November 2012

Volume 1, Issue 3

Enos Elementary Newsletter

Individual Highlights:

Math News 2

Nurse News 3

P.B.I.S. News 3-5

Parent Educator 5-6

Lunch Menu 7

Health News Attached

Special Dates to Remember

November 2: Picture Retake Day! November 6: No School! November 12: No School!

November 15: Family Reading Night at 5:00! November 19: Eagle Patrol Soars the City at 6:00 p.m. November 22-23: No School!

Upcoming Dates

December 13: Gingerbread Night at 5:00 p.m. December 17: Eagle Patrol Soars the City at 6:00 p.m. December 18: Winter Musical December 19: Mystery Celebration December 19: End of 2nd Quarter/ School Dismisses at 2:00 p.m. December 20-January 2: Winter Break! January 3: School Resumes

 

Instructional Focus: Enos students will show measurable growth in comprehending a variety of reading materials as measured by classroom, district and ISAT assessments.

Reading with comprehension!

It’s Never To Early to Start Preparing for I.S.A.T. Amanda Londrigan

Build Your Child’s Vocabulary

All parents want their child to do well in school. One way to help your child is to help them build their vocabulary. Beginning readers use knowledge about words to help them make sense of what they're reading. The more words a reader knows, the more they are able to comprehend what they're reading or listening to.

Talking to and reading with your child are two terrific ways to help them hear and read new words. Conversations and questions about interesting words ("The book says, 'The boy tumbled down the hill,' and look at the picture! How do you think he went down the hill?") are easy, non-threatening ways to get new words into everyday talk.

Sharing a new word with your child doesn't have to take a long time: just a few minutes to talk about the word and then focus back on the book or conversation. Choose which words to talk about carefully — choosing every new word might make reading seem like a chore. The best words to explore with your child are ones that are common among adult speakers but are less common to see in the books your child might read.

When introducing new words to your young learner, keep the following four helpful hints in mind: First, provide a simple, kid-friendly definition for the new word: Enormous means that something is really, really big. Second, provide a simple, kid-friendly example that makes sense within their daily life: Remember that really big watermelon we got at the grocery store? That was an enormous watermelon! Third, encourage your child to develop their own example: What enormous thing can you think of? Can you think of something really big that you saw today? That's right! The bulldozer near the park was enormous! Those tires were huge. Lastly, keep your new words active within your house. Over the next few days and weeks, take advantage of opportunities to use each new vocabulary word in conversation.

Enos Elementary NEWSLETTER

Page 2 of 3

Deana Metzke

Now that we are through one quarter of the 2012-2013 school year, hopefully you have an idea of what basic math skills and/or facts your child has been working on this year and what they have to master by the end of the year. Generally, kindergarten students work on recognizing numbers and counting during the school year. For 1st and 2nd grade students, they are working on addition and subtraction facts, and 3rd through 5th grade students focus on multiplication and division facts. During each quarter grade levels focus on different facts, so feel free to ask your child or your child’s teacher what facts they are specifically working on for the quarter. Basic facts can easily be practiced in fun ways with things you may already have in your home to keep your child engaged. For example, a simple deck of playing cards, can be used for each grade level: *Kindergarteners can count the number of symbols on the card (i.e. diamond, club) or put a few of them in chronological order. *1st and 2nd graders can take two cards at a time and add or subtract the numbers on the cards, and you can even give the face cards values (i.e. 11, 12). *3rd, 4th, and 5th graders can also take two cards at a time, but instead of adding and subtracting, they can multiply the numbers on the cards. For 5th graders now and 4th graders later in the school year, you can also give the face cards number values. As usual, if you have any math related questions, please feel free to contact me at dmcdaniel@sps186.org or call Enos and ask for Deana Metzke.

.

News From Nurse Barb Ratliff, RN

GREAT AMERICAN SMOKEOUT

As a follow-up to Red Ribbon Week at Enos, we are letting you know about the 37th Annual Great America Smokeout! The American Cancer Society is marking the 37th Great American Smokeout on November 15 by encouraging smokers to use the date to make a plan to quit, or to plan in advance and quit smoking that day. By doing so, smokers will be taking an important step towards a healthier life—one that can lead to reducing cancer risk. Quitting smoking is not easy, but it can be done. To have the best chance of quitting successfully, you need to know what you’re up against, what your options are and where to go for help. For more information, visit: www.cancer/org/Healthy/StayAwayfromTobacco/GreatAmericanSmokeout/index

Coming  Soon...Bullying  Prevention  Program:  Steps  To  Respect Enos will officially start a new program next year called “Steps To Respect”. This is a bullying prevention program designed to help students know and understand the different forms of bullying, and also how to prevent it. Students in grades 3-5 have completed surveys to inform our staff about the types of bullying they have witnessed at Enos. We will use this information as we create rules and come up with consequences for bullying. We would love for a parent to join our steering committee as we make plans to implement the Steps To Respect program at Enos school. Our committee will meet once per month at 7:45am. If you are interested in joining this committee, please contact me at the number below.

Continued…

At home, please discuss bullying with your child. Explain that bullying is not just physical. Bullying also includes making threats, name-calling, and leaving kids out of groups. If your child witnesses bullying, we want them to report it to the nearest adult (teacher, playground supervisor, cafeteria worker, social worker, or principal). Please encourage your child to report it (even if that means writing an anonymous letter). As always, if you have any questions or concerns regarding your child, please feel free to call me at 525-3208 or e-mail me at algreen@springfield.k12.il.us. -Allison Green Social Worker/Student Support Leader

What is PBIS? PBIS stands for Positive Behavior Intervention System. It is a school-wide system designed to teach and reinforce positive behaviors and pro-social skills across all school settings. Students have an opportunity to earn cool prizes and rewards for practicing appropriate behaviors. Student Incentives: -“Gotchas”-good behavior tickets given to students by staff when students are caught following expectations throughout the school building. -“Out Of The Blue”- Students love for their blue “gotcha” card to be drawn throughout the week. I collect blue “gotchas” every Monday and we call names throughout the week to reward students who have been practicing our weekly cool tool. -Monthly Mystery Celebrations- In September we had a Michael Jackson-themed dance to reward students with zero office referrals the month of September. We have a great celebration planned for October. Encourage your

child to make good choices at school so they can participate in our monthly celebrations. We love to recognize students making positive choices!

Cool Tools Cool Tools are behaviors or character traits that are taught and reinforced every day. The cool tools change weekly and students learn what the term means and examples of how they can use them in school or in life situations. These are skills that will not only help them to get along better in school, but in life in general. We would love for you to reinforce the cool tools at home as well.

Upcoming Cool Tools: Week 12: Patience-November 5-9 Week 13: Pride- November 13-16 Week 14: Thankfulness-November 19-30

The Parent Corner

Parent Teacher Conferences were a blast!

If you missed your conference time please call your child’s teacher and set up a meeting as soon as possible. It is your responsibility to keep track of your child’s progress!

------------------------------------------------------------

F.A.C.E Team Calling all Enos parents to be a part of our

F.A.C.E Team. Our next meeting is

Wednesday, November 7th at 7:30 a.m.

Enos School (Volunteer Room)

*****************************************************************************

Helping Your Child Do Well In School

If your child doesn’t have the desire to do well in school, you have the privilege and responsibility as a parent to help him or her develop a genuine love for learning. A simple, three-step process can help.

Step #1 - Discover Ask your child what he likes to do. When he’s not in school and no family activities are scheduled, how does he choose to spend his time? Does he have an interest in sports, nature, history, politics or the community? The first step in motivating your child to enjoy learning is to find out what he enjoys. Step #2 - Motivate After identifying your child’s interests, use them to motivate him to finish his schoolwork. When he does, reward him with opportunities to engage in the things he enjoys. When he doesn’t, withhold fun activities until he does complete his schoolwork. Step #3 - Balance Balance is just as important in a child’s life as it is an adult’s. Help your child find balance through spending free time with both family and friends. Alone time is valuable but too much of it can be a problem. Keep TVs, computers and electronic devices in the common areas of your home and limit and monitor your child’s use of them.

Next Family Engagement Event

A Night of Characters (Enos Family Reading Night) Thursday, November 15th

5:00p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

We’re on the Web! See us at:

www.sps186.org