The Greencastle Gazette
Dear Greencastle Elementary Families,
It's been a wonderful week at the Castle and we've been busy celebrating our students. First, students that earned 5 or more LEAD tickets were treated to an Ice Cream Sundae Party. Next, we hosted our spelling bee for grades 1 - 5. It was an amazing experience. Shout out to all of the participants, staff, and students. Congratulations to our winners 🏆, and a special congratulations to our reading specialist, Ms. Cofield, for a job well done.
This Week
- Tuesday, March 11: 5th Grade MISA testing: 10:15 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Wednesday, March 12: 5th Grade MISA testing: 10:15 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Thursday, March 13: Pi Day
Upcoming Dates
Thursday, March 20: STEAM Day & Night
Friday, March 28: End of Marking Period 3
Monday, March 31: No School: Grading and Reporting Day
March 2025
February 28 – March 29: Ramadan
March 1 - 30: Women’s History Month
March 3-27: Quest For Success After School Club continues
Greencastle will be hosting an all day STEAM day on Thursday, March 20th. Students will engage in a day of activities including community speakers and visitors, STEAM activities, class and student project sharing, books, videos, makerspace activities, art projects, gallery walks, and so much more!
Families are invited back that evening to keep the STEAM energy moving full force with dinner, hands-on stations, engineering, robotics, microscopes, community visitors, class and individual projects, art projects, and gallery walks.
Do you work in the field of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, or Math and want to share your knowledge with the students at Greencastle? Please complete the form and submit it to Lyndsay Fetrow or Valerie Patel by as soon as possible.
According to the construction team and MCPS project team, we are scheduled to open up our addition at the start of the 2025-2026 school year. In the meantime, we are happy to share a collection of pictures that capture the progress made by the construction team. It’s very exciting to watch what will soon be an additional learning space that will include:
(3) Kindergarten classrooms
Art Room
Music & Instrumental Music Rooms
Occupational and Physical Therapy room
Staff training room
Literacy suite
Administrative suite
Brand new front entrance & vestibule
Over the summer, Greencastle will undergo a few renovations to existing spaces within the current building, such as:
Additional instructional space in our current media center
A dual purpose room for the part-time art and music teacher
Bathrooms installed in all kindergarten classrooms
An updated staff lounge
Updated community use bathroom
Click the link below to see the photo progression!
Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) is a language arts program for Grades PreK–5 that combines a multi-sensory approach to phonics with rich texts carefully sequenced to build content knowledge—so that students learn to read and read to learn at the same time.
Every day in Grades PreK–2, students complete one full lesson that builds foundational reading skills, as well as one full lesson that builds background knowledge. In Grades 3–5, students start to master the skills of reading, further opening up their worlds.
MCPS Curriculum Overviews (Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 5)
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/english/es
Family Resources --> A Letter from Ms. Cofield, Greencastle ES Reading Specialist
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x0KZPFjwDUzczz_dSVqL4OPc3J_oxsLvTzzgFnyBkb8/edit?usp=sharing
Family Mathematics Support Center
MCPS schools and families building mathematics proficiency for all through:
- A better understanding of the curriculum.
- Building a deeper understanding of concepts, skills and practices.
- Providing additional support and practice opportunities for parents and students.
Elementary domains of mathematics learning include:
- Counting and Cardinality (PreKindergarten and Kindergarten only)
- Operations and Algebraic Thinking (PreK-5)
- Number and Operations in Base Ten (K-5)
- Number and Operations: Fractions (3-5)
- Geometry (PreK-5)
- Measurement and Data (PreK-5)
Visit this link for additional support for math help at home (Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 5)
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/math-support/
Greencastle ES Breakfast and Lunch Monthly Menus: https://schools.mealviewer.com/school/GreencastleES
By the end of the 2024-2025 school year, the percentage of Greencastle students who are chronically absent will decrease from 32% to 27%.
We are happy to report an improvement in our chronic absenteeism percentage this week. Let's keep working to decrease this number so that we meet our goal and are closer to the average for MCPS which is 17.84%. We can do it, Greencastle! Help us to continue to meet and exceed our goal by decreasing the number of students chronically absent.
Click on the link below from Attendance Works that outlines the Health Guidance for Attending School when your student is not feeling well.
