The students had a great first week back by participating in the fun run.  Students came in ready with their magnificent t-shirts ready to show their banks best.  Thank you to the volunteers for helping with t-shirts, supporting our runners and to Mrs. Wood (Lillie's mom) and Mrs. Gregory (Drew's mom) for decorating our door.  The kids had a blast and really did a great job in getting pledges.  Students shared how they went out to get pledges and also heard stories of students emptying their piggy banks to donate to our school.  Now that shows a lot of our character traits!  We are still collecting pledges, it is not to late.  We are in 4th place and could easily move up with some more pledges.  I know the class would love to win one of the celebrations.
The past two weeks we have been busy starting our new science unit animals two by two.  We started with pill bugs and sow bugs.  The kids are very excited but it seems I have some compettion.  They really liked our in house science field trip and I told them that  experience would be hard to beat.  In reading and writing we are working on reading and writing nonfiction about animals.  They are doing a great job getting all the facts down.  In math we started working on partners of 10.  Have students practice adding and subtracting to 10 fluently.  Thank you again for all your help and support!!!

Important dates.....

Scholastic book order is due April 17th.
No school April 18th.
Family fun night April 24th 5:30-7:30
Saturday school make up day and our class field day April 26th .
Saturday school make up day and rain date for field day May 3rd.
Last day of school May 30th
Family fancy dance May 30th

Pictures from science is fun for everyone!!

100 Days Smarter.....

It has been a busy two weeks in Kindergarten. We celebrated our 100th day of school on January 14th. The students participated in math and literacy centers incorporating the number 100. The theme for the day was 100 days smarter. In math we have finished up our unit on shapes. We worked on naming and describing 2D and 3d shapes. We will now focus on addition/subtraction and solving math stories. Third quarter students need to count to 70 by tens and ones. In science we will start a unit on weather. In social studies we will learn about needs and wants. In writing we are still working on how to stories. Students should be able to write three sentences with the correct punctuation, spacing , capital letter to start sentence and basic phonetic spelling (ranbo/rainbow). In reading groups we are focusing on reading strategies and sight words. The Banks Road Art Room hosted artist Bryant Holsenbeck for this year’s Artist in Residency program. Together, Ms. Holsenbeck and the students created random weave forms that will become a beautiful new art installation for our school. The kindergarten team will be sending home information about our next field trip. We are in need of snacks for the classroom,erasers,empty plastic water bottles, clorox wipes and baby wipes. Please make sure that your child has a change of clothes at school. I hope everyone has a great week and try to stay warm!!

Skate Night Tuesday January 28th

PTA Spirit Night: Interskate Night 5300 Fayettewille Road, Raleigh (Hwy 401) FROM 6-8 P.M. The cost is $3.00 and includes: skate rental, bounce house fun, exciting games and activities, slice of pizza and a drink! It’s going to be a great night. I hope to see everyone Tuesday night!!

Coin Drive This Week

Banks Road Families, This is just a reminder that our "All for Books" coin drive will be starting on Monday, January 27th and will be running through Friday, January 31st! We will be having a grade level competition to collect coins in an effort to make sure that EVERY student at Banks Road can get a new book from this year's Scholastic Book Fair! Monday - Penny Day Tuesday - Nickel Day Wednesday - Dime Day Thursday - Quarter Day Friday - ANY COIN Day Coins will be collected from classrooms each morning and counted before the end of the day! An update will be sent out each night so you can see how your child's grade level is doing! Remember, ALL classes at the winning grade level receive a piñata party!

Happy New Year!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. The students did a great job getting back into the routines despite the long break. This week we will read and listen to different variations of the story The Three Little Pigs we are asking and answering questions about key details from the story. We have been learning about characters and setting as well as retelling details from the beginning, middle and end of the story. During writing time we are continuing to add words to our word wall. Please keep practicing your words at home. You can look for the words in books you read, use them in a sentence or practice writing them. Last week we began working on writing about our opinions and we will continued to practice opinion writing this week. We are writing about things we like or do not like and then explaining why we like it or don't. As a class we have been using these sentence frames to help guide us during writing time. I like ___________ because _____________. I do not like ____________ because _____________. I like to __________ because ___________. I do not like to ___________ because __________. During our math time we are working on identifying, drawing and comparing the following shapes: square, triangle, rectangle, circle and hexagon. We have been learning how to identify shapes by counting the number of sides and vertices each shape has. This week we will begin to learn about the following three dimensional shapes: sphere, cone, and cube. We are still working on counting 1-70 by ones and tens and reading, writing and counting objects 11-20. Please remember to send in a change of clothes labeled in a baggie. If you want to order a yearbook the deadline is January 8th. We also have PAC literacy night this Thursday January 9th. Teachers will be reviewing websites that are used with the students throughout their school day.

Almost the end of the Quarter.....

Can you believe we are almost through the second quarter? It feels like just yesterday I was meeting all the kiddos for 'Meet the Teacher', showing them where their cubbies were going to be. They have made a lot of growth from that first day and we have been working hard to master our quarter2 goals. Language Arts In reading, we have been working on identifying the story elements (character and setting) in fiction books. You can support this goal by asking your child to identify the character and setting in their favorite story. Heck, you can even ask them to identify the characters/setting in their favorite TV show! We have also been working on phoneme segmentation (being able to break a word into basic sounds) and nonsense word fluency (sounding out and reading made-up words). Your child will be assessed on these objectives at the end of the quarter with the goal for phoneme segmentation being 20 words a min and the goal for nonsense word fluency being 17 words a minute. In Letterland this week, we introduced "ck" words. In addition, we have been using the 'roller coaster trick' (using our shoulder, elbow, and wrist) to sound out CVC (simple 3 letter words made up of a consonant letter, vowel, and consonant letter). Sight Words: come, from As you know, the amount of sight words your child can read corresponds positively to the books they can read independently. To support this goal, ask your child to name all the sight words they can identify in a toy catalogue. If they name a specific amount (you can set an achievable goal), tell them you will put in a good word with Santa/grandma/grandpa about a special toy they want....just an idea:-) In writing, our focus is on creating 'pattern books'. That is, creating books that use the same language pattern (usually consisting of sight words) on each page. This week, we created books using the pattern, "I like to...". Math In math we finished up our following unit with numbers 11-20. Specifically, -identifying and correctly writing numbers 11-20 -creating groups that represent numbers 11-20 using our tens frame For example the number 16 would be XXXXX. XXXXX XXXXX. X -decomposing numbers 11-20 into a group of ten and some extra. For example, using the tens frame above, 16 would be 10 and 6 extra make 16 or 10 and 6 are partners that make 16. Homework I will not be sending a homework packet home this Friday. I will send some math activities to help reinforce concepts and continue reading to earn a book it certificate for a free pizza. These will be due December 2nd. The Most Wonderful Volunteers I just want to take a moment and thank the wonderful moms who help our class each and every week. They do everything from pulling small groups of kids to help them master various skills, to doing the down and dirty job of organizing/preparing all of our 'paperwork' .

Career Day

Updates

I hope everyone had a great weekend. We have been very busy in class working on daily five and reading groups. See previous post for more information on the daily five. Students will soon be bringing books home from our guided reading groups. These will need to be returned daily. Please make sure to be practicing sight words. I will be sending home a list that our grade level has worked on broken down by quarters. We have been reading fiction and non fiction books to compare the different elements. In science we have been working on properties and will finish up with this unit on Thursday with a pumpkin exploration. You can see from the pictures below that the students are actively engaged in our fall exploration using tools that scientists use. We read, discussed and wrote about what science is. In math we are still working with ten frames, ten sticks, and counting on to develop addition strategies. This week we had two students lead us in our math routines. They did a great job. I hope to have everyone be a math student leader.

Homework

We have started the homework packet one week early so that way students will not have homework the week of Thanksgiving.

Boo-Grams Send your Friends a Halloween Treat

Boo-Grams Send your Friends a Halloween Treat Look what the Student Council is up to! Which friends will you send a Boo-Gram to? October 28-October 31 students will be able to purchase Boo-Grams for 25 cents each in the morning from 8:45-9:15am either at a table in the upstairs 4-5 hallway or at a table in the main hallway for K-3 students

•Family Fun Fitness Night

Starts: 6:30 pm Ends: November 14, 2013 - 8:00 pm Location: BRES Multi-Purpose Room Description: This is a special event held in the gymnasium where we will be promoting a fun, safe and healthy lifestyle for the whole family. There will be plenty of FREE activities for all ages, door prizes, live demonstrations and more. We will also collect canned food at the door to help benefit families of BRES student’s and the Food Pantry of Fuquay-Varina.

Barnes and Noble Spirit Night

Our Barnes & Noble Book Fair is quickly approaching! It will be held on Thursday, November 7th at the Barnes & Noble store at Cary Towne Center! We have a great night planned! The Banks Boomers will be performing. A mystery reader will be hosting story time! The PTA will be selling BRES spirit wear and the Yearbook Club will open yearbook sales that night!

Important Dates

- Tuesday October 29th -Parents are connected reading night. - Thursday, October 31st- Book-It! due for the month of October. - Thursday, November 7th- Barnes and Noble Book Fair in Cary - Friday, November 8th- Early Release! School is dismissed at 1:15 - Monday, November 11th- Veteran’s Day- No School! - Thursday, November 14th- Fitness Night for PTA - Thursday, November 28th- Thanksgiving- No School! - Friday, November 29th- No School! - Wednesday, December 4th- Track out day

Introducing the Daily 5

For the past few weeks, I have been slowly introducing our Daily 5 reading structure to the students. Not familiar with the Daily 5? The Daily 5 is a structure that allows students to work on 5 components that will contribute mastering the end of year goal of reading on a level D. They include: -Word Work Students work in various ways with our sight words to help them improve their sight word mastery. Sight words (high frequency words) are common words that are found in the majority of texts. In order to master the end of the year goal of reading on a level D, students should be able to identify around 30-35 sight words by the end of the year. -Writing Students use their understanding of letters/sounds to create pieces of writing and convey their ideas. Generally, the writing prompts in this center are reflective of the writing genre we are currently learning about. For example, if we are working on opinion writing, then the activities in the writing center will ask them to share their opinion about a topic (Would you rather have a pet horse or a pet pig?) Again, the more a student uses their understanding of letters/sounds to create a pice of writing, the more likely they will be to master the end of the year reading goal of reading on a level D. -Listen to Reading Did you know that when a child listens to fluent reading, that it actually helps with their own reading? Well, that's where listen to reading comes in. In this center, students listen to a story on CD or tape (remember them, lol?) fluently and with expression. So, hearing a person read fluently/with expression will help the kiddos understand how their reading should sound when they are reading. Again, this supports the end of the year goal of students reading on a level D. -Read to self/Read to someone You know the saying, practice makes perfect. The more you read, the better they will get. At this center, the kids will have the opportunity to use their strategies such as using the picture/first letter of a word to determine unknown words, sounding out unknown words, opportunities to see (and master) sight words, etc... -Reading with the Teacher In this group, students will be pulled to work with me in small groups based on their reading needs for more strategic intervention. As you can see, all of these centers are geared towards making the most of your child's time during our literacy block. The goal being having all the students reading on a level D by the end of the year

October Happenings

We had a great first week back. I would like to welcome Mrs. Anderson to our class. She is our new teacher assistant that will help support Kindergarten and 1st grade track 1. Mrs. Rodger will still be working between both track 1 classrooms. We are very excited to have her. A big thank you goes out to Mrs. Wood (Lillie's mom) for putting together the basket for the fall festival. She did a great job for those NC State fans. Dates to remember: October 8th picture retakes, Election Day PTA spirit night at buffalo lanes in Garner October 11th Field Trip October 15th JDRF Walk October 16th Sports Team Day October 17th Crazy sock day October 18th School Spirit, Early release In Math we will be working on the following standards: -K.CC.3 Write numbers from 0 to 20. Represent a number of objects with a written numeral 0-20 (with 0 representing a count of no objects). -K.CC.4 Understand the relationship between numbers and quantities; connect counting to cardinality. a. When counting objects, say the number names in the standard order, pairing each object with one and only one number name and each number name with one and only one object. b. Understand that the last number name said tells the number of objects counted. The number of objects is the same regardless of their arrangement or the order in which they were counted. c. Understand that each successive number name refers to a quantity that is one larger. -K.CC.5 Count to answer "how many?" questions about as many as 20 things arranged in a line, a rectangular array, or a circle, or as many as 10 things in a scattered configuration; given a number from 1-20, count out that many objects. -K.CC.6 Identify whether the number of objects in one group is greater than, less than, or equal to the number of objects in another group, e.g., by using matching and counting strategies. -K.OA.1 Represent addition and subtraction with objects, fingers, mental images, drawings, sounds (eg. claps), acting out situations, verbal explanations, expressions, or equations. During our Letterland time we have been learning how to blend sounds together to make words. We have also begun working in our Daily 5 Reading Centers in the afternoon.

NC State Fair Tickets

Here's an excellent way for you to get your advance gate tickets to the NC State Fair (Oct. 17-27) and help Banks Road Elementary School raise money. For every $7.00 adult advance ticket sold, two dollars will be returned to the school. For every children's advance ticket ($3.00), one dollar will be returned to the school. Please feel free to forward this email to relatives, neighbors, and friends. The more tickets sold from Banks Road Elementary supporters, the more money is returned to the school. To be sure the money goes back to us, you will need to enter our school code number, which is 325 and is also available from the advance ticket online site: http://www.etix.com/ticket/online/performanceSearch.jsp?performance_id=1742475&cobrand=ncstatefair13-wakecounty " Don't wait too late: Once the fair starts, the ticket price increases, and no money comes back to us.

Growing Forward with WCPSS: Information about the Bond Proposal

Growing Forward is the WCPSS campaign for the school bond proposal. If approved by voters on October 8, 2013, Wake County would issue bonds and provide funds totaling $983.7 million for WCPSS capital projects. Capital Improvement Program 2013 (CIP 2013) is the proposed new building program for Wake County to provide 16 new schools; 6 major renovations creating additional 1,343 seats; life cycle equipment replacement, technology, and security at most schools; and land acquisition for new schools. The 12 new schools include 11 elementary, three middle and two high schools. Green ES, Vandora Springs ES, Lincoln Heights ES, Brooks ES, Rolesville ES and Garner HS will undergo major renovations. Want to learn more about the bond? Find out more infomration by following this link: http://www.wcpss.net/growing-forward/index.html Thanks, Mrs. Graf

More Information on what students are learning.

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction has partnered with UNC-TV to produce an hour-long program, North Carolina Schools and You: What Changes in Our Schools Mean for Parents and Students. This program will be broadcast twice on UNC-TV: once on Thursday, September 19, at 10 p.m., and again on Friday, September 27, at 4:30 p.m. Featured in the program are segments taped in local public and public charter schools and questions from a studio audience to State Superintendent June Atkinson, Chief Academic Officer Rebecca Garland and Deputy Academic Officer Angela Quick. North Carolina Schools and You offers information and discussion around recent important changes in public schools and how parents can be more productively engaged in their children’s success. Specific topics include: - Teaching and Learning: What Students Are Learning and How; - Measuring Performance: New Assessments and Accountability Model; and - Parent Engagement: How Parents Can Support Learning. To enrich viewer's understanding about these topics, NCDPI has prepared the attached Viewer's Guide with additional background information and helpful links to supplement the program. We hope these materials are helpful to you and your team as you work with parents and community members to support student learning.