Extra! Extra! Read all about it! McAuliffe School News for January 2015!
Happy New Year McAuliffe Families and Friends!
I hope 2015 is off to a great start in your home. It certainly is here at the McAuliffe
School! Students have all set new
learning goals and should be able to speak to the plan they have developed to ensure
they accomplish them.
At this point in the year routines are reviewed and student
expectations increase. Please continue
to support your child by:
· Making sure they attend school for the entire
school day. Tardies and early dismissals disrupt both instruction and learning.
· Make time to review homework and reading logs
with your child. If your child is
reading with you at night they are increasing their vocabulary and background
knowledge while developing a love for literacy and learning.
·
Communicate regularly with your child’s
teacher. Visit www.mcauliffeschool@lowell.k12.ma.us
for teacher emails and www.mcauliffeschool.blogspot.com for updated
monthly school notices and student photos!
·
Join our PTO! Volunteer to assist teachers both
in and out of the classroom while getting to know other McAuliffe parents and
families.
As part of our school bullying prevention program, kindness was
highlighted throughout the month of December.
Kate Middlemiss from the Big Heart Foundation came and spoke to our
students about looking out for and supporting one another in times of need. Mrs. Moulton developed a December kindness
calendar and raised over $400 in the student lead penny drive. Students chose to donate some of the funds to
the Lowell food pantry, Lowell Humane Society, and to the Big Heart Foundation.
Pennies will continue to be collected
through January. A
February calendar highlighting FRIENDSHIP will be coming home soon!
All bus students attended a responsible bus behavior and
safety assembly on January 13th.
Students were reminded to respect their bus drivers, to remain in their
seat at all times, to use an indoor voice, and to keep their hands and feet to
themselves on the bus. A sample bus
report regarding bus expectations was sent home with all bus riders and is
included in this newsletter as well.
Disrespectful and dangerous bus behavior may result in the suspension of
bus privileges.
Mark your
calendars!!!!! Our annual
indoor Winter Carnival is planned for Thursday, February 12th. Flyers for volunteer assistance and candy
donations will be coming home soon.
Join us for pizza, bouncy house fun, cotton candy, “the candy strut”
(formally the cake walk), dancing, face painting, games, and community
outreach.
As always, thank you for sending us the best kids in the
city of Lowell.
Mrs. Murphy
Preschool
We are very busy in preschool this winter. We are reading about penguins, hibernating
animals, animals in winter, and how to be healthy and not spread germs. We have been participating in many activities
that involve counting and matching numbers to objects. We have been learning the names of shapes and
matching shape names to real life objects.
We continue to learn letters and their sounds using Lively Letters. We have also been matching uppercase and
lowercase letters. The children are
making great progressing at learning to write their names, holding pencils,
markers and crayons correctly, and using scissors to cut.
The Preschool Team
Kindergarten
Hello Kindergarten Families. From all of us to all of
you, Happy New Year! The kindergarten students are happy to be back at
school and as busy as ever. We continue our daily small group reading
instruction and we are proud of how well the students are progressing.
Your child needs your help at home with reading practice. Please read
with your child every day, record the book on the Reading Log, and return the
Reading Log to school each Friday. Is your child able to read to you
now? They sure can if you have them read the photocopied books that go
home each week. Enjoy this special time of the day together.
Students will be beginning work on “How To” books in class
as part of our Informational Writing module.
Students will use a combination of illustrating and writing to complete
these “expert” books. Ask your child what he/she has been writing about in
school. Encourage your child to be an
author at home by providing them with paper, a pencil and crayons, and watch
their creativity at work!
In math students continue to work on counting by ones and
tens to 100 and writing numbers 0-20. Students are beginning to
understand that putting numbers and objects together is adding, and taking
apart or taking from is subtraction. You can help your child strengthen
these skills by having them count out objects for you at home, or practice counting
while riding in the car. We will be
going out for recess if the temperature is above freezing, so please remember
coats, hats, and mittens! We hope to see you all at the McAuliffe School Winter
Carnival in February!
The
Kindergarten Team
First Grade
Can you believe that February is already upon us? Wow! Time certainly does fly when you’re
having fun. Our first graders are busy
learning new and exciting things in all academic areas. Our young mathematicians have been working on
solving for change unknown in addition and subtraction story problems, working
with place value, and subtracting and adding ten to a two-digit number. These are just a few of the concepts we’ve
been exploring in math.
In reading, we’ve been using our schema, making predictions,
retelling stories, and reading lots of non-fiction text. Please continue to
read with your child each night and have conversations about the text they are
reading. Ask you children if they can
identify the different text features in their books. You’ll be surprised at how much they have
learned! Home book bags and logs should
be returned on Fridays. In Writer’s
Workshop, our experienced writers are focused on How-to and All About
Books. They are enjoying showcasing
their expertise to their classmates!
Keep up the great work, fantastic first graders!
The First Grade Team
Second Grade
Hi Families!
We hope everyone is staying warm this winter. We are hard at
work in 2nd grade! We just finished up a math module and we are
currently working on combinations of money, as well as addition and subtraction
of 2 digit numbers within story problems and measurement. In reading we are focusing on Non Fiction
text features and learning all about the different types of text features that
are in non fiction books.
In writing we are working on our “How To/Expert Books” and
they are coming along nicely. We have finished up our science units and lots of
bugs have left our classrooms. We may or may not miss them. As always we thank
you for supporting us in Grade 2. Here are a few things you can be sure you are
working on with your children:
• Read
every night for at least 20 minutes.
• Study
Math Facts
• Ask
your children what non fiction text features are.
• Ask
them what their ‘How To’ Book is about.
• Ask
them what their goals are to stay Green in 2nd grade.
See you all soon! Grade
2 Team
Third Grade
The third grade continues to be busy, busy, busy! We are
finishing up our third mathematics unit! We have been studying area and
multiplication. Students should be studying their multiplication facts each
night. Soon we will be starting our unit on fractions. Rulers and measuring
cups are great home tools that students should practice using. Third graders
should be able to measure to the quarter inch.
Students should also be practicing elapsed time. Asking your child,
“What time will it be in a half hour?” or “How much longer until soccer
starts?” is very helpful. Also, all
students have an ExtraMath account and can be practicing at home.
Students have a minimum of 20 minutes of reading
homework each night. Parents need to sign the reading log on the back of the
homework. This is the most effective way for students to increase their reading
level. We are looking forward to having
the Freedom Trail Players come next week to teach us about the American
Revolution. We love learning the history of our country.
Fourth Grade
Happy New Year McAuliffe Families,
We hope this newsletter finds you well. Here is a quick
glimpse into a day in the life of a fourth-grader at the McAuliffe Elementary
School, and also a few tips on how you can help with your child’s education at
home:
Goals:
This year at the McAuliffe we’ve put an emphasis on the setting of
academic goals. Ask your child about
his/her academic goals! Since we’ve just
passed the half-way point of the school year, this is a great time to remind
ourselves of (or even add to) our academic goals.
Measurement and Multiplication: In math, we’re currently working on a
measurement unit that includes concepts such as converting standard and metric
units (ex. Feet to Inches, Meters to Centimeters, Kilograms to Grams) and
determining the Area and Perimeter of rectangular shapes. A quick reminder of the importance of knowing
multiplication facts: At this time in the fourth grade all students should be
fluent with all multiplication facts through 10 x 10. As we move towards more complex tasks, having
these facts at the ready goes a long way!
Nonfiction, Nonfiction, Nonfiction: In both reading and writing, we’re in the
midst of a very important unit on nonfiction.
This would be a perfect time to encourage your child to read more
nonfiction at home. Reading nonfiction
helps develop a child’s background knowledge, which will become more and more
important as your child progresses towards college. Oftentimes children will strictly read
fiction when given the choice, but having the ability to comprehend complex
nonfiction text is the key to success in college and most careers… And always
remember: “The more we read, the better we read!”
Thank you!
Lastly, we want thank you for your support. We truly appreciate the partnership we share
in making sure your child gets the absolute most out of his/her day.
Thank you! The
Fourth Grade Team
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