The Fami-LEE Times

Dear Leesburg Elementary Fami-LEE,

On behalf of the entire staff, I would like to extend a warm welcome back to Leesburg Elementary for the new year! We hope you had a restful and enjoyable winter break.

We are excited to see our amazing students back in the classroom, ready to learn and grow. This year promises to be filled with exciting learning opportunities and memorable experiences.

Important Upcoming Events:

• House Day (1/17): Show your school spirit! Today is House Day! Please encourage your child to wear their House colors for our January House Meeting.
• 5th Grade Spelling Bee (1/17): Good luck to our amazing 5th-grade spellers! The 5th-grade Spelling Bee will take place on Friday, January 17th at 9:00 AM.
• No School (1/20): Please remember that there is no school on Monday, January 20th in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
• SOUPer Bowl Soup Collection: We are excited to announce our annual SOUPer Bowl Soup Drive! We will be collecting canned soups throughout the month of January to benefit Loudoun Hunger Relief. Each can donated will earn 5 points for your child's House!

We look forward to a productive and successful year filled with learning and growth.

Kindergarteners are hard at work practicing their literacy skills! We are learning how to identify emotions in ourselves and others. In math we will be learning to sort objects by one or more attributes. We are "traveling" around the world, learning about different traditions and holidays celebrated during the month of December. Over the break, we encourage you to read with your child, draw and write about activities you do as a family as well as practice counting to 100. We wish you all a wonderful winter break!

We are looking forward to finishing the second quarter strong. Your kiddos have learned so much and have been working so hard. We are SO proud of them. In reading and writing, children will continue to learn why it is important to do their best and get along with others. We will read books about people and characters who practice hard and learn to play fair because we are better together when we are

kind to one another. Children will also write a procedural text about how to make a new friend. In math students will learn the place value of the tens and ones places with numbers through 100 and skip counting patterns by 5s, 10s, and 2s. In social studies, students will learn about map skills.

In January, second grade will be:

• reviewing learning expectations and starting Unit 3: Empathy and Kindness in SEL,

• starting our unit about leadership by reading fiction and nonfiction texts and completing reading assessments (VALLS & MAP Testing) in reading,

• continuing to learn about writing a complete paragraph in writing,

• exploring units of measurement (linear, weight, capacity), estimating sums by using rounding skills, using strategies to solve two-digit addition computation (without and with regrouping),

• learning about three indigenous tribes (Powhatan, Sioux and Hopi) in social studies.

Happy New Year! We hope everyone had a peaceful winter break. We are excited to get back into our routine in 2025! We will start the New Year with a cross-curricular language arts and science unit on Animal Behaviors. Students will explore the essential question of “What behaviors help animals survive?” Along with science standards, students will be reading a variety of nonfiction selections to help them research and write an expository essay on animal behaviors. This is going to be a lot of fun and provide opportunities for deeper learning.

In math, we will take a closer look at multiplication and division and wrap up fractions. Encourage your student to practice basic facts at home. Thank you for your support at home. We are ready to SOAR in 2025!

The weather outside may be getting frightful, but the learning happening in fourth grade is so delightful! Here's what fourth grade is up to next month!

• Reading - We are finishing our theme of what makes a hero. We will, then, be moving into looking at our talents. We will be reading both fiction and nonfiction texts around this theme. We will also take our Reading MAP assessment this month.
• Writing - We are finishing our Biographies of Difference Makers and will move into writing expository essays.
• Math - We will learn to identify and add and subtract decimals, while continuing to review math facts. We will also take our Math MAP assessment this month.
• Science - We finished our unit on Weather and enjoyed a visit to the Cosmic Adventures planetarium.
• Virginia Studies - We will learn about Virginia’s role during the American Revolution and the building of the New Nation.

The fifth graders are looking forward to our upcoming spelling bee. The kids are excited to have Mrs. Blair teaching math and can't wait to welcome Ms. Peterson to the team.

The students will be busy with fraction and decimal operations, studying energy and westward expansion.

Happy New Year to our Fami-LEEs! We hope everyone enjoyed a wonderful winter break, followed by several extra snow days! Hopefully it was a time of rest, relaxation, and fun! While January is a great time for renewal and refreshment, we would like to reflect on the whirlwind of exciting events that took place at LES in December!

We were thrilled at the volunteer and family support that made the Winter Holiday Shop successful again this year. We want to especially thank Danielle Adams, Mary Phelps and their team of volunteers who helped set-up and run the Winter Holiday Shop. We continue to receive feedback from students, teachers and parents letting us know that this is an event that everyone enjoys annually at our school. If you received a Winter Shop Holiday gift, we hope that it was exactly what you were hoping for this year!

We would also like to give a huge thank you to our Teacher Appreciation Committee who did an amazing job organizing a gift card drawing and cookie exchange for teachers. This may have been our biggest cookie turn out yet! Thank you to everyone who signed up and donated gift cards and cookies. Every staff member was able to receive a gift card and select dozens of tasty cookies to take home before the break.

As we fly through January, the PTO is excited about upcoming spirit nights and winter events to connect and engage with LES FamiLEEs. We hope everyone can join us on Thursday, January 16 at 7:00pm in the Library for our PTO Meeting. We will kick off the meeting with a dessert and tea social, followed by a spotlight from the 3rd Grade Team.

As always, thank you to all of those who support our school and the PTO! We look forward to a fantastic 2025!

Box Tops for Education

Earnings Jul 2024-Jul 2025: $11.90

Lifetime School Earnings: $34,435.54

3 Steps to Earning $5 for the school - No Box Tops purchases required!

1) Download the App by Clicking Here

2) Use referral code ZE4F9680 to register

3) Scan your first receipt (even if there are no Box Tops) and earn $5.00 for the school.

Share the referral code with grandparents and extended family to generate even more money for LES. If 20 people download the app, use the referral code and scan a receipt, LES PTO would make $100!

Please consider signing up to help with an upcoming event this Fall! There are lots of options using the link below and we will post more as they become available.

Families are invited to review the curriculum and see Second Step lesson presentations. To access the curriculum, sign up for a Second Step account and use school code: FAM8DFA62448. Additional directions can be found here.

January Dates

12/6- Welcome Back!

1/17 - House Color Day

1/17 - 5th Grade Spelling Bee - 9am

1/20 - No School - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

1/27-1/28 - No School - Student Holiday

1/31 - Book Swap

It is our mission to empower every student to SOAR with Four and build meaningful relationships with our families and local community. Leesburg Eagles will be Respectful, Responsible, Safe and Kind.

#WeAreLeesburg

#FamiLEE

@leesburg_es

323 Plaza Street Northeast, Leesburg, VA 20176

571-252-2860

www.lcps.org/leesburg