Saints Snapshot
December 2023
Best Place to LEARN. Best place to TEACH.
The duties of a teacher are neither few nor small, but they elevate the mind and give energy to the character.
-Dorothea Dix
This Month at PCA
12.11 - 12.15 Holiday Shop
12.12 5/6/7/8 Winter Band Winter Concert
12.13 PCA Pride Day
12.14 Chorus Winter Concert 4-8
12.19 KN Winter Concert
12.19 PTO Meeting
12.18 1st Grade Winter Concert
12.18 - 12.21 PCA Spirit Week
12.22 - 1.2 Winter Break
Cannon Corner
One Trimester down, two more to go. Just a few short days before we are on our Winter Break. Prior to winter break all teachers must have two graded assignments per content area input into the gradebook. Grades 3-8 completed their first IAB in preparation for SBAC and it was a huge success! We will be analyzing this data and making plans during our Data PLC's. Thank you to the amazing coaches for getting everything together and helping and supporting all the 3-8 teachers during testing. Please be sure to clean out all food and candy prior to leaving for the holiday. Just a reminder that we will be having a PD day on January 3, our first day back from break. Report time will be 8am. I hope you all have a great break!
*Happy Holidays*
Well's Words!
Thank you for teaching and encouraging students to be positive citizens at PCA! We’re proud that so many students earned a Citizenship Award for Trimester 1.
Safety:
- Please emphasize to students that children should never walk toward the pillars/parking lot without an adult. Additionally, they should never open up an exterior door for an adult.
- Student transitions between buildings- Make sure the person receiving your students know they are coming. Use the walkie to announce that you are watching 2 students (or more) walking from [location] to [location]. If you cannot watch the children walk from building to building, make sure you contact someone who can watch the children (i.e. Support Team, Main Office Team, Denise, Rachael, Brandon, Jeanine).
Drills:
- Great job with our monthly fire drills!
- Our next fire drill will be held the week before Winter break.
- Lockdown drill will be Tues. 12/12 at 8:30am
- Contact Amanda or Danny with any questions and/or feedback related to safety and drills.
Student Attendance:
- If a student has been absent for 3 consecutive days, communicate with parent/guardian to check-in on student and remind of need to send in note/documentation upon return to school or email to office@pca.k12.de.us.
- Please notify Nicole Cooper of your communication as she tracks attendance and will notify Nurse Nicole as needed.
Student Handbook:
- Please put signed Acknowledgement forms in Amanda’s mailbox, even if you have not yet received them for all students. We will follow-up accordingly.
Winter Concerts:
- Come support your students! 12/12 Band, 12/14 Chorus, 12/18 1st Grade, 12/19 K
- Volunteers are needed and greatly appreciated! If able, please contact Ms. Ryan or Ms. JerVey
Instructional Tips
Math Mash-Up
Trivia Time! Do you know what the difference is between an expression, an equation and a number sentence? How often do you find yourself using these content specific words during your instruction? Although these terms are similar, they are in fact different and it is important to be sure you are using the correct term with your students!
Here is how Eureka Math defines these terms, which are frequently mixed up!
Expression: A number, or any combination of sums, differences, products, or divisions of numbers that evaluates to a number (e.g., 3 + 4, 8 × 3, 15 ÷ 3 as distinct from an equation or number sentence).
Equation: A statement that two expressions are equal (e.g., 3 × ___ = 12, 5 × b = 20, 3 + 2 = 5).
Number sentence (also addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division sentence): An equation or inequality for which both expressions are numerical and can be evaluated to a single number (e.g., 4 + 3 = 6 + 1, 2 = 2, 21 > 7 × 2, 5 ÷ 5 = 1). Number sentences are either true or false (e.g., 4 + 4 < 6 × 2 and 21 ÷ 7 = 4) and contain no unknowns.
This information, along with lots of other great tips, is located within your teacher edition. An essential part of preparing for each of your math lesson includes reading and notating your teacher manual, as well as familiarizing yourself with the models and terms that are being used.
Make it a goal for yourself that you will spend a few extra minutes each day diving into your teacher edition a little deeper, you never know what you will discover!
Lit Tips
Thank you to everyone who helped to make the November Literacy Challenge a success!! Altogether, our students used the adaptive programs for 91,905 minutes during this challenge! 125 K-2 students spent over 120 minutes on Lalilo during the challenge! In addition, our students grew an average of 13% (of a school year) on Freckle ELA in 30 days. Shout out to all teachers; everyone did an excellent job encouraging your students throughout the challenge.
Now, let's take a look at cross-curricular writing. Did you know that studies indicate "that only 4% of a middle schooler's day is dedicated to writing a paragraph or more" (esparklearning.com)? Cross-curricular writing occurs when students practice informational, opinion, argumentative, and narrative writing in other content areas such as math, science, and social studies. Examples in math can include having your students explain how they arrived at their answer, evaluate a math problem for correctness, and/or explain the steps to solving it. In science, students can agree or disagree with the claims made by scientists or explain the outcomes of a science experiment in paragraph form. For social studies, students can write to retell an essential event in history, compare historical figures, and/or share their opinions about ideal climates, geographical areas to live in, cultural celebrations, etc.
"Writing across subjects exposes students to new ways of communicating their thinking and can prepare students to thrive in their college lives and careers (epsarklearning.com). Encouraging students to write about the material they are studying encourages subject comprehension and builds critical thinking skills. Regardless of the grade level or content that you teach, take time to incorporate various writing tasks across multiple subject areas! This step may add time to your lessons, but trust the research; it WILL make a difference!
Check out a few of the cross-curricular writing resources below:
Science Stats
Science kit reminder: PCA's next delivery cycle is scheduled for Friday, December 8th. Science kits from TM1 will be picked up at this time and TM2 kits will be delivered for grades 1, 2, 6, 7, and 8.
The next shipment date scheduled for all grade 3, 4, and 5 science kits will be January 25th. Please plan accordingly!
Please refer to the attached handout for good practices when receiving and packing up science kits.
History Hits
Social Studies Through-Year Testing Window #1 is now complete! Grades 4, 6, and 8 completed the assessment this past week. Thank you to teachers and students for helping to make our first testing window a success. We look forward to reviewing data and setting goals for Administration #2 in February! Next up: Grades 5 & 7 will complete a field-testing window in January.
How can you help your students prepare for these assessments regardless of content area? Exposure to informational texts is key! Use the question stems/prompts providing in the link below to familiarize students with how questions might be worded on these assessments.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CtCzMYQJnK3xzAwNhEEgvFP2Y8GpidgdKcLHxMZ9mWg/edit?usp=sharinghttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1CtCzMYQJnK3xzAwNhEEgvFP2Y8GpidgdKcLHxMZ9mWg/edit?usp=sharing
School Counselor Note
We are working on Gratitude for the months of November and December at PCA.
How can we show gratitude?
Get the person's attention.
Use a kind voice.
Use words like "Thank you for..." and tell them what you appreciate.