Notes from the North Park Hive

Dear Families,

Welcome back! We are excited to jump back into the last six weeks of the school year.

It's hard to believe we are approaching the "end" of this school year. Please know that we have not ended our focus or our instruction. If anything, we push extra hard in April and May to see our students reach their full potential, grow that extra bit and master goals!! You will hear about some challenges coming up - including the Pinwheel Challenge (see below) for kindergarten and the Shades Challenge for all classes laster toward the end of April (more info to come). You can best help your child by trying to keep a normal routine and schedule as much as possible and continuing to practice skills/sight words with your child at home. Putting your child to bed at a normal bedtime is SO critical - even if it is pretty and we have more daylight. The majority of behavior challenges we encounter each day are due to overly tired children who just need more rest. Reading together EVERY NIGHT is SO important!!

There are SO MANY things coming up in April and May. Please take time to read the newsletters each week so you don't miss out on anything!

Stroller Club continues this week on Wednesday from 10:00-11:00 AM. If you are home with a child, grandchild or would just like to engage in a community of other parents, come join Ms. Ivy for a walk!

We are excited to celebrate our MILITARY CHILDREN during the month of April at NPES. Please wear PURPLE tomorrow if you have any purple attire for your child. We will recognize our military children and their guests (registration closed for this before spring break) TOMORROW for breakfast from 7:20-8:00 and then an assembly at 8:00 AM.

Here is an important short message from me regarding our upcoming challenges and tips for the remainder of the year. I hope you can watch it - it's just around 3 minutes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_SZZSFPAxI

Have a great week!

Please call the NPES office at 270-351-4464 or email laurabeth.hayes@hardin.kyschools.us if I can help you with anything!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Hayes (principal)

Help NPES receive money to help our students at no extra expense to you. You are already purchasing the items. Just scan your receipt and if there are any Box Top items NPES will receive $0.10 per qualifying item. Download the app and help us help your children!

In the month of February we earned $18.20 with your help. Let's see how much we can earn in March!

We LOVE seeing students reading at home with their families!!!! Read together at home and send in your leaves!

THE NUMBER OF TICKETS PER STUDENT WILL BE ANNOUNCED AFTER SPRING BREAK. IT DEPENDS ON OUR ENROLLMENT NUMBERS. For reference, by splitting into two sessions, each student received 10 tickets last year. Thank you for understanding that we will NOT budge on this number once determined and we will not make exceptions. We want the experience to be special and memorable, and it is NOT pleasant if there are not enough seats. You will be able to stream for additional family members. This is more tickets than most graduation ceremonies and many school events for my own children have only allowed 2 family members. Thank you for understanding as we strive to make it a great night for our students and families!

Kindergarten graduation will be May 20th at North Hardin High School (gymnasium) in the evening. We will have TWO sessions: one for 1/2 of the classrooms and one following for the other 1/2 of kindergarten classrooms. There will be a ticket limit per family. This is required in order to control the crowd and allow for it to be a pleasant experience for everyone. As future Trojans, it is very special for our students to "graduate" at North Hardin. There are many reasons why we conduct this event inside instead of outside. This is our third year in keeping this tradition and we have the event very streamlined and organized. We will share more specific information closer to time. We are very firm on our guidelines regarding graduation and will stick to those guidelines for everyone's best interest - especially our students. We will live stream the graduation via HCEC-TV, just like the high school graduations. This is a HUGE event (over 3000 people attended last year), and we appreciate your support and cooperation so that it is a great night! MORE DETAILS WILL BE SHARED AFTER SPRING BREAK.

When we share about kindergarten graduation, we often receive many questions about a preschool graduation. Graduations are typically held when a student "leaves" a building (5th grade, 8th, grade and 12th grade). Since our kindergarten students leave our building to go to the feeder elementary schools, we only have a kindergarten graduation at North Park. We are excited that our preschoolers stay with us for kindergarten! Each preschool teacher has a celebration with students in the classroom. They will share more information with you closer to time.

We countdown the alphabet the last 26 days of school at NPES! This is a fun tradition that helps our students review letters and keeps the days fun and engaging for everyone! This is for PRESCHOOL AND KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS (preschool will participate until school ends for them).

****PLEASE NOTE THERE WILL LIKELY BE A CHANGE ON APRIL 22 and 27th due to our NPES Derby. We will adjust once that is finalized.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_SZZSFPAxI

Use the links below to play some really fun FREE interactive activities to practice counting, letter identification and letter sounds!

https://boom.cards/fastplay/d8ai (Identifying Letter Sounds)

https://boom.cards/fastplay/fcws (Counting)

https://boom.cards/fastplay/bkcm (Matching Uppercase and Lowercase Letters)