CMIT South Elementary School

Dear CMIT South Elementary School Community,

We are diving into October and have some important updates and announcements to share with you this week.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

I would like to remind all parents that the Parent-Teacher Conferences will be held on Monday, October 9, virtually through the Zoom platform. Please make sure to schedule your conference with your scholar(s) teacher(s) for this date. However, due to the high demand and limited time slots, some parents may be unable to secure a conference on October 9. In such cases, teachers will reach out to you to schedule conferences at another convenient time. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation.

STEM Fair Packets and Projects

To all our budding scientists and engineers, STEM packets will be sent home this week. We encourage students to start working on their projects early to ensure they have ample time to explore, innovate, and create. Let's capture the essence of STEM and nurture your love for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

K-2 STEM fair packet Part 1 Part 2

3rd - 5th STEM fair packet Part 1 Part 2

Club Selections

I would like to extend our heartfelt congratulations to the students who have been selected for various clubs this year. We are proud to announce that we offer 20 different clubs, providing our students with a wide range of extracurricular opportunities. However, please note that due to limited slots, not all students were able to secure their first and unfortunately even their second choice. We encourage parents to support their children in exploring alternative clubs and taking advantage of the diverse options available. We believe that each club offers a unique learning experience and an opportunity for personal growth.

Upcoming Events

1. Fall Book Fair: The Fall Book Fair was held from October 2-6 in the school Media Center. It was an amazing opportunity for students to discover new books and support our school library and PTO. Thank you to all of our volunteers and PTO for such a well-run and enjoyable book fair.

2. Hispanic Heritage Month: As we enter into our last week of celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15 - October 15 we learned about different cultures and saw each class post and decorate their door. Had families volunteer to share facts and information and each Friday Ms Chandler shared a trivia question for staff to make learning fun even for our adults. We will have a schoolwide celebration for the student to dress as their class Country’s flag in the coming week to celebrate this wonderful learning opportunity.

3. PTO Meeting: Our next PTO meeting will be held on Wednesday, October 11 at 6:00 PM. We encourage all families to attend in person or virtually. By actively contributing to the discussion on upcoming school events and initiatives. It also offers an opportunity for the administration to share our academic performance and the definition of a 5-star school according to the Maryland State Department of Education.

Important Reminders

Don't forget to review your scholar's progress report, which is available online now. Together, let's celebrate their achievements and discuss areas for improvement.

As the weather gets cooler, please ensure that your child is dressed appropriately for outdoor activities during recess. Please label each article of their uniform, especially outerwear. We have a large collection of CMIT items in the Lost and Found in the cafeteria as well as other clothing items.

Thank you for your ongoing support and involvement in our school community. We value your partnership in nurturing our students' academic and personal growth. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.

There are numerous upcoming events scheduled for October. In my capacity as your Professional School Counselor, I will be disseminating information throughout the month and conducting guidance lessons for our scholar.

Kindergarten students have been completing testing this past week and will continue this upcoming week. Please ensure that students are at school on time and are well rested. Students may also bring their Chromebooks to school daily. We will begin to focus on using Lexia Core5 and iXL within the classroom. To make the transition easy for students and staff, please bookmark Lexia Core5, iXL, and CLEVER on your child’s Chromebook and assist students with understanding how to log on to the programs. Friendly reminder that CLEVER can be found on the PGCPS website. Within CLEVER, you can search for both Lexia and iXL to access the sites. Please label the inside of your child’s Chromebook, along with the password to help students and teachers log onto their devices.

Independent activities (homework) have been issued to all scholars. Packets are given bi-weekly and will include all work that should be completed and a list of supplemental websites that students can explore at home. Please support students in completing the activities.

CALLING ALL VOLUNTEERS!!!! Please visit Volunteer with PGCPS in order to register. Please follow all of the required steps and contact your scholar’s teacher with any questions. Inform the teacher when you are approved and ready to support. Thank you for your assistance!

IMPORTANT KINDERGARTEN DATES-

OCTOBER 9- Parent-Teacher Conferences – Schools Closed for Students

OCTOBER 13- Sight word Practice Test

OCTOBER 27- Pumpkin Project due

Families, thank you for sending our scholars to school every day and on time. It makes a difference when they are punctual; it impacts learning in a positive way. 1st Grade Curtis won the Hispanic Door competition for the K-2 category, while 1st Grade Brown received an Honorable mention.

Home and school work together, so I encourage you to review and support students as they complete homework packets. Additionally, please provide a quiet area that is conducive to reading. Allow at least 20-30 minutes of reading (a book) each day. Smaller children can also picture-read books if they do not know the words.

Hello Tiger Family!

We are moving right along 2nd grade! We are wrapping up the first unit of many subjects.

Our team has been experimenting with math homework since DreamBox is no longer available. Many of the classes are trying out Boddle. Please contact your homeroom teacher for any questions about Boddle.

Reminder: We are happy to have volunteers come in to assist us with different things throughout the year, so if you are interested, please make sure your volunteer requirements are completed.

We are excited to enter into October focusing on our character trait, kindness! We want to promote kindness in any way we can, whether the act is big or small!

Parent-teacher conferences are Monday, October 9, and they will be virtual. Please keep an eye out for a signup sheet coming next week! It is first come, first serve for the time slots. Once they are filled, if you didn’t get a time slot but would still like a meeting, please contact your teacher to set up a conference on another day.

Many classes will be moving on to Unit 1 Week 4 focusing on Poetry. We will be reading a variety of poems and focusing on our weekly question of “How do different places make us feel?”

Our spelling week will be on consonant digraphs. /th/ and /ch/ are examples of consonant digraphs. Consonant digraphs are TWO letters that make ONE sound.

Your class should now be in Topic 2 Working with Equal Groups. Please utilize the optional homework packet and CANVAS site for additional support at home. This is a quick unit so we will be testing soon!

We will pause on our SAVVAS curriculum for a week to support students in their STEM fair by diving deep into the Scientific Method.

Greetings amazing parents and students!

We have successfully made it through week 6. All parents should have received MAP scores for their students. Please plan to have the scores with you at the time of your scheduled conference. You should have also received information regarding parent-teacher conferences on Monday. Conferences will take place virtually. The Book Character Parade is scheduled for October 27, 2023. This month we will highlight characters and character traits to prepare for the parade. Students can dress as their favorite character in a book. Please be sure to send the book in with students on the day of the parade. Thank you for your support and partnership. We are looking forward to meeting with you on Monday to discuss your child’s continued success!

This week students finished the folktale Why the Sky is Far Away. Students participated in acting out short stories to identify the theme, or the lesson/moral of the story. Additionally, we have been covering similes, synonyms, antonyms, and subject/predicate agreements. Next week students will practice asking and answering questions as well as using graphic features to better understand the story. Also students will take the end of the week comprehension quiz for the story. Please allow students to listen to the read aloud of the story which was shared in Canvas. DIBELS testing will begin next week. Please be on the lookout for scores once testing is complete.

We have officially wrapped up Topic 1. We introduced topic 2 this week, introducing electricity and magnetism. Please be mindful that topic 2 is only 2 lessons long. So stay tuned for more information regarding the topic assessment.

STEM FAIR Corner: Friendly reminder: Scholars should be working on identifying a topic and question to investigate for the Stem Fair Project. The topic is due October 11, 2023, to your Science Teacher. Click here to access the STEM Packet. An electronic copy of the packet is available in Canvas for students to complete and submit. Let’s go CMIT Tigers, You’ve got this!

We have wrapped up our unit on Land and Water. Students will take a quiz to demonstrate their understanding of the material learned by the end of next week. Students will begin learning about Weather, Climate, and Forces of Nature.

The theme for the month of October is All About the Eyes. Students will be learning about the parts of the eyes, how they work, and why they are important to us.

We have finished our super sixth week of school! The team is very proud of the efforts being shown by our scholars this year. We thank all those that were able to donate Scholastic funds to our classes and those that made purchases at the book fair.

Students received their MCAP results from last year’s testing during May of 2023. If you are new to this school, your scores were sent to the school of record at the time of testing. Those results will be sent to us from the previous school. This was this group's first time sitting for the MCAP. Please take the time to review the results and the information that was provided by the county and the state regarding this testing. We ask that you keep this copy because it is the only one that will be provided. Teachers are not able to reprint these documents as they are secure testing materials shared with us from the state. Please keep in mind that MCAP scores cannot be compared with any other tests. Also MCAP results are not just a set of “numbers” but a roadmap to opportunity.

Parent Teacher Conferences are scheduled for Monday October 9, 2023. You will meet with both of your scholar teachers at the conference time. All conferences will be virtually and Zoom links will be provided before the conference time. Sign-Up Genius was shared on Classdojo for all families to sign up for a conference spot. Please click the link provided to you through Classdojo to join the conference at the scheduled time.

Each week we suggest checking your scholars browser history and YouTube history. This is to make sure that your scholar isn’t going to a site or watching videos that you would not approve. Teachers are limited to only seeing activity on your scholar’s screen when they are in class. We utilize a system called Hapara that allows us to prevent access to certain sites. We are asking that you check your scholar's computer history weekly.

Hispanic Heritage Month Countries

Crusoe- Guatemala

Felton- Panama

Holloway- Ecuador

Ramsey- Nicaragua

Anti Bullying School Spirit Week October 16- 19, 2023

Monday- Croc and Socks/ Students must be in full uniform

Tuesday- Represent your favorite superhero

Wednesday- Dress like a buddy

Thursday- Wear orange

If students are not participating in the spirit days they must be in full uniform.

This week: Students finished reading closely our second story of the year “Rare Treasure.” This biography gave us information about scientist and one of the first paleontologists Mary Anning. Students worked on determining the meaning of unknown words that appear in context. Students also had a chance to begin working with the figurative language of similes and metaphors. Finally students complete their first essay in which they wrote an opinion essay about traits to describe Mary Anning. The week was concluded with students completing a quiz that assessed their about the text of the week.

Next week: Students will have Writer’s Workshop. We will begin generating ideas for our personal narrative. A personal narrative is a story written by the author about the author. We will continue to focus our students on having a purpose for their writing and writing for their audience. Students will determine the topic for their personal narrative and begin planning their writing. We also will work with students on how to properly portray the characters that will be in their narrative.

This week we completed sub-topic 1-5 Constructing an Argument, and began reviewing all of Topic 1, students also completed the Topic 1 Assessment. Next week we will begin exploring Topic 2: Fluently Add and Subtract Multi-Digit Whole Numbers.

Please check Schoolmax and Canvas with your scholar to ensure completion of assignments.

This week students' learning was focused on the Scientific Method and how to correctly conduct an experiment and collect data. Next week will resume exploration of Lesson 2 Collision. All students were given a hard copy of the STEM FAIR Packet, a copy was also added to Canvas. . STEM FAIR Topic is Due Wednesday October 11, 2023. STEM FAIR Projects are due Wednesday, January 17, 2024

This week: Students reviewed Lesson 2 Climate and Weather of the United States and identified the different climates and weather that are in different regions of the United States. They also started reading Lesson 3 Regions and Resources.

Next week: Students will continue to read Lesson 3 Regions and Resources and analyze and classify natural resources, capital resources, and human resources. They will understand how each region has natural resources that are used to make products.

Hi everyone!

We are moving right along in 5th grade! We have been moving along in our curriculum for each subject finishing up our first unit in each subject. Please check the assignment calendar on our Google site to see what upcoming assignments students may have. Students should click on their homeroom teacher’s name to see their assignments. Here is the link to the 5th-grade website for those who need it: https://sites.google.com/pgcps.org/5thgradeclasssite/home

Reminder that we are happy to have volunteers come in to assist us with different things throughout the year, so if you are interested, please make sure your volunteer requirements are completed.

We are now in October focusing on our character trait, kindness! We want to promote kindness in any way we can, whether the act is big or small!

We will be attending our wonderful book fair next week, so if students are buying things, please make sure they have their money!

Parent-teacher conferences are Monday, October 9, and they will be virtual. A signup sheet has gone out! It is first come, first serve for the time slots. Once they are filled, if you didn’t get a time slot but would still like a meeting, please contact your teacher to set up a conference on another day. We also have our field trip coming up on October 18, so please keep an eye out for more info on that! Chaperones, we will be messaging you with more info!

We are now in section 3 of unit 1 about historical fiction stories. Our story this week is called “Pedro’s Journal.” In this story students will read about Pedro’s journey to discover land on board the Santa Maria. Students received new spelling words as well focusing on vowel combination sounds.

Students are in the third unit of Math which is about multiplying multi-digit whole numbers. Homework will be posted on the assignment calendar as we get started so keep an eye out!

Students are in the first unit of Science, in lesson 3 which is about properties of matter. Homework will be posted on the assignment calendar as we get started so keep an eye out!

Lego:

Hello CMIT South Family,

Hello All, This week in the maker's lab we watched Generation Genius, Introduction to Sound. We discovered that when things vibrate they make sound. That sound can also make things vibrate. And Vibrations are what let us hear each other speak. The students were engaged and had a good week.

2023-2024 School Calendar

School Meals

SchoolMAX Family Portal

Fall Learning Information
School Violence Resources and Support

PGCPS TV

Vendor Managed Child Care