Tiger Tales

Thank you for sending your child to WES. We are off to a great start and the students and staff are already working hard. It is such a pleasure to see their smiling faces each day. I hope that you have been able to get back in the routine of school with ease.

We appreciate your patience with our daily drop off and dismissal. Because of your cooperation, we have been able to start our mornings on time and get most of our leaders home quickly. Be mindful of our daily dismissal times so that your child is picked up on time.

Children benefit the most when school and parents partner together. The ways you may learn about what is happening at school are to read the school and classroom newsletters, check Take Home folders, review graded work, and join Class Dojo or Remind. To ask specific questions, you may contact your child's teacher through email, Class Dojo, or by leaving a message with the front office.

All students in grades K-2 have completed the beginning of the year assessments in math and reading. These assessment results help us plan instruction and meet the needs of individual students. We will take these assessments three times during the school year. Our goal for each child is to meet their projected growth. Today you will receive individual student data reports to review your child's progress. If you have any questions or concerns about your child's progress please feel free to contact us.

Kind Regards,

Mrs. Lewis, Principal

I am so excited to see all of our little readers back on campus! As we are building back-to-school routines, I would love to encourage all of our parents to read to and with their children. Take turns reading before bed, in the car, during homework, or whenever works best for you! Please check out the link to the My Child Can! Booklet that corresponds to your child's grade level. These are guides to help families understand the critical reading knowledge expected to be mastered at the end of the school year. I am looking forward to a fabulous school year!

My Child Can! Kindergarten Booklet

My Child Can! First Grade Booklet

My Child Can! Second Grade Booklet

Mrs. Brittany Donald,

Local Reading Specialist

My name is Nicole Larkin and I am the Math Coach at WES! I want to offer some ideas to help with math at home.

• For Kindergarten, have your child count while touching pennies. Play games with your child like Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, or Hi-Ho Cherry-O (this helps your child as they count their spaces).
• For 1st Grade, Play "Go Fish" but search for ways to make 10, like 6 and 4 or 3 and 7, instead of finding matches. Ask your child how many forks are on the table. How many chips are left if I had 10 but ate 7?
• For 2nd Grade, draw 2 cards and add them. Try with 3 or 4 cards for a challenge! Keep a total to see who can get to 100 first. Play any game and tally your scores. Ask who won? By how many? Count by 5's, 10's, and 100's. If you have 13 pencils, how many would you have if you added 10 more?
• If you need any ideas or have questions, please email me at nlarkin@dcsedu.com.

We have had a great start to the school year! Just a few reminders for you...please do not send your student sick to school! Students must be free of fever 24 hours without having to use fever reducing medication before returning to school. If your student tests positive for Covid, please contact me so I may get some dates for you and we both can confirm the return to school day.

Also, if you have a medication that you will need for your student to take during school hours, please let me know prior to sending. There is a form that must be completed by the physician and signed by a parent before any medication can be left at school. This includes over-the-counter medicines. Students are NOT allowed to bring medication into the school to be delivered to their teacher or myself.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Nurse Cameron

Welcome Back!

This year is already off to a great start! I am looking forward to working with all of the students this year. My goal is to assist students, parents, and teachers with strategies to achieve academic, emotional, behavioral, and social success. It is going to be a great year!

Mrs. Leslie G. May

WES Counselor

During the month of September Pre-K with be completing themed math and literacy units. Our themes for this month are Families, My 5 Senses, Pets, and Apples. We will be focusing on letters D-G and numbers 4-7. Pre-k will have a stuffed animal pet show at the end of our Pet unit. Please checkout Westside's Facebook page for pictures of all the fun things happening in Pre-K!

From rules and procedures to kings and queens, Kindergarten has covered some ground already! We are working hard on letters and sounds- and some students are already blending words and READING! In math, we are counting, recording, and comparing numbers 1-10. We are loving our weekly poem study and retelling stories. We have such BIG plans for learning! We can't wait to share more soon!

In skills, we are continuing to review letters and sounds and learning new spelling patterns and tricky words. Students will be getting their first decodable reader, Snap Shots, where we will practice oral reading and comprehension. Our focus standards include rhyming, story elements, and writing words, phrases, and sentences correctly.

In knowledge, we will continue to learn about the human body and its systems.

In math, we will be working intensely with addition and subtraction strategies.

2nd grade has had a fabulous first month of school. We have jumped into learning and have already learned so much! In the month of September, we will be learning more about Early Asian Civilizations in our reading program, before moving into Ancient Greek Civilizations. In math, we will be working with equal groups, arrays, and determining whether a number is even or odd. AR has started, so please encourage your student to read their library books and take AR tests. We want all students to be able to attend the AR Party and celebrate their successes. We are also working hard each week to get our I-Ready minutes. Please encourage your student to get 45 minutes each week in reading and math and pass at least 2 lessons each week! We are looking forward to a fantastic month filled with fun learning opportunities!