Ms. Michelle Alzamora
Dear Families,
In the past I have mentioned the importance of student agency. I’d like to share with you a few upcoming events that have come from ES students, for ES students.
This past week I have worked with a couple of students that had an idea that they hoped would help their classmates to read more at home. Cecilia and Liel developed a fun reading program that they introduced to the ES at our Morning Meeting this morning. All students are invited to participate! Students received a sheet of paper with a map on one side and a reading chart on the other. For every ten minutes of reading, students move their scorpion along the map and if they get to the end of the map by May 30th, they get to participate in a read-aloud event.
Another exciting student-led event is our upcoming ES Day of Play. On May 9th, ES students will participate in fun events planned by one of our student council groups. The student council group planned a relay race, tug-of-war, parachute activities, and more! This group thought about safety, timing, and activities that all students would enjoy. They used collaborative strategies to make decisions and are thinking about how they will communicate details about the event to our community. More on this will be coming to you soon.
We hope to encourage all children to find ways to make our school and the world a better place! If your child has an idea that they would like to pursue, please encourage them to come to Mrs. Alzamora and Mr. Martinez and we can help them to make it happen. Please note that we do not support students to sell things at school unless the sale is part of a classroom activity or school-sponsored group, like student council.
Yours,
Michelle Alzamora
We have begun our Spring MAP assessments. Students in grades 2-5 will take one MAP assessment a week following the schedule below. Your child’s teacher will let you know what days they will be taking the assessments. You will note significant gaps between some of the assessments. This is due to holidays.
MAP April 15 - May 23
Week of April 15 - Language Assessment (completed)
Week of April 21 - Reading Assessment (completed)
Week of May 12 - Math Assessment
Week of May 19 - Make-ups
The MAP assessments provide us with external data that compares your child’s performance with a set of recognized standards. Because the assessment is adaptive, we are able to gather information about children outside of the constraints of grade level bands.
This is not an assessment that your child can study for. In order to help her or him do their very best, please ensure that your child gets plenty of rest and eats a healthy breakfast. You can also help your child by not making a big deal about this testing experience. It is not a high stakes assessment and the children have no reason to feel stressed about their performance. You will receive information about your child’s performance on the MAP assessment after all students have completed the tests. For more about the MAP assessment, you can jump to the MAP Family Toolkit.
As a school, we look at the results of the MAP assessments to help us better understand each learner as well as our academic programs. Our classroom teachers will spend time together looking at MAP results in conjunction with other pieces of data about learning. As administrators, we use multiple data points (including MAP) over time to help us understand where our students are doing well and where we might consider making programmatic changes. The Spring data helps us to see trends in student growth over the year. Additionally, we will collect and analyze data from reading and writing assessments.
Please ensure that your child is coming to school wearing close-toed shoes. Many students are wearing slides and flip-flops. While these shoes are fashionable and comfortable, they are not safe for school-related activities.
AAC Jamboree: Practice schedule
Track and Field- Practice twice per week (Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3-4 pm)
Jamboree Meet: Thursday, May 23rd @ ABS
Basketball- Practice twice per week (Mondays and Tuesdays from 3-4pm)
Jamboree Tournament: Friday, May 24th @ ACS
Soccer- Practice twice per week (Mondays and Wednesdays 3-4 pm) Jamboree Tournament: Saturday, May 25th Boys @ AA and Girls @ NES
🌍✨ Happy Earth Day! Explore our Earth Day activity choice board today and join our mission to make a positive impact on our planet. From planting trees to recycling crafts, there's something for everyone to celebrate and protect our beautiful Earth!
Click on this link
Exciting news: Flopsy has been found! 🐰📚 Now our students are thrilled to be reunited with their reading buddies, sharing stories and smiles together.
Blossoming Bookworms: Track your springtime reading adventures with our spring reading challenge! 🌷📚
Chances are your child's emotions fluctuate quite often! Over time, this may make you feel stuck as a parent around how to support your child and yourself in addressing emotional outbursts. It is taxing work.
To possibly help, we've added another tool to our ES Counseling Website - Check out these Tools to Try posters you can print and hang in your home to remind yourself and family members that there are tools you can use. The tools are best used together, as a family - not just for the kids!
We are here and happy to support you if you have any questions or would like to discuss ways to create a calmer home environment.
Tim Steadman and Hayley Jeanes
Guide to ChatGPT for Parents and Caregiver:
Find out how the artificial intelligence (AI) tool works and how to talk with kids about it.
May 11 - PTG - Jordan Day / Community Fair
May 20 - Book Swap in the LC
May 20 - Grade 5 to Grade 6 Parent Transition Meeting
May 22 - Grade 1 Music Concert
May 22 - Grade 4 Music Concert
May 23 to 25 - AAC Sports Jamboree
May 26 to 30 - G5 WOW Week
May 29 - Parent Chat
June 4 - Grade 2 Music Concert
June 6 - Grade 5 moving Up Ceremony
June 9 - Day of Play