Grand Prairie

Happy New Year Grand Prairie!

January at Grand Prairie is shaping up to be another magical month full of learning, growth, and exciting adventures. We hope all our Grand Prairie families enjoyed a wonderful winter break filled with magical memories made alongside family and friends. We will happily welcome all our young learners back on Tuesday, January 6th, and can hardly believe that January 16th will officially mark the end of our second quarter—time truly flies when you’re having fun at GP!

As the new year begins, our GP social workers will share important lessons as they administer the second and final Erin’s Law lessons on January 7th and 8th, with classroom teachers communicating specific schedules.

Our second graders will have a storybook-worthy adventure as they head off on their very first Step-Up Day to Chelsea on Friday, January 22nd, visiting their buddy classrooms and beginning to learn all about life at Chelsea.

Throughout the week of January 12th, our first- and second-grade students will showcase their learning during FastBridge testing, with ELA assessments on Tuesday, January 13th and Math on Wednesday, January 14th; teachers will share testing times and notify families of any schedule updates.

We’ll pause the magic on Monday, January 19th, as there will be no school in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and we’ll wrap up the month by celebrating student growth when report cards head home on Friday, January 23rd.

AM Car Rider Line: As the weather turns colder and our car rider line continues to grow, we kindly ask for your partnership in helping our mornings run smoothly and safely for all students. Morning car rider drop-off begins at 8:05 a.m. and ends promptly at 8:25 a.m., when our second bell rings and classes begin. While we understand that the car rider line can feel long at times, please know that our staff works efficiently to get students lined up and out of cars as quickly as possible. We ask that families plan accordingly to ensure students arrive by 8:25 a.m., as the staff members who supervise the car rider line must head inside at that time to begin working with students in their classrooms and learning spaces. Thank you for your patience, understanding, and continued support in keeping our mornings safe, warm, and running like clockwork!

PM Car Rider Line: We are asking for your help and cooperation in keeping our PM car rider dismissal running smoothly and safely for everyone. As a reminder, our preschool program dismisses at 2:30 p.m., and families in this program must park and physically walk to the school to pick up their children. To support this process, we kindly ask that all car rider families stop prior to the crosswalk (a sign will be posted) and allow our preschool families to pull ahead to retrieve their students. Once all preschool students have been safely picked up, we will then invite our K–2 car rider families to pull forward for dismissal. Thank you for your patience, flexibility, and partnership as we work together to ensure a safe and orderly dismissal for all our Grand Prairie students.

It’s a month full of meaningful moments—where learning, leadership, and a little pixie dust come together at Grand Prairie!

Sincerely,
Kim Szudy, Principal

Nichole Reiser, Assistant Principal

Our second graders are returning to an exciting month and new year highlighted by our much-anticipated trip to Chelsea to meet their third-grade pen pals. During this visit, students will get to connect with their pen pals and learn more about what next year will look like.

After finishing Non-Fiction Writing, second graders will begin an Opinion Writing unit. Students will share their thoughts about characters, favorite parts, illustrations, and lessons learned from their favorite stories. In math, we are starting a new module focused on addition and subtraction within 1,000, as well as solving word problems to 100. In reading, we will continue to strengthen comprehension skills by focusing on illustrations and how they help us better understand characters, setting, and plot.

We are looking forward to 2026 and all the excitement will bring!

Happy New Year — and welcome to 2026!

December was an exciting month for our first graders!
Our field trip to see Mrs. Claus at the Beverly Performing Arts Center was truly memorable. It was wonderful to watch all of the students having fun, laughing, and enjoying the play. Students also enjoyed exploring “Holidays Around the World” and learning how different cultures celebrate. They learned about a variety of holidays, including Christmas, Kwanzaa, Diwali, Hanukkah, and others!

In writing, we wrapped up our “How-To” unit and are moving into Nonfiction Writing. Students will learn to write independently to teach information and begin practicing basic research skills. They can visit a site like Pebble Go to research animals, including penguins, axolotls, and more! They can then discover interesting facts about each.

Before winter break, we wrapped up module 2 in math. Coming up, we will begin Module 3, which focuses on measurement. Students will order and compare lengths, explore standard and non-standard units, and learn to read and interpret simple data through engaging, hands-on activities.

In reading, students have been working on asking and answering questions about characters, setting, and events in fiction texts. Students applied those skills to nonfiction texts through engaging Scholastic News articles and other nonfiction topics. At this point in the year, students are also becoming incredible readers! They’re building confidence, tackling new words with excitement, and beginning to understand stories in deeper, more meaningful ways.

Kindergarten starts with Reading Unit 3, "Bigger Books, Bigger Reading Muscles"! During this unit, the students are learning how to tackle more challenging books by using patterns, figuring out changes in patterns, using letter- sound knowledge, and consonant clusters. As the books become harder, our young readers will need to have new kinds of “picture power” to think about what they are reading and seeing in the picture to make sense of the text.

We will continue building on all these skills during our small, guided reading groups in addition to our daily sight word practice! Students will also start reading some penguin books as we prepare for our penguin unit.

In our “Writing for Readers” unit, we focus on beginning, middle, and end. Students will learn how to put stories together in order and add details. We will also draw and label pictures that match our words and sentences. When we finish our stories, we will review and edit our work before we publish and share with our friends to read!

In Module 4, we learn about number pairs, addition and subtraction to 10. It is important that all students continue to build a deep understanding of composing and decomposing the numbers within 10. We will start by using model composition and decomposition of numbers to 5 using actions, objects, and drawings. This will continue all the way up to number 10. We are also beginning “math sprints”. This activity is a timed counting page that we do twice before beginning our formal math lesson. This has quickly become a new favorite fluency activity for the students.

In Quarter 3, students will use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive. We will look for patterns, interpret data, and learn about energy flow in organisms.

As we begin the new year, here is a friendly reminder from The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC):

Why is play important for preschool learning? Play is not a break from learning. Research tells us it’s the most effective way children learn. Through play, preschoolers build critical skills in multiple areas, including:

• solving problems, like how to build the tallest block tower or navigate a re-enactment of a story or lived experience, as seen in dramatized scenarios that play out in dramatic play centers
• negotiating roles in dramatic play, singing songs, or making up rhymes, playing with language so their skills become automatic.
• learning to be good members of a community by practicing sharing, taking turns, and managing conflicts with peers.

When teachers join in children’s play with purpose—such as by asking questions, introducing new vocabulary, and modeling strategies—they scaffold children’s thinking and extend learning. Research continues to show that play-based approaches lead to stronger developmental outcomes and long-term academic achievement.

January 1: No School

January 2: No School

January 5: No School

January 6: Back to School

January 8: Athletic Boosters Hot Lunch

January 13: Fastbridge ELA

January 14: Fastbridge Math

January 15: FSP Hot Lunch

January 16: End of 2nd Quarter

January 19: No School

January 22: Ed Foundation Hot Lunch

January 29: FSP Hot Lunch