Austin Elementary Newsletter
April 2021
A Message from Dr. Pierson,
PreK and Kindergarten Registration is Underway! Enroll now for the 2021-2022 school year by creating an account in the Family Portal. Scan the code or go to tiny.conroeisd.net/uygrb
Requirements for registration
- Birth Certificate: Kindergarten students must be at least 5 years old on or before September 1, 2021 to attend kindergarten. PreK students must be at least 4 years old on or before September 1, 2021.
- Proof of Residence A current utility bill with parent/guardian’s name & address
- Proof of Guardianship Photo ID of parent or legal guardian
- Child’s Social Security Card
- Immunization Records
To be eligible for PreK, a student must meet one of the following criteria:
- Unable to speak and comprehend the English language
- Educationally Disadvantaged (eligible for the national free or reduced-priced lunch)
- Dependent of the United States Armed Forces, member of the National Guard, or member of the Reserves who are currently on active duty or who were injured or lost his/her life on active duty
- Homeless
- In or has been in the conservatorship of the Department of Family and Protective Services
- Dependent of a person eligible for the Star of Texas award
- Receives Medicaid or Medicaid Plus benefits
Toys!
Upcoming Events
April 6- 4th Grade STAAR Writing Test
April 7th- Paraprofessional Appreciation Day
May 3 to May 7- Teacher Appreciation Week
May 11th- 3rd and 4th Grade STAAR Math Test
May 12th- 3rd and 4th Grade STAAR Reading Test
PK News
Happy Spring! The children have grown so much and are excited to become readers and writers. We continue to create class books, write in journals, and participate in writing activities in all of our subject areas. We are excited to be reading and writing our own stories. Encourage your children to share their reading and writing knowledge with you at home. Continue to read daily with your child and review the letters and sounds. In math, we will be learning geometry, which will review 2D shapes and introduce 3D shapes. We will also be learning spatial sense using location words (over, under, above, etc.) Finally, we will continue to work on our counting skills and number recognition. This time of year is perfect for learning about the life cycle of plants and animals. We will have many exciting opportunities to watch and learn how plants and animals grow and learn about what they need. We will also learn how to responsibly care for both our community and our world. Encourage your child to share their learning experiences with you and acknowledge all of their hard work. Finally, as always, we are here to help you and your children. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or concerns.
Kindergarten News
Can you believe it is already April? Our kindergartens have grown into such great students. These great kiddos have accomplished so much in such a short time! But as we are in the homestretch, here are some activities you can do to give them the extra boost they need going into first grade. Read, Read, and Read some more! Even if it is an online story you can turn down the volume, pause it and read it yourself along with your child. Online resources such as GetEpic are great for reading! Our kindergarten students are expected to end the year on a Level D in reading. You can always contact your child’s teacher for further information. Riding in the car can sometimes be a chore but playing spelling, rhyming, and counting games makes the car ride fun and insightful. Spelling cvc words, like hat, pig and pot, are developmentally appropriate and shows they can mentally connect a sound to a symbol and letter name and then put the sounds in the correct order. Counting backwards from 20 and forwards to 100 is great because they love to show what they know. You can also count by 10’s to 100 or say a number and see if your child can tell you the next number, like 29…..30. In class we will be focusing upon addition and subtraction, reading and writing research papers! It’s a great time of year!
Pro Tip: Birthdays
**COVID-19 UPDATE: Cupcakes will not be allowed. Only items prepackaged and sealed by the manufacturer will be allowed.
1st Grade News
April showers don't need to bring us May flowers, we've already got your kids! Hurray for the last nine weeks of school, summer is on the horizon.
In April we will be kicking off our imagination writing unit. We love getting to see the kids use their imaginations to create all kinds of interesting people and places! This is a great opportunity for them to use all their knowledge about writing.
Our reading, focus will be in the genre of fiction and circle back to the basics. We will also be reviewing what fairytales are and connecting this information to their writing. A good activity for you to do at home with your child is to ask them about their day and have them retell what happened. This will help their retelling skills when it comes to reading. We will discuss how it is important to ask questions before, during, and after our reading so we are monitoring our understanding of what the story is about. Lastly, we will touch once more on making predictions and using what we read to confirm or correct those predictions.
Science will be a focus for this month where kiddos will learn all about animals and their lifecycle. We will touch on various animals and their interdependence with their surroundings.
Math will circle back once more to counting and identifying money. We will be counting collections of pennies, nickels, and dimes. A great way to ensure your student's success with this skill is to practice with them at home with real money. We will spend 2 weeks on place value with numbers all the way up to 120. Students will practice representing a number in expanded form, building it with base ten blocks, identifying the tens and ones along with their value, and using their knowledge of place value to represent the number in a different way using base ten blocks. The last week of the month will focus on addition and subtraction, both within 20.
Finally, this month we will begin end of the year literacy testing. This is the last checkpoint for measuring the student's reading growth and all the progress they have made. If you have any questions, concerns, or would like more information regarding your students academic standing, please reach out to their classroom teacher!
2nd Grade News
In math, we will be finishing up our until with geometry moving into fractions. Students will be expected to partition one or two dimensional objects to name the parts, count beyond one whole, and identify examples and non-examples of halves, fourths, and eighths. Students will also be able to explain the more fractional parts it takes to make the whole, the smaller the part; and the fewer the fractional parts, the larger the part. In second grade, students will partition whole objects. Fractions of a set begins in third grade. In reading and writing, we will be reviewing fiction text. Students will express their opinions about the characters and parts of the story. They will form these opinions into a letter format.
In Social Studies, we will be moving into our economics unit where students will learn about producers, consumers, free enterprise and different job choices.
We are continuing studying animals in Science but focusing on dependency, food chains, hibernation, and migration.
Please make sure you are reading every night with your child and practicing their math facts up to 20 with addition and subtraction. As always, contact your child's teacher with any questions or concerns.
3rd Grade News
In Science, we will be investigating the structure and function of plants and animals, as well as the life cycles of plants and animals.
Modern entrepreneurs, personal financial literacy, and the exploration of economic principles such as wants vs. needs, scarcity vs. abundance, and good and service will be the focus of study in Social Studies.
Informational text will be the primary focus in Reading and Writing. We will also begin our STAAR review to get ready to finish up the year!
Recording the Morning Announcements
4th Grade News
As we near the end of the school year, students will be working on strengthening their revise and edit skills in preparation for the Writing STAAR test. Following the STAAR, the students will begin working to complete a research project over a topic of their choice. These projects will require the students to create questions, gather information, and present a project to their classmates. Preparations have also begun for the Reading STAAR test which the students will complete in May. In order to get ready for the exam, students will work with all different types of selections including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama. We will review over the skills learned throughout the year and continue to work on any areas that we feel need to be strengthened. As always, we encourage everyone to read for at least 20 minutes a night and complete their homework. In Math, students will begin our Measurement unit. In this unit, we will cover area and perimeter of rectangles and squares; time; measurement conversion with tables; mass and weight; length; and capacity. Real world exposure to measure can be while at home as you prepare dinner/super. We will also introduce personal financial literacy. Students will be involved in activities that allow them to share ideas of ways to save, spend, or share income. Students will be taking the Reading and Math STAAR test in May. In Science, students will be discussing traits. This is a very exciting unit as students discover inherited or learned behaviors about themselves and animals. In Social Studies, students will continue to learn about our history. Students are encouraged to interview parents or grandparents to discuss how things have changed over the years.
Fun with Mr. Ortiz & Ms. Little
4th Graders Showing Off
Ready for Spring Break!
Pro Tip: Student Check Out & Transportation Changes
- Always remember to bring your ID if you will be checking out a student.
- Students cannot be checked out of school after 2:30.
- Transportation changes can be made calling the front office no later than 2:00.
Lifeskills News
We finished TELPAS ALT and continue STAAR ALT testing through April. April's unit is Changing Our Land and we will discuss ways in which people change the environment. Earth Day is April 22 and we will have fun activities planned to honor Planet Earth. Our year is coming to an end and we are excited about all the progress and hard work the students have put in this year. It has been an unforgettable year. The students have been resilient and we are so proud of them!
Specials News
In PE, our 3rd and 4th grade students have completed their state mandated fitness gram test. The students perform pushups, curl ups, trunk lift and a cardio test called pacer.
Our current unit is golf. We are teaching the students how to hold and swing a club properly. The students will putt and practice their chipping. The weather is getting warmer, so we encourage the students to get outside and play following CDC safety guidelines.
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In Music, we have been learning about Jazz. Our 3rd grade watched and listened to Ella Fitgerald while 4th grade did the same with Louis Armstrong. The 4th grade students will have an opportunity to see and hear the many instruments of the band and orchestra this month. The directors from both Grangerland and Bozman will be visiting with them to demonstrate the instruments for all the students interested in playing an instrument next year.
Austin Elementary
14796 Highway 105 E, Conroe, TX 77306
936-709-8400