag should be displayed on the windshield mirror when picking up students. The number on the tag is how we identify who will pick up the corresponding students. If possible, any changes to the normal dismissal procedure for your child should be made ahead of time by sending in a written note. If changes occur during the school day a call to our security desk should be made before 2:00 pm. If an emergency occurs and you need to pick you child up between 2:30 and 2:50 please park your car and sign your student out at our security desk. Unless there are extenuating circumstances students are expected to remain in school until 2:40 and should not be picked up early.
Thank you,
RV Yoshida
BrainPOP and BrainPOP Jr. For Educational Activities
Dear Family,
Our school has a summer subscription to BrainPOP and BrainPOP Jr., award-winning educational websites we trust.
As part of that subscription, you have access to these resources at home all year!
Looking for ideas on how to extend learning at home this summer? BrainPOP’s got you covered!
Sign up at https://go.brainpop.com/home/tips and receive monthly ideas, tips, activities, and more including four
summer learning packets featuring reading, math, writing, and physical fitness.
To Access BrainPop and BrainPop Jr from home:
1. Open the Chrome browser and log in using your VBCPS log in
2. Go to www.brainpop.com
3. Log in using the GSuite for Education option
4. If prompted, enter your VBCPS log in information
5. Use the drop down menu in the upper left hand corner to switch to BrainPop Jr.
Have a great summer!
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