Central Primary School

Believe it or not February is upon us and we are looking forward to Valentine's Day Parties and moving closer to Spring with each passing week.

Important February Dates to Remember:

• PTO Meeting: Thursday, Feb. 3rd at 7:00 p.m.
• School Board Meeting: Thursday, Feb. 10th at 7:00 p.m.
• Valentine's Day Classroom Parties: Friday, Feb. 11th at 2:00 p.m.
• President's Day, No School: Monday, Feb. 21st

Brrrrr! Hope everyone is staying warm! PTO is working hard on the next exciting fundraiser. We invite everyone to come out to the Peoria Rivermen game on Sunday, March 6th. There is a virtual link to purchase tickets on the PTO Facebook page, and fliers will be sent home soon. Room Coordinators are getting ready for the Valentine’s Day parties (on Friday 2/11 at 2pm) so keep an eye on your email if volunteering. Our next meeting is Thursday, February 3rd at 7pm in the CIS Library. See you there!

For the month of February, our Trojan code word that we will focus on is Attitude. Believe it or not, a student's attitude within the academic setting affects their learning and their mental health. Fixed mindset and growth mindset are two different attitudes that a student can have within the classroom setting. A fixed mindset is the belief that intelligence, talents, and other qualities are innate and unchangeable. On the other hand, a growth mindset is the belief that intelligence and talents can be improved upon through practice. Please see the image below for more information on growth versus fixed mindset:

As our winter assessment window comes to a close this month, we will be holding our winter teacher meetings to discuss students. If your child’s teacher has a concern and will be discussing their progress at these meetings, you will hear from them in the next few days, if you have not already. Once meetings have occurred and we have had a chance to look at students building wide, teachers would then call you back with any information we have discussed and decisions that have been made about your child’s progress and plans for instruction moving forward. I know it can be difficult when you feel like your student is struggling, but please know we are here to help and support you in any way we can. As interventionists, we cannot take on every student that teachers bring to us, but we do take on as many as we can. If your teacher brings your student to our meeting and we are not able to pick them up as interventionists, we will work with the teacher to set a goal and get a classroom intervention going to give extra support as needed. If at any time you have questions or concerns about your student’s progress or decisions that are made during these meetings, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher or the interventionists personally. We are happy to discuss these things with you at any time.

Math Facts:

We see a lot of kids struggling with math fact memorization. This does not mean your child will never know their facts, but in order to build that math fact library in their heads it is important to teach the kids strategies to help them learn their facts. We introduce these strategies in math class and play a lot of games utilizing these strategies. Here is a list of great addition strategies to start with if they are struggling with facts. Subtraction has their own set of strategies that can be worked on also. If they are able to use the strategies mentally, this will help with their ability to process facts at a quicker pace and at some point eliminate the reliability on fingers. If you are working on math facts, remind them to use a strategies instead of relying on their fingers as much.

Reading Tips

How important is reading every night?

We know that reading is important, but did you know that the amount of time spent in reading has a direct correlation to how well students will perform in reading. The more text a student is exposed to, the more words they know, they better reader they become. Does that mean that you have to have your child sit and read quietly for 20 minutes every night? Do you have to have new books for them to read every night? No. Schedules are busy between dance, sports practices, family activities, meal times. You may have to get creative. Do you have 5 minutes in the car while you are waiting to pick up a sibling from another activity... bring a book! Do you have a 5 minute drive to the next practice... bring a book! Do you have a bedtime routine... add in a 5-10 minutes of reading a fun book together. Have your student read a book to you while you cook dinner. Maybe 20 minutes straight is difficult in your schedule, so break it up. The minutes add up quickly.

Kindergarten is studying artist James Rizzi and recreating his ferry boats! We are using different types of lines and following along directed drawings. We added characteristic style like the artist did in his paintings by giving our sun and fish big goofy eyeballs and fun faces!

First grade is just finishing up our artist study on Ted Harrison. We focused on the foreground, middle ground, and background of a piece of artwork! We used these vocab words in creating our colorful polar bear drawings. We are getting ready for our artist study of Horace Pippin and the Harlem Renaissance.

Second grade is wrapping up the worm's perspective and drawing snowmen from the viewpoint of a worm. We added lots of fun hats and details to make their art their very own. Next up we will study some street artists!

Third grade just finished their Northern light watercolor projects. We learned a few watercolor techniques to help us along the way! We even added salt to our paintings to give them a snowy look. This was a fun mix of science and art! Now we are moving on to an artist study of New York’s James Rizzi!

Here is what we will be learning in February .

Kindergarten- Kindergarten just finished their unit on Patterns of 2, 3, and 4 in music. We will now start learning about the different instrument families.

First grade - The first grade students are learning about melody. They are still reading music on our staff and learning to put the pitches and rhythm together on the staff.

Second grade- The second graders just finished their unit on melody and the pentatonic scale. We are now learning about the Baroque Period in music and the most famous composers from that time.

Third grade- The third grade students have started their recorder unit. We have learned our first note- B. Please help remind your student to keep their recorder in their backpack. This way they always have it at school for music class.

Mark Your Calendars!! This year our grade-level concerts will be held outside. We are planning on certain days, but will have a few rain dates, if needed. More information will be sent home at a later date, but here are the dates and times to mark down:

Kindergarten- May 5, 2022 at 5:30 pm

1st Grade- May 5, 2022 at 7:00 pm

2nd Grade- May 12, 2022 at 5:30 pm

3rd Grade- May 12, 2022 at 7:00 pm

I’m looking forward to this month of learning and don’t forget to check the Music Google Classroom for more supplemental activities.

-Mrs. Cunningham

I thought for his month I would share some helpful links for PE related activities that can be used at home. Youtube, with parents' permission, can be great for many exercise videos for strength, endurance and flexibility and you can find ones that are great for younger students. Two other great resources are https://openphysed.org/ and https://www.pecentral.org/ both of these have fun games and activities that can be done at home with little to no equipment. Just a quick reminder with the cold temperatures and possible snow/ice please make sure to have students bring a pair of tennis shoes to school in their book bags if they wear boots to school in the morning.

Happy February! I cannot believe we are over 100 days into this school year. As we enter this new month, in STEM, we are going to highlight some important African American figures in Science Technology Engineering Math.

Looking forward to a great discussion about innovators of our past.

Email: ejohnson@central51.net
Website: www.central51.net
Location: 1400 Newcastle Road, Washington, IL, USA
Phone: 309-444-3580