Patriots Press
January/February Edition
A note from the principal...
IWe have reached the halfway point and it is time to refocus on those goals we set at the beginning of the year. One of my goals is to read more each week.
Our 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students recently went to the Nascar Hall of Fame. They had a great time. Check out some of their pictures by following us on Twitter
https://twitter.com/Patriots_Elem?lang=en. Our students will learn how to conserve energy at an assembly ob February 16th. We will send home information about how you can save energy at your house and earn Patriots money at the same time.
We missed several days due to inclement weather. Refer to the CCS homepage for information about make-up days due to the recent snow.
Report Cards will go home on February 7th. Students in grades 3-5 will also receive a report on their 2nd Benchmark to bring home as well.
I wish everyone a great start to the New Year
Sincerely,
Billy Davis
School Counselor News
Every Patriots student will get a checklist of acts of kindness at the end of the previous week. They will color a different section of a race car on the back for each category they complete (Family, Friends, School, Community). They will then cut out their race car to be displayed in the main hallway on a cool race track on the wall. Please encourage your child to participate! We can't wait to see the awesome race cars on our track!
We will also tape videos of students saying kind things about school, teachers and peers to put on Patriots TV every morning that week and have students create posters of inspiring kindness quotes to put around the school.
Let the kindness begin!
Media/STEM News
Media Center - The Spring Book Fair is coming!!! Preview days will be March 8th and 9th. Sales will begin Monday, March 12 and continue through March 16th. Your student will be bringing home a flier in the next few weeks that will highlight the books for sale. Volunteers are always welcome! Please email Ms. Ferguson if you would like to volunteer at the book fair. mary.ferguson@cabarrus.k12.nc.us For those who volunteered in the fall, you should be receiving a sign up genius link in your email by mid-February.
New Books - Thanks to the PTO for the $5,000.00 donation so that the media center could get more books! The new books have arrived and should be on the shelves within the next week. Look for lots of new books about all kinds of animals and habitats, more books in series and lots of new titles, too!!
Engineering Week - is coming February 19 - 23. Your children will be enjoying engineering challenges all week in their classrooms. Special guest speakers have also been planned. If you are an engineer and would like to volunteer to come speak to any classes, please contact Ms. Ferguson at mary.ferguson@cabarrus.k12.nc.us or call 704 455 4279.
Night at the Museum is coming on Saturday, February 24th from 5 - 6:30 p.m. Plan to come on down to the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte to view your child's PBL projects and see the exhibits. Students will be on hand to explain projects.
Family Fuel Up (formerly scheduled for March 28th) has been combined with Spring Fling on Friday, April 27th. Look for lots of family fun based on NASCAR and racing themes at this annual outing!!
STEM Night (formerly Math/Science Night) will be Thursday, March 1st from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. Bring your whole family and enjoy a night of STEM fun! Interactive activities, experiments and creating in our STEM lab are just some of the fun things we have planned for that night
Each classroom is in need of the following items for Engineering Week. Please plan to donate some of these items to your child’s classroom. Donated items will be accepted the week of February 5 – 9. We can take your donations in the car rider line or you can send them in with your child!
Empty water bottles with lid (up to 20 oz size – no bigger)
Rolls of masking tape
Plastic Bottle caps
Empty spools from thread
Washers (all sizes)
Index cards
Craft sticks
Pipe cleaners
Rubber bands
Twist ties
Anything recyclable that can be used to build a small car.
String
Paper plates with a lip
Spaghetti noodles (box)
Lasagna noodles (box)
Other shaped pasta noodles (box)
Wheel pasta noodles (box)
Pasta will be used to build a car.
Cardboard tubes from TP or paper towels
Cereal boxes
Music News
Both Concerts begin at 6:30 in the evening and will be held in the PES Gym.
Students should report to the cafe at 6:15 and should wear their class tee shirts.
AIG News
Kindergarten News
Kindergarten is hard at work! In Reading we are learning about Genres: fiction, storybook fiction, fantasy, non-fiction, poetry, and biographies. We are working in our guided reading groups and stamina reading each day to improve our reading skills. Our animal friends help us to remember our reading strategies! Please practice the sight words weekly as most are tricky words that can not be sounded out and need to be know in a snap!
In Math we are counting machines! We can count to 100 by ones and tens and some can even count to 120 and by tens to 200!!! WAY TO GO!!! We have started to decompose numbers using everything we know about addition and subtraction to help us figure our number combinations to 10! Use beans, marshmallows, coins, buttons at home to practice decomposing!
In Writer's Workshop we have worked so very hard on our Small Moment Stories- a real and true story that has happened to you! We have spread our small moment story over three sheets of paper and can write a simple sentence with a matching picture. We are trying to remember to start each sentence with a capital letter, include finger spaces and to end the sentence with a punctuation mark. We will be moving in to How To books! Students will be able to independently use their learning to express themselves in a clear and concise manner that allows others to follow and replicate, the kids get to be the TEACHER!!! This is a very fun unit and we are looking forward to writing stories such a: How to make lemonade, How to blow a bubble, How to brush your teeth, etc!
In STEM and Social Studies we are learning about Weather! What a great learning connection after the SNOW!!! We will be weather watchers and track the weather, learn vocabulary to describe the weather and we will complete a weather PBL , the students will video tape themselves giving the weather forecast! We will make a rain gauge, a thermometer, and much more! We will also learn about Punxsutawney Phil, to find out if we will have 6 more weeks of winter or an early spring! I think the kindergarten teachers are hoping for an early spring!!!
First Grade News
Now we are focusing on fiction stories. We will be reviewing retelling and finding the central message . Students will also be learning about new skills including inferring, character traits, and comparing and contrasting the adventures and experiences of characters in stories. This month in reading we will begin our next unit which focuses on ‘Making Reading Look Right, Sound Right and Make Sense’. Students will pull on the strategies they already know, as well as knew ones to make meaning, word solve, self-monitor and self-correct for comprehension as well as read fluently and with voice to convey moods or feelings. Read Across America week will be at the end of this month!
Math
In math we are focusing on measurement. Students will be measuring with nonstandard units such as blocks and paperclips to determine the length and height of objects. Students will then learn to compare the lengths or heights to justify a correct ordering. Students will learn about analog and digital clocks. We will focus on reading and writing time to the hour and half hour. Students will work on collecting data and representing it in tally charts, picture graphs and bar graphs. We will also be moving into our problem solving unit where students will use various strategies to solve problems. Students will use strategies such as base ten blocks, ten frames, number lines, part-part-whole mats, friendly numbers, fact families, equations and drawings to help them solve problems. We will also work to solve problems with missing numbers as well as multiple steps. This unit will help students to continue to build their fact fluency within 10.
Writing
This month in writing we will continue working on how to express our opinions and to persuade readers. We will also be talking about how we can write book reviews as authors to share our opinions on books we have read.
STEM/Social Studies
This month, we will be looking at the Sun, stars, constellations and the Moon. We will also be discussing patterns in the sky such as day and night and the reasoning behind seasons and shadows! Then in social studies, we will be looking at how people and places change over time, including ourselves! We will also celebrate Engineering Week this month!
Second Grade News
Our Science focus for January will be weather. Students will study how air affects objects, explore sun/shadow relationships and weather terminology, build weather data collection tools, study wind patterns, and analyze weather data. This study continues into February when students will be reading Leif Catches the Wind to begin researching and understanding wind energy. They will then build different sail designs and windmill blades to test and improve.
In our January lessons for Social Studies students will learn about the Nobel Peace Prize as well as the youngest winner, Malala Yousafzei. They will each make a diorama of a historical figure in our Night at the Museum PBL. In February, students will also study the life and contributions of Ben Franklin.
As mathematicians, we will be using inches and centimeters to measure in January. We will also compare lengths of two objects and talk about non-standard and standard forms of measurement. We will be representing and interpreting data during February! We are excited to use line plots, bar graphs and pictographs as tools to display the information we gather. Students will conduct polls of classmates, tally the information and then produce graphs to share. They will also spend time analyzing graphs in order to answer questions about the data. Money will also be counted up, added, and subtracted with dollar amounts too. With Time, the children will focus on mastering time to the five-minute interval.
The reading focus in January and February is on growing ideas about characters across a series. The children will revisit identifying character traits, and then use that information to learn about how a character grows, changes, and evolves within a series. Students will look for patterns in behavior, challenges, and motivations for their book characters, and use those findings to make predictions and comprehend the text. They will also focus on determining differing points of view within a text.
Our students will finish up their unit on informational writing in January and then begin a unit on opinion/persuasive writing. We are still really working hard to write complete thoughts with elaboration and great sentence structure. Another important focus is on editing with a focus on correct capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. This is a great thing to work on with nightly written response reading homework.
Thanks so much for all you are doing to support our classrooms. We are grateful for all you do at home and in our school. You’re making it a great year for all of us!
Third Grade News
Things are moving right along and lots of exciting learning is being planned in Reading, Math, and Science!!
In Math, 3rd grade is currently in the Geometry & Area and Perimeter Unit. Students will understand that… • Geometric figures can be described, compared, and classified according to their attributes. • Area and perimeter are a way to measure how much space is inside and around a shape. By the end of the unit 3rd graders will be able to • Draw and name quadrilaterals and other polygons. • Describe, classify, identify, and compare quadrilaterals by the attributes of their sides and angles. • Find perimeter by counting units around a shape or using addition. • Solve for unknown side lengths when perimeter is given of a shape. • Find area by counting square units inside a shape or using multiplication (length x width). • Find area of an irregular shape (rectilinear) by breaking the shape apart (decomposing) and relating to the distributive property. • Model rectangles with the same perimeter and different areas or with the same area and different perimeters. • Use key vocabulary in mathematical discussions.
In Science, 3rd grade is finishing up Forces in Motion and beginning the Universe Unit. Students will understand that… • There are patterns of movement within the solar system. By the end of the unit students will be able to Students will be able to: • Identify the objects within our solar system (Earth, moon, star/sun). • Recognize how shadows (from the sun) are created and change. • Recognize that patterns of the stars (constellations) in the sky stay the same.
In ELA, 3rd grade is currently finishing up their Countries Around the World Unit where they learned information gained through reading informational texts help us to become experts in content areas. Students will soon begin their next unit which is Mystery Book Clubs. The end goal for students is to: • Form questions and find answers when reading mysteries • Reference text to support answers or thinking • Describe and analyze characters through their traits, motivations actions, and feelings and formulate theories about characters based on their traits and actions • Decipher multiple points of view (the reader vs. author and the reader vs. characters) • Explain how a character’s actions affect the sequence of events • Revise character theories by evaluating evidence in the text • Make and confirm predictions based on inferences and clues accumulated from text • Determine the central message, lesson, or moral by studying the characters and plot and explain how the life lesson is conveyed through the key details of the text • Compare and contrast themes, settings, plots, and characters in a series by the same author.
Fourth Grade News
In addition to our historical fiction unit, students will participate in a PBL connected with our STEM NASCAR theme for this year.
In Science, our 4th graders are learning about ecosystems, environmental changes, adaptations, and survival. They are analyzing how environmental changes can be harmful or beneficial to an organism. They are learning how organisms adapt in order to survive. And another large part to this unit is how humans have an impact on the diversity and stability of ecosystems. Our NASCAR PBL relies on this knowledge as our 4th graders will be designing a new stock car racetrack to fictionally be located in North Carolina. The students will study the environmental impacts of building this new facility and they will come up with solutions to uphold the integrity of the land while building this new speedway.
Social Studies has taken our students through the Revolutionary War. They have learned of the incredible ways North Carolina had an impact on this war. The students are now aware of how the women of Edenton led their own “Tea Party” against King George, of how North Carolina had the first documentation to tell the King they were free from his reign and how this led to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. They know how battles on our soil slowed and then stopped the Loyalists and the British troops from conquering the South, including how the Charlotte area was known as a “hornet’s nest” because the Patriots fought so hard. Students are engaged in learning about NC’s early statehood and how our government is set up. No less guided by the Constitution! And now that we are free from British rule everything is perfect! Or is it??!!
Fifth Grade News
Reading: We are almost finished with our non-fiction unit, wrapping up with our biography and autobiography projects. We have thoroughly enjoyed learning about each of your children! We are in the thick of PBLs, including Mrs. Walker's favorite Six Minute Shuffle and NFL research to go along with the Super Bowl as well as learning about some NASCAR teams and creating trading cards to go along with our field trip to the NASCAR Hall of Fame. After our project/PBL whirlwind, we will get back on track with using our interactive notebooks to learn about the parts of a story, lead into traditional literature and then poetry and figurative language.
We are currently in the unit, Weather. The students' are studying instruments, clouds, weather patterns, storms and climate. We kicked off with a Water Cycle project, where the children observed the cycle changes for a week creating their own personal atmosphere. The students' also constructed and created their own anemometers to determine wind speed and direction.
In Ms. Syracuse's math class the students have been applying their decimal and fraction skills by working on a catering project. The students are trying to open their own catering company and have to buy all the supplies needed as well as figuring out employees pay. They have been searching up recipes and multiplying them to meet the need of a party size of 32 people.
In Ms. Eason's math class the students created paper airplanes and tracked their distance, then created fraction line plots to graph the data they collected. After, the students designed their own experiments, collected the data and created the line plots.
Camp Thunderbird: We are getting so close to our field trip! We are working to get our groups, cabins, and chaperones organized. Please be on the look out for medical forms/releases to come home later in February. There will be explicit instructions on how to complete these forms, please follow the instruction page so we have everything we need to make this field trip the best it can be. We are looking forward to seeing a smile on everyone's face!
Cold Weather Information
All Pro Dads
Friday, Feb 2, 2018, 07:00 AM
Patriots Elementary School, Holden Avenue, Concord, NC, United States
PTO Snowball Fight (Box Tops)
Monday, Feb 5, 2018, 08:15 AM
Patriots Elementary School, Holden Avenue, Concord, NC, United States
STEM Drive
Monday, Feb 5, 2018, 08:00 AM
Patriots Elementary School, Holden Avenue, Concord, NC, United States
Tasty Tuesday-Dominoes
Tuesday, Jan 16, 2018, 05:00 PM
Domino's Pizza, School House Commons, Harrisburg, NC, United States
Report Cards
Wednesday, Feb 7, 2018, 03:00 PM
Patriots Elementary School, Holden Avenue, Concord, NC, United States
Tasty Tuesday-HWY 55
Tuesday, Feb 13, 2018, 05:00 PM
Hwy 55 Burgers Shakes & Fries, North Carolina 49, Harrisburg, NC, United States
Skate Night
Thursday, Feb 15, 2018, 06:30 PM
Frye's Roller Rink, Concord, NC, United States
Tasty Tuesday-Chick-Fil-A
Tuesday, Feb 20, 2018, 05:00 PM
Chick-fil-A, Concord Parkway South, Concord, NC, United States
Night at the Museum
Monday, Feb 26, 2018, 06:00 PM
NASCAR Hall of Fame, East Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard, Charlotte, NC, United States
Patriots STEM Elementary School
Email: william.davis@cabarrus.k12.nc.us
Website: www.cabarrus.k12.nc.us/Domain/17
Location: 1510 Holden Avenue, Concord, NC, United States
Phone: 704-455-1882
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PatriotsElementary/
Twitter: @Patriots_Elem