Highcroft Hotline

At Highcroft, we help learners grow in a safe, caring community where ALL are valued and supported to become leaders.

October

• 30: Late Start, School begins at 11:05 am
• 30: St. Louis Blues Spirit Day, wear blue or Blues spirit wear
• 31: Halloween Parade, 2:15 pm
• 31: Halloween Parties, 2:45 pm

November

• 5: Adopt-A-Family begins, see information below
• 5: 4th & 5th Grade Field Trip, Stu Cabe Assembly at Central Middle
• 7: Vision Screening for Kdg, 3rd & 5th graders and new students
• 8: No School, Records Day/Professional Development
• 11: Veterans Day Celebration, 9:00 am, see RSVP form below
• 13: Board of Education Meeting, 7:00 pm, 471 N. Woods Mill Road
• 14: Picture Retakes
• 14: All Read, 3:25 pm - 3:45 pm
• 20: Late Start, School begins at 11:05 am
• 21: PSO Meeting, 7:00 pm
• 25: Hearing Screening for Kdg, 3rd & 5th graders and new students
• November 27 - December 1: No School, Thanksgiving

We will celebrate Halloween on October 31st beginning with our annual parade at 2:15 pm, followed by our class parties. If your child would like to bring a costume to school for the festivities, please be sure they can slip it on over their clothes. No masks, makeup, or weapons are allowed. We honor a food-free celebratory environment in accordance with Parkway's food policy, so no candy or food is allowed for consumption. If you are joining us for the celebration, please be sure to pre-register for your visitor's pass if you have previously had their license scanned into the visitor management system (CLICK HERE TO RSVP) or sign in before going to your child's class.

In recognition of Veterans Day, we will host our fourth annual Veterans Day Celebration on November 11, 2019. We invite (invitation attached here) our students' family members who are veterans and active service members to join us as we honor and celebrate their service. As a part of our celebration, we are creating a Heroes Wall of Honor. If your child would like to participate, have him or her complete the 'My Hero' form that can be printed from here. Please return the form to your child's teacher or the front office by November 4, 2019. We also ask that our kindergarten and first-grade students wear red, our second and third-grade students wear white, and our fourth and fifth-grade students wear blue on November 11th for the assembly. Thank you for your participation in helping us honor the men and women who serve our country.

Mrs. Stilts, Librarian

Students feeling comfortable with information science is incredibly important in our digital world. During library classes this month we will continue working on utilizing databases for research at all grade levels. Database subscriptions (such as World Book Kids, World Book Student, Explora, and newly-added Pebble Go) are always available to students at school and home! Student databases are reliable resources that are developed by experts, written at age-appropriate reading levels, and are ad-free. These databases also read the content aloud if students click the speaker icon. Most also include interactive maps and games that students enjoy, while learning at the same time!

1. Students should go to www.google.com, log in using their Google credentials that they use at school (be sure to include @parkwayschools.net after their username - most students know this but please feel free to contact me). Next, open a new tab in that same window and go to the Highcroft Ridge webpage, then library, then databases.

2. You can also just login to any of the World Book sites with

username: pkwyhome

password: pkwyhome

I am finding that many students absolutely love audiobooks. We have nearly fifty Playaway portable audio devices available for check out from school. The St. Louis County and City libraries also have hundreds of Playaways available for check out, as well as audiobooks using the Libby or Overdrive apps. Please feel free to contact me or your local public librarian for more information.

Highcroft Library Twitter: @DanielleStilts

Highcroft Library Webpage: https://www.parkwayschools.net/domain/202

Email: dstilts@parkwayschools.net

Ms. Yelton, Reading Intervention Specialist

Reading Strategies!

Lucy Calkins and her colleagues at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project are the authors of Parkway’s Units of Study for teaching reading, writing, and phonics. Here are some reading strategies from this amazing curriculum. Ask your child to explain and demonstrate some (or all) of them to you!

~Notice a problem and stop to solve it

~Check the picture

~Get a running start

~Read words you know and think “What would make sense here?”

~Think about what’s happening

~Think what kind of word would fit

~Check it! Do a double-check!

~Use parts of words you know

~Break the ending off the word

~Break long words into smaller parts

~Ask, “Does this remind me of another word I know?”

~Crash the parts together

~Pay attention to the beginning of the word

~Look at ALL the parts of the word

~Look closely from start to end

~Do a s-l-o-w check

~Try it 2 ways (a - apple, a - acorn)

~Look out for vowel teams (ai, oo, ou, ee, oa, ea)

~Watch out for unusual words (I’m, can’t, into, we’re, can’t)

~Scoop up words to make your reading smooth

~Use everything you know

~Read words you know in a snap

~Turn new words into snap words