Patriots Press
April Issue
EOG Proctors Needed
Donations Needed
A note from the PTO president
Spring Break brings a smile to every student’s face but it also signals that the end of school is near. As we wind down another school year it’s important to remember that we still have several events for you to take advantage of. Please take a moment to review the events below and find a way to get involved in the last few weeks of the year.
Please mark your calendars for our annual Spring General Assembly Meeting that will be held on May 16th at 6:00pm. It will be in conjunction with the Art Show and 5th Grade Talent Show. If you are a member of the PTO, make sure you are there that night to get a EOY review of what the PTO has done and vote on the incoming Executive Board.
During Spring Fling (April 28th) we will have tables set up so that you can see the volunteer opportunities available and be able to get more information. In fact, you’ll be able to sign up on the spot!! I would encourage you to take a moment and see where you get involved as a PTO member and help us keep making Patriots the best school in the state.
If you have any questions about the PTO or what we do, please feel free to contact me at president.patriots@gmail.com.
Chad Maynor-PTO President
TEACHER APPRECIATION LUNCH – Marina Freeman, Hospitality Chair
If you’re available to help please sign up via the Sign Up Genius or email Marina directly at hospitality.patriots@gmail.com
Tile Wall – Lindsay Grezyic, Vice President
SCHOOL SUPPLY BOXES – Tammie Lyons, Member at Large
Spring Fling is April 28th
Please join us Friday, April 28th from 5:00pm – 7:00pm for our annual Spring Fling. We will have free carnival games, prizes, hotdogs and drinks. This is our opportunity to say “Thank You” to you for your wonderful support of Patriots.
Bring the family and join us for the fun!
Counselor News
Our 5th grade Make Your Mark Leadership projects aimed to help students think about other people’s feelings and perspectives, have the ability to identify the needs of others around them, and feel inspired and empowered to take the action necessary to meet those needs. Working from the adage charity begins at home, students were guided to identify a need in their school that they would like to address. Each homeroom selected a project that addresses the three A’s of service learning (awareness, advocacy and action), with special emphasis placed on action.
Ms. Syracuse’s homeroom would like to develop a Sensory Garden for our students with Autism and could use your help to bring their vision to life! Thanks to a Classroom Mini Grant provided through the Cabarrus County Education Foundation, students have received $500 to start their project.
From April 24 –April 28th they will be hosting an Autism Awareness Week. Students have made informative posters and videos for the PTV news. They have also organized a Spirit Week to help raise additional funds needed to complete the garden.
Please have your child dress in the theme each day to show their support and donate spare change to the piece that they would most like to see included in the garden.
Ms. Caligan’s homeroom chose to address bullying in our school. They created an anti-bullying campaign which included instructional videos and posters. Students also helped to design and promote this year’s Kindness Challenge. Students’ acts of kindness are represented by colored dots in our mural.
Ms. Aurty’s and Ms. Davies’ homerooms are working on Staff Appreciation Videos that will be shown on the PTV news throughout the month of May.
Music News
The PES Chorus Club will be singing the National Anthem for the Kannapolis Intimidators Baseball Game on Friday, June 2. Game time is 7:00 PM. The music department will receive a portion of all ticket sales. Tickets are $5 and the fun is limitless!!!!! Come out and enjoy a terrific night at the ball park, and support our PES Redhawks! Buy tickets before May 26th by clicking on this link:
Order Tickets Here
Chorus Club News
We will also be singing at an Intimidators Baseball game, and for 5th grade Graduation this year, and the 5th grade talent show!
K-2 AU
Kindergarten News
In Math we have been decomposing numbers. If you have the number 5, you can decompose it in many ways- (4,1) (3,2) (5,0) etc... Practice with numbers 1-10 at home or while riding in the car! We have also started our addition and subtraction unit! We are also practicing addition and subtraction fluency. If you are out and about check our local Dollar Tree for some addition and subtraction flash cards! We have been using them in class to practice!
In Reading we have been very busy!!! We have been comparing and contrasting fiction and non-fiction texts. We have learned all about MSV (Meaning, Structure, & Visual) clues while reading! Good readers ask themselves: Does it make sense? Does it sound right? Does it look right? We have also started asking story questions while reading. Ask your child Who, What, Where, When, Why and How after reading together. Enjoy reading with your child! Find a cozy spot and spend a few minutes each day savoring this special time! A small investment in reading each day yields HUGE results!
In Writer's Workshop we have finished our All About Books! The students did a great job researching animals, writing about hobbies and things they love. We are now working on our Persuasive Writing Unit. We know how to state what we want, give 2/3 reasons why we want it and should be allowed to have it and then restate what we want. So if you start getting really strong "I wants" you can thank the kindergarten teachers! :) After Spring Break we will start Writing for Many Purposes. You will get more details in the coming weeks about "Family Day." We will be inviting you into our classrooms so that we can share our writings with you. Mark your calendars, May 12th at 9:30!
In Science we have been learning about Needs and Wants. We have learned how jobs help us get what we want and need. When we return from Spring Break we will be discovering all about Properties!
Have a terrific spring break with your children!!!
First Grade News
First grade is having a wonderful month! On April 26th and 27th we will be visiting the Schiele Museum. This is a fun and engaging field trip! We will visit the planetarium, the gem mine, and have a picnic!
This month in reading, we will be continuing and finishing our current unit on Reading Across Genres. In this unit, students are practicing reading all of the genres we have learned about this year: Fiction, Poetry, and Non-fiction. While reading these genres, they are learning how to gather information from each genre to help them better understand a topic. We are also working on collaborating with reading partners.
This month in writing, students are developing and writing their own fictional chapter book stories which will include story elements and characters.
This month in math, we will be finishing our unit on using Place Value to Add and Subtract. Students will be mentally and physically adding and subtracting ten more and ten less as well as using a variety of strategies to add and subtract two-digit numbers. We will also work on comparing and ordering numbers. We will also begin our next unit on balancing equations through the use of the equal sign (Example: 4+2=3+3) and finding missing numbers in subtraction equations (Example: 6-__=4).
This month in science, we are continuing our unit on Living and Non-living things. We are focusing on the characteristics of living and non-living things and looking deeply into the make-up of plants and how they grow. We have planted many plants in our classrooms and are enjoying seeing them grow! We planted carrots, radishes, and onions to observe their roots. Every student got to plant their own Cosmo flower and we can't wait to watch them grow! Students will design their own plant model and diagram and will teach a kindergarten class all about plants.
Thank you for all of your support and donations! The first grade team truly appreciates their classroom parents!
Second Grade News
April showers bring may flowers – then so far, the flowers should be beautiful!
On the calendar this month is Literacy Night on the 11th from 6 – 7. Come if you can and see what the grade level literacy teams can show you. It’s a night worth attending!
April 14th is Good Friday and there is no school that day. The following week is Spring Break, so the next day of school will be Monday April 24th. I hope it is a fun and restful time!
April 26th is our Zoo Field Trip Day! It will be a late pick up day (after the buses run) so watch for more information to come home.
April 28th is Spring Fling - Come see what craziness Second Grade will add to the event!
In reading, students will discuss fiction – things like the moral of the story, retelling, and answering comprehension questions. The end of the month will be about Fairy Tales and practicing written responses to questions about the fairy take story.
In writing, students will finish editing and revising their own books. Then they will have time to present their book to classmates. The next unit will be poetry! Students will learn what poetry is, how to begin writing, and using mentor poems to learn more.
In math, April is about regrouping in addition and subtraction. Please look at classwork and homework to see how your child is doing. This can be a difficult unit for some, but third grade expects students to know how to regroup.
For science, students will finish the life cycles unit – hopefully with an egg hatch on April 11th! After spring break, the unit will be evolution and genetics, which discusses plants and how offspring plants may, or may not, look like their parent plants.
Have a great month – enjoy the week off!
Third Grade News
In reading we are working on our social issues unit. Students have been identifying the social problems that the characters in their book clubs face. In addition, they have been discovering these social issues within their independent books and evaluating the message that the author might be trying to convey.
In math we are working on measurement, which is our final unit. We started with telling time and are working our way through measuring mass, liquid volumes, capacity, and distance. We hope you all have a wonderful Spring Break!
Fourth Grade News
April is an exciting month for 4th graders here at Patriots. They have stepped outside of the classroom (and the house) to gather natural resources to create an original piece of furniture to promote at the High Point Furniture Mart. They have learned about persuasive writing and how we as consumers are persuaded to make choices through t.v., magazine, and radio advertisements. Using technology, they have created their own info-mericals to convince other students and distinguished guests, to "purchase" their furniture.
In math, students are measuring using both metric and customary measurements. They are also measuring in geometry with angles, perimeter and area.
When we return from spring break they will begin the unit on ecosystems, animals and how animals adapt to changes in their environment. They will learn about learned, instinctual, as well as physical adaptations organisms experience when something in their ecosystem changes.
In Social Studies and ELA, students are continuing their journey through the history of North Carolina, considering the role of the state in the Civil War. They have read and analyzed passages written from different perspectives, first and second hand account as well as non-fiction texts about the Civil War. The Raleigh field trip was a great way for students to see North Carolina's role not only in the Civil War but the history of our state as well. If you have not had a chance to visit the museums in Raleigh, the kids highly recommend it. The next unit for ELA will be poetry.
In ELA, we are working on our Civil War unit. The goal of this unit is to "read to learn". Students have been reading various books about the Civil War and learning strategies to help them retain the information that they have read. In addition to our Civil War unit, students have also been learning persuasive/advertising techniques to use in making their Furniture Mart slide show.
5th Grade News
In science we have wrapped up our human body unit and we are in the middle of our ecosystems unit. Students have had a blast by putting together their own terrariums and aquariums (not to mention they learned a lot too!) We will be ending our year with our Weather Unit and we are looking forward to John Ahrens visit at the end of April. We are planning an amazing EOG review in science with our Science Cram Jam day on Friday, June 2nd!
In math- students have wrapped up March with Amazing March Madness Activities. The classes spent time answering questions and scoring points for correct answers. They also, participated in The Trash-ket Ball Finals and graphing the results!!!
Students spent the last few days working on Benchmark Testing. We are now finishing up the last of our units as we head towards review in May. Keep practicing those fractions!!!
Reading-5th graders are learning all about poetry...figurative language such as similes, metaphors, and personification as well as how to analyze poetry to infer what the poet really meant compared to what he actually said. Once we wrap up our poetry unit, we will spend some time on a few remaining topics before we dive into our EOG review. This will include weekly practice tests to build stamina, weekly homework packets, small groups to review specific skills, task cards, Kahoots, and Brain Pop! videos as well as other ways we will creatively integrate review into our daily schedule. We are excited for our 5th graders to show what they know!!
As we wrap the unit on Westward Expansion, student will be able to explain how the Louisiana Purchase, Oregon Trail and Gold Rush impacted the westward expansion. In addition, they will be able to better understand how people were able to modify their environment to suit their needs through with the Erie Canal, Transcontinental, and Railroads. In this unit, students will have understood the reasons why people move from one region to another within the US. We will then begin moving into the Civil War and Reconstruction Unit.
Camp Thunderbird-we successfully made it back from our field trip without any major accidents, homesickness, or injuries...we will call that success! We definitely want to take a minute to thank each one of our chaperones! Our 5th grade team feels like this was one of our best groups of students and parents we've had. We fished, zip-lined, scooped up animals from the lake, performed skits, danced, raced, let mice run across our backs, and ate to our heart's content. We enjoyed two days of amazing weather and are ready to do it again next March with a new set of students.
STEM News
Spring Break
Thursday, Apr 13, 2017, 03:15 PM
Patriots Elementary School, Holden Avenue, Concord, NC, United States
Tasty Tuesday
Tuesday, Apr 18, 2017, 04:00 PM
Chick-fil-A, Concord Parkway South, Concord, NC, United States
Tasty Tuesday
Tuesday, Apr 25, 2017, 04:00 PM
Jersey Mike's Subs, Harrisburg, NC, United States
Spring Fling
Friday, Apr 28, 2017, 05:00 PM
Patriots Elementary School, Holden Avenue, Concord, NC, United States
Teacher Appreciation Week
Monday, May 1, 2017, 08:15 AM
Patriots Elementary School, Holden Avenue, Concord, NC, United States
Tasty Tuesday
Tuesday, May 2, 2017, 04:00 PM
Texas Roadhouse, Gateway Lane Northwest, Concord, NC, United States
Movie Night
Friday, May 5, 2017, 06:00 PM
Patriots Elementary School, Holden Avenue, Concord, NC, United States
Tasty Tuesday
Tuesday, May 9, 2017, 05:00 PM
Domino's Pizza, School House Commons, Harrisburg, NC, United States
Patriots STEM Elementary School
Email: mary.brafford@cabarrus.k12.nc.us
Website: http://www.cabarrus.k12.nc.us/Domain/17
Location: 1510 Holden Avenue, Concord, NC, United States
Phone: (704) 455-1882
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PatriotsElementary
Twitter: @Patriots_Elem