SOARing

Hello Thunderbird Nation!

Good Afternoon Parents, The Pollock Pines Elementary School District is pleased to be hosting the 43rd Annual El Dorado County Spelling Bee on Friday, May 9, 2025. The Spelling Bee is a means of improving and placing more emphasis on the spelling curriculum in our schools. The Spelling Bee will be divided into four divisions: Division I - Grades 1-2; Division II - Grades 3-4; Division III - Grades 5-6; and Division IV - Grades 7-8. Each school may enter one team per division. Winning teams will receive awards and/or trophies, and all participants will receive certificates. We are looking for Spelling Bee coaches! 🐝 We will be a total of 3 teams. If you are interested please contact the office for more information. Also parents, during drop off we have a lot of students arrive without jackets and come to school cold. Please provide the appropriate clothing for your students. Have a beautiful 3 day weekend we will all see you back on Tuesday the 21st.

Have a great week!

Have an extraordinary week!

Have your best week yet!

Pat Harnett

Principal

Upcoming events and important dates:

NO SCHOOL MLK Day Monday 20th, 2025

Important dates for the remainder of the year can be found at the bottom of this newsletter in the "Year At a Glance" section.

Here is the link to our Tahoe Valley Spirit Wear Store

Please read above for important information and dates from Mr. Harnett.

This week we learned about snow and snowmen, and we have been practicing hard to prepare for our "Baby Beluga" Musical Review. We cannot wait to show-off for our families and friends on Wednesday, January 22nd, at 8:30am in the Thunderbird Theater.

This week in Kindergarten the students learned all about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We learned that he was a peaceful man that had a dream that all people could live together and have equal rights. We read about him, wrote about him, and created art. In Science, we are continuing to explore how wood floats. We experimented to see how many paperclips were needed to sink a small piece of wood. Ask your student how many were needed.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day = January 20th = No School

Good Afternoon All,

We had another exciting week in first grade this week. We are continuing to learn about tricky e and the long vowel sounds. This week in math we are continuing to explore the numbers within 20, odd and even numbers, counting on, counting by 10's, 5's, and 2's, and we are reviewing our basic math facts through partner work. This week our classes also learned about who Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was and why he is celebrated. Speaking of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., next Monday, January 20th, schools will be closed to observe Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday. We hope that you have a great weekend catching a little bit of this unexpected sunshine.

As always, if you have any questions, please contact your child's teacher.

Have a great weekend,

Tahoe Valley First Grade Team

It's Fri-yay! It's been a great week for us. We made an art project to learn about shape and color contrast. We drew animals and patterns with pastel crayons then painted them with water colors!

Geology is still our focus in Science and this week we talked about layers and sediment as well as why sand is on our beaches. Our math practice has lots of multiple-digit addition and subtraction with regrouping. Please be sure your child knows their addition and subtraction math facts to 20.

Any 2nd graders in the school musical "Seussical" will have practice with Ms. Mora every Tuesday after school.

Have a great weekend!

Coming up:

January 20 - NO SCHOOL, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

February 17-21st - NO SCHOOL, Presidents' Holiday Break

This week in 3rd grade we continued studying about multiplication, native people who lived in the Tahoe Basin and worked hard on "Paragraph of the Week." We had great attendance at Math Club- Yay! Please plan to attend Math Club again on Tuesday Jan. 21st! The students are also taking our mid-year iReady diagnostic in reading and math. We hope to have these completed by the end of the month! Please have the kids attend school every day! Have a great three-day weekend!

This week in Fourth Grade we finished up our unit on division using partial quotients and will be moving into patterns and sequences. In language arts we have been working on our 2025 goals, ask your student what they chose. Please remember there is no school on Monday, we will see you all on Tuesday. Have a great weekend.

January 20th - NO School for MLK Day Holiday

February 17th-21st - No School

It was 5th grade SKI WEEK and we had a BALL! Students engaged in 3 days of skiing/snowboarding instruction from the talented teachers at Heavenly Ski School. It was a blast watching them push through nerves and reach new heights (literally)!

Monday: No School, Martin Luther King Day

Tuesday: After school math club 2:30-3:30 (for those invited)

Thursday: After school musical (for those who signed up)

🎵Music Class: Composer of the Month-Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Music Words of the Week-Allegro & Adagio Instrument of the Week-Trumpet

• 🔴TK Classes practiced their songs for the upcoming show "Baby Beluga" 🐟🐳 The parent performance is Wednesday January 21st at 8:30am. 🎭
• 🟠Kindergarten classes have started recognizing the difference between sound/no sound and one/two sounds. They also practiced keeping a steady beat!
  
• 🟡1st Grade classes continued playing the Boomwackers! They are colorful pitched percussive tubes that are so much fun to play!
• 🟢2nd Grade classes continued learning their songs for the upcoming musical "Swamped!" 🐢🦋🐸 Stay tuned for the performance date and time. 🎭
• 🔵 3rd Grade classes will be starting our recorder unit very soon! This week we are reviewing the notes on the treble clef.
• 🟣4th Grade Classes started their ukulele unit! They started playing mini-songs on open strings.
• 🌈5th Grade Classes continued working on songs for their grade level musical Dig it! 📜🦴 Stay tuned for the performance date and time. 🎭

Suessical KIDS rehearsals have begun! Rehearsals for 1-2 grades are on Tuesdays from 2:30 - 3:30 and rehearsals for 3-5 grades are on Thursdays from 2:30 - 4:00

Check out the monthly newsletter from our site counselor Katie Bongard!

There will be no school January 20th, 2025. Enjoy the day off 😄

Please note that these dates are subject to change as the year progresses.

No School, MLK Day - 1/20

Read-a-Thon - 2/3-2/14

President's Holiday Break - 2/17-2/21

Family Dance - 3/14

Minimum Days (12:05 dismissal), Parent/Teacher Conferences - 3/18-3/20

Book Fair - 3/17-3/21

Minimum Day (12:05 dismissal) - 4/4

Spring Break - 4/7-4/11

Talent Show - 5/9 6:00-7:30

No School, Memorial Day - 5/26

Minimum Day (12:05 dismissal), Open House - 6/5

Field Day - 6/16

Dance Fest - 6/17

5th Grade Promotion - 6/18

Family Picnic, Last day of School - 6/18