Weirton Elementary School
August 2023
W.E.S. Families - November Newsletter
Happy November!
It has been an amazing first nine weeks of school. Report cards were distributed on Tuesday, October 31. Please don't hesitate to contact your child's teacher if you have any questions regarding the 1st nine-week report card or beginning of the year STAR benchmarks reports.
Thank you to all the families who attended the 4th grade Honors Assembly. A special thank you to Newbrough Photo for sponsoring the event.
A special thank you to the W.E.S. PTA for planning all of the fun activities for "Halloween for the Hounds". The students loved the Pumpkin Patch, photo booths, games, and treats. W.E.S. raised 1,810 dollars for the Hancock County Animal Shelter. Thank you for your support.
Student attendance continues to be one of our big schoolwide goals for this year. Hancock County School's slogan is “Nine or Less Equals Success.” This means students increase their ability to be successful at school and develop lifelong positive academic habits when they don't miss more than nine days in a year. Parents, we need your support and help getting your child to school every day. If we have one more week of reaching 93% school-wide attendance weekly goal, students will earn a HAT DAY. We will keep you posted. Thank you to all the students who participated in the Attendance Matters Art Contest in October.
As the weather gets colder, please dress your child for the weather conditions. If your child needs a coat, hat, gloves, or scarf, please contact Kristin Bowman-Cross at 304-748-8370. Please put your child's name on all outer clothing. We have many items in the lost and found bin already.
Families please be mindful that car riders need to be in the school's parking lot by 8:15 am for arrival. Thank you.
Picture make-up day is set for Tuesday, November 28 at W.E.S.
Newbrough Photo will also have a make-up day in the studio downtown on Friday, November 10 from 2:00-4:00 for any families that are interested.
Here's what is in the November newsletter:
- W.E.S. November Calendar.
- November Lunch and Breakfast Menus
- Parent survey below.
- Title Family Engagement Event (November 15).
- Veteran's Day Tribute activities.
- American Education home activity.
New information and updates will be posted in the Family November Newsletter.
Read the entire newsletter. Lots of updates and information are included as you scroll down the newsletter.
Halloween for the Hounds
A special thank you to our WES PTA and Families!
Honors Ceremony
To find more pictures from the Honors Ceremony
Weirton Elementary School WVGSA Honors Ceremony for 2022-2023 third graders. Congratulations! Visit Newbrough Photos for more pictures. http://newbroughphoto.com/
newbroughphoto.com - Weirton Elmn Distingished Students
http://newbroughphoto.com/Collections/746437
Thank you John Newbrough for sponsoring the W.E.S. Honors ceremony.
Attendance Art Contest
Attendance Matters -Art Contest.
HCS’s Attendance theme: “Nine or Less Days Equals Success”
Congratulations Karson Pykosz - winner of the WES Attendance Art contest.
Parent Fall Survey
Fall 2023 WV School Learning Environment Survey for parents or caregivers of students at Weirton Elementary School:
The online parent survey will be available from October 2 through November 17, 2023.
Parents are asked to complete an online survey about school climate—the learning and teaching/working conditions—to help guide school improvement efforts.
Parent participation in the survey is very important. If parents have questions about the survey or problems completing the survey, please contact Ms. Miller at 304-748-8370.
Your participation is voluntary. You may choose not to participate; not to answer any questions you do not want to answer; and you may stop participating at any time during the survey without penalty. Your responses will be anonymous and confidential.
Parents can access the survey at:
WVSLES Parent Survey (surveymonkey.com)
Parent login code: P029211
Thank you for participating.
Ms. Miller
W.E.S. November Calendar Dates
Mark Your Calendar
Tuesday, October 31:
- Kindergarten Field trip canceled due to weather.
- Grades K-4 distribute report cards and STAR beginning of the year benchmarks.
Wednesday, November 1:
Thursday, November 2:
- PTA Meeting at 6:00 pm WES cafeteria.
Friday, November 3:
- Spirit Day. Red and black.
Monday, November 6:
- National School Psychology Week.
Tuesday, November 7:
- Veteran's Day Family project due.
Wednesday, November 8:
- No PreK. ELRS/PRE-K STAR INITIAL PARENT CONFERENCE
Thursday, November 9:
- Veteran's Day program sponsored by the related art teachers. We will record the program and share with families.
- Karavanic Kare-Package items due for the military.
- No PreK. ELRS/PRE-K STAR INITIAL PARENT CONFERENCE
Friday, November 10:
- No school
- Newbrough Photo will offer make-up photos in the studio downtown from 2:00-4:00.
Monday, November 13:
- World Kindness Day: Wear red Cardigans/sweaters or Red in honor of Mister Rogers
- Deadline to RSVP for Title Family Engagement Night. Refer to flyer below. (Read Your Heart Out)
- American Education Week - celebration of public education (November 13-17). Family project: Write or draw a picture about why you LOVE school for American Education Week. Refer to attachment. One student from each grade level has a chance to win a prize if their project is chosen. Due Thursday, November 16.
Tuesday, November 14:
Wednesday, November 15:
- Title Family engagement event. "Read Your Heart Out". Families will learn about the Science of Reading (SOR) strategies to help your child learn at home. Refer to flyer below to RSVP. RSVP by Monday, November 13.
- Grades 1 & 2 (4:00-5:00)
- Grades 3 & 4 (5:30-6:30)
Thursday, November 16:
- Family Project Due for Amercian Education Week - celebration of public education.
Friday, November 17:
- Spirit Day. Red and Black. Wear red and black to show your school pride!
Monday, November 20:
Tuesday, November 21:
November 22-24:
- Thanksgiving Break
Monday, November 27:
Tuesday, November 28:
- Picture make-up day
Wednesday, November 29:
Thursday, November 30:
Family Project Veteran's Day Thank You Drawing. Optional.
Family Project Veteran's Day Thank You Letter. Project optional.
American Education Week - Home Activity (optional)
November Lunch Menu
PreK News
Pre-k Students have been introduced to the puppets Al's Pals as a part of Creative Curriculum's Social Emotional component. Al and his friends will continue to assist your student's teacher to review issues regarding friendship, sharing and managing feelings and emotions with the class.
Parent - Teacher Meetings are scheduled for Wednesday November 8 and Thursday November 9. Your child's teacher will review Early Learning Rating Scale results, STAR assessment results, and IEP progress depending on your child's needs in the school setting. Please contact your child's teacher if you have not scheduled a meeting yet.
No school on Friday November 10 for Veterans' Day.
Look out for Thanksgiving activities sent home in their backpack to do at home with your child.
Continue to check your child's class Dojo page for current information specific to their class.
Kindergarten News
October went by quickly while we were busy learning. We have officially gotten acclimated to our classroom and school routines. We know the expectations in the classroom, cafeteria, hallways and on the bus. Playing nicely on the playground and taking turns has been a joy for all the teachers to witness. Socialization is a big part of early childhood development. We have learned the importance of getting along with others in the classroom and work with partners on projects and during playtime. Every single interaction a child has, no matter how big or small, helps them learn language skills, cope with emotions, and work within social norms. Kindergarten is a big step in that direction. As children grow, they will begin to learn how to identify their thoughts and emotions. They will also recognize the feelings of others around them, being able to decipher whether a person is happy or sad. They will be learning how to manage stress, resolve conflict, and fit in by communicating with others in their surroundings. By socializing, students will learn to foster empathy, improve language skills, discover the concepts of sharing and teamwork, grow more confident, and get better prepared for school. Practicing these concepts through socialization will help children create friendships and therefore learn how to respect others.
General goals for the year focus on students building strong pre-reading skills, practicing letter formation, enhancing their listening and communication skills, getting an introduction to basic math concepts, and acquiring an active interest in the world.
In our Heggerty lessons, we have practiced rhyming and hearing the sounds use in the words we know. This is a big piece of laying the foundation for reading. We already know 15-17 letters and their sounds. Daily we practice writing them correctly starting the letter formations from the top. We know all the vowels and have begun reading CVC words with the sounds we know. Thank you for reading at home nightly with your child. This makes a HUGE difference in them being ready to read.
We will soon be starting our second module, ‘Once Upon A Farm’ in Wit and Wisdom. Students will be analyzing the characters and settings in written texts. They’ll apply these skills to two on theme paintings: The Cornell Farm by Edward Hicks and American Gothic by Grant Wood. This module challenges students to synthesize their knowledge of farm animals with story elements including setting, characters, problem, and resolution, linked by a logical sequence of events. Students will be creating story maps, rehearse narratives with partners and writing as well as illustrating their own narrative. We will be building on their practice of writing a shared narrative with the class.
Kindergarteners have been introduced to addition with small numbers. We have been working toward fluency with these operations for numbers within ten. The student will understand addition as putting together and adding. We will begin understanding subtraction as taking apart and taking from. We have introduced the many different practices of constructing addition problems to accurately find the sums. Using ten frames, number lines, manipulatives and even using our fingers are some of the ways we solve mathematical equations. Counting by 1s, 5s and 10s is a daily practice we use when we count the days we’ve been in kindergarten. Writing numbers is a skill we are regularly working on in school.
We’re anxiously awaiting all the fun activities that November and December has in store for us to experience.
First Grade News
October was full of so much Spooktacluar fun in first grade! We would like to send a thank you to the PTA for another great pumpkin patch, and Ms. Carinci-Bell for organizing Halloween for the Hounds!
We loved getting to wear our costumes and celebrate with our friends while raising money for the animal shelter!
We are so excited for November! First grade will be starting into Module 2 of Wit and Wisdom, where we will begin to tackle our essential question, "What can we discover about animals’ unique features?" We will dive deep into categorization, punctuation, and be working on informative writing.
Many of the first graders will be learning all about thankfulness, Election Day, Veterans Day, and the Thanksgiving holiday!
In Math, we will continue to learn more addition and subtraction strategies that we can add to our mental math toolbox to make solving problems easier and faster!
In Fundations, we will be adding the glued/welded sounds (all, am, and an) to our known sounds & exploring the concept of a base word and the suffix (-s) along with introducing the concept of plurals. Don't forget to keep reading every day and practice those trick words!
Second Grade News
2nd Grade is Thankful this November! We had an amazing 1st nine weeks of school.
During the month of November, we will be completing our Module 1 – A Season of Change in our Wit and Wisdom reading program. Students have been learning about change and how each of our 4 seasons are full of differences and wonder. Students are continuing to read Geodes and Fluency excerpts daily to build on their skills.
In fundations we are now working on multisyllabic words, adding suffixes and prefixes to words, and we will begin our vowel consonant e syllable type.
In Math, students will gain fluency of addition and subtraction facts to 20 in Chapter 3. This will help to introduce us to our math chapters 4 and 5 where we will learn 2-digit addition and subtraction.
Students are reading and working towards their AR goal and are earning animal friends as they go down our path on Greenwood Glen, Timber Park, and Pinnacle Peak.
We look forward to our time together as we learn and grow this month!
Third Grade News
Our amazing third graders have completed the first nine weeks of school. Keep up the good work.
Here is an outline on the skills being taught during November.
Wit and Wisdom- In module one, third arc, students are focusing on why and how scientists explore sea creatures. In this arc, students gain basic information about the dangers of sharks and learn to identify a main idea and supporting details in a chapter, using the text, and important text features, such as photographs, illustrations, a map, and captions to gain information about a topic. Students examine an exemplar paragraph in preparation for developing a topic in an explanatory paragraph.
Fundations- In Unit 4, students will review the exception to the vowel-consonant- e syllable. They will also learn the exception –ive. It is pronounced with a short i sound /iv/, instead of the expected long sound. The exception, -ive can also be a suffix. They will review vowel teams and r-controlled vowel sounds. Students will also learn a new spelling rule for adding suffixes to vowel-consonant-e syllables.
Math- Chapter 6- division. In this chapter, students will model division with equal groups, bar models, repeated subtractions, arrays, and write related facts to help solve their division problems. Students should be making their green light every day on Reflex.
Students will continue with social studies, Science, and Health Weekly.
Students are also participating in a reading challenge. Starting Oct 23rd through November, students will read an article on Read Works and answer the comprehension questions at the end. There will be a classroom winner as well as a student winner at the end of the five weeks.
The new nine weeks for AR goals have started. Keep getting your points and goals each week.
Fourth Grade News
Fourth Grade has one 9 weeks in the books!! Lots of things have been accomplished by this great group of students! Mrs. Davidson, our Title 1 Teacher, came to each classroom to hand out prizes for AR goals earned with some students in the over 100 Point Club!! We also had a lot of smiles at the GSA Honors Ceremony, and we are excited to see what the future holds for them and all the others who are determined to grow and flourish this year! We are also setting the expectations high for our younger students!
This past week, our fourth graders got to sit with and wherever they wanted in the lunchroom for all 6 classes earning enough Lunchroom Dojo points!! We also seem to be the reigning champs in the attendance area as well! WAY TO GO STUDENTS!!!
On the more serious side of school, students are reading Hatchet and wondering how they could survive in the Canadian wilderness. They will get a chance to showcase their thoughts in their own creative survival story. We are also practicing typing and writing by using the writing benchmarks from the state to help prepare us for the writing test later this year.
Students had a chance to be creative with The Pumpkin Project! We had some awesome pumpkin disguises! Some of the classes even decided to type their stories that accompanied their pumpkin.
In math we are still using Reflex to ramp up our fact fluency and recall helping us with other concepts. We have been working on Multiplication as a Comparison which is going to lead us right into multi-digit multiplication.
Studies Weekly keeps us in line with our feelings, the world around us and even opening up the possibility of science experiments!
Fourth Grade is full of wonderful students doing great things!! Please keep watching Wake Up with WES News, and who knows, maybe your favorite student will be delivering the news next!
Related Arts News
Music & Art:
Students in Music and Art will be preparing activities for the Veteran's Day Tribute on Thursday, November 9.WES School Counselors
November is a time to reflect, to show kindness and gratitude. These are simple acts that can go a long way. Maya Angelou once said, "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
We should always remember to leave people and places better than what we found them.
Ways that we can promote Kindness in our homes and school:
Give someone a compliment.
Sit with someone that may not feel included.
Open a door for someone.
Help someone who is carrying too much or struggling to complete a task.
Give someone a hug.
Tell someone something nice.
Smile
Encourage and Cheer Someone on
Pick Up Trash
Talk positive about others and yourself
Clean Up an area without being asked
Respect each other
Ms. Mary Ann Petrelle: Grades PreK & K
Mrs. Stacy Cullinan: Grades 1 & 2
Mrs. Sarah Aspenleiter: Grades 3 & 4
WES Health Center offers Social Emotional/Behavioral Therapy
http://www.changeinc.org/health/weirton-elementary-health-center/
(304) 797-5299
WES PTA News
President: Allyson Taflan
Vice President: Arrissa Cochran
Vice President: Stephanie Baumgardner
Secretary: Maria Rhoads
Treasurer: Lindy Dunlap
Contact: weirtonelementarypta@yahoo.com
Electronic Link to sign-up for PTA Membership is below "Givebacks".
https://weirtonpta.memberhub.com/store?limit=21&live=true
Thursday, November 2 PTA Meeting at 6:00 p.m. at WES cafeteria.
Notes from Nurse DeCaria
Please contact Mrs. DeCaria for any medical concerns.
Thank you for sending back the health forms.
Attendance Reminders:
Going Bananas for Attendance:
Weekly percentages for 10/23-10/27
K- 94.4
1st -94.3
2nd -94.0
3rd -92.4
4th -94.7
WES Overall 93.9%
We met our goal of staying at or above 93%. Congratulations! 3x's in a row. When we reach 4 times on the thermometer in the hallway we will receive a school-wide HAT DAY.
Going Bananas for Attendance video:
Go Bananas for Attendance: https://youtu.be/bYiR6YPKCao
Please remember to call the office or email Ms. Stephanie for any missed days.
304-748-8370
or
Attendance Tracker
W.E.S. Information
We consolidated the up-to-date information you will need into 4 easy locations. DOJO (school announcements/stories posted daily), electronic monthly family newsletters, W.E.S. website, and W.E.S. official Facebook page. Below are the links to our W.E.S. Website and W.E.S. Facebook page.
W.E.S. Family Handbook 23-24
School Calendar 2023-2024
Arrival & Dismissal Procedures
CAR RIDER TRANSPORTATION
Arrival
Car rider door is located at the pre-k/kindergarten entrance.
Car rider door opens promptly at 7:50am. Tardy Bell 8:15am.
Cars should not line up before 7:00 and cars should not park in the drop-off area.
Students must remain in cars until a staff member opens the car door.
Cars that arrive after 8:15 must park car in a parking spot in front of the school. Guardian must walk child in the building to the main office to receive a tardy slip.
Parents/Guardians must remain in their vehicles at all times during drop off and pick up.
Please work with your child to learn to buckle/unbuckle themselves in their seatbelts/booster seats/car seats as this will help traffic to flow smoothly.
Dismissal
Car/Bus Dismissal is at 3:00.
All car riders must have a red car rider tag on their book bags. Bus riders must have a yellow car rider tag on their book bags.
Please do not line up before 2:55 as the area in front of the dismissal door is a fire lane.
iDismiss is utilized for car rider dismissal.
Each student is assigned an iDismiss number.
iDismiss number must be displayed in the front widow of the car.
Cars without the iDismiss numbers displayed or readily available will be asked to park until all cars and buses are dismissed.
Parents/Guardians must enter the front office and present identification before the child can be dismissed.
Replacement copies of iDismiss numbers may be obtained by presenting identification in the main office (ask for Ms. Stephanie).
Bus Safety
Please remind your child about good behaviors on the bus.
- Students are to stay seated the whole time.
- Students are not to walk in the aisles or jump seat to seat.
- Students are to refrain from touching each other.
- Students are not to yell or argue.
- Bottom to bottom, Back-to-Back, Bookbag on lap.
Students are to refrain from creating any type of safety issues for anybody on the bus.
Contact Mrs. Carinci-Bell if you have any bus concerns or questions.
Mrs. Martich (3rd & 4th) Mrs. Carinci-Bell (1st & 2nd) Ms. Miller (Head Principal) PreK & K Principal TBA
WES Title Services
Meet our WES Title Teachers:
Mrs. Orwasky
Ms. Paull
Mrs. Donna Carnes
Mrs. Davidson
WES Related Arts
WES HEALTH CENTER
WEIRTON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL HEALTH CENTER
Our licensed healthcare staff is on site in a safe, child-friendly environment. We closely work with the school nurse and faculty to provide convenient care to your child. We closely work with the school nurse and faculty to provide convenient care to your child.
We provide the following services:
Well check exams, sick visits, injury treatment, immunizations, allergy shots, ADHD evaluation and treatment, sports physicals, behavioral health, dental care, chronic health care maintenance - like being on site to assist with Diabetes, Seizures, and Asthma. Just think of us as a doctor's office inside the school.
Please contact the WES Health Center at 304-797-5299 if you have any questions or medical needs.
WES SPEECH THERAPISTS
WES Speech Therapists
If you questions regarding speech screenings or speech services, please contact one of our speech therapists.
Mrs. Lockerbie (Kindergarten)
Mrs. Gianvito (First Grade)
Mrs. Hinzman (PreK & 4th)
Mrs. Burdette (2nd & 3rd)
Mrs. Edie (Special Education Classes)
Special Education Staff
Bank at School
Our Partners in Education, First Choice America, will be setting up a program called "Bank at School". Families were able to sign-up at Open House. Students will be able to do banking at school during breakfast once a week on Tuesdays. More details to come.