CMIT South Elementary School

Greetings Tiger Families,

We are starting the 3rd quarter off pushing for Perfect Attendance No Tardies (P.A.N.Ts.) for the entire quarter. The expectation is that students will miss no more than 1 day and have no more than 3 absences. We have gone from paper to digital sign-in for late arrivals and early dismissals in the main office and late pick-ups for students. The goal is to make sure families have their students in school and on time daily to maximize instructional time. We know poor attendance has a negative impact of students' academic performance. If your scholar is out 10% of the time they are considered chronically absent, and 20% of the time students are considered habitually absent. The administration will be reviewing attendance bi-weekly to make sure students are not falling into either category.

As we conclude January Chesapeake Lighthouse Foundation has shared their Black History Month Essay and Poster competition. Details have been shared with students, teachers, and families. We expect a fantastic showing in the competition as we celebrate the contributions of African Americans against the oppression and repression in America since its inception. In February we are also looking forward to strengthening our community with tutoring offered by 12th-grade seniors from CMIT South Middle/High school for 3-5 grade students as well as our upcoming CMIT South Elementary exclusive 6th-grade showcase on Saturday, February 4, 2023, at 10 am for our 5th-grade families.

We had a successful open house in person in the month of January and are excited about those families who have entered into the Specialty Program Lottery to join the Tiger family. I would also like to thank Prince George’s County Public Schools District 9 School Board Vice Chair, Ms. Lolita Walker for visiting our school this week and meeting with me and PTO Co-President Mrs. Aime. We look forward to all she plans to do and support in our school community. Please make sure to follow and subscribe to PGCPS School Board activities to stay in the know.

Sincerely,

Mr. Ronald A. Miller, Jr.

Principal

Chesapeake Math & IT Academy South Elementary

Prince George’s County Public Schools

Get ready, set go!

For …. Read Aloud Day!

Read Aloud Day is Wednesday, February 1, 2023.

Please share in this exciting opportunity. When you and your children read aloud, they build on their listening comprehension as you ask and answer questions about the book and/or article.

Reading aloud encourages a child to listen. Engage your child in this activity that day. Have them listen to you read. Listen as they read. Talk about the book. Ask questions. They can also listen to stories on audio tapes etc. Before you know it, you are sowing the seed of a lifelong habit.

It’s easy and requires minimum planning. They can listen to stories being read as you drive to and from regular activities. Instead of watching a screen, have them listen instead. Find out what drama series are on audio and play as you drive; they will listen.

A child may also read aloud a picture book. Have them tell a story about what they see. Ask your child’s teacher if they have plans and how you can become engaged in Read Aloud Day at school.

Reading aloud is fun!

Happy Listening

Parents, Guardians, and students will be able to view report card grades In SchoolMax Family Portal. by Thursday, February 2, 2023. Please be sure to review it with your child. SchoolMax Family Portal or SchoolMax Family Mobile Portal. Scholars will receive a hard copy of the report card by Wednesday, February 8, 2023.

National Professional School Counseling Week (February 6-10, 2023), Let’s honor our professional school counselor Mrs. Chandler and celebrate the tremendous impact she makes in our school. Keep up the Great Work! Send her a thank you email, poster, or card to show our Professional School Counselor Ms. Chandler (deidra.chandler@pgcps.org or dchandler@cmitsouthes.org ) how much you appreciate her! Let her know she ROCKS!

To celebrate our 100th day of school on Tuesday, February 7, 2023, we would love to have all of our scholars and staff dress up like they were 100 years old. Below you will find a list of ideas to help you and your scholar start planning for our fun-filled day. Be CREATIVE!

Girls:

• Printed skirt
• Eyeglasses
• gray wig or gray hairspray
• pearls
• curlers
• sweater
• Knee-high stockings
• large purse
• scarf

Boys:

• Button down shirt
• gray hair
• mustache and/or beard
• suspenders
• eyeglasses
• tie or bowtie
• flannel shirt

Friday, February 17, 2023, is National Acts of Kindness Day. We are upholding this annual tradition of celebrating kindness because we know everyone can use more kindness in their lives. Scientific evidence shows us the positive effects of doing kind acts for others as well as receiving or even witnessing kindness. Even the smallest act of kindness can change a life. In 2021, we encourage everyone to Explore the Good and Make Kindness the Norm. Click here to on ways to observe National Acts of Kindness Day

Remember: masks remain a tool to reduce the spread of illness and vaccinations continue to be the best defense against COVID-19. When children are sick, please keep them home.

Want to send a Shout Out to a Teacher/Staff Member?

Do you want to say thank you or SHOUT-OUT a teacher or staff member for their great job? Complete and submit the SHOUT-OUT Google Form link and it will be shared with the faculty at an upcoming meeting and/or morning announcements.

• Multisyllabic words

• Exploring a new genre of text: Folktales

• Use of the letter j

• Practice and utilize cvc, cvcc, , CCVCC

• Identifying parts of a story

• Jobs then vs now and that we will be

• Exploring text that examine workplace determination

Students will identify personal safety rules for various situations.

Vocabulary:

private

This week in reading we are continuing to explore traditional tales. We will focus predominantly on folktales. We will work on visualizing and comparing and contrasting as our comprehension strategies. In phonics, we will be focusing on the following r-controlled vowels: ir, ur, er (examples: fern, chirp, burn).

We are progressing through subtracting within 100. Students are learning a variety of strategies to help them do this. Consider practicing at home. Please also check CANVAS for additional practice opportunities and consider completing the optional homework packet sent.

Students are learning about Earth’s water and land.

Students will begin chapter 4. In this chapter, students will learn about the people who provide our goods and services.

In health, students are focusing on nutrition. They are learning to distinguish healthful and less healthful foods. They are learning to take care of their bodies with the foods they eat.

This upcoming week, students will be continuing on in Unit 2 about interactions discussing realistic fiction stories! Students will also be working on their spelling words for the section we are on. These words are all compound words. Our last story for reading comprehension was “Weird Friends,” and we are into our next story “Wolf Island.” These stories focus on the essential question of how a chain of events affects plants and animals. We will also be reading different biographies for Black History Month next week and throughout the month!

This upcoming week, students will be continuing on in math on multiplication properties. A test on this unit will come in the next few weeks!

Students should be receiving grades on their STEM Fair projects in the coming weeks if they have not yet. Students will also be continuing forces in motion in the next week.

Students will be finishing Chapter 2 talking about types of resources and economic choices while knowing the difference between wants and needs. We are getting ready for our Chapter 2 assessment that will be coming shortly so we will start reviewing the study guide! We also will be learning about people for black history month as well.

We are working on positive attitudes!

Happy Weekend Parents,

We have successfully brought week 21 and quarter 3 to a close. We are officially at the halfway mark of the school year. We are proud of all the hard work our scholars have displayed so far this year and are even more excited for the growth to come.

Sections 41 & 42:

Reading: This week the students finished reading our new story called “Minn of the Mississippi.” In this story we learned about how a turtle survives living on the Mississippi River. We worked on the skills of close reading, elements of a narrative, character changes, and context clues. This story helped us to answer the question of “What challenges do animals face in their environments?” The scholars were able to write about how the character of Minn grew and changed in the story. Students showed their mastery by completing an assessment on “Minn of the Mississippi” and also completing an irregular plural nouns spelling quiz.

Next week we will read a collection of poems called “Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow.” In these poems, we will explore how animals depend on one another for survival. Our guiding question for the week is “ In what ways do living things depend on each other?” We will identify the elements of poetry, figurative language, and sensory details. Students will get a chance to use these elements to create a poem of their own. Homework for the week is on IXL lesson TMW Read Poetry.

Scholastic Book Club Flyers have been sent home, if you would like to purchase books for your children please use the link below to order. Remember with a $ 25 order, you can pick a FREE $ Book (use code: READS).

Class Order Due Date: 02/03/23

Shop Our Class Page: https://orders.scholastic.com/MF27J

Math: This week scholars demonstrated their knowledge by taking the Topic 4 Assessment and Topics 1-4 Benchmark. We have begun our new unit; Topic 5: Use Strategies and Properties to Divide by 1-Digit Numbers. We have practiced dividing multiples of 10 and 100 by 1-digit numbers. Next week we will move to estimating quotients and interpreting remainders. Scholars are in possession of their reports which reflect their 2nd quarter Report Card grades.

Science: This week, scholars have started out with Topic 3: Waves and Information. We have come to learn some of the properties of a wave. We will continue to unwrap the basic properties of waves and describe exactly how waves cause objects to move. Scholars are in possession of their reports which reflect their 2nd quarter Report Card grades.

Social Studies: This week we continued in Chapter 3 which will explore government in the United States. Students have identified how the founding documents affect their lives and how their lives would be different without these documents. Next week students will continue to explore the three branches of government and the responsibilities of each branch. They will also explore our rights and responsibilities as American citizens. Students will have a homework activity that they will be given to complete on Monday.

Sections 43 & 44

Reading: This week in the reading workshop we read “Animal Mimics”. In this story, students learned how animals use mimicry to adapt to their environment from predators. This week we worked on cause/effect, main idea and supporting details, and vocabulary in the text. Friday we had our quiz on text, vocabulary, and spelling.

Math: This week we began working on Topic 3-6 Mental Math Strategies for Multiplication, they are learning to use place value and the distributive and associative properties of operations to multiply mentally. We also began working on Topic 3-7 Choose a Strategy to Multiply, in which students must choose an appropriate strategy to multiply 2-, 3, and 4-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers. Topic 3-6 and 3-7 assessments will take place next Thursday and Friday.

Please remember to check and sign your students' agenda books as well as review Savvas and Canvas with your student.

Science: Next week students will be conducting two 2 investigations centered around how humanity can negatively impact the environment as well as the challenges and difficulties facing those trying to clean and restore the environment.

Social Studies: In social studies this week, we focused on finishing Chapter 2 Lesson 5. We talked about the transcontinental railroad and other transportation systems in the growth of the United States. We talked about immigrants and their impact on the United States. We ended the week talking about the causes and effects of World War I and World War II. Next week, we will begin our Chapter 2 project on an American that had a great influence on our history. Students will select a person and gather information about that person. They will compose a speech for their person for a presentation to the class.

Students will continue working with homeroom teachers on any new routines and procedures that they were introduced to last week. Please remind students each morning that they should be coming to school with the main goal of learning and listening to directions the first time. We are running out of classroom supplies like Kleenex, Clorox wipes, pencils, paper towels, etc. If anyone wants to donate some supplies, it would be greatly appreciated. Please reach out to homeroom teachers to facilitate drop off if your student cannot carry the supplies with them during drop off

This week is our first week of Q3 which means we are transitioning to having 15 spelling words with 5 bonus challenge words. While this does mean students are responsible for 15 words, it also means that they have an opportunity to score 20/15 on each and every spelling test going forward. We are getting started with Unit 3 this week in our new 5.2 MyView textbooks. If you notice that your child is still carrying their MyView 5.1 book, please have them leave it at home as an additional reference resource as we have moved into the new book.

Our Unit 3 Essential question is, “How do the experiences of others reflect our own?” and the Week 1 Big Question is, “What can we learn from the experiences of older generations?” We will be looking at how we, as readers, can learn from others' experiences and draw connections to the things that have happened in our own lives. This week’s story is from, Love, Amalia by Alma Flor Ada and Gabriel M. Zubizarreta and it is a Realistic Fiction text. Our vocabulary words are enthusiasm, shattered, reassuring, encompass, and inseparable. The spelling focus this week is words with Latin Roots port-, dict-, ject-, and terr-.

Spelling Words

subjective

transportation

portage

contradict

reject

terrace

projectile

conjecture

reporter

dictator

dejected

injection

prediction

supportive

objective

Challenge Words:

terrarium

contradiction

unpredictable

indictment

subterranean

This week in math, students will review multiplying decimals in addition to using equivalent fractions to add and subtract fractions. The standard for the week is 5.NF.A1, Add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators (including mixed numbers) by replacing given fractions with equivalent fractions in such a way as to produce an equivalent sum or difference of fractions with like denominators. For example, 2/3 + 5/4 = 8/12 + 15/12 = 23/12. (In general, a/b + c/d = (ad + bc)/bd.) To support students at home, you can work with students in the kitchen to improve their equivalent fraction frequency by giving them a recipe that calls for cups or half cups but having them work with only a ¼ cup measure.

This week in science, students will examine different characteristics of the ocean such as temperature, salinity, and ocean currents. They will work on using the CER (Claims, Evidence, Reasoning) model to support their claims about the characteristics of the ocean to prepare for the upcoming MISA assessment.

Students will be getting started with Chapter 4 in their social studies textbook. They will compare and contrast the geography of New England, the mid-Atlantic, and the southern Atlantic colonies, drawing connections between how the geography and other environmental features affect how the colonists lived in each of these regions.

We are pushing forward with our January topic, heart health, this week. Talk about making healthy choices and how you can support lifelong heart health even while you’re in elementary school.

In technology...

K-2 practiced:

Online Safety and Digital Citizenship

In this interactive learning experience, students improve their knowledge of vocabulary terms and definitions related to what it means to be online.

3-5 practiced:

Internet Usage and Online Communication

The learners receive direct instruction and practice with replying, forwarding, and deleting email messages as they use an email inbox, respond to multiple recipients simultaneously, and delete junk mail and old messages during this engaging and interactive digital lesson.

The PGCPS lottery for specialty programs and charter schools is now open until February 10th. Siblings receive preference BUT must still apply to the lottery.

Sibling Preference Information

CHESAPEAKE MATH AND IT SOUTH ELEMENTARY

• Hours: 8:00am to 2:15pm
• Grades: K-5
• Uniform: Yes
• Before After School Enrichment: Yes
http://clfmd.org/enrichment-2/
• School Colors: Hunter Green, Navy Blue
• School Mascot: Tigers
• School Website: http://www.cmitsouthes.org

For more information

https://cmitsouthes.org/faq/