CMIT South Elementary School

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope this newsletter finds you well as we close out another exciting academic week at CMIT South Elementary! We have kicked off the school year with enthusiasm and are thrilled to share some important updates and upcoming events with you.

Baseline Data for Student Success: iReady and NWEA MAP Testing

We are pleased to inform you that our students have successfully completed their iReady assessments as well as the NWEA MAP Reading, Math, and Science assessments. These assessments provide us with valuable baseline data that will assist our dedicated teachers in tailoring instruction to meet the unique needs of each student. The results will enable us to set achievable goals for the year for staff and students, organize small groups for targeted instruction, and identify students who may benefit from additional support and interventions.

Front Office Procedures

Thank you to families, students, and guests who have been following our front Office Procedures. As a reminder to make sure we can support your needs in the best way possible with the highest level of customer service please adhere to the following;

• The main office is not open for late arrivals until after 8:05 am daily

• Anyone wishing to pick a student up must present a state or government-issued ID no exceptions.

• No calls for verification will be made.

• Emails for alternate pick-up arrangements must be made 24 hours in advance

• Repeated Late Arrivals and Early dismissals will be reviewed by the administration and attendance team to schedule a family conference to discuss the impact on the scholar(s).

Exciting Clubs and STEM Club Showcase

We are excited to announce the launch of various clubs at CMIT South Elementary, offering students the opportunity to explore their interests and passions beyond the classroom. To kick off our club activities, we will be holding a STEM Club Showcase on September 27, 2023, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. We invite you to join us for this engaging event where our students will showcase their innovative projects. This event will also mark the beginning of our first Parent University, which will be hosted in a hybrid format to accommodate your schedule. We encourage all families to participate in a way that suits your evening routine

Support Our School: Fundraising Opportunities

Our school's success is not only built on the dedication of our students and teachers but also on the support of our wonderful community. We have two exciting fundraising opportunities that we encourage you to participate in:

1. Chick-fil-A Night at Woodyard Landing Location: Our school has enjoyed a fantastic partnership with Chick-fil-A and the CMIT South Elementary PTO. We encourage you to mark your calendars for our upcoming Chick-fil-A night, where a portion of the proceeds will go towards supporting our school. This event is an excellent way to enjoy a delicious meal while contributing to our school's initiatives.

2. Read-A-Thon Fundraiser: During October, we will be launching our Read-A-Thon Fundraiser. Last year, our students collectively raised an astonishing $42,526, which directly benefited our school. We look forward to your participation in this year's Read-A-Thon as we strive to surpass our previous achievements.

We are immensely grateful for your continued support, which allows us to provide the best educational experience for our students.

Thank you for being an integral part of the CMIT South Elementary community. We look forward to a year filled with growth, learning, and exciting events. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us with any questions or suggestions. Stay tuned for more updates and mark your calendar for our STEM Club Showcase and Parent University on September 27, 2023! Your participation makes a difference.

Sincerely,

Mr. Ronald A. Miller, Jr.

Principal

Chesapeake Math & IT Academy South Elementary

Prince George’s County Public Schools

• This week we would like to highlight some at-home math activities!

  • Bake together- Let your child become familiar with the purpose of measuring, the various measurements and an understanding of quantity. A

  • Count everything- Count the number of steps to the car, the number of toys in a box, or the number of candies in a jar.

  • Create a family math night- Designate a night as Family Night. Play board games and other games that use number cubes (dice), card games, dominoes, or puzzles

  Friendly Reminder: Please be mindful of student illnesses. Many scholars come to school with very runny noses, coughs, and congestion. We want to keep students and staff safe, so please keep students home when they are sick. Also, masks are optional but you may choose to put your child in one as cold and flu season is upon us.

  CALLING ALL VOLUNTEERS!!!! We need support for our first field trip. We are trying to coordinate a date to attend the Pumpkin Patch but we need atleast 6 chaperones for each class. Please visit Volunteer with PGCPS in order to register. Please follow all of the required steps and contact your scholar’s teacher with any questions. Inform the teacher when you are approved and ready to support. Thank you for your assistance!

  
  

• UNIT 1 WEEK 4- Going Places

  Essential Question- What is fun about exploring new places?

  • Phonological awareness: Phonological Awareness: Middle Sounds; Initial and Final Sounds; Recognize Alliteration

  • Phonics: Consonants Ii and Nn

  • High-Frequency Words: my, we, make

  • Spelling words found in weekly readings: slips, follows, chasing, scrambles

  • Unit Vocabulary: map, move, land, special

  Learning Goals:

  • Learn words that can tell about actions

  • Plural Nouns

  • Orally respond to realistic fictions

  • Describe the setting

• TOPIC 3- Numbers 6 to 10

  Essential Understanding: Good math thinkers use math they know to show and solve problems

  • There is more than you way to show a number

  • Counting tells how many are in a set or a group, no matter which order the objects are counted

  • The last number said when counting a group is the total number

  • Use objects, drawings, and numbers to compare numbers

  Vocabulary: six, seven, eight, nine, ten

  
  

TOPIC 1 LESSON 3- Change movement with pushes and pulls

Essential Question: What does motion mean?

• Investigate how objects move

• Tell ways that a push and pull can move an object

• Use directional words to describe a movement

Vocabulary: mootion

CHAPTER 1 LESSON 3- Rules and Laws (continued)

Essential Question- How do people best cooperate?

• Recognize why we need rules and laws

• Know the consequences of breaking the rules

• Identify community laws

• Compare past/present rules and laws

Vocabulary: community, rule, law

SEPTEMBER TOPIC: Safety at play (continued)

• Tell how to avoid certain unintentional injuries at play

• Explain how to show respect for the safety of oneself and others when playing

• Demonstrate safety routines and how you would respond to danger

• Predict what happens when one plays in safe and unsafe ways

Vocabulary: stay, safe, helpers, danger, emergency

Homework packets will begin in October: Please read the newsletters weekly.

Essential Question: How do signs in our neighborhood help us?

Genre: Informational Text

Students will learn new vocabulary, practice new sight words. Short vowel /o/ using simple sentences in written /oral form, as well as practice new spelling words.

We are moving right along in 2nd grade! This week we have spent a lot of time doing our Fall round of testing! We have completed the IReady Diagnostic as well as our 3 MAP assessments and you will be receiving scores on Tuesday if you haven’t yet! Make-ups will be next week for anyone absent. We have been moving along in our curriculum for each subject a little bit this week as well. Students are working on our first unit in each subject.

Reminder: We are happy to have volunteers come in to assist us with different things throughout the year, so if you are interested, please make sure your volunteer requirements are completed.

There is NO SCHOOL this Monday so we will pick back up on Tuesday!

Spelling Homework and Prodigy Lessons will still be Due on Friday.

Many 2nd grade classes are using Prodigy for math homework. Prodigy has a 'home' and 'school' mode. The only difference is in the 'home' mode students have access to different games and levels. Your teacher is still able to see all progress on both sides. So feel free to use the home side at home. Reach out to your homeroom teacher if you have any questions or need your class code.

Next week, students will be taking the Fall term of our MAP assessments and the iReady Fall baseline! Please make sure students are on time and have a charged Chromebook! Please see the dates below:

• Tuesday, September 19 - iReady Reading Diagnostic
• Wednesday, September 20 - MAP Math
• Thursday, September 21 - MAP Reading
• Friday, September 22 - MAP Science

Students are working through our week 2 realistic fiction story of “Maybe Something Beautiful” and moving on to information text in week 3. Students will be reading “Places we Go” to support our unit question of “How do different places affect us?”

This week in spelling we will focus on words with consonant blends. A consonant blend is two or three consonants that blend together, but each consonant keeps its own sound. I.e : nest, brick and frog

Students are wrapping up Topic 1 - Fluently adding and subtracting within 20. Please utilize your optional homework packets and CANVAS site for resources and additional support. We will test by the end of this week. Stay tuned for updates and exact dates from your homeroom teacher.We will begin Topic 2- Working with Equal Groups as well.

Starting next week we will begin Topic 2 which will focus on learning multiplication facts using patterns.

Ms. Fleet and Ms. Lewis’ classes please prepare to take your Topic 1 Assessment next Friday, September 29th. Next week will be spent reviewing both in class and at home.

We have finished our fourth week of school and all of our baseline diagnostic testing. The next time we will take MAP or i-Ready will be in January. All results and next steps for testing will be sent home to families by Friday, September 29, 2023. Teachers will also begin having conferences with scholars about their data. It is important that students know their scores and make a plan to improve their scores. Conferences with students will be ongoing this school year and will happen with both their reading and math teachers. Please be sure to review the data with your scholar when they are sent home.

Each week we suggest checking your scholars' browser history and YouTube history. This is to make sure that your scholar isn’t going to a site or watching videos that you would not approve. Teachers are limited to only seeing activity on your scholar’s screen when they are in class. We utilize a system called Hapara that allows us to prevent access to certain sites. We are asking that you check your scholar's computer history weekly.

This week: Students began Writer’s Workshop. In unit 1 students will be composing a personal narrative. A personal narrative is a story about an event that has happened to the narrator. Students began brainstorming and planning for their personal narrative. They read mentor texts from different authors to get ideas for their stories. Students also had an opportunity to identify narrative elements given in different texts.

Next week: We will begin reading our second story “Rare Treasure: Mary Anning and Her Remarkable Discoveries.” In this biography, we will read about paleontologist Mary Anning and how she became famous for finding fossils on the beach near her home. Students will work on the skill of close reading and they will monitor their inner conversations to help them comprehend the text. We will also determine the main idea of the story and lastly, we will discuss figurative language that is used in the text.

This week we continued learning about Comparing and rounding numbers using place value. We also began reviewing 1-2 through 1-4 in preparation for the upcoming Topic 1 Test (Topic 1 test date 9/29). This week students also participated in the Fall NWEA Math testing, scores will be coming home next week.

This week students continued exploring energy as well as how the mass and speed of an object affect its movement and interactions with other objects. We also explored how engineers, architects and designer use different forms of energy to make safe and comfortable products.

Parents please check Canvas and Schoolmax with your students.

This week: Students finished reading about the land and regions in the United States. Students answered text dependent questions to check their understanding of the United States' regions and its characteristics.

Next week: Students will begin reading lesson 2 Climate and Weather of the United States. Students will identify the different climates and weather that are in different regions of the United States.

Hi everyone!

We are moving right along in 5th grade! This week we have spent a lot of time doing our Fall round of testing! We have completed the IReady Diagnostic as well as our 3 MAP assessments and you will be receiving scores on Tuesday if you haven’t yet! Make-ups will be next week for anyone who was absent. We have been moving along in our curriculum for each subject a little bit this week as well. Students are working on our first unit in each subject. Please check the assignment calendar on our Google site to see what upcoming assignments students may have. Students should click on their homeroom teacher’s name to see their assignments. Here is the link to the 5th-grade website for those who need it: https://sites.google.com/pgcps.org/5thgradeclasssite/home

Reminder that we are happy to have volunteers come in to assist us with different things throughout the year, so if you are interested, please make sure your volunteer requirements are completed.

There is NO SCHOOL this Monday so we will pick back up on Tuesday!

Students are in chapter 1 lesson 2 in our Social Studies textbook on geography. Students are learning about how geography affects the way people live. After each section in the chapter, there will be a short quiz.

Art:

Updates from the Art Room!

This week I wanted to show you the road so far with our future artists’ artworks inspired by various cultures in Mexico and Panama. I am very happy with Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade’s use of color and pattern for their amate and mola-influenced paintings and tin mirror-inspired radial designs. Upper elementary is also doing me proud with 3rd grade’s careful observation of real-life objects like Frida Khalo, 4th grade’s personalities showing through in their Huichol yarn paintings inspired works, and 5th grade’s subconscious knowledge of design principles showing in the compositions of their printing plates!

2023-2024 School Calendar

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