Katonah Elementary School

January 2023

Dear KES Families,

Happy new year! We are hopeful that you all enjoyed a holiday season full of joy and laughter.

JANUARY’S COMMUNITY READ- A FRIEND LIKE YOU By Frank Murphy and Charnaie Gordon

This month’s book serves as a celebration of friendship! The story speaks to being a supportive, honest, generous, true, curious, open-minded, flexible, forgiving, kind, and thoughtful friend. Through classroom discussions, students will be thinking about and answering questions such as, “Why is it important to celebrate each other? Have you ever had to apologize to a friend? Why is it important to be empathetic? What does it mean to ‘have each other’s back’? The school-wide culminating activity will be a display of each student’s written response to the questions What kind of friend am I? and What kind of friend do I need?

DEI Connection: “Good friends teach you about yourself and challenge you to be better. A friend can be the same and/or different from you in so many ways. Whether it be race, skin color, religion, gender, gender expression, hopes and dreams, age, nationality, abilities, interests, failures, or successes- all of these can be celebrated within friendships. Friendships can help you understand the importance of allyship, equality, fairness, acceptance, and mutual respect. These things can enable you to use your mind and your voice to influence change.” Charnaie Gordon- Author’s Note.

SEL Connection: Building Relationships

During Morning Meetings this month, classes will be thinking and sharing about:

• How can listening attentively help to build relationships?
• What are some strategies I can use to communicate assertively?
• What is one way feedback can help me to improve?
• How is collaborating with a group easy and/or hard?

Clinician’s classroom lessons will focus on:

• Kindergarten: fair ways to play
• First grade: fair ways to play, and similarities/differences
• Second grade: managing embarrassment, handling mistakes, and making effective apologies
• Third grade: accepting differences and showing compassion
• Fourth grade: understanding different perspectives and managing strong feelings
• Fifth Grade:avoiding assumptions and respectful disagreements

Technology Connection:

During Library, Mrs. Hand will be discussing the importance of thinking carefully before communicating using technology (messaging, text messages, emails). 

CURRICULUM BLURBS

Students in kindergarten will continue to strengthen their conventional reading skills through decoding CVC words and adding to their knowledge of high frequency words. They’ll continue to add to and build their reading “powers” as they share and celebrate with new stories and partnerships. In their writerly life, children will think about their own lives and special memories as they explore the personal narrative genre. Children will practice telling their stories using story language and write to develop sentence structure and word choice; checking and revising as they go. In math, kindergartners will be exploring how objects may be classified (into groups) depending on specific attributes. Kindergartners will practice naming and comparing categories as well as work together to explain their mathematical thinking. As we continue through the month children will begin to explore addition in a variety of ways.  

Students in first grade will be fueled by their curiosity to learn how to read and write nonfiction texts! Emphasis in reading will be on how to decode longer words (part by part), while reading through blends, digraphs, phonograms, and endings to become more efficient in their decoding of genre specific vocabulary.  First grade writers will use what they learn to write their own nonfiction books! Stretching out their words and applying phonics skills to their writing while incorporating non-fiction text features into their teaching books! In math, first graders will be encouraged to develop a deeper understanding of addition and subtraction as key strategies are introduced for solving subtraction facts to twenty.

Students in second grade are looking forward to kicking off a lot of new learning in 2023! In writing, we will be learning how to write strong opinions. Fortunately, our opinions will be focused on something we love…. BOOKS! Using our reading workshop books, we will form strong opinions supported by examples from our favorite books. To help strengthen our reading, we will be adding to our reading strategies tool belt. We know lots of different ways to sound out new words. The 2^nd graders are excited to put their latest reading strategies to work as they tackle longer books. Addition and subtraction of double digits will continue to be the focus in math. We will be exploring how the earth’s surface changes in science. Looking at different landforms will help strengthen our understanding of how and why the surface of the earth looks the way it does! We are ready for an amazing month of learning in 2^nd grade!

Students in third grade will begin their study of nonfiction in the new year! They will be immersed in nonfiction reading; reading for fluency and learning to make mental summaries. These summaries will contain the central ideas and supporting information. Students will focus on note taking using post-its, note cards, and graphic organizers. In writing, third grade writers will work towards creating lively, voice-filled information books based on their personal areas of expertise; topics they feel passionate about, have a strong interest in, and feel knowledgeable about. As writers, they will develop this topic and their level of expertise by conducting research and providing even more facts, details, and interesting information to their topic. They will explore many nonfiction texts with an eye on how authors create headings and subheadings, as well as glossaries, text boxes, sidebars, diagrams, charts, graphs, and other visuals. In, math third graders will focus on reading and making scaled picture and bar graphs that represent data sets. We will also solve problems involving the data represented in the graphs. Happy 2023!

Students in fourth grade will embark on a fiction reading unit, Detail and Synthesis: Close Reading of Fiction, which will draw upon their earlier instruction around character and theme with greater independence. This unit will be taught alongside the writing unit, The Literary Essay: Writing about Fiction. Students will be encouraged to cite text evidence to back up their ideas and to elaborate on details in partnership conversations. Students will plan well-structured essays in which they make and support claims about characters and the theme of the story while annotating and citing textual evidence. In Math, students will solve problems involving comparison, and learn to distinguish between multiplication and addition. Students will also be solving multistep word problems involving all four operations. Fourth graders will be working on a collaborative STEAM project with Mrs. Hand to create wind turbines. This connects to our science learning on various sources of energy. 

As we embark on the new year, students in fifth grade will expand their expository writing skills and focus on writing literary essays. In reading, students will continue their study of narrative non-fiction and participate in book clubs. Division with decimal divisors and dividends will be the focus in math. As the study of space system culminates, fifth graders will be starting a new unit in social studies on the ancient civilizations of the Aztec, Inca, and Maya and then move on to United States Government. In January, the fifth graders will be taking two field trips--the first to the Katonah Museum of Art to see an exhibit of the American illustrator and writer, Jerry Pinkney and the second to the White Plains Board of Legislatures. 

Response to Intervention (RTI)

As per our Response to Intervention District Plan mandated by New York State, benchmarks (or screenings) will be administered this month for students in grades K-5. The assessments are administered as a whole group and individually, depending on the grade and subject area. Winter benchmarking gives us the opportunity to review student growth since the last time we benchmarked, in the fall. The results of the screenings, along with other relevant data, is reviewed by the KES RtI Team made up of the Principal, School Psychologist, Interventionists, and Classroom Teachers. If your child qualifies 1) to enter services, 2) for a change of tier in services, or 3) to exit from services, you will receive a communication in early February.

Elementary Progress Reports

Classroom Teachers and Special Area Teachers will be completing progress reports for all students towards the end of this month. We anticipate these reports being made available on the Parent Portal in Infinite Campus at the end of the day on Friday, February 3.

Health

The New York State Department of Health reminds us to be careful and cautious as we have seen an increase in student and adult sickness before we went on break. Communities and schools are encouraged to follow these commonsense precautions to prevent the spread of respiratory viruses:

1. Staying up to date on vaccines, including Flu and COVID-19.
2. Washing your hands often with soap and hot water for at least 20 seconds.
3. Not coughing or sneezing into your hands; sneeze or cough into your elbow.
4. Staying home when sick or symptomatic.
5. Wearing a well-fitting, high-quality mask when in public indoor spaces.

Mark Your Calendar

Tuesday, January 3                 5^th Grade Volleyball vs. Teachers @ 10:00-11:15am

Wednesday, January 4           Fifth Grade Parent Night @ Middle School

Thursday, January 5                BOE Meeting @ 7:30pm

Friday, January 6                     4^th and 5^th Grade Chorus Begins with Ms. Cronin @ 8:10am

                                                         (Students will enter through Main Entrance.)

Monday, January 16               Schools Closed in honor of Martin Luther King’s Day

Saturday, January 28             Pancake Breakfast 5^th Grade Fundraiser @ 8:30-11:00am

We have rescheduled the December Sharing Assembly (that was missed due to the early dismissal on Friday, December 23) for this week so that we can celebrate our students and staff having December birthdays!!!

Here’s to a healthy 2023 with lots of opportunities for learning and growing!

Thank you,

Cristy and Kweon