Ridgeway RAP November 8, 2024

November

• Wednesday, November 13 - Freddy's Fundraiser 5:00 PM - 9:00 PM (flyer below for details)
• Wednesday, November 13 - Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences and Book Fair 3:00-6:30 PM
• Thursday, November 14 - Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences and Book Fair 3:00-6:30 PM
• Friday, November 15 - No School, Teacher Work Day
• Thursday, November 26 - Ridgeway Book Swap
• Wednesday, November 27 to Friday, November 29 - No School, Thanksgiving Break

Tuesday/Thursday Morning (7:10-7:35 AM)

Running Club - Tuesday, November 12 and Thursday, November 14

Afternoon Clubs

Monday, November 11: Math Club

Tuesday, November 12: Friendship Bracelet Making Club (Final Club)

Wednesday, November 13 : No Clubs. Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences

Thursday, November 14: No Clubs. Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences

Friday, November 15: No School

Conferences are being held next week on Wednesday, November 13 and Thursday, November 14 from 3-6:30. If you have not signed up for a conference time yet, someone from the office will be contacting you on Monday in an attempt to schedule a time. As usual, the Book Fair will be open for shopping during conferences.

There are a couple of important/new documents in your child’s Friday Folder today. I wanted to point those things out to you so they do not get overlooked.

• A letter from our Chief of Operations, Lazell O’Field, with follow up on questions raised at the October 10 PTSA meeting. There is more specific information I have requested, and will continue to pass along new information as I receive it.

• A new/updated CPS calendar for the 24-25 school year. Many of you have likely seen news articles and social media posts about adding instructional days to the calendar for this year. The CPS communications department will be sending out correspondence to all parents explaining these changes and other pertinent information surrounding calendar and inclement weather days. I have been told this communication will be sent out sometime next week.

Additional Updates:

• Our attendance is currently at 89.2%. This means that 89.2% of our students have been present at school at least 90% of the time. Our building goal for this year is to maintain our 95% attendance from last year!

Reading: We are starting our nonfiction unit on technology at home and school. We have worked on identifying the main idea and key details and focusing on solving unknown words using context clues. Ask your student to tell you all about the differences and similarities of technology now and in the past.

Writing: We are working on informative writing that uses text features to provide information. Ask your students what they learned about how technology impacts travel and transportation.

Phonics/Fundations:

Mincke/Triplett: This week we practiced letters P and J and the trick words “is” and “the.”

Blades/Horn: We are continuing to work on short vowel sounds. We are also working on beginning blends (bl, cr, fl, gl, sl, pl). We are learning the high frequency words: come, here, to, of, what, put, want, this, saw.

Math:

Mincke/Triplett: We are beginning Unit 3, where we have continued practicing 2D shapes, organizing data into a graph, and learning about the plus, minus, and equal symbols.

Blades/Horn: We are continuing to work on addition and subtraction fluency and strategies for 0-10 and 0-20.

• Unit B had a successful Munch and Read!
• We look forward to seeing you and your student at parent teacher conferences next week!
• Ask your student about bats! We have discussed bats habitats, the bats at Ridgeway, and read informational and fiction books about bat adaptations. As we study bats we will learn basic research skills. We will incorporate understanding story elements through bat stories and work in our science standards as well.

It’s a Friday Folder week, don’t forget to check your child’s link. We look forward to seeing everyone at their child’s conference next week.

In literacy we are reading play and narrative versions of Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan. We are using the Wizard of Oz texts to write an opinion essay. Ask your student about this work. If they haven’t seen the movie versions, that might help them have a better idea of the whole stories.

In math, Mrs. Graves and Mrs. Sandstedt’s classes are focused on fractions and division. We filled out their Friday Folders this week so look for that. Let us know if you have any questions.

In “Health” we will actually be focusing on literacy standards for a little while. This week, we started learning about the Transcontinental Railroad and will be talking about informational texts as well as Historical Fiction texts.

It is crazy to think that the first trimester of the year is at an end- it has been an AMAZING trimester indeed. With the joy and success of our all school Folk Dance Day to each class's individual achievements, I am immensely proud of our Ridgeway musicians.

Unit A has been working very hard on their musical comparatives of fast/slow and loud/soft. Having shown mastery of the 4 voices (speaking, whisper, shouting and singing) they have also shown a lot of growth and control of their tuneful singing voices. We plan to name the fast/slow and loud/soft comparatives before Thanksgiving break and will then be moving on to High/Low and Same/Different, all the while working on our steady beat, tuneful singing and creativity.

Unit B has done a lot of work this trimester and shown a lot of growth. They have developed a strong sense of beat vs. rhythm and have applied that skill to instruments and even improvisation. Unit B has quickly grown on their barred instrument skills (xylophone, metallophone, and glockenspiel) and are eager to continue their work on these instruments. Unit B has also learned a lot of the vocabulary for folk dances including: longways set, arch, cast off (peel the banana), swing low swing, and dosido. We are looking forward to adding quarter notes and eighth notes soon to our vocabulary as well as the solfege notes sol and mi.

Unit C really hit the ground running this year and has accomplished SO much whilst bringing a lot of joy and creativity to our music making. I am always so impressed with their musical knowledge and their creative thinking. Unit C has quickly mastered the notes, ta, titi, ta-rest and half note. Their rhythm reading and decoding is exceptionally strong. They have also just begun their recorder unit and I am already very impressed by their conscientious sound and attention to detail. Unit C has also worked hard on musical part work. From canons to ostinatos, our Unit C musicians show very strong musicianship with multiple parts happening, and it is SO fun to experience. Going forward we are adding 4/4 and 2/4 meters, sixteenth notes and the solfa: mi, re, and do.

Thank you families for all you do to support your Ridgeway musician. I can’t wait to continue our work in the next trimesters.

Sing-Cerely,

Ms. Meeds

The Grants Committee works to identify grant options for faculty and staff that can be used for projects, clubs, facility additions, or classroom resources. These grants can be enormously beneficial to our students and teachers, and you can help! If you work for a company or organization that offers grants- or you are aware of other grant opportunities- please let us know. We are always looking for new options to explore. Also, we are on the lookout for some used laptops for our Yearbook Club, so if you have contacts with a company or organization that donates old laptops, we would love that information!

Feel free to email any grant information to Kali.Wright-Smith@wcmo.edu.

Thanks in advance!

Childcare is available in the gym for every PTSA meeting unless otherwise noted. PTSA meetings are typically the second Thursday of the month. There is no meeting in December.

If you would like to donate to a specific cause, you can venmo PTSA @ridgeway_ptsa and put your cause/intention in the description.