CMIT South Elementary School

Dear CMIT South Elementary Tiger Family

We hope this newsletter finds you well and ready to celebrate another successful week at CMIT South Elementary! Here are some important updates and highlights:

DIBELS Testing for Grades K-3

We want to commend our students and staff in grades K through three for their hard work during the DIBELS testing. We are still working through several classes and are excited to see our students' growth on this assessment. Your dedication to academic excellence is truly appreciated, and we're excited to see the progress each student has made. Keep up the great work!

Annual P.A.N.T.S Challenge:

Get ready for our Annual P.A.N.T.S Challenge starting this Monday, January 29th! This challenge encourages students to strive for Perfect Attendance No TardieS (P.A.N.T.S) bi-weekly. The schedule for each round is as follows:

- Round 1: January 29 - February 9

- Round 2: February 12 - February 23

- Round 3: February 26 - March 8

- Round 4: March 11 - March 22

We will have a celebration recognizing those students, classes, and grades after each round and encourage all students to strive for perfect, on-time daily attendance. Let's encourage our students to participate and celebrate those classes, grade levels, and individual students who achieve Perfect Attendance No TardieS every two weeks!

Chromebook Collection and Carnegie Math Tutoring:

As we begin our Chromebook collection, we want to remind everyone that students participating in Carnegie Math Tutoring to retain their devices. The Chromebooks are essential for accessing the tutoring sessions and ensuring a seamless learning experience at home. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your continued support in volunteering for arrival and dismissal duty, lunch monitoring, and support in the classroom. Your collaboration makes CMIT South Elementary a vibrant learning community. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to us. Have a wonderful weekend, and let's make the upcoming P.A.N.T.S Challenge rounds a huge success!

Best regards,

Ronald A. Miller, Jr

Principal

Chesapeake Math & IT Academy South Elementary

Hazel Health Services Coming to CMIT South Elementary

What is Hazel Health?

Hazel Health has partnered with Prince George's County Public Schools to provide access to quality healthcare services for all students, at no cost to families, this school year. Students can be referred by the school counselor or their parent/guardian. A designated person at the school or a parent/guardian can initiate a video visit with a Hazel health care provider while your child is at school or at home to provide either physical or mental health services. Therapy sessions with Hazel Health are a safe space and are private and confidential.

How can your child receive services?

Waitlists for mental health services for children are sometimes long or sometimes as parents it's tough to find the time to take our children to appointments which makes it difficult for them to receive the immediate support they need. Hazel Health is geared to bridge that gap. Students are able to receive these services free, virtually and while in school. If you have any questions please feel free to visit their website https://www.hazel.co/ or reach out to me.

Grade level blurb:

We are pleased to announce our Black History Month project. Your student will choose an African American who has made a significant contribution to our society. More detailed information is in the homework packets. Students will present their projects to the class on February 16th.

Reading Updates:

During this week, students will benefit from additional writing support that expands their awareness of how authors use words and punctuation when writing. These targeted supports were chosen to help students further develop their English language skills and build

foundational writing skills. and presentation skills to gauge where students may need

support in their writing. Students will be informally assessed for understanding prepositions, capitalization, and presentation skills to gauge where students may need

support in their writing. As students gain vocabulary and understanding of English, prepositions can help them describe an object’s location with increasing specificity and detail.

Math Updates:

Your child is learning about addition. In this topic, he or she will learn to join two groups and decide how many there are in all. Your child will also learn to represent joining situations as equations using the symbols + and =. Addition can be shown in different ways, such as with objects, fingers, mental images, drawings, sounds, acting out situations, verbal explanations, expressions, or equations. Objects, drawings, counting, and equations can be used to help solve addition problems involving putting together.

Science Updates:

Earth’s Weather-

In this topic, students will build on their understanding as they explore Earth’s weather. Students will use observable events in the universe, such as the weather phenomena and photos discussed in this topic. They will use their scientific knowledge to explain or predict these observable events. In this topic, students make focused observations of the weather and recognize patterns from their observations and those of others. Students learn how patterns are used for predicting weather. They also recognize how these predictions can be used to prepare for and respond to weather events.

Social Studies Updates:

Jobs then and now-

Discovering jobs then and now, how money works, how we all can make money and needs and wants. Students will apply the concepts learned in this chapter to think about what jobs children may want when they are older

Health Updates:

My Body is Special-

Explores ways bodies are different, unique and special qualities, basic routines to keep your body healthy and safe

Grade level blurb:

Dear Families,

It's almost February and Black History Month. A project will be sent home next week in the homework packet. Please ensure that this week's homework is turned in. Students should read the short stories in the packet more than one time. This will build fluency, and enhance their comprehension skills. In the reading unit this week, students will learn about using the imagination, so begin the conversation around this big idea. They will read traditional stories and write poetry.

1st Grade Team

Reading Updates:

Topic 3;

Phonological Awareness: Blend and segment phonemes

Phonics: Consonant digraphs and trigraphs

HFW: round, good, said, no, put

Academic Vocabulary: create, imagine, suppose, possible

Comprehension: Describe the plot to make, correct, and confirm predictions about a story.

Poetry: What does it look like? What does it sound like?

Generate Ideas

Handwriting: Gg and Jj

Spelling: Words with consonant digraphs and trigraphs (whip catch)

Words

Language and conventions: Singular and plural Nouns/review contractions

Math Updates:

Extended activities to reading and solving word problems, Counting to 120 by fives, tens,

Organize, represent, and interpret data with up to three categories; ask and answer questions about the total number of data points, how many are in each category, and how many more or less are in one category than in another

categories, collect and represent data -interpret data, -continue to interpret data

Science Updates:

Weather Changes and Seasons

Social Studies Updates:

Map Reading

Geography

Health Updates:

Lesson 4: Expressing how you feel

Reading Updates:

Unit 3 Week 3 is all about Folktales. We will be reading different versions of a story we all know ‘Cinderella’. We will be comparing and contrasting “Interstellar Cinderella’ to Cendrillion: An Island Cinderella.

Our Spelling Words will focus on r-controlled vowels spelled er,ir, ur.

Last week's (U2W2) spelling will be due on Tuesday (1/30).

Math Updates:

We have combined Topics 6 & 7 to wrap up Addition and Subtraction within 100. Please utilize our online CANVAS sites and complete the homework packet daily. Your scholar must be only completing the page of the lesson that we have learned in school that day. Those lessons will be in your scholar's agenda book.

Science Updates:

We have begun Topic 4- Earth's Processes. We will focus on Quick, Slow, and Human-made changes on Earth. Such as Earthquakes, Erosion, and Levees. Your homeroom teacher's CANVAS site is a great resource for additional information.

STEM FAIR: Thank you all for your participation and hard work. Please give us time to get through the grading and scoring process. There will be no late submission of any STEM Fair Projects.

Social Studies Updates:

We are wrapping up Topic 3- Government and will be testing in the coming week. Please use the CANVAS site and Kahoot for study materials

Health Updates:

We are working through and wrapping up Fear and what your body does when you feel afraid.

Reading Updates:

Fleet/Lewis: This week we began talking about Realistic Fiction, and the difference between it and just Fiction text. We read the story Wolf Island and began analyzing the text and illustration to better understand the message the author is conveying. We learned that animals keep balance in nature. Students were able to take their first spelling test of Quarter 3.

Mathews/Madison: Students will continue to work on Unit 2 Week 3: realistic fiction, synthesis information, and analyzing illustrations. Spelling test is scheduled for Tuesday, January 30, 2024. The spelling words are

Popcorn

Football

Moonlight

Eyesight

Airport

Haircut

Fireworks

Outside

Playground

rattlesnake

Bonus word: courthouse

Math Updates:

Fleet/Lewis: We are working through topic 6 which is on the area. The topic 6 assessment will be on next Friday, February 2nd. Study

Madison/Mathews: We will continue Topic 7 this week. Specifically, students learned about bar graphs and how to use graphs to solve word problems about data. Our Topic 7 test will be held next week (on Tuesday or Wednesday), and then we will begin Topic 8: Strategies and Properties to Add and Subtract.

Science Updates:

Fleet/Lewis: We are wrapping up Topic 4 on Climate. Students will be taking their Topic 4 assessment on Wednesday, January 31st. The study guide is available on Canvas until Wednesday at 8:00 am. We will spend Monday and Tuesday reviewing in class to prepare.

Madison/Mathews: We have continued to learn about weather and climate, and we will continue to do so next week. Additionally, we have continued to view presentations for our STEM projects.

Social Studies Updates:

Fleet/Lewis: In Social Studies, we began reading and discussing the French and Spanish and how they began establishing territories in present-day Canada and the United States.

Mathews/Madison: Students will continue to learn about Economic choices in Chapter 2: Lesson 3. Students will understand that economic choices involve trade-offs and explain the role of opportunity cost in economic choices.

Health Updates:

The health theme for January is “I Like Your Attitude.” Students will discuss attitudes, values, and goals, personal choices and responsibilities, and refusal skills for risky situations.

Grade level blurb:

Hello Tiger Family, I hope that everyone is doing well. We have completed our first week of the third quarter. The 3rd Quarter is the longest stretch of the school year because it has fewer days off than any other quarter. We are having conversations with our scholars about being accountable and responsible when it comes to their work completion and behavior. We ask that you partner with us to remind your scholar of the importance of completing and submitting their assignments on time. This is a friendly reminder that late or make-up work is only accepted if a student has an excused absence at the time of the assignment. If a student does not submit or complete an assignment by the due date they will receive a grade of zero on the assignment. Please read the reminders to ensure that you are partnering with your scholars to help them be successful in school.

Fourth Grade Reminders:

Scholars should come to school each day with a fully charged Chromebook. As a STEM school technology is utilized in all classes and students are completing assignments digitally. It is difficult to charge Chromebooks during class.

Our scholars continue to have homework every night, they should be utilizing our programs such as i-Ready and IXL nightly. The programs provide individualized practice on standards for your scholar.

Please check Schoolmax weekly to see the scholar’s updated grades. Canvas is a Learning Management System that scholars utilize to complete assignments and get access to materials. The grades provided in Schoolmax are those that will be used to calculate progress reports and report cards.

If your scholar is absent, please share a note with the homeroom teacher within 3 days of your scholar returning to school. For students to receive make-up work you must provide a note stating; the student’s name, the date of absence, and the reason for absence. Work is provided to students upon their return to school with an absence note.

Each week we suggest checking your scholar's 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 of. 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.

Reading Updates:

This Week: Students concluded our first poetry unit by completing poems about their favorite foods. Students created an eight-line poem that used figurative language and sensory images to convey their feelings about their food. Students also were able to analyze sensory details that were given in a poem from this week’s poetry collections. Students were able to explain how living things depend on each other. Students also showed their mastery of the poetry collection by taking a quiz and spelling quiz on Greek root words.

Next Week: Students will read two informational texts about two mammals from Australia; the echidna and the platypus. that have special adaptations. Students will be working on the skill of synthesizing. When we synthesize we combine or integrate information from two different texts about the same subject. Students after both these texts will be asked to write an essay about adaptations that make animals unique. Finally, our students will begin working to determine the meaning of Latin Root Words.

Math Updates:

This week students continued working in Topic 4 where we are learning about Multiplying 2-digit numbers by 2-digit numbers. This week students focused on subsection 4-1 Multiplying where students will use place value strategies or properties of operation to multiply by multiples of 10.4-3 Using rounding and compatible numbers to estimate products, and 4-5 Using area model and properties of operations to multiply two 2 digit numbers.

Please check Schoolmax and Canvas with your scholar to ensure completion of assignments.

Science Updates:

In Science this week students completed presenting their STEM FAIR Projects. We continued working on Topic 2, learning about How Humans Interact and Use Natural Resources. Next week we are diving into some hands-on activities in science. We are asking for potato donations for our next experiment. If you have any potatoes to spare, please share them with us for our next experiment.

Social Studies Updates:

This week: Students finished up chapter 2 by reading about how the United States became one of the world’s most powerful nations after the Civil War and about the change in the twenty-first century. They also chose an important American who shaped history and wrote a speech highlighting what he or she did to help shape our nation.

Next week: Students will present their important American figure from history. They will also start reading Chapter 3 Lesson 1: Principles of Our Government and identify the principles upon which our government is based.

Health Updates:

In health, we are learning about our Digestive Systems! How does our digestive system contribute to the overall function of our bodies? What can we do to promote a healthy digestive system?

Hi everyone!

We are more than halfway done with 5th grade! We want to keep pushing through and encouraging students to keep trying their best as we help get them prepared for middle school. Please check the assignment calendar on our Google site to see what upcoming assignments students may have. We have been having tests, quizzes, and homework, so we want to make sure students are keeping up with their work. 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

A 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. We would love it if people wanted to come in and volunteer during lunch times for students, so let us know if you are interested.

We are in January, and we are focusing on our character trait, confidence! We want to show confidence in any way we can!

The temperature is dropping, and students MUST have a winter coat to be allowed outside for recess. The CMIT fleeces are no longer warm enough for recess. If the temperature drops below 32 degrees or is wet outside, we will have indoor recess!

Reading Updates:

We are moving along into unit 2 which is about observations. We are working on our story which is an argumentative text called “Let Wild Animals Be Wild.” We also have our spelling words. We will continue working on the next section of unit 2 next week!

Math Updates:

Students are in unit 7 of Math which is about common denominators and adding fractions. Homework will be posted on the assignment calendar as we get started so keep an eye out!

Science Updates:

Students are working on unit 4 of Science, about the water cycle. Homework will be posted on the assignment calendar as we get started so keep an eye out!

Social Studies Updates:

We are in chapter 4 which is about life in the colonies. We will be continuing chapter 4 lesson 3 next week!

Lego:

This week in Legos and Robotics, the students built all outside technology for the Winter Wonderland. We will have one more build day next week! Get Excited!

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