Good Day Brandt Family -

Another wonderful week of teaching and learning is in the books at Brandt School. Staff and students had a lot of fun this week. From decorating doors for our March Madness "Take A Shot At College" Challenge to trying to catch that pesky Leprechaun for St. Patrick's Day, we incorporated a lot of timely fun into our lessons!

At the most recent meeting of the Hoboken Board of Education, we had a lot to celebrate. Please be sure to check out some excellent photos below featuring our February 2023 Student of the Month, Dalia Machuca Juarez; our Brandt School Teacher of the Year Mrs. Francine Yu; and our Educational Service Professional of the Year, Mr. Michael Caniglia.

We are officially one week away from our 2nd Annual Staff vs. Parents Basketball Game, scheduled for Friday, March 24th at 7:00 PM in the gymnasium at Hoboken High School. If you'd like to attend please register using the QR code featured in the flyer below.

Featured below my Principal's Message, be sure to check out the following:

- Information about World Down Syndrome Day

- A flyer for the upcoming 1st Grade Theater Showcase

- Information about the upcoming Scholastic Book Fair

- A flyer for the Staff v. Parents Basketball Game

- Info about raffles to be held at the Staff v. Parents Basketball Game

- A poster contest for the Staff v. Parents Basketball Game

- A flyer for the upcoming Coffee and Chat hosted by the Hoboken Special Education Parent Advisory Group (SEPAG)

- A flyer for the Girls in Gear bike program

- Flyers for theater department fundraisers

- Information about participating in the Hoboken Community Art Walk

After you peruse all of that new information, don't forget to check out our grade level and subject area updates as we shine a spotlight on our students learning and our teachers teaching.

For this week's playlist I hope you enjoy three more songs in honor of Women's History Month...

Have a great weekend and please stay safe!

- Mr. Bartlett

In K this week, we learned about letters Gg and Ww. We practiced sight words “of” and “they”. We read about pets and learned how to take care of them. In math, we compared 2D and 3D shapes, practiced adding to 20, and solved story problems. In SS, we discussed important women to celebrate Women’s History Month!

Our First Graders are celebrating and focusing on women from the past, present, and future. We are reading biographies, listening to stories, and researching some of their accomplishments. In ELA, we are working on irregular verbs "see and saw," inflectional endings with -y, -ies, -ied, the long 'I" vowel patterns: i, y, igh, ie, and reading more about insects for nonfiction reading. In Math, the First Graders are understanding equivalent fractions and equations. They continue to practice place value and problem solving with word problems.

Our First graders are researching their assigned colleges for March Madness, designing and building well engineered leprechaun traps, reading a little about the fun of Pi Day, embracing more female role models for Women's History Month, and kicking off Holi's festival of colors and springtime with vibrant mosaic art pieces imitating Alma Thomas' work. March is packed with fun learning!

Second grade had a great week!

In reading, we've been working on literary elements of realistic fiction stories. We are focusing mainly on character study and development, and how they solve problems in a story. Students have been practicing comparing and contrasting different stories as well. We are getting ready to take the LinkIt! Assessment at the end of the month, so we are beginning to circle back to different skills to review, including elements of nonfiction texts, main idea, and key details.

In writing, we've been wrapping up our realistic fiction stories. Students have been working so hard on these and came up with such great ideas for their writing pieces. They did a lot of brainstorming, planning, and filling out graphic organizers to help plan their writing. They did a lot of revising and editing, and are almost ready to publish their final drafts!

In math, we are finishing up unit 3, which is all about addition and subtraction word problems, and finding the missing numbers in an equation. Students have worked so hard on these skills and are doing a great job finding key words to help solve problems. In our next unit, we will be working on different types of graphs. It's such a fun unit!

In Social Studies, we are continuing to learn about different women in history. We have been listening to different biographies and read alouds about inspiring, important women. We have also kicked off March Madness! Each class has been assigned colleges to represent and cheer on in the tournament. Students have been researching colleges and learning about the potential of their futures!

In ELA, students focused on character, plot, and how to make inferences after reading the weekly text The Talented Clementine. They worked with their group members to determine the author’s message of the text. Students identified what the author wanted the readers to learn or take away from the story. Next, in centers, students focussed on their grammar skills of the week. They determined the meaning of vocabulary words using context clues in the sentences, identified synonyms for their weekly vocabulary words, and determined the meaning of words with prefixes using prior knowledge of the meanings of prefixes pre-, im-, un-, and non-.

In Mathematics, students are continuing their study of area. First, students completed an activity where they found the area and perimeter for each letter of their name. They used grid papers to spell out their names and find the perimeter and area of each letter.

Next, students worked with partners to find the area of two rectangles. Each student was given grid paper and made a rectangle with the width of 5 squares. They were able to make the length as big or as small as they wanted the rectangle to be. Once everyone colored and cut out their rectangle, they found a partner and put the two rectangles together so that the widths are the same side (making one long rectangle with a width of 5 squares). Their challenge was to work together to find the total area of the whole rectangle they made. Last, they recorded their responses and then found another partner and repeated the task.

In Social Studies, students are continuing their research for Women’s History Month. They are creating a Women’s History Month Biography Quilt. Each student was given an influential woman from history. Next, after conducting their research they will complete a biography on a hexagon. One hexagon has a portrait of an influential woman, the other has their name written on it, and the third piece will have the biography they wrote. Once each student completes and attaches their three hexagons together, the attached pieces connected with the pieces from the rest of the class will make the overall “quilt” poster design.

Fourth graders made it to the middle of March and we are as busy as ever!

In Social Studies, students are researching and learning all about their assigned March Madness colleges. We are also finishing up our unit on the Revolutionary War. Up next we are starting our next unit all about how the United States formed their government and how they began to expand westward.

In ELA, students are reading Jim and Me, a novel about a boy who travels through time and tries to learn about the life of American athlete Jim Thorpe. Students are focusing on many reading and comprehension skills such as inferences, cause and effect, and compare and contrast. Students are working on Battle of the Books throughout the month of March, and are completing many activities for their favorite books. At the end of each week, students vote on their favorite to see who will advance in their tournament brackets.

In math, students began unit 6, all about fractions and decimals. This week we reviewed what we learned about fractions in third grade and we learned how to create equivalent fractions.

In ELA this week, our 5th graders have continued writing their essay for The Watsons Go To Birmingham]. A large emphasis in our writing this week was hooking the audience. Students were encouraged to paint a picture, provide a definition, or ask a question. As we are wrapping up our novel, we will be assessing it shortly.

In Unit 5: Temperature, Height, and Growth, we have been looking deeper at input and output tables, graphing, and understanding the x and y axis. Our mathematicians have been progressing when trying to find the rule to an input and output table. As we look ahead, we will be moving into Investigations 2.

In Social Studies this week, our 5th graders have just finished the Civil War unit. Our historians have been learning more about the aftermath to the Civil War. Students are wrapping the unit up by completing projects on different aspects from the war.

March Madness is officially underway at Brandt School. After Selection Sunday, our classrooms were assigned their colleges to follow in the tournament. Now that the classrooms have their teams, they will start researching their colleges and learning more about them. Teachers and students have been brainstorming ideas for our door decorating contest. We've already seen so many creative ideas start on the doors! Stay tuned for more updates as the tournament continues.

This week all students practiced shooting. Students used the following acronym (B.E.E.F.) to practice the skill:

Balance the ball on your shooting hand.

Elbow stays directly under the ball and over your knee.

Eye on the target (the front of rim)

Follow through snapping the wrist high over your head

Students played “number basketball” where each student was assigned a number. Students ran to the middle of the court, dribbled the ball to the to the basket and shot the ball until they were successful. Our older students were awarded points to the first to score, dribble, and run back to their line. Student worked on encouraging their teammates and good sportsmanship.

This week in Mandarin class, kindergarten and first graders are continuing the unit of “Colors” as well as reviewing skip counting up to 10000. The students enjoyed talking about their favorite colors in Mandarin! Second to fifth graders continue the unit of “Lunar New Year Food”. They did a fantastic job ordering food at a Chinese restaurant through a short play!

This week in Art students continued to work on their “Only Rain Down the Storm Drain” drawings. They took into consideration while drawing, how we can help improve our waterways. They included recycling, throwing away trash, cleaning up after our pets, and not using pesticides or chemicals on our plants and trees. They are doing an amazing job so far and I am excited to see the finished outcomes!

This week in music, our students grew more advanced in using a music staff! Students drew their own staves, wrote and labeled whole notes for all of our lines and spaces, and then decorated their papers with music notes and colors! More music reading and writing to come soon!

Good Day Brandt Family -

I am thrilled to let you all know that we welcomed our new nurse to Brandt School this week. Ms. Cassandra Nuovo will be providing health-related services for our school community moving forward. You can reach her at cnuovo@hoboken.k12.nj.us. Please make sure you welcome her!

I remain at your service should you have any questions.

- Mr. Bartlett