Butlerville Bulletin
October 2019
Principal's Update
Dear Butlerville Families,
I can’t believe we’re already a fourth of the way through the school year! We’ve had a great first quarter. Our second grade students are enjoying their nonfiction unit where they are becoming experts at reading nonfiction. They’ve learned the importance of rereading, using context clues and they’ve learned how to ask, “What is the book teaching me?” First graders have just ended their unit on personal narratives and realistic fiction reading and are ready to tackle informational reading and writing.
We had a great assembly put on by the National Theatre for Children about Energy Conservation. They learned and laughed a lot. We also enjoyed a visit from the Harlan Township Fire Department for fire safety week. Students got to see a fire truck and ambulance and learned about the importance of smoke detectors.
Our PTO continues to be amazing. They threw a luau party for our second grade because they brought in the most Box Tops. There were snacks, games, and each student received a flower lei. I especially enjoyed playing musical chairs with the students. The PTO also provided teachers with dinner for both nights of conferences and organized our book fair. We can’t thank our PTO enough!
We are looking forward to a great second quarter. If I can be of any assistance in helping your child have a positive school experience, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
-Jamie Miles, Principal
Reading at Home
By Ann Marie Klein, Literacy Coach
Reading is more than practicing sight words or spelling words. Here are three ways to read books at home
Read to your child:
Reading aloud to children develops language and vocabulary skills. A child’s reading level doesn’t catch up to his listening level until about the eighth grade. Pick a book that interests both you and your child. Often families choose to read a chapter book, bit-by bit. When you read aloud to your child, you model fluency, intonation (the rise and fall of your voice), expression and introduce your child to ‘book language’. Books provide 50% more sophisticated language than any TV, movie or peer conversations, thus improving vocabulary in a relaxed, supportive atmosphere. You also have opportunities to talk about character feelings, interactions with other characters, how characters solve problems and how characters are similar or dis-similar to people in your own life.
Read with your child:
Reading with your child provides active participation in word reading. When reading with your child, you read what you don’t expect your child to know how to read and stop for your child to read what you believe she can read independently. Some people call this reading with two voices. Imagine listening to the following example from A Porcupine Named Fluffy, where the child reads the underlined portions and adult reads the non-underlined parts:
He ate a lot of fluffy marshmallows. He rolled in shaving cream and feathers. He even tried to become a bunny. But the truth remained. Fluffy wasn’t.
Reading with your child provides active participation in the reading process.
Child Reads to You
Celebrate your child’s reading growth by having him or her choose something familiar and interesting. When your child reads to you, he or she should be very confident in what they’re reading, needing very little assistance. This is an opportunity for your child to practice reading with expression and show you that they have full control over their own learning.
Ideally, all three reading opportunities occur frequently and regularly, with opportunities to talk about likes, dislikes, events and information that happen in the texts being read. Reading together, whichever way you choose, builds life-long bonds and creates special moments or memories that can last a lifetime.
Notes from the Nurse
From Wendy Gordon, School Nurse
The Mobile Dentist is coming to Butlerville on Tuesday, December 3. The Mobile Dentist provides dental care at no cost or a reduced cost. Dental insurance may be used. Services include dental checkup, cleaning, x-rays and fluoride treatment, as needed. Additional services such as fillings may be provided. Look for more information in backpacks next month. Visit mobiledentists.com or call 1-855-481-8639 for details.
The Wellness No Prob-Llama wants to remind students to limit digital screen time to two hours or less. Power down the computer and TV. Read a book, play a game or have some outside fun! Be an active apple!
Upcoming Dates
October 28: Delayed Start
November 5: No School (Teacher Inservice)
November 8: Fall Family Night
November 14: PTO Meeting (4:45pm)
November 27-29: No School (Thanksgiving Break)
Counselor's Corner
During the month of October, my Core Counseling Lessons have focused on Friendship. I have been reading the book, The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig, to each class and we have discussed the importance of including others and how the boys in the story demonstrated friendship. The classes then have the opportunity to watch a video called Friendship Soup, where students identify the ingredients they think make a friend. After watching the video, the class makes "Friendship Soup". The ingredients that we talk about that help to make a good friend are: kindness, goofiness, trust, having fun, honesty, safety and a tiny bit of arguments. The students are given the opportunity to explain an example of each ingredient, or why that ingredient is important to a good friendship. At the end of my lesson, the students are asked if there are any additional ingredients they would add into their friendship soup. I love hearing the responses they come up with!
Core Essentials Program:
Our value for the month of October is Courage. Please check out our Schoology page for the Core Essentials Parent Newsletter. It was posted to our page earlier this month!
Upcoming Events from the School Counseling Department:
- R.E.D. Week- Really Excellent Decisions Week will be celebrated October 28 to November 1. Our focus for this week is on making excellent decisions to keep ourselves safe and healthy. Some of our topics will include healthy vs. unhealthy choices, ways to manage stress and the importance of including others.
- Small groups are currently running. If you signed your child up for a group and they are not in one currently, there are multiple rounds of groups, so they will have the opportunity to join. If you have a question about your child and a group, please contact me.
Connect with the School Counselor:
If you have any questions or concerns, or need to connect with me, please reach out to me by phone or email. I would love to work with you!
Brittany Stultz, School Counselor
513-899-5200 ext. 45427
Fine Motor Skill Practice
By Laura Ellis and Angela Houchins from Occupational Therapy
Every student can benefit from fine motor skill practice. Here are a some activities that your child can do at home to practice those skills: playing board games with small pieces and parts that they can pick up and move, drawing, coloring, doing origami, and making crafts.
Here are are some fun fall activities that your child can do at home:
Leaf Rubbings: Your child will need to collect leaves of various shapes and sizes. Have your child place a leaf on a hard surface and position the leaf with its bottom side facing up. Your child will put a white piece of paper over the leaf. Then, using a crayon on its side, your child will color on the paper over the leaf. Once your child is finished the leaf can be removed. Your child can make more leaf rubbing with other leaves and colors. Also, your child can overlap leaves.
Seek and Find Fall Sensory Bin: Fill a contain with dried corn or pumpkin seeds. Hide acorns, small seasonal erasers, fabric leaves, etc. into the container and have your child sort through the container to locate the items. Then, use tweezers or training chopsticks to pick up each hidden item. Have your child sort through the container until all the items are located.
Fall Gross Motor Activities
Fall is a great time to get outside and explore. Activities that you can do with your child include:
Scavenger Hunt – list items that can easily be found in your yard or at a nearby park such as leaves, pinecones, rocks, etc. and go on a scavenger hunt to fund the items. To make it more challenging, you can use different ways of moving to find each item such as jump, gallop, skip, or run.
Raking leaves – this is a great activity to add a little heavy work to a child’s day. Encourage your child to hold the rake with both hands to help hands work together.
Go on a hike – Walking through the woods can challenge balance especially if the path is uneven or covered with gravel. Walking in nature can also be a calming activity for your student.
Enjoy the crisp fall days by heading outside!
Speech and Language Tips
Hello! It’s me again, Ms. Detty the Speech-Language Pathologist, back with some fall activities.
Speech Sounds: Collect a bucket of candy (or other fall goodies). Have your kid use their speech sounds when describing the candy. First have them say the word then use it in a sentence if they are successful! Repetition leads to success with speech sounds!
Language: Collect a pile of leaves! Have your child describe each of their leaves with at least three words. Some ideas are: crunchy, big/little, green/orange, round/pointy, or full-of-holes.
Social Language: Trick-or-treating is coming soon. Pretend knocking on doors around the house and saying trick-or-treat while looking at the person they are talking to. When they open the door let them know that they did an awesome job! Now you take your turn!
Contact Us
Email: jmiles@lmsdoh.org
Website: www.littlemiamischools.com
Location: 8276 State Route 132, Blanchester, OH, USA
Phone: 5138995200
Twitter: @LM_MrsMiles