We have so many readers!!!!! Our kindergarten students are working so hard on learning their sight words and many are reading on their own!!! We are recognizing and celebrating this goal every day with students in classrooms and on the morning announcements! By the end of the second quarter, students needed to master 23 sight words. The third quarter will introduce 23 more and we will be at 70 sight words by the end of the school year! These are high frequency words that readers will find in many books they read and will have them reading at a level C by the end of kindergarten. Students are bringing home books from the classroom that are at their reading level and they are learning how to choose a just right book. More reading strategies are being introduced to help students decode words they aren't familiar with so they can have success with many books that appeal to them. You can help your child by reading with them and to them every single night! Make it fun by sharing in the reading with them, using funny voices, acting out books, playing tabletop games that center on word recognition and even practicing their sight words using manipulatives like magnetic letters and play doh. Ask your child for ideas too; students have been practicing their words and reading in different ways throughout the school day....ask them to show you just what they are doing! We will be rewarding and celebrating reading goals big here at the ELC for the remainder of the school year! Be sure your child has the support needed to achieve!

There are so many ways to learn sight words besides flash cards! Flash cards work great- but spice it up! When working on words... always stick with some they absolutely know and introduce a couple new words at a time. Try putting several flash cards on the floor... Tell them to hop to a word... Jump up and down on another... do 2 jumping jacks when they find another, etc.

Another fun thing is to hide the words around the house. Have them hunt for them and bring them back to you and tell you what word they have found.

Give them a fly swatter and place the words on the table. When they see the word you said- they slap it with the fly swatter.

Let them text the words to you, or grandma, or their favorite aunt. It's a fun way to let them use technology and be learning.

Have them write the words out in 1 color marker, then go over it in another color, and then a 3rd color. It's called Rainbow Writing- and they LOVE it!

Use sugar or shaving cream and let them write the words out.

The possibilities are endless. Make it interactive and fun for them!

What is School-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports. School-wide PBIS is a multi-tiered framework to make schools more effective places. It establishes a social culture and the behavior supports needed to improve social, emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes for all students.

The ELC values hard work and good behavior. Our PBIS program showcases these values in our school and praises students for their leadership qualities. Their peers see this good behavior and it creates a learning environment that is enriched with kindness, leadership, grit and perseverance. All students have the opportunity to earn tickets as a class as well as individually for modeling good choices. They can cash in individual tickets they earn in their classes for rewards like picking out of the treasure box, stinky feet day, being able to write in markers all day long. They can even bank their tickets and be SRO, Janitor, or Principal for the day! They can cash in their class tickets for special opportunities in their class like a PJ Day! We celebrate as a school with rewards like dance party and extra recess day. Each day we are looking for and rewarding those positive behaviors.

Check out all of our Quarter 2 Royalty and GRIT workers! We are so proud of you! We are so proud of all the kids as a whole as they earned enough tickets to celebrate with a "Game Day" where they will be playing a variety of games in their classrooms together. Congrats to all our Lil Brickies!

The ELC is holding a Read-A-Thon to benefit the Lake County Public Library. The 2022 Read-A-Thon benefiting the Lake County Public Library is in full swing and runs through 2/21! If you would like your child to participate to benefit the library and win some really great trophies and possibly win a gift card (the top 8 get a gift card as well) just send in a note with them or reach out to Mrs. Fraze our librarian. There are trophies for earing anywhere from $1 to $100. Sponsors can donate a flat fee or pledge per book or even page read. If you have any questions regarding the read-a-thon, please email Mrs. Fraze at mfraze@hobart.k12.in.us!

Can you believe we celebrated 100 days of Kindergarten at the end of last month?! This year is just flying past! We celebrated big all day long in our classrooms with all sorts of 100th day activities, dressing like what we think we will look like when we are 100, or bringing in 100 things!

Our Building Brickies program hosted a Brickies Read Together event at the end of January with the book The Thing About Yetis. Every child at the ELC received a copy to keep for their home libraries during their library time with Mrs. Fraze. Together they read the book, talked about what they love (and don't love) about the winter and what they love (and don't love) about the summer. They also did guided drawings of a Yeti! Look at all the adorable Yeti's below. To wrap up the event- they are hosting a movie tube night at the HHS pool watching Abominable.

We go out for at least one recess every day as long as the real feel is 20 degrees or above. In order to play in the snow, the kids MUST have all items mentioned above. It is a good idea to keep these items in a separate bag and teach them to put the stuff back in that bag as they take their stuff off after recess! We know it’s a lot for them to bring back and forth to school, so keep your eye on the forecast to see if they will need to bring stuff in or not. Thanks parents!

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us04web.zoom.us/j/77070907712?pwd=am5KalpUWkRNbUliK1ZQNHZOWGYydz09

Meeting ID: 770 7090 7712
Passcode: Xcu2N8

Don't forget we are doing a collection for boxes of cereal for the Hobart Food Pantry. The class that has the most boxes donated will win a Pizza Party!

Family Game Night

The ELC looks forward to it's Family Game Night every year! This is such a wonderful event that reminds us to open that closet and pull out one of those tabletop games! Traditionally, the ELC hosts an event where families are invited to attend an evening of playing new games and finding new ones to add to their collection of favorites. Since this year is a little different, we are changing it up by hosting the event FROM YOUR HOUSE! We are encouraging our families to join us on Thursday 2/10. Mrs. Fraze will kick the event off with a post on the ELC Facebook page on the evening of 2/10. We sure hope you will stop by showing us your favorite games at home- and who knows what other ELC staff will pop in from homes with their kids for the event! We are asking for parents to post their pictures of their family playing tabletop games or even short videos describing why it is a favorite at your house! Families who participate in the photo/video share will be entered in our raffle for a game basket. The basket of games will include ELC favorites. The prize will be raffled off on the morning announcements the Friday after. We can't wait to see how virtually awesome our Family Game Night will be this year!

Yearbook forms came home. Orders and payments are due by 2/17! If you miss placed your form you can order online at www.classicphoto.org. It does take awhile for yearbooks to come- the kids will get them before the end of school.

Spring Pictures will be taken on 2/17. Just like in the fall, every child will get their picture taken. You will then get an email and/or text where you can preview and order if you would like.

SRO Joe frequently updates our virtual lost and found. The link is always the same. If you see something that belongs to your child... Please reach out to him at jclemmons@hobart.k12.in.us and he will get the item back to your child. Thanks!

Email: sgutierrez@hobart.k12.in.us
Website: https://www.hobart.k12.in.us/elc
Location: 400 North Wilson Street, Hobart, IN, USA
Phone: 219-942-7263
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hobart.k12.in.us