Elm Road Express December 2020

Thank you for your recent participation in student/parent/teacher conferences. We appreciate the time and dedicated focus to the conversation of student improvement. These conversations are so important to us. We are used to having volunteers and continually having conversations about student performance on a daily basis. Sadly, we have not had parents and volunteers in our building. We appreciate the conversation during conferences, and the feedback, by completing the recent surveys.

A future survey will also be provided to indicate your in person or virtual preference, as we move into the second semester. The district will review this information to make certain we are accommodating your learning preferences. I also need to remind families of the importance of clear and honest communication. If students are not well, it is very important to keep children home from school. If students have been exposed to any person testing positive, it is critical that students adhere to the quarantine guidelines. Please keep the safety of not only your family in mind, but the safety of other Elm Road families as well. We appreciate it!

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

Picture retake day is Thursday, January 21, 2021.

Face to face students that did not have their picture taken or need retakes, will have their pictures taken from 8:45 - 9:45.

Virtual students will need an appointment to come and get their pictures taken. Appointment times will be from 9:45 - 1:00. Click on this link to schedule a time. Parents please wait outside as visitors are not allowed in the building.

There will be a code for you to order your child's pictures on-line. More info will be shared.

Bring your smile!

Dec 4- Chuck-E-Cheese Restaurant Night (more information to come)

Dec 6-20 - Five Below Fundraising Shopping Event (must present printed flyer for credit)

Dec 21-Jan 1 - Winter Recess

Jan 4 - School Resumes

Jan 14 - End of 1st Semester

Jan 18 - No School- Martin Luther King Day

Jan 25 - PTO Meeting 3pm Virtual

Congratulations to the following

“Eagles” for their wonderful

“SOAR” behavior

Barnes: Jack Lehtomaki & Quinn Stahl

Portolese: Emily Zuniga & Marcus Herron

Renz: Rex Lawson & Lexi Evans

Bush: Amyah Reina & Elias Knight

Hinton: Kael Boyd & Anavaya Hernandez

Taylor: Gavin DeVreese & Adelynn Carter

Clark: Addison Laurence, Martin Cochran & Madison Modlin

Richard: Kayden McCallister, Madelyn Knefely& Warren Haab

Tornquist: Zoey Faragoi, Jai'Anna Villalobos & Colin Szymarek

Anderson: Lauren Miller & Ethan Guzman

Miller: Cameron Truman & Lydia Miller

Myers: Aries Bourdon & Kaylynn Chau

Pillow: Khamil Smith & Mia Diaz

Cook: Esmeralda Santos & McKenzie Ray

Freeman: Ethan Ryckeart & Anna Modlin

Keough: Gavin Coquillard & Addy Hixon

Newcomer: Savannah Gavros & Keagan Wallace

Kertai: Cassey Papp & Connor Longacre

Mellor: Charlie Christianson & Nadine Sheikhah

Shreiner: Cece Bontrager, Brady Bennett & Bella Hubanks

SOARing Readers: Reader of the Month!

Beginning in January, students will be selected for the Reader of the Month Award. This recognition acknowledges a student's effort in reading throughout the 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 their accomplishment.

Have a wonderful month of December and continue to encourage our young readers to SOAR!

• 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.

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!

We have conitued to work on codiing with all grade levels. We will be using coding in the future to program our robots. Ask your child to share with you what they are learning. Coding is very important in the job industry now and in the future.

Fouth grade finished up their unit on spiders. We learned about 4 kinds of webs spiders spin and how they make them. Many of the students see spiders in a different light now. Did you know how pretty many spiders are? Many of the students liked the happy face spider.

We also constructed Lego "turkeys" for Thanksgiving with multiple grade levels.

We are amazed how the students jumped into this activity.

Kindergarten loves Interactive Weave Silk. You can visit it on the launchpad, under the Kid's Club icon. They are very creative.

First and second grade also helped make paper creepy crawlies with lots of legs for Halloween to decorate the STEM Lab.

We just wanted to share some statements from the students about some of the STEM lab activities.

"It's so fun."

"It's awesome."

"Coding is fun and it is helping me get better at concentrating, "

"We like to make things with legos."

"We make arts and things."

"Computers are fun."

Mrs. Knapp and Mrs. Fadden

• Please review the COVID-19 guidelines for PHM on their website.
• https://elmroad.phmschools.org/2020/09/23/covid-19-school-attendance-quick-reference/
  
• If your student is 11 years old you may get their 6th grade vaccines now.
• It is flu season please consider getting your flu shots.

Dear Families,

During November we were busy in the gym with some Veteran’s Day activities and games called “Minefield”, “Sweat for a Vet” and “Military Lines”. We discussed what honor and sacrifice mean as well as strategies to help our team be successful. Many students shared stories of loved ones serving or that have served our country and had numerous creative ideas how they could show honor to those soldiers/veterans. These games also continued to develop our overhand throw, underhand roll, toss, shooting and striking skills.

Third through fifth graders have been measuring and setting individual goals for cardiovascular endurance through running the PACER test. We have discussed and practiced the importance of a warm up and cool down. To prepare for the PACER test we had a school wide competition called “Fastest Class Challenge”. Each class runs/walks as many laps as they can in five minutes. We divide the number of laps by the number of students and find the average laps per student in each class. Congratulations to our 5th grade Executive Branch! They ran 262 laps in 5 minutes which was an average of 15.4 laps per student!

Kindergarten through second grade have been completing skills testing and learning about the food groups and nutrition as well.

All grade levels participated in a golf unit this month. They learned about basic rules of play and proper etiquette. Students have been playing games that integrate the components of fitness (cardio endurance, flexibility and muscular strength) and that have allowed us to discuss the history of Thanksgiving as well as traditions that our families share such as “Turkey Tag”, “Thankful Tag”, “Mayflower Relays” and “Turkey Toss”.

During the month of December, we are going to hone in on our underhand roll with our bowling unit. We will also be playing some holiday games in December.

Respectfully,

Sarah Sime and Debbie Parisi

Thank you to all who supported the Scholastic Book Fair in November. It’s great to add to your personal home library.

We hope you are also enjoying the selections of books from our subscription to the Junior Library Guild online bookshelf. You may access that on Mrs. Knapp’s Virtual Library. The students know how to get to it through their online Classrooms. The books change frequently and I have found them to be really fun.

Our STEM Lab has been a lot of fun for all of the students. We are able to do many things while keeping our social distancing. Legos, Weave silk, Picture Perfect in-depth study, CODE lessons, and creative paper cutting. Mrs. Fadden and I are enjoying watching our student Scientists/Technologists/Engineers/Mathematicians explore and grow into their future jobs.

Happy Holidays to ALL!

Mrs. Linda Knapp

Please review these important reminders from our IT department:

• Do not put stickers of any kind on the Chromebooks.
• Do not pick up the Chromebook from the screen.
• Always put the Chromebook on a table or safe surface to complete you assignments.
• Make sure you eat before or after you use the Chromebook, not during, and wash your hands to keep all surfaces clean.
• Make sure that there is no liquid around the Chromebook. Accidents happen, but we can avoid them by creating a safe and clean work area.

It is important to remember that students are BORROWING these devices. They do not belong to the students as they are still property of Elm Road Elementary School. We ask families to take time to review these reminders and the importance of using the Chromebooks responsibly at all times (both at home and at school).

Thank you,

Elm Road IT Department

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