April Newsletter
Highland City Elementary
Message from Administration
I hope you and your family had a fabulous Spring Break! We are proud of our students for their continued success in the classroom. Please continue to ensure your child is reading each night and practicing math facts. All students in grades 1-5 should be participating in Accelerated Reader. Please reach out to your child's teacher if you have any questions or concerns about A.R. Our kindergarten students should be working hard to learn their sight words. Each kindergarten student is working to move through the rainbow! Thank you for your partnership to ensure your child is successful.
Our main sources of communication this year will be School Messenger, Facebook, Schoology, and HCE Electronic Newsletters. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to call 863-648-3540 or email us.
Dr. Amy Weingarth-Strevels, Principal
Chabre Timmons, Assistant Principal
Highland City Elementary April Happenings
April 11: Math/Science Family Night
April 13: PTA meeting at 3:30 PM
April 19: Class pictures
April 20: Progress Reports go home with students
April 20: Kindergarten Round-up from 9-10 AM
April 27: Student of the Month lunch
April 28: Early Dismissal at 12:30 PM
April 28: $1 fundraiser no uniform dress out day for students
April 28: PBiS Reward Day
Early Dismissal Days
- April 28
Grade Level News
Kindergarten
We hope everyone had a safe and relaxing spring break. It is hard to believe that April is already here. On April 22ndwe have Earth Day to look forward to. The students will learn how to take care of our planet by helping in the communities and salvaging recyclable objects. In language arts, our comprehension focus has been on the beginning, middle, and end for fiction and first, next, and last for non-fiction. Also, in language arts, our students have been working hard on their sight words, along with long vowels, letter blends, and digraphs. In math, we are working on our 3-D shapes and moving into non-standard measurement soon. As you ride back and forth to school it is a good time to talk to your child about the different sizes of things in our community. In science, we have been studying animals and their habitats. We are also learning about plants and trees and the life cycle of living things. Thank you for sharing your child with us, we truly enjoy our time with them. Stay safe.
First Grade
First graders have been working on High-Frequency Words (sight words) all year long. The sight words are broken into 4 lists, one list for every nine weeks. The first list has 24 words. The second list has 47 words. The third list has 50 words. The fourth list has 62 words. First graders are now working on the fourth nine week’s words. These words are encountered in the classroom when they work in whole groups, small groups, library books, classroom readers, learning games, and flashcards. The words are chosen because they appear frequently in texts that children read and vary depending on grade level. The more HFWs your child knows, the more fluently they can read. The list of words is available from your child’s teacher and is usually sent home at the beginning of the year or throughout the year. If your child has not mastered all the words by the end of the year, please have them continue to work with the words over the summer break so they can be more successful in second grade.
Second Grade
We have been working hard in 2nd grade. Students have been learning to write a paragraph with an introduction and conclusion. We will continue to work on writing sentences with elaboration. In reading, students have been identifying different characters' perspectives and identifying story elements. Have your student read a book to you and then ask them questions. This is a great way to practice those skills. In math, we concluded three-digit addition and subtraction and started our graphing unit. Remember to have your child work on math fact fluency and read to you each night! Thanks for all you do!
Third Grade
We are now in the 4th 9 weeks and we have a lot to get done in a short amount of time. Please make sure your child is on time each day with a fully charged iPad. In ELA, we will be continuing to identify text structures and explain how text features contribute to a text. We will also be identifying and explaining character perspectives as well as the author's claim in a text. In math, we will be solving real-world problems involving data and will be exploring geometry.
Fourth Grade
As we move closer to our third FAST assessment, the students are putting forth great effort to get ready. Please look for some information on the last FAST test coming home at the end of the month. Continue encouraging your child to read as much as possible at home each night and practice their multiplication and division facts.
Fifth Grade
School Advisory Council
The School Advisory Council (SAC) is a group that consists of the principal, and an appropriately balanced team of parents, teachers, support staff, and community members. The SAC analyzes relevant data to determine the goals in the School Improvement Plan and how progress toward the goals will be measured. The SAC meets quarterly, so the SAC will meet four times this school year.
Morning Drop-off
Clinic News
- A 100.4 degree F or higher temperature by mouth or 100 degrees F or higher temperature by a no-touch thermometer
- Sore throat
- New uncontrolled cough that causes difficulty breathing
- Diarrhea, vomiting, or abdominal pain
- New onset of severe headache, especially with a fever
If you have any questions for our clinic nurse, Nicole Miller, please contact the school at 863-648-3540.
Highland City Elementary
Email: amy.weingarth@polk-fl.net
Website: https://hce.polkschoolsfl.com
Location: 5355 9th Street Southeast, Lakeland, FL, USA
Phone: 863-648-3540
Facebook: facebook.com/highlandcityelementary