Gateway Newsletter- October

I don't know about you, but fall is my favorite season! We are well under way at Gateway with our learning! The students are working hard, our teachers are holding high expectations, and the building feels happy and calm! Our beginning of the year assessments are complete. From that data, we plan to implement different learning strategies to help your child continue to succeed! You will be informed of this data during parent teacher conferences.

Please continue to encourage positive behaviors from your child. We appreciate you and allowing us to be apart of your child's academic journey!

The Luckiest Principal Ever,

Jamie Stanley

Please remember that the pick up/ drop off lines are for students that can get out of the vehicle by themselves. If you have to help your little one out of the car, please park in the parking lot. When you stop to let out your child in the line, it holds everyone up. Also- please stay out of the bus circle during arrival/dismissal- we have already had a few close calls with vehicle accidents and we want everyone to be safe! Thank you so much!

Oct 9: Popcorn Friday! $1/bag- no limit

Oct 13: In Person- Parent Teacher conferences

Oct 14: Virtual- Parent Teacher conferences

October 16: No School

October 19: No School

Oct 20-23: Scholastic Book Fair- Please see QR code for preview

Oct 30: Halloween Celebrations (See below for details)

Parents

Parents play a key role in preventing and responding to bullying. If you know or

suspect that your child is involved in bullying, there are several resources that may

help.

 Recognize the warning signs that your child is involved in bullying. They could

be being bullied, bullying others, or witnessing bullying. Although these signs

could signal other issues, you should talk to your child if they display any sort

of behavioral or emotional changes. Many times kids won’t ask for help, so it

is important to know what to look for. If your child is at immediate risk of

harming himself or others, get help right away.

 Learn what bullying is and what it is not. Understanding what bullying is is the

first step in forming a plan to prevent or respond to bullying with your child.

Many behaviors that look like bullying may be just as serious, but may require

different response strategies. You can also learn about:

o The frequency of bullying;

o Who is at risk for being bullied and bullying others; and

o The effects of bullying

 Cyberbullying often requires different strategies than in-person bullying.

Learn how to work with your kids to prevent cyberbullying and how to

respond when it occurs.

 Utilize tips and tools to talk to your child about bullying. Opening lines of

communication before your child is involved in bullying makes it easier for

them to tell you when something happens. It is also important to work with a

school to help prevent bullying before it starts.

 If you know or suspect bullying has occurred, learn how to find out what has

happened with your child. Understanding what has happened can also help in

communicating with school or community officials about the situation.

 If you have determined bullying has occurred, learn how you and school or

community officials can work together to support your child, whether

they were bullied, bullied others, or witnessed bullying. Learn also

about considerations for specific groups.

 If bullying is occurring at school, learn about what your state requires schools

to do in your state’s anti-bullying law. Learn also about federal laws that

require schools to address harassment based on race, color, national origin,

sex, and disabilities and ways to report situations that have not been

adequately addressed to the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice.

Early identification is important because the potential short-term, long-term or lethal

consequences are something as a community we want to work hard to prevent. If

you have worked with your child and need additional assistance, please report any

bullying incident to your school principals.

St. Johns anti-bullying policy is found in Appendix B of the handbook (page 50). The

link is below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wj8M_30QS8rB1UhoerPUuLC9hjC13yrR/view

Parenting Resources:

 StopBullying.gov (U.S. Government): Provides dedicated StopBullying.gov Parents

Resources featuring expert advice on how to talk about bullying, building resilience, and

navigating state-specific laws. [1, 2]

 PACER’s National Bullying Prevention Center: Offers a dedicated PACER Center

Parents Portal with free toolkits, a Student Action Plan Against Bullying to help children

outline solutions, and targeted advocacy guides for students with disabilities. [1, 2]

 STOMP Out Bullying: Features an online STOMP Out Bullying Parents Page that

includes downloadable formal notification letter templates to send directly to school

administrators when documentation is required. [1]

 Common Sense Media: Provides extensive digital safety guides and Common Sense

Media Family Resources focused specifically on preventing and reporting cyberbullying

and managing social media. [1]

Friday Oct, 30:

WHOLE SCHOOL PARADE: Parents park in the back parking lot- the front parking lot will be closed from 8:50-9:25. Parade will be in the front parking lot. Students will walk around the parking lot with teachers before going back into the building. Please see map below.

Kindergarten- After parade until 9:55- In the gym.

1st Grade- 8:25-9:00. In classrooms.

2nd Grade- 1:15

Teachers will be sending out more information this month.

Y5s

The Young Fives have been focusing on being kind to each other, both through their words and actions, while also learning to use their words to solve problems.We have learned the letters L, T and M. We will be starting a new reading and writing program next week. In math we are continuing to work on counting and 1 to 1 correspondence.

Kindergarten

While routines and expectations in our classroom community are still a focus, we have started to dive deeper into content now that we are a month into school. We are learning about different consonants and vowels as well as the sound that they make. Please take a look at the Heggerty newsletters that come home each Friday to help reinforce these concepts at home. It gives you a glimpse at the specific letters we are working on during that week! Additionally, we are learning about what the setting (where and when the story takes place) is in a story and what makes a character a character. In math, we are continuing building number sense during our number talks. Our first math unit focused on attributes. Some of the games we played were Button Match Up & Attribute Block Match Up. The kids loved them!

1st Grade

What a fantastic past month in first grade! Our hard-working students blew us away with their perseverance while completing their start-of-year testing. With those benchmarks complete and our daily routines down pat, we’ve hit a wonderful rhythm. Our classrooms are buzzing as students dive deep into the curriculum—moving from instruction to real hands-on application in reading, phonics, writing, and math. First grade is officially in full swing!

2nd Grade

Second grade is looking forward to a fun and spooky October! We continue to grow our classroom relationships and reinforce our routines. In math we are working on telling time to the hour and moving towards telling time to the 5 minutes. We also continue to polish our addition and subtraction strategies. During social studies we are learning what makes an effective community, how community helpers help us and how we can be a positive part of our community. In phonics we are focused on constant digraphs and trigraphs. We continue to work on our reading accuracy and fluency as well!

Music

Kindergarten musicians are learning to use their beautiful singing voices and are learning how to safely move around the music room. We are also beginning to learn about the steady beat in music!

First grade musicians are beginning to learn about quarter and eighth note rhythms, continuing to learn about steady beat, and will soon learn how to play the xylophone!

Second grade musicians are continuing to learn about rhythms in music and identifying different instrument sounds.

Art

Our students are doing a wonderful job and are close to finishing their first art projects of the school year! In October, all grade levels will be exploring the concept of texture through a variety of creative activities. Kindergarten artists will begin a silly pumpkin project that focuses on developing scissor skills while creating texture with paint. First and second grade students will create fall squirrel portraits inspired by the book The Leaf Thief, incorporating both visual and tactile texture studies into their artwork. I am excited to see the creativity and growth our students continue to show, and I can't wait to see what they create next!

P.E

For the month of October we will be working on throwing and catching skills, soccer dribbling and passing skills, and learning about sportsmanship. Some key words for throwing overhand are side to your target, point to your target, step with opposite foot, twist torso, and throw. Likewise, some key words for soccer that we will use are dribbling, passing, inside part of your foot, shielding, and finding open space. Also, we plan to add in some Halloween fun along the way. It sure to be a spooktacular month in PE!