Haymarket Happenings
February 2024
Upcoming Dates
Haymarket Family Dance - Saturday, February 3rd (see times below)
Advisory Council (Zoom link below) - Tuesday, February 6, 2024 at 6:30pm
American Heart Association Kick Off Assemblies - Friday, February 9, 2024 (during the school day for students)
Movie Night - Friday, February 9th
PTO Meeting (in person) - Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 6:30pm
Presidents' Day (No School) - Monday, February 19, 2024
Advisory Council Meeting
Topics include: SCA Update, PTO Update, Budget/Staffing Update, Continuous Improvement Plan Updates, Citizens Time, and more! Everyone is welcome to come and listen, participate, or ask questions!
Join Zoom Meeting
https://pwcs-zm-edu.zoom.us/j/89788086218?pwd=VzZ6dktTd1hiaHU3ZEoxRzQ1YlNTZz09
Meeting ID: 897 8808 6218
Passcode: 248939
Tuesday, Feb 6, 2024, 06:30 PM
Staff Recognized for Extraordinary Efforts
Thank you all for the many nominations that came our way! Using the PWCS criteria, a team of teachers and admin had the tough job of picking our winners for the 2023-2024 school year!
Support Staff Member of the Year - Marylee Tuniki (Parent Liaison)
Novice Teacher of the Year - Viviane Vu (2nd grade teacher)
Teacher of the Year - Kristin Cox (1st grade)
These three amazing individuals' names will be submitted to PWCS for consideration for Division-wide awards!
Spelling Bee Finalists/Winner!
Congratulations to all our Spelling Bee participants this year! It's a challenge for sure, but our students all shined brightly!
3rd Grade Winner - Rylee S.
4th Grade Winner - Dallas Y
5th Grade Winner - Zander S.
Overall Winner - Dallas Y.
- Dallas will be participating in the PWCS Spelling Bee in coming future! Congrats and good luck Dallas!
American Heart Association Kickoff
We will have our Kick Off Assemblies on Friday, February 9th during the school day. More information to come about this exciting way to get our student educated about healthy hearts and more!
Encore Days Now on our Website!
You can now find the encore day rotation on our website...just look under the School News section and click on the "Encore: What day is it?" tile like the one to the right!
Myths of Spelling Tests
There is a lot of research revolving around spelling tests. I think we can all remember the days of memorizing spelling words for that Friday test! But, rote memorization doesn't help children learn to spell most of the time. Our teachers continue to research based phonics instruction for students to hear and learn sounds and patterns that will transfer to their writing which is the ultimate goal. Here are some myths about spelling tests.
Myth 1: Spelling tests help children
With a quarter of a million words in the English language, spelling is not about learning words by heart. A weekly test is never going to teach all those words, so it is difficult to understand why they remain so prevalent. In fact, research has shown that spelling tests have little to no influence on our spelling abilities outside the testing context.
Myth 2: Spelling is an innate skill and some of us possess it and some of us don’t
Many approaches to spelling instruction reveal an underlying assumption that there is an innateness about a person’s ability to spell. In fact, many of us think spelling ability is something that some of us just have and others don’t. This is false. The truth is, good spelling comes from good teaching – and good teaching is often the part that’s lacking. Spelling is a learned skill. Our brains are not ready wired for spelling; each individual brain must learn to spell. There are some skills for which the brain comes ready wired – speaking and listening, for example. Reading, writing and spelling, however, have to be learned.
Myth 3: You can help kids with spelling simply by sounding out the words
Morphology is the study of morphemes in words. Morphemes are the parts of the word that carry meaning, for example, dogs has two morphemes: ‘dog’ and ‘s’. ‘Dog’ is obviously meaningful, but the ‘s’ is meaningful as well because it tells us that there is more than one dog. Notice how the ‘s’ on ‘dogs’ is making a ‘z’ sound? If we relied solely on the sounds we hear we would spell the word ‘dogz’. It is very useful therefore to talk to our children about the morphemes – or meaning components – of words.
Myth 4: Words are just a string of letters to be remembered
In order to learn spelling in a way that will stick, it’s vital that children begin to understand the meanings of the words they’re trying to tackle. Words are not simply strings of letters, they are combinations of letter patterns and meaningful parts. For example, the word bicycle is not simply a string of seven letters. It has two distinctly meaningful parts: ‘bi’ meaning two (consider other bi words like bilingual, bifocal) and ‘cycle’ meaning circle or wheel.
Myth 5: If you can’t spell it’s because you are not very good at reading or writing
It’s easy to believe that poor spelling comes from a lack of ability in reading or writing, when in truth, it’s quite often the other way around. While spelling is not a measure of intelligence, it is true that doing poorly in spelling can affect a child’s performance in other areas of school. When children – and adults – feel unsure about their spelling, they can actively avoid tasks that involve writing.
Sequence Writing with Pictures
Below is a resource for you as parents to encourage sequence writing with pictures for young learners. At a young age, we want to encourage creativity as much as we can! Step 3 is say the sentence to yourself, but we encourage students to say it out loud so they can hear the sentence too. Their writing doesn't have to be perfect...we don't want to stifle creativity!
PBS Kids Writers Contest
PBS Kids is sponsoring a writing contest for students in grades K - 4. We have some amazing writers at Haymarket ES! Check out the link below to enter!
2024 Dates to Remember
Spring Break - March 25th-29th
SOLs Start - Tuesday, April 23rd (calendar coming soon!)
5th Grade Promotion - Wednesday, June 5th (5:30pm)
5th Grade Picnic - Thursday, June 6th (12:00pm)
Last Day of School - Friday, June 7th
Assistant Principal - Nicole Mills millsnm@pwcs.edu
Assistant Principal - Brooke Shore shorebl@pwcs.edu
Admin Assistant (registration information) - Cathy Cleveland-Hirsch clevelce@pwcs.edu
Attendance Secretary - LeeAnn Maire mairel@pwcs.edu
Parent Liaison - Marylee Tuniki tunikim@pwcs.edu