Chester Elementary School
January 31, 2020
Holiday Market donated 10 bikes to CES
Excellent attendance, behavior & hard work were the criteria for the bike drawing
CES students trying out their new bikes, with Holiday Market team in the background
Greetings CES Families & Friends,
CES PTA Family Game Night! Our wonderful PTA is hosting a family game night on Friday, February 7 from 5:30-7:00. These are "minute to win it" type games (I've got Corn Hole!). The games are free, and the PTA will be serving refreshments. Children must be accompanied by a parent/guardian. We hope to see you!
Our February character focus is Positive Attitude. We all know the importance and value of our attitude and how we approach school and other activities. We appreciate our parents emphasizing the importance of being positive, working hard and being a good citizen at school. Check out the article link below entitled "10 Activities to Encourage a Positive Attitude in your Kids."
Box top challenge. Our PTA is once again sponsoring a Box Top collection. You can get these box tops from a variety of groceries. Please cut out the "Box Tops for Education" symbol and turn in to the office or a PTA Board member. We have a goal to collect 5,000. Thanks!
Writing Contest for all grades! Ms. Bainbridge is sponsoring a writing contest for all CES students with a topic on "How does diversity benefit our world (or, how does variety help us?)?" Students can write about any benefits of diversity they choose - people, plants, animals, landscapes, etc. Entries are due February 14. Students may include art work and there are no length or format requirements. Parents are welcome to assist with the initial brainstorming. (3rd-6th grade parents - suggest students use their Step Up To Writing organization strategies.) Winners from each grade get to dip their hand in a money jar! We are collecting spare change in the office if anyone wishes to donate. We hope to see all of our students participating. Thanks Ms. Bainbridge!
Attendance Matters. We are just past the half way mark for the 2019-2020 school year. So far, we have approximately 92% of our students who are on target to miss fewer than 9 days of school, or have an attendance record of 95% or better. We have a handful of students who have not missed a school day yet, and a larger handful of students who have only missed 1 day. We know students with excessive absences are at risk of falling behind their peers, being retained and even dropping out of school before graduating. We appreciate your commitment to ensuring your child is at school each day, unless sick. Thank you.
Reading each night? 20 minutes/night. Send me your pictures and your favorite books and we'll put them in an upcoming newsletter! Thanks for considering!
Books on tape! We now have a new resource available to all students from a vendor called "Learning Ally." We can sign up your child and provide access to hundreds of audio books that they can download and listen to on those long trips or other events. We always want to encourage reading, and we also believe in the benefits of listening to audio books to enrich their vocabulary and support their comprehension. Please contact your child's teacher or me if interested in accessing this valuable and enjoyable resource.
CASSPP Tests for 3rd-6th graders. Please see link below for additional information on the state tests all of our 3rd-6th graders take in May. There are a lot of helpful and informative links to learn more about these important tests. Thanks!
Our outreach using CES Smores newsletters. One advantage of using our Smores newsletter application is the data provided each week regarding our outreach. For example, last week we had 224/289 subscribers open our newsletter - that's 78% of our families reading our updates - not bad considering our busy lives. The majority of our subscribers spend 2-5 minutes reading our updates. Additionally, we had family and friends reading our newsletter all over the country, from Hawaii to the east coast, and even someone in Ireland! Thanks for perusing our newsletter each week. Please let us know if you have any suggestions to enhance this weekly update or if you have ideas for improving our communication to families.
In closing, we appreciate your ongoing support and teaming with us to make 2019-2020 an exceptional elementary experience for our students. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks!
Chester Youth Wrestling last weekend!
5th graders, led by Mr. Cory Rickert, performing percussion for CES students
A big thanks to our Holiday Market for their generosity!
Upcoming Dates
Feb 3 - Monday Morning Meeting assembly, January student of the month awards distributed
Feb 4 - 100th day of school (opportunity to trick our primary students to practice counting!)
Feb 7 - CES PTA Family Game night 5:30 pm - free; refreshments available to purchase
Feb 14 - final day to submit your Diversity writing paper, Happy Valentine's Day!
Feb 17-21 - President's Day, winter break - no school
Thanks for your support!
Email: areeder@pcoe.k12.ca.us
Website: https://ces.pcoe.k12.ca.us/
Location: 158 Aspen Street, Chester, CA, USA
Phone: 530-258-3194
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChesterElementary/
Twitter: @acreeder