News from the Hill
October 2, 2019
Principal's Message
Dear Families,
Autumn is here, though it still feels like summer! Nonetheless, we are in full swing at Hillside- exploring, learning, and growing every day! It has been a pleasure visiting classrooms seeing our students participating in collaborative conversations, blossoming as readers and writers, and creating very special classroom communities.
October will be filled with lots of excitement! The month begins with lice checks on October 3rd, thanks to the continued partnership with our PTSA. Next, we look forward to seeing Hillside’s brightest smiles on October 7th for School Picture Day! That evening, we will hold our first Hillside PTSA meeting of the year in the Hillside Library at 6:30 PM. Also, on October 8th, we invite you to join our first SEPTA Community Conversation of the year in the Hillside Café at 8 AM.
Our Hastings Fire Department will be coming to Hillside for their annual visit on October 11th, where they will be reviewing fire safety with our youngsters. As our firefighters do each year, they will be sharing a brief video to teach K-4 children about what to do in the event of a fire and giving our kindergarten students the chance to climb on a fire truck.
For Unity Day on October 23rd, our PTSA has generously granted us the opportunity to bring Sweethearts and Heroes to Hillside, a special presentation that focuses on the impact that bullying has. In this assembly, “students learn how to be a “Sweetheart”- carrier of hope and “Hero”- someone willing to jump into action to help another in need.” We know it will be a wonderful day of coming together for our Hillside community and that our PTSA and Counseling Department for their partnership!
On October 25th, we will be having our second Late Start of the school year. Please note that school will begin one hour later than usual at 9:30 AM. Parents with childcare needs may still drop children at 7:50 AM, as we will have aide supervision in our All Purpose Room. That same day, the Hastings Police Department will join us at Hillside to teach our students about pedestrian and bicycle safety. Our most important priority is keeping our children safe and we very much appreciate our community helpers!
We encourage you to visit our PTSA’s New Book Fair from October 30th-November 2nd, as our parents work together with us to build readerly lives for our students! There is no greater joy than watching children book shop and hearing the squeals of joy when they find a book that they want to read.
Finally, on Thursday, October 31st, we will be having our annual Halloween Parade at 9:30 AM. As you consider potential costumes, we ask that you please be mindful of anything that may be culturally insensitive or may perpetuate stereotypes. We appreciate your help in guiding our children in their selections of inclusive costumes. In addition, we will have alternate activities for those students who do not celebrate Halloween. Our goal at Hillside is to foster an environment that is respectful and inclusive for each and every learner and family.
We look forward to a wonderful month!
Warm regards,
Amy Cazes
Principal
Classroom News
Kindergarten
It is absolutely wonderful to see how nicely our Kindergarteners have transitioned into Hillside. They have familiarized themselves with the building, the playground and many of the staff members in such a short period of time. The children have also learned routines in the classroom and made lots of new friends.
In Kindergarten, we are all excited readers! As readers, we have been discussing why we need to read things in the world. We have also been enjoying books in the classroom, setting up rules and expectations for reading time, and learning how to treat books with care. We are well underway to immersing ourselves in the wonderful world of reading!
Fundations is in full bloom to learn our letters and sounds in Kindergarten. The children enjoy repeating the letters, keywords and sounds! We are learning so many of our letters and sounds quickly. In addition, to learning our letters and sounds we are also practicing handwriting with our Handwriting Without Tears books, magna-boards, wood pieces, chalk boards, clay and dry-erase boards to form our letters. As we always say: “Practice makes us BETTER!” We have even started Writers Workshop in our classrooms. The children are sketching images about things they know a great deal about and even labeling their images. WOW!
We love math in Kindergarten! We are continuing to learn all about 2 dimensional (flat) and 3 dimensional (solid) shapes. We are becoming such experts in identifying triangles, circles, hexagons, squares, rectangles, cones, cylinders, cubes and spheres.
1st Grade
First grade is FANTASTIC! This past month, our children have settled into their new classrooms beautifully and are learning to make new friends, sing songs and learn new classroom routines.
We have started our first unit in Reading Workshop, “Building Your Reading Toolbox.” This unit focuses on setting up structures and routines that are the foundation for this year’s work. In the upcoming weeks, students will practice good habits for starting a book, staying with a book and finishing a book. They will be immersed in reading and rereading so that these actions become lifelong habits. We will also begin our work to model and practice meaningful conversations so that their thinking begins to grow.
Our first math unit is underway and focuses on sums and differences to ten. Students love trying to beat their score as we practice fluency in our sprints, as well as, using whiteboards to show thinking as application problems are solved. In our first topic in Module 1, students focus on counting on which leads to decomposing and composing numbers.
As we wrap up our first unit in content, “Fables,” students have enjoyed listening to stories such as, “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” “The Goose and the Golden Egg” and an all-time favorite, “The Little Half-Chick” (Medio Pollito). Valuable discussions were had around the moral of each story and how they relate to our own lives.
2nd Grade
Happy new school year from second grade! The children have adjusted nicely and have been hard at work learning about their new classroom community. We focused on Hillside’s Core Values this month: Respect, Courage, and Curiosity and read many stories that had characters demonstrating these values. Two favorites were, “What if Everybody Did That?” by Ellen Javernick and The Kingdom of No Rules, No Laws, and No King by Norman Stile.
Reading workshop is up and running with the opening of our classroom libraries! Our very first unit of study is: Understanding Characters’ Journeys and Adventures. This is a wonderful unit filled with lots and lots of eyes on text time, to build our reading stamina and strengthen our reading muscles. We want to read with deep understanding and joy. We have come together as a community of readers and this will continue throughout the year.
In our first math module of Grade 2, students reviewed number bonds and basic addition and subtraction facts. The children worked on the RDW (read-write-draw) strategy to help solve word problems.
3rd Grade
Third graders are enjoying their first few weeks of school and are working on learning classroom routines. Students have engaged in many “getting to know you” activities, and our third graders are ready for a successful year of learning ahead.
Our first math unit is “Properties of Multiplication and Division and Solving Problems with Units of 2–5 and 10.” Students are studying the connection between repeated addition and multiplication. They are increasing math vocabulary with words like factors, products, quotients and commutative property. They will be learning multiplication facts; more information will come home about this shortly.
Reading workshop has begun with the opening of our classroom libraries. Lessons on how to choose a just right book, how to participate in reader’s workshop, and how to write about what we are reading in a reader’s notebook are underway. Students are also beginning partnership work during reading time.
In writing, students are working on personal narrative writing. The first writer’s workshop unit is based heavily on generating ideas about third grade topics of interest and experiences. Students are learning different strategies to generate ideas and then writing long and strong about their thoughts.
Students have begun their social studies work with a study of geography. We have begun a multi-week unit that began with learning about the continents and oceans. As we learn how to use an atlas to gain knowledge about our world, the students focus on the question: How does WHERE you live affect HOW you live? This helps us learn about how people living in different countries around the world are affected by their location.
4th Grade
4th grade is fantastic! Our students have already adjusted beautifully to their new classes and have learned so many new things.
In ELA, students have embraced both reading and writing. They are learning about their individual reading preferences while at the same time challenging themselves to read new and different genres. Students in each class have also been enjoying our first read aloud, The Magical Ms. Plum and they are using the characters in this book to inspire their writing. In our first unit in writing, students are beginning to create short narrative pieces using all of the elements of fiction such as well developed characters,settings, a problem and a solution.
In math, our first unit has focused on Place Value and the concept of “ten times as many.” Students are learning the different ways that numbers can be represented such as expanded, unit, and standard form. They are also working with rounding numbers and placing them on a vertical number line which will lead to addition and subtraction of numbers up to the hundred thousands place and corresponding word problems.
In science, 4th grade students have learned that they are scientists themselves whenever they employ scientific inquiry and ask questions about the environment around them. They are also learning the difference between living and non-living things and about the elements necessary for living things to thrive and grow.
In social studies, 4th graders are studying the geography and regions of New York State. In the coming weeks, each class will work together in groups to create 2 dimensional posters which will demonstrate their learning. Come take a look!
Learning Lab 2-4
Learning Lab students are off to a great start. We are learning our routines and expectations. We have spent time exploring what we need as learners including tools and the learning environment.
Our second grade mathematicians have been reviewing addition and subtraction using the part-part-whole model. We have used many visual models to help including number bonds and drawings.
Our third grade mathematicians have been exploring multiplication and division by making equal groups. We are also practicing skip counting by 2s, 3s, 5s, and 10s so that we can master those multiplication facts!
Our fourth grade mathematicians have been exploring place value and comparing numbers into the thousands. We are investigating the difference of digits in different places, for example, “What is the difference between the 3 in 3,492 and the 3 in 4,392?” We are also reviewing multiplication, division, and multi-digit addition and subtraction.
In ELA we are working on re-establishing ourselves as readers. We are finding books that are a good fit and help us grow, some of our favorites so far as Mercy Watson, Amelia Bedelia, and Cam Jansen. We are using a variety of strategies when we read in order to improve our fluency and comprehension. We are beginning to use a Reader’s Notebook to reflect on our reading. We are learning how to work with a reading partner to discuss our books and the characters.
In the Learning Lab we also spend time working independently toward our individual goals.
Communications Class K-2
The school year has gotten off to an amazing start!!! The students are following routines, rising to academic and social expectations and making new friends. In ELA, we are reading some of our favorite books. We learned how to care for our books and choose books that are just right for us. In Math, our K and 1st grade friends reviewed 2D and 3D shapes. Our 2nd grade friends worked on reviewing addition and subtraction facts. In Social Studies, our K and 1st graders are working on learning about our community. We continue to learn about community helpers and important places in our community. Our 2nd graders worked on learning Hillside Elementary School’s core values: Respect, Courage and Curiosity. The students learned the importance of being a good citizen. We look forward to the rest of the year!!!!
Communications Class 3-5
In Communications 3-5 we are all settling into our new schedules and environment. Students have embraced their Buddy Classes and communications class! In our classroom students have begun to take ownership of making their own schedules and are fostering new school relationships.
In ELA and math we have been working on individual goals and grade level topics. In science we began our study of living things, focusing on plants. We are beginning geography in social studies. We made s’mores by following written directions. We look forward to a fun year ahead!
Art
Wow! We are off to a terrific start to the new school year. All grades have spent the first few weeks of Art class focused on mixing colors. Like our school theme “Just like paints on a palette, we all the the picture complete”, students have been creating infinite amounts of color. Check out some of the palettes in the main hallway of Hillside.
REMINDER - Fourth grade yearbook drawings are due to Mrs. Troop by Friday, October 4.
As always, check out the Hillside Art Blog for regular updates - https://www.hohschools.org/Page/1225 .
Music
Happy new school year from the music department! We are pleased to share this new and exciting website from our partners in the Hastings Alliance for the Music Program. Thank you for being our allies and for all you do to support the arts in Hastings!
Students in Kindergarten and first grade have been learning about the differences between their singing and speaking voices. They have been singing, chanting, and moving to a variety of tunes and rhythm chants. Second graders have been learning to identify the “resting tone” or home note of a song, while third and fourth grade students have been learning to use the xylophones, metallophones, and glockenspiels, also known as Orff Instruments.
Students in grades two through four have been learning the song Rainbow of Friends written by our very own Ms. Concra to sing at our school assemblies this year. This beautiful piece goes along with our theme, “Just like paints on a palette, we all make the picture complete!” We are looking forward to a fun and successful year of music making!
Physical Education
Hello Everyone, and welcome back. We hope everyone had a nice and relaxing summer and that you school year is off to a great start. We are fully up and running here in the world of Physical Education. We have taught each grade various “recess games” that can be played during their recess times and how to properly use the playground equipment on both the front and back playgrounds. Starting next week, we will begin our second unit which is soccer. We will be teaching the proper technique of how to strike a ball, close control, passing, and the positions and rules of the game, varying slightly for each grade.
After a great start to the year, we look forward to continuing our success.
FLES
Have you heard? It’s Hispanic Heritage Month-- and we are celebrating! Each time we meet, students have been learning about famous Hispanic-Americans and what their heritage means to them. If you are interested in participating in the voluntary poster project, please create a poster about a Hispanic-American person that you know, a famous Hispanic-American, a Spanish-speaking country, or anything having to do with Hispanic heritage and culture! Please bring it in by October 15th to share with the class and display on our bulletin board.
In addition to our Hispanic Heritage celebration, students have been reviewing previously learned material such as greetings, numbers, colors, days of the week, etc. They have also been practicing everyday, conversational questions and have had some “mini” conversations in Spanish with their peers! Helpful vocabulary and phrase review sheets will be sent home soon for additional practice.