Elm Road Express January 2023

Elm Road Families,

Welcome back! We are happy to have students back with us this week. I hope your Winter Break was restful, fun and healthy. We are excited for the 2023 year!

During the month of January various assessments will be given across grade levels. Students who receive ENL services will begin taking WIDA tests this week. Our kindergarten - second grade students will be doing DIBELS tests at the end of this month. DIBELS assessments help our teachers assess student reading readiness, and are used to help provide differentiated instruction. Our third - fifth grade students will be taking ClearSight assessments in ELA and math, and the data will be used to provide enrichment and remediation.

Today marks the end of our second marking period. Report cards will be available in Family Access through Skyward on January 20, 2023. To access your child's report card in Skyward, reference the graphic below. If you have difficulties accessing Family Access, please contact familyaccess@phm.k12.in.us.

Each year PHM hosts a Young Authors' Conference. This event is available for K-5 students. The event will take place on March 4th at Schmucker Middle School. To learn more about the event, or to register your child, click here. This event is a great experience for our students to learn more about writing!

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Beers

Jan 13 - End of 2nd Grading Period

Jan 16 - Martin Luther King Jr. Day- No School, Recess Day

Jan 17 - Start of Kindergarten Registration

Feb 20 - No School Recess Day

• Registration for kindergarten students for the 2023-2024 school year will begin on Tuesday, January 17, 2023. 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, 2023.Register on the corporation website (https://www.phmschools.org)
  

• Having trouble paying your student fees online? All student fees are located in e~Funds now. Go to the PHM website under Parents, there is a tab that gives directions on how to set up an e~Funds account.

1) Parents must bring in any medication, it can not be sent in with the student and the OTC medication has to be labeled as children's.

2) If your student is 11 he or she can now get their 6th grade shots.

3) Now that the weather is getting colder please send jackets, gloves and hats with your students.

Happy New Year! In January there is an event called The Great Kindness Challenge, which is January 23rd – 27th, 2023. 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.

For safety of our your child and our staff, along with keeping the line moving efficiently, please follow the instructions below.

We ask you to approach from the south and get in line with the other cars and then exit to the right out of the parking lot. Please do not come from the north and especially do not go around the buses waiting to come into the parking lot.

Please use your turn signal when approaching the school, so the traffic attendant knows that you are turning into the parking lot and can continue to keep the exiting cars moving out of the parking lot.

The students should enter and exit on the sidewalk only. Remind your child to walk.

Once the buses have left, please follow the attendant's instructions to go around the corner to help unload the students in a timely manner.

Our students worked on learning how to measure objects in the classroom and as a final project, our students sanded, painted, and used their fingerprints to make a snowman. Each student was measured to see how tall they are and their snowman was cut to the same height. The students' parents were delighted with the results!

During the month of December we practiced our underhand roll by learning about the sport of bowling. The older grades utilized their math skills learning how to keep score in bowling. The fourth graders had a great time using their bowling skills at OC Lanes for a field trip with their CAMPE teachers. Thank you to all our fantastic parent volunteers that accompanied us on our bowling trip. All grade levels had a blast the week before break playing “Reindeer Races”, “Grinch tag”, “Secret Santa Tag” and “Reindeer Relays”.

This week, when we come back to the 2023 year, we will be learning about and practicing the components of fitness (muscular strength, muscular endurance, cardiovascular endurance and flexibility) through games and fitness circuits. All grade levels will have the opportunity to practice for an eLearning day as well as learning about the sport of hockey.

Our jump rope team has had two performances so far this year. We will be performing after break at Penn on January 17th and Bethel on January 25th.

Stay healthy,

Debbie Parisi dparisi@phm.k12.in.us

Sarah Sime ssime@phm.k12.in.us

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful break. Once we are back to school, WIDA testing will begin. Students will be taking a listening, reading, speaking, and writing test to assess their English skills. I will not be teaching lessons during this time because I will be testing students at three different buildings. Your student will take all four tests some time between January 12th - February 24th. Please help your students be at their best by helping them get a good night's sleep every night and eat breakfast in the morning. The students have been working so hard in preparation for this test. I look forward to seeing their growth when we get the scores back in the spring. Click here to go through a WIDA practice test.

Ms. Pillow

ENL Teacher

Happy New Year! Let’s start the year off right with new reading goals such as scheduling family reading time, trips to the Public Library or the bookstores or challenge every family member to read a certain number of books.

Please encourage your students to keep their books in a safe place, away from pets, younger siblings and water. Books are checked out for two weeks, but many students return them sooner. The students are enjoying choosing books by genre and the dewey decimal system.

December was filled with Holiday stories for most classes as we learn about being kind and giving.

Have fun reading during these cold indoor days!

Mrs. Tammy Braunsdorf

tbraunsdorf2@phm.k12.in.us

December was a busy month in STEM as we played Coding Games. We also played a Code on the Floor game in some of the classes. We learned how some of our favorite holiday foods and toys are made. We made some fun creations( Elf and Gingerbread man "traps") in STEM using different materials and had fun building especially with LEGO!! Our 4th and 5th graders learned about the science of bowling and how Jigsaw puzzles are great for our brains.

3rd grade students had a chance to use the new SPHERO BOLTS!

In computer lab, we participated in the Hour of Code and visited new places in Code.org. Some of the students worked on the Grinch Hour of Code also.

In January, more students will be using various robots and beginning Picture Perfect STEM Lessons.

Be creative, curious and try new things!

Website: elmroad.phmschools.org
Location: 59400 Elm Road, Mishawaka, IN,46544
Phone: (574)259-3743
Twitter: @ElmroadES