ELMORE School News

Dear Elmore School Families,

We had a great first, full week of school this week. The mornings were cool to begin with but each day was sunny and pleasant. It was a great to be outdoors during recess! In the classroom we we were busy with literacy, math, and digital citizenship!

This week we dove into our first week of spelling. This year we will be doing spelling a little differently , using a phonic approach. Rather than getting a set list of words to practice and memorize, students will have specific phonics rules they will be working on each week and they will use that rule to apply to spelling words that use that phonics rule. Words will be differentiated based on what students need. and each day students will practice different words from a big word bank. This is much more wholistic approach to spelling.

Students also finished there first writing unit focused on teaching the writing process. This week our lessons focused on different types of sentences; punctuation marks; editing and revising; and the publishing process. Next week we will actually begin writing Narratives.

We also spent time this week focusing on Digital Citizenship. Students learned about staying safe on line, and being a a responsible Digital Citizen. On Wednesday they leaned about the school / district expectation for using devises (iPads) and they signed a Digital Citizenship Pledge.

During Math this week we continued building our math menu routines. We practiced solving math puzzles, and learned how to play a couple of card games. During lessons, first graders began sorting items (shapes) into categories. These lessons will lead into collecting and organizing data. Second graders learned about interpreting both picture graphs and bar graphs and answered questions about the data in graphs. Third graders are using scaled picture graphs and scaled bar graphs and asking and answering questions about the data.

This week I began administering a new screener we are using for reading called Dibles. We are using the screeners for 1st and 2nd grade rather than STAR. 3rd graders will do Dibles as well as STAR. The Dibles assessments take between 1 and 3 minutes to administer so they don't take a whole lot of time. They are administered 1-1 with me rather than independently on their ipads. We will still be using STAR as a math screener for all Grades. Additionally, 1st graders will do a Primary Numbers and Operations (PNOA) assessment 1-1 with me.

Some have been asking about ECO. I wanted to let you know it will be a few more weeks until we begin. I believe our first ECO will be on October 10th which will take place on the school grounds. beginning October 17th we will be walking to the State Park for ECO. I will be sending home a permission form in the next week or two.

We will have our first Family Hot Lunch on Monday. Heather Hill is providing pepperoni or cheese Pizza. Just a reminder that on Family Hot Lunch days there is NO SCHOOL LUNCH. We encourage everyone to participate in family Hot Lunch, but If your child does not want whats being served, please plan to pack a lunch on those days. There are still several day available to bring Hot Lunch. You can sign up by clicking the green Meal Train button below.

Please Email me your school lunch orders (menu below) by Sunday at 6 pm

School Hot Lunch will be available next week on Tuesday and Thursday. Sandwiches and Salads can be ordered Tuesday - Friday

Thanks for another wonderful week!

In Gratitude,

Diane Nicholls

Announcements:

Library is Monday! Please send books.

PE is Thursday - send sneakers!

Open House - Thursday September 25th 6-7pm

October 2, 2025 - No School (Yom Kippur)

School Photos : Tuesday, October 7th

October 13, 2025 - No School (Indigenous Peoples' Day)

October 24, 2025 - Early Release Day (noon)