January 2021

Happy New Year! I hope you and your family are enjoing the winter break. I appreciate the work of the PTO and all of the family volunteers who participated in the festival of lights. What a beautiful sight!

This is a busy time of year during the school day as well. All of our students will be taking either the Dibels and Airways benchmark assessments. The next few months we will progress monitor and conduct further enrichment in the classroom and computer lab to enhance student learning. Our intermediate classrooms are gearing up for iLearn and iRead as well. Student writing prompts are being written and Focus Instruction scores monitored for grade level standards development. Please ask your child how he/she is performing in these areas.

Lost anything? I would like to ask that you take a moment to see if your child is missing any clothing items. Our lost and found is overflowing! Please pick up any items that belong to you by January 11. Anything left will be donated after this date to a community organization.

Jan 4- Return from Winter Recess

Jan 14 - End of the Semester

Jan 18 - Recess Day, Martin Luther King Day

Jan 19-22 - Kindergarten Registration

Jan 21 - Picture Retakes

Jan 25 - Virtual PTO Meeting 3pm-4pm

Feb 15- Recess Day, President's Day

Picture Retake Day is: Jan 21, 2021

Order Code is: 50962Q
Your link to order is: https://inter-state.com/FlyerEntry/50962Q

In our continued efforts to remain paperless, we will not be sending paper order forms or reminders for retake picture days.

Above is your picture date, order code & one click web link to online ordering for your retake picture day. THIS CODE IS DIFFERENT FROM THE ORIGINAL ORDER CODE.

Students who ordered a package on original picture day but are choosing to get their picture retaken MUST bring their original picture package with them on retake day. We will not order them a new package until the old one is returned. They DO NOT need to place a new order.

Registration for kindergarten students for the 2021-2022 school year will begin on Tuesday, January 19, 2021.

This registration opportunity is for youngsters who live within the P-H-M district and who will be five-years-old on or before September 1, 2021. A parent or guardian must register their child.

Each child entering kindergarten at P-H-M must complete a Registration Packet and is also encouraged to have a physical exam and a dental exam completed before entering kindergarten.

• Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is limited access to our school and administrative offices. We have created an easy way for you to complete the registration process electronically. For more details and information go to https://www.phmschools.org/parents/kindergarten-registration-2021-2022

It is that time of year again….cold and snowy weather! Please remember to dress your child appropriately. We will go outside as long as the temperature and wind chill factor are above zero. All students are expected to go outside. If your child is to remain inside, please provide a doctor’s note. To play in the snow, children need to wear snow pants, coats, gloves, hats and boots. Please make sure you mark your child’s belongings with his/her name. With regard to sledding, please be reminded that children may bring a plastic roll up sled to school during snowy days. Please make sure that your child’s name is on the sled. Keeping your children safe is our main priority. Sledding is always supervised!

High Ability Identification-Blurb for Newsletters

In accordance with the Indiana high ability law, we are required to have an identification process in place to identify students of high ability in the general intellectual and specific academic domains. We identify students who have high ability in language arts and/or math.

Every kindergartener, second and fifth grader who has not been previously identified in a subject area is considered for high ability identification.

Testing for the high ability identification process will begin in February. Virtual students will be invited to participate in high ability testing in home schools.

Learn more about our identification procedures by visiting our high ability website atP-H-M High Ability Identification.

• Student and staff safety is important to us! Winter is approaching!
  
• When arriving at the school, please approach from the SOUTH off of Capital. Following this direction, allows our traffic to keep flowing and does not interfere with our buses that are waiting to enter our parking lot to drop off the students. Do not go around the buses. At any time they may move into the parking lot!
• Use your turn signal, when entering the parking lot, so cars exiting know that it is safe to go. Exit RIGHT turn only.
• Parents picking up or dropping off children are reminded to have students exit their cars curbside ONLY. Parents, please stay in your car.
• Pull up as far as safely possible to the next car before having students exit or enter your vehicle. Always follow the directions of the safety patrol assistants.
• Please help your child memorize their car rider number. This helps dismissal go a little quicker! Remind them to walk on the sidewalk areas.
• Students have received a tag with their car rider number on it, once they notified us they will be picked up at the end of school. Please hang this from your rearview mirror to help us identify your car.

Happy New Year! This month is the Great Kindness Challenge, which is January 25th – 29th 1, 2021. This event is to empower our students to create a culture of kindness within our school, families, and community. I challenge you to come up with a Random Act of Kindness to practice this month. There are several ways to show kindness towards others, such as saying hello and thank you, holding the door for someone, writing a kind note to a friend, and many more.

If you have any questions, please contact Mrs. Shell at 259-3743 or email me at ashell@phm.k12.in.us.

To help celebrate Holidays Around the World at Elm Road, our one and only, Mrs. Shah, presented to the second grade classes about Diwali.

This is a special holiday festival that her and family celebrate each and every day.

She did a short presentation of information with Slides, showed her own pictures, and brought in personal items to display. She even dressed in traditional clothing to add a special touch! The students participated in a craft as well.

If you don't know much about Diwali yourself, Mrs. Shah loves sharing and is so knowledgeable. Take some time to ask her a question or two when you see her.

Enjoy!

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all!

The Elm Road Students seemed to enjoy the different activities we have completed in the gym with our bowling unit. A favorite of our students was “glow bowl” (the gym was lit). The third – fifth graders have certainly had an extra math workout keeping score; they are really catching on to adding up those strikes and spares!

Our last week of school in December each grade level enjoyed getting in a workout with some tag, scooter board games and relays such as: “The Grinch”, “Reindeer Relays”, “Christmas Tree Relays”, “Rudolph’s Treasures”.

Please make sure if your child wears boots to school on gym days he/she brings a pair of tennis shoes in his/her backpack!

Have a safe, healthy and fun holiday!

Sincerely,

Debbie Parisi

Happy New Year! Let’s start the year off with new reading goals. You can access our online Junior Library Guild books (https://jlg.ipublishcentral.com/bookshelf) or by going to your student classroom, select PE/Music slide, Classwork (on the top sections), Mrs. Knapp's Virtual Library and the slide with JLG link. The selection changes frequently so check back often for new books to read. Challenge every family member to read a certain number of books.

January will be a fun month in the Library and the STEM Lab having a common theme in both areas.

Have fun reading during these cold indoor days!

The students love the STEM Lab. This month we engineered many different holiday decorations. Actually they were coding on paper. Ask your child about our Christmas experi-MINTS. We continued to work on computer coding. There was a week dedicated to Hour of Code. The students did coding with the Grinch. Over the break, have your children share with you more about coding.

Next month we will be using the Picture Perfect series and be learning about coding our different robots. We are all looking forward to the new year.

Some coding websites you might like.

code.org

weavesilk.com

code.org/Grinch

Mrs. Fadden and Mrs. Knapp

3rd Grade students in Mrs. Myers class participated in an "unplugged" coding activity to learn how to write their names utilizing binary code. Each student translated their name from the English alphabet to binary coding numerals. Students then sequenced the red and white beads to create a coding pattern representing the letters of their first name.

Check out their candy cane coding creations!

I hope all of our Eagle families are enjoying a happy, healthy, and safe winter break! We miss our students and can’t wait for you to return in the new year!

It is time to kick off our SOARing Readers Program in the month of January. This month, teachers will select a student from their class to receive the Reader of the Month Award. This recognition acknowledges a student's effort in reading throughout the prior month. Elm Road students can earn this award by participating in their classroom reading assignments, actively engaging in literacy development, and completing reading minutes (based on their teacher's classroom expectations).

The goal is to recognize our SOARing Readers at Elm Road by presenting them with a certificate, hanging their picture on the SOARing Readers Bulletin Board, and giving them a book as a prize to celebrate this literacy accomplishment.

I look forward to celebrating our SOARing readers at the end of January. Look for their names in our newsletter next month. Keep on reading, Elm Road!

Miss Peluso

Title I Reading Specialist

fpeluso@phm.k12.in.us

574-259-3743

"Can you believe it's going to be January already? In music class we have been enjoying the holiday season. We spent December playing music and traditions of some of the different seasonal holidays. Fifth Graders got introduced to our brand new Handbells, which is the perfect instrument for the holidays!

All students spent time preparing for our annual Winter Sing Along as well. This year the sing along was held virtually. Students participated in their own classrooms and the Sing Along was broadcast over the school news. It was different than usual, but I was happy that we were still able to make the Sing Along happen!"

Website: http://elmroad.phmschools.org/
Location: 59400 Elm Road, Mishawaka, IN, USA
Phone: 574-259-3743
Twitter: @ElmRoadEagles