Paw Prints

Happy New Year! I hope you and your family enjoyed a restful and joyful winter break. As we begin this new year, we are excited to welcome our students back to school and continue our learning journey together. While I undeniably enjoyed time at home with my new baby girl during my maternity leave, it has been a pleasure to see all the students again! Everyone is a little taller, but their smiles are just as bright!

January is an important time for students to refocus on routines, set new goals, and build on the progress they made during the first half of the school year. Our teachers and staff are ready to support your children as we tackle another semester of learning! Please help your child return to school well-rested each day and ready to learn by re-establishing consistent bedtime and morning routines. Drop-off begins at 7:40 AM each day. Please remember that all classes (PK–12) begin promptly at 8:00 AM. I ask that parents exit the building by 8:00 AM to allow morning procedures to run efficiently so learning can begin quickly. Also remember that regular attendance is especially important as we introduce new concepts and prepare for upcoming assessments and activities.

I completely understand the desire to pull up to the front sidewalk to pick up your child after school, especially when it’s cold outside. However, there is no parking allowed in front of the school during after-school pick-up. Please park in the parking lot and walk to the front of the school to pick up your elementary child. This ensures that elementary students are safely escorted to their vehicles and that high school students are able to safely cross the street by minimizing traffic directly in front of the school.

Thank you for your continued partnership and support. Together, we can make the second half of the school year a positive and successful experience for students. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to your child’s teacher, a counselor, or the school office.

Need to contact me? No problem! You can reach me by emailing emily.petersen@mndcty.org or by calling the office at 660-442-5420. We can always schedule a time to meet if you prefer to meet in person. Please note that I do not check messages on ClassDojo regularly, so email is the best option for electronic communication.

I look forward to a wonderful start to the new year!

Sincerely,
Mrs. Petersen
Elementary Principal

• January 5 - Teacher In-service; no school for students
• January 6 - Students back in the building for first day of Qtr. 3
• January 7 - Middle school dance. Grades 6-8 Mound City students only. 6:00-7:30 in the cafeteria.
• January 19 - MLK Day - No school
• January 20 - Dress up day: Pick a clique: nerds, theatre, jocks, or skaters!
• January 21 - Dress-up day: Everything sparkly and bright!
• January 22 - Dress-up day: Golf attire or jerseys
• January 23 - Courtwarming! Dress-up day: Purple and gold Panther gear
• January 30 - Middle School Class Parties during 1st hour

Be on the lookout for Mr. Shipman's Athletic Newsletter for detailed information about middle school and high school extracurricular events!

• Please dress your child according to the weather. Students go outside for recess unless the temperature or wind chill drops below 20 degrees or if there is wintery percipitation.
• Please do not linger in the hallways after 8:00 AM. All classes (PK-12) begin promptly at 8:00 AM.
• Please do not drop off students before 7:40 AM. Students are NOT supervised before 7:40 AM at the school.
• Breakfast is served between 7:40-7:57. Breakfast is NOT served after 8:00 AM.
• Please share an active email address on the enrollment form and with your child's teacher for easy communication.

This month is all about perseverance. One way to think about perseverance is “pushing yourself through challenges and obstacles.” We all experience challenges in our lives. We all have moments when we feel like we can’t do it or that we want to give up on a big task. It is important to develop tools that help us work through those challenges in order to grow in those moments instead of giving up.

Perseverance is 1 of 3 traits we will focus on throughout the year that helps students Be Strong. Across grade levels, students will be developing skills like focusing, organizing, and goal-setting.

Check out the information below about growth mindset!

I hope to have the middle of the year Renaissance CBM reading assessments done by mid-January. I will then send home the results. I go over these scores with students in second, third, and fourth grades. If your child is in these grades, please take time to discuss these results with them. I am always eager to see these result because students tend to make big gains from the beginning of the year to the middle. Once you receive these results and you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact me during normal school hours to set up a meeting.

Go Panthers,

Mrs. Osburn

We are starting the second semester and the students have worked hard and have mastered many math concepts since the beginning of the school year. They should all be applauded for their determination and diligence!

Mclass math, middle of the year (MOY) testing for K and 1st grade begins when students return to school. They will be tested on counting, missing number, number ID, quantity discrimination, next number and math facts to see their improvement since the beginning of the year (BOY). These results will be sent home to the parents.

In the upcoming weeks students will be working on the following:

• K--Exploring subtraction, representing subtraction as taking apart, subtraction as taking from, representing and explaining subtraction with equations, using subtraction to develop fluency, and problem solving.
• 1st--Working with addition and subtraction equations, making an equation true, word problems with three addends, solving addition and subtraction word problems, and using the symbols (+,-, or =) to make equations true.
• 2nd--Continue working with money, tell and write time to five minutes, tell time before and after the hour, AM and PM, and Topic 1-8 cumulative benchmark assessment.
• 3rd--Properties of Addition: Associative (Grouping) Property, (18+14)=15= 18+(14+15); Commutative (Order) Property of Addition, 57+35=35+57; Identity (Zero) Property of Addition, 39+0=39; using mental math for addition and subtraction, rounding whole numbers, and estimating sums and differences.
• 4th--Understanding factors, problem solving, prime and composite numbers, and multiples of numbers.

SUMmer