Volume 2, Issue 3

First Grade 2

Second Grade 2

Third Grade 3

Fourth Grade 3

Fourth Continued,

Fifth Grade

4

Coaches’ Corner 5

Kindergarten’s Recipe

Dates to Remember

6

Inside this issue:

November 2014

Hello and HAPPY FALL! The Kindergarten Team would like to

thank all parents who attended the trip to BOTANICAL GAR-

DENS, we had so much fun and the kids really enjoyed you repre-

senting us! There are more field trips to come, so STAY TUNED! As

promised, our "Kinder-Kookin' Cookbook" is underway. Enjoy some

of the harvest recipes that we will list this fall sea-

son. Alrighty,"get to kookin'"!

*Please see the recipe on page 6

The Kindergarten Team,

R. Ellison, K. Harper, T. Galloway, N. Davis, and D. Johnson

F. L. Stanton Elementary School

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 27, 2014

Tiger Gazette

Dear Parents,

One of the foremost advances in school-wide discipline is the emphasis on school-

wide systems of support that include proactive strategies for defining, teaching, and

supporting appropriate student behaviors to create a positive school environment. In-

stead of using a fragmented approach of individual behavioral management plans, we

are implementing a continuum of positive behavior support for all students at Frank

L. Stanton in areas including the classroom and non-classroom settings (such as hall-

ways, buses, and restrooms). Positive behavior support is an application of a behav-

iorally-based systems approach to enhance the capacity of schools, families, and com-

munities to design effective environments that improve the link between research-

validated practices and the environments in which teaching and learning occurs.

Effective Thursday, November 6, 2014, we implemented a school-wide Positive Be-

havior Intervention Support (PBIS) for all students in grades K-5th. Collectively

as a faculty and staff, we are committed to creating an environment that is consistent-

ly conducive for teaching and learning during each school day but, your help is need-

ed. Thank you for sending in your PBIS contract to indicate your support for this pro-

gram. Please continue to send your child to school prepared to learn in his or her uni-

form. Together, we will build a strong school!

Educationally yours.

Phyllis E. Earls

Kindergarten News

Parents/Guardians,

We hope the month of November finds you and your family well. In Reading, we have

been working hard on developing our comprehension skills. Students are bringing home books

every week, so please have them practice reading their books every day to increase

fluency. Also, have students practice retelling you the story in their own words.

In math, we have been hard at work on building number sense. Continue to practice

writing numbers from 1-120 and skip counting by 1’s, 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s.

In Science, we have just completed our unit, “All About Magnets”, and will begin our

“Sound” unit. Listen to different sounds with your child and have him/her describe it as being

loud, soft, high, or low pitched.

We are beginning our Social Studies unit by discussing how America has changed over

time. Discuss how times were different or the same for you as a first grader! Please check out

our learning websites at: symbaloo.com/mix/aribo for additional resources. Thank you for your

support!

First Grade Team,

Ms. C. Aribo, Ms. R. Evans, and Mrs. L. Simmons

Wow! It’s hard to believe that three months have nearly passed. The days fly by, and

the students are working very hard. That said, there is simply not enough time to do eve-

rything. Your help is really needed at home to practice and reinforce skills that are taught

during the school day. During the month of November, the 2nd grade students will focus on:

Math - Place Value and Computation, (Adding 2 & 3 digit numbers while regrouping),

Computation and Measurement (Adding and subtracting within 20 mentally, one and two-

step equations, even and odd numbers), - Money, (Dollar bills, quarters, dimes, nickels, &

pennies), Time (Analog & Digital clock). Reading - Story structure, comprehension skills,

making inferences and sequencing. Science-Forms of matter, Social Studies-Creek and

Cherokee Indians of Georgia, Health-Our Bodies, and ELA - All noun types. Effort and

attention are crucial to your child’s success in the classroom! Please continue to help your

child at home to ensure continued academic success.

Warmest Regards,

The Second Grade Team,

Ms. D. Jefferson, Ms. L. Mallory, and Mrs. C. Wright

First Grade News

Second Grade News

PAGE 2 F . L. STANTON ELE MENTARY SCHOOL VOLUME 2 , ISSUE 3

Hello third grade families! Awesome teaching and learning is what’s happening in third grade!

Third grade has the pleasure of participating in the “2014 Project for a Day”, sponsored by the City of

Atlanta. The students have been learning about reducing, reusing, recycling, conservation, and

pollution in Science. Through this opportunity, the students will learn about waste streams, how to

reduce waste at home and school, different ways to recycle, and creative ways to reuse items. The stu-

dents will have to track what they recycle and other items they could recycle at home daily, for one

week prior to that day. This will be a great experience for our children!

In Math, we have moved into unit three, where our focus is the relationship between multiplication

and division through properties. The place value and the fluency of addition, subtraction, multiplica-

tion, and division facts are of great importance in this unit. In Reading, we are continuing to learn to

read fluently, read for comprehension, writing in response to what we’ve read, and summarizing a pas-

sage. In ELA, the focus will continuously be on sentence structure and expanding upon previously

learned grammar skills. In Social Studies, we have moved into “Our Democratic Heritage.” The

students are developing an understanding of the roots of our democratic system in the United States of

America. As always, we are preparing your scholars for the Georgia Milestones Assessment. Parents,

here are some suggestions that you can do to help support your student at home:

· Make sure he/she has a quiet, designated space to complete homework

· Provide a time limit so that they understand the importance of staying on task when

completing homework

· Make him/her defend their answers and explain their thinking in ALL subjects

· Read daily with him/her to increase fluency

This is a partnership and your child’s success is OUR success!

The Third Grade Team ,

Ms. A. Ginn, Mrs. C. Mitchell, and Ms. J. Tucker

Greetings from the Fourth Grade Team! We are off to a wonderful start this year and are

excited for all the new things we will be learning and doing! The semester is moving along

quickly!!! It will be Thanksgiving before we know it! Many of our Fantastic Fourth Graders are

running low on supplies. Please be sure to send additional pencils, colored pencils, and

paper for your child. We are using those supplies to learn great things!

Parents, we are approaching the cold and flu season. Please be aware that tissue, cleaning

wipes, and hand sanitizer are always helpful during this time of the year! Feel free to donate

these items as often as you would like!

Our fourth graders are busy reading lots of books and making great strides in AR. We still

have a long way to go in order to finish the race. Please encourage your child to read daily!

Third Grade News

Fourth Grade News

PAGE 3 F. L. STANTON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL VOLUME 2 , ISSUE 3

The 5th graders are really accessing higher order thinking skills daily in all subject areas.

Students are learning how to express themselves orally to get their point across. The fifth

grade teachers are very excited about the learning that is taking place in the classrooms.

“FIFTH GRADE IS IN THE HOUSE!!!!!” Congratulations go out to our own, Mr.

Jamie Manning. He will be honored on Thursday, November 13, 2014, as Teacher of

the Year! We are very proud of him and appreciate his dedication and hard work as a

part of our team. “GO FIFTH GRADE, GO FIFTH GRADE, GO!!!

KUDOS TO SAINT PAUL’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH!!!! Mentors from Saint Paul’s

Episcopal Church are sponsoring a terrific mentoring program for selected fifth grade girls.

This program is designed to help young ladies with the transition from elementary school to

middle school. Several settings have been scheduled to train the girls in the areas of etiquette,

time management, peer pressure, leadership, and many more. By the end of these sessions,

students will display the following behaviors: Hope, Aspiration, Respect, Ambition, Maturity,

Belonging, Encouragement, and Excellence.

Fifth graders are also striving to read 25 books by the end of the first semester. Parents,

please continue to encourage your child to read at home. Students are required to read 30

minutes each night. They may read the newspaper, magazines, cartoon comics, or books.

Thanks to all fifth grade parents for all that you do to help make learning a success for your

child.

The Fifth Grade Team,

Mrs. K. Manuel-Edwards, Mr. J. Manning, Mr. C. Moore, Ms. E. Northern,

Mr. M. Flanigan, and Ms. T. Welham

Fifth Grade News

Fourth Grade Cont’d

Many of those books are found on AR and will help to increase their reading levels and teach

them new things. We are also using our new tool, www.achieve3000.com, to help increase

reading of nonfiction text. Feel free to allow your child to log on and use this tool at home!

Thank you for your support and cooperation. We are having a great second quarter! Let’s

continue to make it fantastic!

The Fourth Grade Team,

Mr. P. Crabtree, Mrs. R. Williams, Ms. T. Welham ,and Mrs. Beverly Hall

PAGE 4 F. L. STANTON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL VOLUME 2, ISSUE 3

Coach’s Corner…Article Overview

Close Reading in Elementary Classrooms

By Douglas Fisher

A strategy that is being implemented across grade levels locally and nationally with the adoption of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy and taking root at FLS is Close reading. Close reading is the instructional practice of having students critically examine a text through multiple readings. To build criti-cal thinking skills while assisting students in becoming stronger readers, this strategy assist students in deter-mining the explicit (directly stated) and implicit (implied; not directly stated) meanings of a text.

Paul and Elder (2003) explain that this practice encourages students to: Identify their purpose for reading, determine the author’s purpose for writing the piece, develop schema, and understand systems of thought across subject areas

Identifying Students’ Purpose for Reading—The overarching goal of close reading is to cause students to engage in critical thinking with a text. Douglas Fisher explains that even emergent (beginning) readers under-stand that different pieces of text are used for different purposes. They see a parent use a cookbook to locate a recipe for preparing a meal. A caregiver provides important read-aloud time as they read a well-loved picture book for the fiftieth time. Their teacher consults a map of the zoo as she leads her class on a field trip to study African animals. In each case, the reading demand is shaped by the reader’s purpose. The recipe reader is read-ing for details, while the bedtime story reader is reading for comfort and enjoyment. The map of the zoo re-quires skimming and scanning of the layout in order to locate the elephant enclosure. In each case, the reader adjust one’s reading based on purpose. A statement of purposes establishes a learning target for students and increases the likelihood that they will reach the target( Gagne’& Briggs, 1974).

Determining the Author’s Purpose— Think of purposes as two sides of the same coin. On one side is the reader’s purpose: Why am I reading this? What do I want to get out of this text? On the opposite side is the author’s purpose: What does the writer want me to know? Why has this been written, and for whom? A reader who can determine the author’s purpose is able to begin analyzing the text. An author’s purpose typically addresses : to entertain, to persuade, or to inform. The Rand Reading Study Group (2002) identified determin-ing the author’s purpose as a key element of reading comprehension.

Developing Schema— Schema theory is at the core of teaching and learning, especially in reading comprehension (Spires, Gallini, & Riggsbee, 1992). Schema is an organized pattern of thought. Text-dependent questions are used in reading instruction to promote the habit of rereading text in order to build schema (Fisher & Frey, in press; Pearson & Johnson, 1978). These questions move through a progression from part to whole, from word and sentence level, to paragraph and then across the entire text. These questions move from explicitly stated information to those that require inferential and critical reading.

Understanding Systems of Thought in the Disciplines— Science texts contain” technical vocabulary an dense sentences that require the reader to draw on multiple concepts at the same time.” Social studies “texts contain nouns derived from adjectives and verbs that reference abstract ideas, and the presence of evaluative judg-ments.” Mathematics texts “switch between both natural language and mathematical language and symbols , requiring readers to make similar shifts in the grammars of both.” The practice of close reading better equips students to handle increasingly difficult texts. ~S. O’Stricker, Instructional Coach

Volume 2, Issue 3 F. L. STANTON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PAGE 5

Important Dates to Remember

November 1st Daylight Savings Time Ends

November 2nd Set your clocks back one hour

November 4th Election Day - Please vote!

November 13th Teacher & Para of the Year Program

9:00 am

November 14th Camp Jenny Kick-off 9:00 am

November 20th PTA/ Harvest King & Queen Coronation

5:30 pm

November 24th –28th Thanksgiving Break

Kdg. Cont’d from p.1

Grands!® Mini Chicken Pot Pies

Chicken pot pie with just 4 ingredients? It couldn't get any easier!

More prep time 20 min total time 45 min ingredients 4 servings 8

Ingredients

2 cups Green Giant™ frozen mixed vegetables, thawed 1 cup diced cooked chicken 1 can

refrigerated biscuits

Step 1. Heat oven to 375°F. In medium bowl, combine vegetables, chicken and soup; mix well.

Step 2. Press each biscuit into 5 1/2-inch round. Place 1 round in each of 8 greased regular-size

muffin cups. Firmly press in bottom and up side, forming 3/4-inch rim. Spoon a generous 1/3

cup chicken mixture into each. Pull edges of dough over filling toward center; pleat and pinch

dough gently to hold in place.

Step 3. Bake at 375°F 20 to 22 minutes or until biscuits are golden brown. Cool 1 minute;

remove from pan.

ENJOY!

Volume 2, Issue 3 F. L. STANTON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PAGE 6