HILLTOP HAPPENINGS!
MARCH 2018
PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE
We are all saddened by recent events in Parkland, Florida. It appears that deep problems in our society are encroaching upon the schoolhouse door. Unfortunately, the era of community schools being a place where parents and community members can freely enter is over. With the rise of violent acts against schools, we are forced to take steps to ensure the safety of all of our students. Locked doors, monitored access, and intruder drills are not the friendliest characteristics of a school; however, these are some of the efforts we have taken to keep our students safe. Please do not be offended by our increased steps to ensure Hilltop remains a safe place to learn. We do not enjoy instituting all of the recent safety measures, but, sadly, they are necessary as long as there are violent acts perpetrated against school children. Hopefully, we will find answers to the current crisis in our schools. In the meantime, please note that we will take every step needed to ensure Hilltop students are safe while they are in our care.
MARCH EVENTS
March 1 Conferences
Early Release
1:35 p.m. Prek/KDG
1:45 p.m. Grades 1- 5
March 5-8 Joseph Beth Book Fair
March 8 Family Night at the Joseph Beth Book Fair
March 8 Conferences
Early Release
1:35 p.m. Prek/KDG
1:45 p.m. Grades 1- 5
March 16 End of 3rd Quarter/ Early Release
1:35 p.m. Prek/KDG
1:45 p.m. Grades 1- 5
March 26- 30 Spring Break
Saturday, March 31 10 a.m. City of Reading Easter Egg Hunt, Haffey Fieldhouse
COUNSELOR NEWS
It is that time of year again to begin our final MAP assessment and AIR assessment. It is common for students to get really nervous and “freeze up.”Remind your child that it's normal to feel a little nervous and stressed before a test. Just about everyone does. And a touch of nervous anticipation can help you get revved and keep you on your toes while you're taking the test. Let them know that we should try to do our best on a test, but we shouldn’t allow the test to terrify us. No single test, can have lifelong consequences for your child, so explain to them that they want to do well to show what they have learned.
Helping your child build confidence and putting tests in their proper perspective will ease the pressure on your child when test days roll around. It also will give them a better overall school experience. I often work with kids on a breathing exercise called “5 Steps to Feeling Calm.” Feel free to teach this to your child if they seem worried about the upcoming assessments.
Five Steps to Feeling Calm (use this as a guide to teaching your children)
Spread your hand and stretch your fingers out like a star. You can choose your left hand or your right hand. Pretend the pointer finger of your other hand is a pencil and imagine you are going to trace around the outline of your hand and fingers.
Start at the bottom of your thumb and slide your finger up your thumb, pause at the top, and then slide your finger down the other side. Now slide your pointer up your second finger, pause, and slide down the other side. Continue tracing your fingers up, pause, and down. Slide your finger slowly, watch your finger move and notice how it feels. Keep going until you have finished tracing your fifth finger (pinky).
Now you are ready to add some breathing. Breathe in through your nose and breathe out through your mouth. Remember to keep it slow and steady.
Place your pointer finger at the bottom of your thumb, and breathe in as you slide up. Breathe out as you slide down. Breathe in as you slide up your second finger, and breathe out as you slide down. Keep going until you have finished tracing your fingers and you have taken five slow breaths.
How does your body feel now? Do you feel calm or would you like to take another five?
Educator of the Month
It is a pleasure to report that our Educator of the Month for March is Mrs. Kim Elam. Mrs. Elam has been a teacher at Hilltop for many years; while at Hilltop, she has taught first grade and kindergarten. Mrs. Elam recognized that she wanted to be a teacher when her own children were very young. She knew her passion was being in front of a class, teaching boys and girls the love of learning. She is especially fond of teaching kindergarten students, with all of their interesting personalities and the manner in which they connect experiences to make sense out of learning. She also loves how funny kindergarten students can be and enjoys watching them grow and mature during the school year.
Before becoming a teacher, Mrs. Elam worked the banking field for several years, holding different positions within the company. Banking was an interesting career for her, but her true love was in teaching. It was then that she decided to go back to school to obtain an undergraduate degree in elementary education. Since then she has earned a master’s degree in Early Childhood Education.
When she’s not in the classroom teaching 5-year olds, Mrs. Elam teaches spinning, pilates, hydrorider, and Yogifit at the Anderson Mercy HealthPlex. She has an enthusiasm for learning about and practicing whole food plant-based nutrition. Needless to say, Mrs. Elam is way into fitness. She also has her first baby granddaughter, named Penny Ann, whom she loves dearly. Mrs. Elam is close to her family and enjoys spending time with them. Now that her husband is retired, she has many plans for the summer.
We are fortunate to have a kindergarten teacher at Hilltop like Mrs. Elam.
Preschool News
In March we will celebrate Read Across America Day and St. Patrick’s Day. We’ll study letters S, T, and U. In Reading we will discuss the difference between fantasy and reality, compare texts, discuss characters and events from stories we read, and retell and re-enact stories. In math we will work on subitizing, comparing numbers, and measuring. Lastly, in science we will learn about spring, motion, and living things and their habitats. Such a fun month ahead!
PICTURE: Our preschoolers enjoyed our visit from Mrs. Jenny Morgan, a dental hygienist. We learned about how to care for our teeth.
KINDERGARTEN NEWS
March is such an exciting month for us in Kindergarten! We will be taking our very 1st field trip to Greenacres Farm shortly. While there, we will be learning about living and nonliving things, as well as plants, their needs and life cycle. How exciting! We will also be celebrating reading this month! We will be learning about the author and illustrator, Dr. Seuss, by reading many of his books and completing fun activities, as well as reading many, many other books! We will continue to practice and learn our sight words, as well as our 2-D and 3-D shapes and addition and subtraction facts. We are looking forward to meeting with parents and guardians during conference times this month.
FIRST GRADE NEWS
We will kick off the month of March with Right to Read Week! Students will do a variety of activities with Dr. Seuss books, and even get to try Green Eggs and Ham. Penguins will take over first grade the second week of March, and we will learn where penguins live and how they adapt to their environment! St. Patrick’s Day will give students a couple weeks of fun in the classroom where they will participate in science experiments and learn to make predictions about what they think will happen. In math, first graders will learn to tell time to the hour and half-hour. Students will also learn about the tens and ones place in math and learn to add and subtract 10 from 2 digit numbers.
Second Grade News
In math we will be starting Chapter 6 in Go Math, which is adding and subtracting 3-digit numbers. Students will be using the same strategies that they used when adding and subtracting 2-digit numbers. Once we finish Chapter 6, we will begin Chapter 7, which is money and time. In Reading we will take a few weeks to read and discuss basic foundations of fiction texts and then quickly jump back into nonfiction. We will integrate our Reading, Writing, and Social Studies in a Culture Research Project. This is always a fun spring project that takes a lot of time and effort, but produces great work. We will celebrate our hard work at the end of the unit with a Culture celebration complete with food and costumes from their cultures! In science, we will be finishing up our three states of matter unit and begin discussing living things! If the weather is nice, we will begin planting in our garden beds!
PICTURE: 2nd Grade enjoyed a fun and educational day at Parky's Farm.
THIRD GRADE NEWS
March is a busy month for third graders. We will complete our famous “HIlltop Historical People Wax Museum”. Students will research people who have made our world a better place and share their learning by becoming that person and giving a speech. The speech will come from their five paragraph research paper that is completed in class. We will also start getting prepared for the spring AIR test during brain boost. In math, the students will wrap up a time and measurement unit. If your child struggles to tell time on an analog clock, please practice at home. After that unit is complete, we will begin working on data! The students will collect data and will analyze different types of graphs. This is a fun unit that students in the past have truly enjoyed!
FOURTH GRADE NEWS
Fourth graders in Mrs. Riedmiller and Mrs. Bose’s classes have launched new reading and writing workshop units. Students are working on Historical Fiction Book Clubs and Literary Essays. These units will last almost all month and will help prepare students (along with all of this year’s other work) for their state AIR test. Students will take the reading and writing portions April 24th and 25th. In social studies we will wrap up our chapter work on Ohio’s Ancient American Indians, moving into Ohio’s Historic American Indians and the Ohio Frontier. We will enter into April with units on the American Revolution in reading, writing and social studies. In math we will begin working on our Geometry unit. Students will study 2-dimensional objects and their characteristics. We will also be doing work with angles. Students will learn to measure and draw angles with a protractor. In Science we are finishing up our work on Ecosystems in Life Science. Our last standard we will be working on in science will be physical science, which we will start fourth quarter.
PICTURE: Fun in the Sun Day for our students dressing up for Read Across America Week!
Fifth Grade News
In reading, students are finishing up their study of Black History and moving on to a “choice” genre. We are now reviewing all standards in reading and writing, so we’ll be practicing everything we have learned this year and working on skills that are difficult. In Social Studies, we will begin an exploration of Economics that will be integrated with reading and literature. In math, we will be working on multiplying and dividing fractions. In science, we will be learning about the behaviors of light and sound energy.
Reading Hilltop Elementary
Cincinnati, Ohio 45215
513-733-4322 Office
513-483-6771 Attendance Line