Goodbye December, Hello January!

Happy New Year! 🎉 We hope you all had a restful and joyful holiday season filled with moments of connection and celebration.

We are excited to have our students back and are starting to settle back into the school rhythm after our two-day week.

Remember the golden drum from the previous newsletter?

It contains over a thousand tickets that are used to acknowledge positive behaviors throughout the school day. Each student has their own ticket that they can get filled with teacher's marks or hole punches. See an example of an individual ticket below. Once the ticket is filled, it gets turned in and counted toward our building goal. Students are able to win prizes if their ticket gets pulled from the golden drum.

Right before the break, Hillis reached the goal of 1,000 positive tickets! To celebrate this achievement, we will have a hot chocolate party as soon as this Friday.

2nd grade has been working hard on learning about fossils. We are concluding the 2nd quarter by writing personal narratives about students discovering fossils. We also had a fun fossil dig before we went to break. Students used tools that they have been learning about to chisel, dig, and excavate their fossils. They were able to bring fossils home and continuing their research.

What a fun semester it’s been! These third graders have been working so hard and we are so proud of them! In math we worked on adding and subtracting three-digit numbers with regrouping. The students are super excited to connect what they learned about multiplication to division.

In EL we have been learning all about frogs! The students’ even got a visit from the Blank Park Zoo to learn more about animal adaptations. We have started becoming experts on frogs and can’t wait to share what we know with you during our Frog Festival on Wednesday, January 15th from 9-10am in the Hillis Library!

Hello from 4h grade! We have been working hard before the new year to complete the rough draft of our personal narratives pertaining to the animals we have been researching. We will be finishing up our final drafts to start 2025. In math, we have been working hard on adding and subtracting numbers up to 1,000,000. We have continued to develop our word work and fluency skills during ALL Block as well.

All students in grades 1 and 2 are working on literacy with UFLI. During their WIN time, students are reading and writing with whiteboards, making words with magnetic letters, and reading words, sentences and stories.

All students in grades K-5 will be having FAST assessments soon for both literacy and math.

Remember to read every night!

As we enter the second half of the school year, we are digging even more into growing our social skills with students. While this can be done in the classroom and throughout the day, there are also times when a student may need to be briefly pulled out of class for some small group work as well. The below form is granting permission for Mrs. Smith (School Counselor) to work with your student on these skills in small groups. Please fill out a form for each student you have at Hillis. Filling out this form does not mean that your child is going to be seen at this time. We are reaching out proactively to all our families. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to Mrs. Smith (amber.smith01@dmschools.org)

Permission Form

It is VERY cold outside! Our students go outside for recess if the actual temperature or the "feels like" temperature is above 15 degrees Fahrenheit. There are some factors - such as precipitation - that might keep us inside when the temperature is higher. Here is a guide of how to dress your child in different temperatures to protect them from the elements.

Hillis Elementary and Clothes Bin have partnered to collect and recycle old clothing, shoes, and textiles.

You can place the items in the green recycling bin located near the bus lane on 56th street. Every pound of recycled items supports Hillis!

Below is a list of items that can be placed into our bin:

Clothing: pants, jeans, skirts, dresses, suits, shorts, tees, tank tops.

Footwear: shoes, boots, heels, sneakers, sandals, socks, tights.

Accessories: hats, belts, ties, scarves, headbands.

Handbags: wallets, totes, luggage, backpacks, briefcases.

Linens: towels, sheets, comforters, blankets, tablecloths.

16th and 17th - NO School (Professional Learning for Teachers and Staff)

20th - NO School (MLK Day)

4th PTO meeting at 6 pm

10th and 11th Conferences and Book Fair

14th Friendship Party at school

27th Hillis Music Concert