'Tis the Season π
Welcome to another exciting edition of the Southside Parent Connection! π We are thrilled to share all the wonderful happenings in our school community. Letβs dive into the highlights from last week and whatβs coming up next!
What a fantastic November we had! π Kindergarten enjoyed their special visits from the Fernandina Beach Police Department during our "Cookies with Cops" event. πͺπ Pre-K had an amazing time exploring the inner workings of a fire truck and learning about fire safety from the Fernandina Beach Fire Department! π₯π A big shoutout to the FBPD for their surprise visit! Our 1st and 2nd graders celebrated their AR goals with a fun trip to the AR store! πβ¨ Thank you, Mrs. Hicks, for inspiring our Little Pirates to love reading and providing them with such great opportunities!
As a school, we came together to collect an incredible 9 barrels of non-perishable food items, totaling over 1,400 items for Authentic Impact! ππ A huge congratulations to our top collecting classes: Ms. Bowling, Ms. Barnes, Ms. Carlton, and Ms. McGee! They will be celebrating with an Ice Cream Sandwich party, courtesy of Authentic Impact! π¦π
Get ready for another busy month ahead! π On December 3rd, we will celebrate 70 days of school, so donβt forget to wear your best 70s attire! πΊπ The week of December 9th will be all about showcasing our students' hard work during Progress Monitoring 2. πβ¨ Keep an eye on the calendar for holiday dress-up days and performances during the week of December 16th. We will wrap up the semester on December 20th with our annual Polar Express day! ππ And guess what? The PTO has a special surprise planned for our students!
Things to remember
Mark your calendars for December 3rd and come dressed in your grooviest 70s outfit!
Progress Monitoring 2 is coming up the week of December 9th, so letβs encourage our students to shine! Get a goods night rest, eat a well balanced breakfast, and be ON TIME to school.
Donβt miss out on the holiday dress-up days and performances starting December 16th!
Polar Express day is on December 20thβget ready for some festive fun!
Until next time!
Thank you for being such an integral part of our school community! Your support makes all the difference. Letβs keep the momentum going as we head into this busy and joyful season! πβ€οΈ
Every year, as many as 8 million students nationwide are chronically absent, meaning they miss 10 percent or more of the school year for any reason, excused or unexcused. That level of absenteeism predicts poor academic performance as early as preschool and is a warning sign that a high school student will drop out. New research suggests that chronic absence predicts whether a student will finish college. The discipline and determination to get to school every day builds a habit that helps a student persist and succeed in college. The good news is that chronic absence can be reduced when schools work with families and communities to debunk common myths about attendance, build a culture of going to school or preschool every day and address barriers to getting to class. Parents and families are essential partners in promoting good attendance because they, ultimately, have the bottom-line responsibility for making sure their children get to school every day. When children are young, they are especially dependent upon adults or older siblings to help them get to school or preschool. Just as parents should focus on how their children are performing academically, they have a responsibility to set expectations for good attendance and to monitor their childrenβs absences, so that missed days donβt add up to academic trouble.
-BRINGING ATTENDANCE HOME Engaging Parents in Preventing Chronic Absence
What's the Difference and Why is it Important?
While both phonemic awareness and phonological awareness involve understanding and manipulating sounds in spoken language, phonemic awareness is a more specific skill focused on identifying and manipulating individual sounds (phonemes) within words, whereas phonological awareness is a broader skill encompassing the ability to recognize and manipulate larger sound units like syllables, onsets, and rimes; essentially, phonemic awareness is a subset of phonological awareness.
Key points to remember:
Phonemic awareness:
Focuses on the smallest unit of sound (phoneme) in a word, including activities like blending sounds to form words, segmenting words into individual sounds, and deleting or substituting phonemes.
Phonological awareness:
Includes skills like identifying rhyming words, clapping syllables, recognizing onsets and rimes, and segmenting words into syllables, which are considered larger sound units than phonemes.
