Hello Hózhó Families,

We’d like to invite you to our Fall Family Fun night, on Friday, Oct. 27, 6:30-8:30 on the Hózhó dirt track. The evening will be a fundraiser toward our High School and Gardening club trips. Come hungry for some great dinner options, homemade baked goods, and cozy drinks. Bring your family and friends and check out our Hózhó community’s carved pumpkins. We hope to see you there for an evening of fun!

Book-O-Ween - On Tuesday, October 31st students can dress as a book character or author of a book (please refer to the lists below). They must have the character, title, and author labeled on their costume. Any K-6 classroom parties will be up to the classroom teacher.

Students can choose from any grade on either list...

Barney Charter School Literature List

Additional Quality Literature List

Winter Jackets - The community pantry has winter jackets available through the Food for Kids program in size 18 youth. If you have a student who would benefit from a new winter jacket this year in these sizes, please email Mrs. Tanner at atanner@hozhoacademy.org

October 27th - Fall Family Fun Night 6:30-8:30

October 31st - Dress as your favorite book character or author

November 10th - No School (Veteran's Day)

November 20th-24th - No School (Thanksgiving Break)

Click here to stay up to date on the latest sports schedules.

If you were asked, 'what are the vowels?' You would likely respond 'a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y!' This verse is very memorable for helping us to identify vowels and consonants, however, if you were asked 'what is a vowel? How is it different from a consonant?' could you answer?

Well, by the end of this literacy corner, you could!

The 42 sounds of the English language are split into the two categories we know as vowels and consonants. The sound a letter makes determines if it is a vowel or a consonant.

Vowels = the sounds that are unblocked and always voiced (they can be sung)

You can say a vowel for as long as you have breath. Take the letter A for example, you can say /a/ , /A/, and /aw/ until you decide to stop making the sound.

Consonants: the sounds that are blocked in the mouth when produced, they can be both voiced and unvoiced.

Consonants are sounds that we naturally block in our mouth. For example;

/m/ - we block the sound by pinching our lips together

/g/ - this sound is blocked by raising the back of your tongue up to touch the soft palate at the very back of your mouth.

/t/ - the end of the tongue touches the roof of the mouth behind your top teeth the block the air.

One way I would teach this to my students is by telling them to hold the /b/ sound for as long as possible. The students would proceed to say buuuuuuuuuuuuh in which case I would tell them, well now you are saying a vowel, /u/!. They would learn that you ca not hold out /b/ because we make the sound by blocking it with our lips, therefore it is a consonant.

Now let's go back to our little verse from the beginning... a, e, i, o, u and sometimes y. Why is Y sometimes a vowel and sometimes a consonant? Well, you now know that what determines a consonant or a vowel is the sound it makes. The letter Y makes four sounds; /y/ (like yellow), /i/, /I/, /E/. The last three sounds are unblocked sounds, therefore whenever y says one of those sounds in a word, it is working as a vowel. The first sound, /y/ is a blocked sound, making it a consonant and you will only ever see it at the beginning of a word or syllable;

Yel-low

You

Yes

Can-yon

Law-yer

So now, if someone were to ask you, 'what is the difference between a vowel and a consonant?' could you answer?