Sterling Jaguar Journal

Sterling families,

We are now in our second semester of the school year! Report cards were just published this week, as you likely saw in the Class Dojo message. If you have yet to acknowledge review of your child's report card, please take a moment to do that. Our front office staff can help any family member in need of ParentVUE support if you call: 571-434-4580.

At home, please continue to ask about your child's school day. You might ask for their "highlights and lowlights," their favorite part of the day, a way they showed kindness that day, or any other opportunity to engage in an open conversation. We still desire for every student to read for at least 20 minutes each night. Digital content, such as Dreambox or Reflex, can also be practiced.

Thank you for being such wonderful supporters of your children in their education. Continue to work with us to get all students to school every day on time. We are thankful for the opportunity to be their educators!

Sincerely,

Jennifer M. Short, Principal

Congratulations to Vyvienne Garcia, our 2023-2024 Sterling Elementary Spelling Bee champion. She will represent our school on February 29 in the county-wide run off bee to determine the final contestants for the March 21 regional bee. Way to go Vyvienne!

Congratulations to our SPOTlight students of the Month! These students were selected for their consistency in displaying safe, polite, on-task, and trustworthy behavior! We are proud of their leadership in and out of the classroom!

January has absolutely flown by! First and third grades have concluded their clay unit. All students have now taken home their pinch pots and coil pots. Pictured in the kiln are a mix of pinch pots and coils pots before their glaze firing. Also pictured are a few of the finished coil pots. Aren't they beautiful? Kindergarten is finishing up their snowman snow globe collages. They have identified shapes needed to draw a snowman, helped me "fix" my snowman using directional words, and then painted and decorated their own snowman. Once they're dry, they will be cutting, drawing, and assembling the pieces to look like a snow globe.

-Mrs. Ajima

Winter in the library means keeping both our minds and our hands busy, especially on really cold days when the weather keeps everybody inside all day. Here you can see our kindergarteners using Keva blocks to create a burrow after learning about the word hibernation. Our fourth and fifth graders explored library winter activities after our lesson, including puzzles, checkers, Jenga Maker, and how-to-draw books.

-Mrs. Burel

-Mrs. Jeffries

We are dusting off the snow and getting back into the swing of things in the music room! Before our break, Kindergarten was able to spread winter cheer by caroling through the school! Second grade performed a two-part instrument ensemble on rainbow bells and xylophones. We began Chorus with fourth and fifth graders! We are so glad we get to sing with them every week!

-Mrs. Scarboro

-Ms. Walsh

Happy 2024, Sterling families! Sport stacking is back and faster than ever. These young athletes are learning lots of fine and gross motor skills, such as hand-eye coordination, focus under pressure, and ambidexterity. Before Winter break, students used collaboration and creativity to build a snowman out of gym equipment. Next, we will be switching over to more sport-oriented lessons. Students are looking forward to basketball and hockey!

-Mr. Horvath

-Mr. Hosti

Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade have been strengthening their spatial reasoning skills. Each of these grades have been using the classic dissection puzzle, Tangrams. The tangram consists of seven flat shapes (5 triangles, 1 parallelogram, 1 square) which are put together to form shapes. The object of the challenge was to use all of these shapes to replicate a puzzle, or picture. The students all reaped the rewards of being persistent and not giving up! It was wonderful to see how they seemed to get better at solving the puzzles with each opportunity given.

3rd grade has continued to enjoy working with our guest teacher, Mrs. Rodeffer, on the 3rd grade portfolio lessons. They have been working so hard and have really been showing SPOT behavior to our guest. I am so proud of them!

-Mrs. Daniel

We would like to invite you to attend our next family coffee to enjoy a light breakfast and coffee with other Sterling families and staff. Our topic will be announced soon. If you have an idea for a topic, please feel free to email me at Christina.Redlin@lcps.org.

Thank you and we look forward to seeing you soon!

Email: jennifer.meresshort@lcps.org
Website: https://www.lcps.org/sterlinges
Location: 200 West Church Road, Sterling, VA, USA
Phone: 571-434-4580
Twitter: @SterlingElem