Dragon Tales #8
October 18, 2026
It’s hard to believe that we are already approaching our fall parent-teacher conferences! These conversations are an important opportunity to strengthen the connection between home and school as we work Better Together in Dragon Country to support your child’s growth, learning, and success.
Mark Your Calendars! Parent-teacher conference sign-up invitations will be posted in your child’s Apptegy Room at 4:00 PM on Monday, October 19. Please keep an eye out for the invitation and take a few moments to sign up for a time that works for your family.
Not connected to your child’s Apptegy Room yet? Please reach out to your child’s teacher for help getting connected. We are excited that 92% of our Bakie students have at least one family member connected to their classroom Room! This is wonderful progress toward keeping our families informed, connected, and engaged in their child’s school experience. If you haven’t joined yet, this is the perfect opportunity to make that connection!
Getting the Most Out of Your Parent-Teacher Conference
Parent-teacher conferences are a chance to celebrate your child’s successes, learn more about their progress, and work together to identify ways to support their continued growth. Here are a few tips to help you prepare:
Celebrate the successes! Think about what your child enjoys most about school, what they are proud of, and the progress you have noticed at home.
Come with questions. You might ask about your child’s academic progress, classroom participation, friendships, independence, or areas where they may need additional support.
Share what you see at home. Your insights about your child’s interests, strengths, challenges, and experiences help teachers better understand and support your child.
Ask how you can help. Find out what skills your child is working on and what simple activities you can do at home to reinforce classroom learning.
Work together on next steps. If there are areas of concern, collaborate with your child’s teacher to identify strategies and goals that will help your child grow.
Keep the conversation going. Conferences are an important touchpoint, but communication between home and school throughout the year helps us stay connected and work as a team.
At Bakie, we know that every child is unique, and every family brings valuable insight to their child’s learning journey. When families and teachers work together, we build a stronger foundation for our youngest Dragons.
Thank you for your continued partnership, your support of our school, and the many ways you help make Dragon Country such a special place to learn and grow.
We truly are Better Together!
Andrea Lancey
Principal
No bones about it!!! First grade is learning a lot about body systems in Knowledge. We have learned some amazing facts, such as the smallest bone is in our ear and is about the size of a grain of rice, our small intestine is about 15 feet long, and that our brain weighs about 3 pounds. We have practiced increasing our heart rate by getting up and moving around and then noticing how it slows once we are at rest. We have talked about how we have voluntary muscles that we make move and involuntary muscles that work automatically. We have learned that all our organs are part of systems and all those systems work together as a network to help us live. We have also learned the 5 Keys to Health- eat well, exercise, sleep, keeping clean, and have checkups. We talked about how these 5 things help us to stay healthy and to keep germs away.
October is Dyslexia awareness month! “Dyslexia is a specific learning disability characterized by difficulties in word reading and/or spelling that involve accuracy, speed, or both and vary depending on the orthography. “ For more information, check out the IDA website.
Our smallest readers and writers are working hard at those foundations that are developing their literacy skills!
What are we learning?🏫
Kindergarten:
Kindergarten students are building the foundations for reading and writing! It is such an important year. They are beginning to learn their letters and sounds, playing with sounds in words, rhyming and identifying syllables, listening and talking about stories, building vocabulary, beginning to write, and learning how books and print work!
First Grade:
First Graders are becoming more independent as they develop phonics and decoding skills, read words and sentences more fluently, build vocabulary, discuss stories, and learn to express their ideas through writing.
Second Grade:
Second graders are strengthening their skills by reading more complex words and texts, building reading fluency, building vocabulary and background knowledge, thinking deeply about what they read, and becoming more independent and confident readers and writers.
Literacy at Home 🏠
Families play an important role in their child’s literacy development as well. Building a habit of reading with your child daily promotes not only reading progress, but also a love of reading.
Fall Family Challenge: 🍁
15 minutes of reading together daily, 1 conversation about the book, 1 positive comment about your child’s reading. You can:
Read a book aloud to your child
Take turns reading pages
Listen to your child read
Reread favorite books
One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is the belief that reading is fun and meaningful. 😍
Suggested Read Alouds…
Read Aloud K, Read Aloud 1st, Read Aloud 2nd
A Quick Literacy Tip 🔤
When your child gets stuck on a word…
Instead of immediately telling them the word, try asking: What sounds do you see? Look at the beginning of the word. What sound does that letter make? Do you see any word parts that look familiar? Giving children time to work through a word helps them become more independent readers.
Enjoy your reading together and thank you for your continued support,
Leanne Kirste
Reading and Writing Specialist
Lions, Tigers, and Bears...OH MY!🦁🐅🐻
Wear your costume to school on 10/30! The costume must allow students to use the bathroom independently. Students may not change clothes throughout the day (unless an emergency occurs). Please no blood, no masks that limit vision, no weapons, no gore, no props. In addition, inflatable costumes are a safety hazard and are not permitted. Please wear shoes. Remember students will have recess and eat in the lunchroom in their costumes.
We will have a school-only parade in the building at 2:00 pm. After the parade, students will return to their classroom for a treat. Please save candy for home.
