CMIT South Elementary School

Dear CMIT South Elementary Families,

I hope you all enjoyed a meaningful Memorial Day weekend, taking time to honor and remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. As we enter the final stretch of our academic year, I want to take a moment to recognize the incredible dedication and resilience you and your children have shown throughout this journey. Your commitment to your child's education and our school community continues to inspire us every day. Students, you should be proud of how much you've grown and learned this year!

As tennis champion Serena Williams once said, "I really think a champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall." Let's carry this spirit of perseverance and resilience with us as we finish strong together.

Important Reminders for This Week

Creative Arts (CARTS) Schedule: Please ensure your child follows their designated C-Week/Week # schedule for Creative Arts classes this week. These enriching programs are an essential part of our comprehensive education, and consistent attendance helps maintain the quality experience we strive to provide.

With only 17 more school days remaining, we're in the home stretch! Let's make each day count as we work together to end the year on a high note.

Partnership in Character Development

We also need your partnership in helping students develop positive social skills and respectful interactions. Please take time to discuss with your child:

At-Home Conversation Topics:

• Respectful Communication: How to speak kindly and appropriately with classmates, teachers, and staff

• Personal Boundaries: Understanding and respecting others' personal space and comfort levels

• Conflict Resolution: Healthy ways to handle disagreements and seek help when needed

• Empathy and Inclusion: Recognizing how our words and actions affect others

These conversations at home reinforce the character education we provide at school and help create a positive learning environment for everyone.

Critical Safety Reminders

Morning Drop-Off Safety Protocol - IMMEDIATE ATTENTION REQUIRED

We need your immediate cooperation with our morning drop-off safety procedures. For the protection of all students, please follow these essential guidelines:

Key Safety Requirements

• Staff supervision begins at 7:25 a.m.

• Students must remain in vehicles until staff members are visibly present outside

• Do not leave children unattended outside the building before staff arrival

• Wait for clear visual confirmation that supervision is in place

Why This Matters: Unsupervised students face various safety risks, and our policy ensures every child is properly monitored from the moment they exit your vehicle. Your adherence to this protocol is not just appreciated—it's essential for maintaining the secure environment our children deserve.

Looking Ahead

As we approach the end of this school year, please continue to support your child's attendance, engagement, and positive behavior. Every day matters, and your continued partnership makes all the difference in your child's success.

As we look ahead to the final weeks of school, remember that the STEM Journey Begins Here at CMIT South Elementary! Let's continue to fill this school year with exciting learning opportunities, personal growth, and impressive achievements for all our scholars. Every day brings new opportunities for growth and your partnership in education makes a profound difference in our students' success. We thank you for making CMIT South Elementary a vibrant and supportive learning community. Together, we're creating meaningful experiences for our scholars! Remember, we can't continue this STEM journey without you!

Let's make this year a roaring success! 🦁📚

Wishing you all a 🐾 PawwRific 🐾 day and see you all Tuesday, May 27, 2025!

With Tiger Pride,

Ms. Tauheedah N. Simmons-Lewis

Principal

Grade Level Updates:

Thank you to all the Chaperones that came on the field trip. The students had a great time!

We are approaching the end of the year. Here is some information about the upcoming Kindergarten Promotional Ceremonies. The ceremonies will be at 8:30 am and 10 am. The 8: 30 ceremony will have classes of Ms. Lewis and Dr. Hughes.The 10 am ceremony will have the classes of Ms. Herbert and Ms. Windsor. All students have a part if your scholar had a speaking role because continue to practice with them at home. The ceremony is about one hour. Students do not have to stay for the remainder of the day. Please feel free to celebrate with your scholar. Students WILL NOT receive a cap and gown. Students should dress their best. (dresses, suits, etc.)

Kindergarten students will continue to participate in the Countdown to Summer. Every Wednesday will be a different theme for students to participate in. Please check the link below for the calendar.

2025 Wacky Wednesday Countdown to Summer

This week continues DIBELS testing and the Embroidery projects for Kindergarten. Please sign up to volunteer in your scholar’s class for the embroidery project if you can. This project will engage students in the world around them through nature and the use of their fine motor skills. This in school project will last a couple of weeks so there will be multiple changes for signing up.

In Spring, many students have their allergies reawakened and sometimes it can be severe; if your scholar is one of those students and needs medication please remember to fill out a doctor’s form for medication to go to the nurse. Also we are entering warmer weather, please remember that Kindergarten's recess is early in the morning and students will still need coats. Also families, please have your scholar’s shoes tied when they come to school and continue to assist your scholar in their efforts of learning to tie their shoes independently. Students should have a school approved sweater or jacket to wear in the classroom, in case they get chilly.

Dates to Remember:

May 28: Wacky Wednesday: Chalk Day

May 30: Career Day

June 6: Save the Date: Field Day

June 12: Kindergarten Promotion

Reading Updates:

UNIT 4- Week 5: Tempura, Tempera

Essential Question: What can we learn from the past? How do we learn about the past?

• Phonological Awareness: Initial and Final Sounds; Segment and Blend Phonemes

Blend and Segment: Onset and Rime

• Phonics:Vowel sounds - shorts and long

• Review letters f,v, and d

• High-frequency words: want, every, please

• Story Vocabulary:served, sailed, shared, brought

• Unit Vocabulary: time, discover, change, tradition

Learning Goals:

• Learn about the past

• Visualize details from a story

• Syllables and compound words

• Find details in a text

• Find the theme of the story

• Main idea and details

• Match sentences to illustrations

• Capitalization for the beginning of a sentence

• Types of Punctuation, go with different types of sentences

• Prepositions, adjectives, and articles

• Organize the story element: character, setting, plot

Math Updates:

Topic 12: Identify and Describe shapes

Essential Understanding: How can two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes be described?

• Show numbers in many way

• Count and write numbers up to 100 by counting by 10

• Represent groups of objects with a number to 20

• Practice counting on from any number within 100

Vocabulary: sort, two-dimensional, three-dimensional, circle, triangle, side,vertex, square, rectangle, hexagon, cube, cylinder, cone, sphere

Science Updates:

TOPIC 5 LESSON 3: Needs of People

Essential Question: What do people need to survive?

• Learn how the relationship between the people and their environments

• Discover how people fulfill their needs

Vocabulary: survive, pattern, shelter

Social Studies Updates:

Chapter 4 : Geography of the Neighborhood

Essential Question- How does the world change over time?

• Understand different places and areas that are around us

• Look into the into a map as a tool

• What are resources

• How we use resources

• Explore items and ways that keep us safe in our neighborhood

• Analyze how we get around in our neighborhoods

Vocabulary: resources, lumber, goods

Health Updates:

May Topic: Keeping Clean and Healthy

• Describe what it means to be healthy, sick and why is it is important to stay well

• Discover daily routines that people do to stay healthy

• Encourage confidence in knowing how to show concern for others that might be sick

• Demonstrate respect for our bodies and encourage others to practice proper hygiene.

• Explain what is it means for the community to be clean and healthy

Vocabulary: scrub, clean, yard, clothes, hands, community

Grade Level Updates:

Thank you to everyone who helped make our Slime Field Trip a success! We truly appreciate your support and involvement. Looking ahead, we’re excited to announce our Eco Adventure Field Trip on May 29, followed by our School Field Day on June 6. We hope to see many of you volunteering and joining us for these upcoming events! This week, your scholars will be taking their DIBELS assessments. Thank you for continuing to support their learning and growth.

Reading Updates:

This week, your children will be reading an informational text on landforms. They'll explore different types of landforms, how they are formed, and why they are important to our environment.

Math Updates:

Scholars will be continuing to learn about numbers within 1000

Science Updates:

Scholars will be finishing up their current topics.

Social Studies Updates:

Scholars will learn about heroes from the past who have inspired positive change in the world today. Through their stories, students will explore how courage, leadership, and determination can make a lasting impact on society.

Reading Updates:

We have finished Unit 3! Our last week included regular and irregular plural nouns, poetry, and informational text.

Math Updates:

In math, we reviewed for the i-Ready test by completing 5 cases of surgery - the students loved it!

Science Updates:

We are continuing our unit on animal and plant adaptations and survival!

Social Studies Updates:

We are finishing up chapter 3! Recently, students have learned about early Spanish, French, and English communities in North America. Next week, we will learn about the Revolutionary War.

Health Updates:

We have started our final unit on bones!

Grade Level Blurb:

Greetings Fabulous Fourth Grade,

I hope this message finds you well. Our Fourth Grade scholars had so much fun exploring the Natural History Museum. Students got a chance to discover different living things in different time periods here on Earth. Our scholars worked together to complete a scavenger hunt through the museum.

We ask that you continue to talk with your student nightly about “glows and grows” from their day at school. We are helping students to be more reflective about their days and ways they can make improvements. This is the last quarter of Fourth Grade and our scholars have made great progress and are beginning their preparations to become the building leaders next year.

The character trait of the month of May is Perseverance. At times a task can be difficult but we think of ways we can persevere or find a way through. Students will have lessons in class around perseverance and how to overcome challenges we might face. Ways you can help is to share with your scholar times when you have shown perseverance in the face of adversity.. Please continue to read to get updates and important information from Fourth Grade.

Thank you for your continuing support and partnership.

Warm regards,

4th Grade Team

Important Upcoming Dates:

• Memorial Day Monday May 26, 2025- No School

• Career Day Friday May 30, 2025

• Field Day Friday June 6, 2025

Uniforms:

We are a uniform school. Students must be in the proper uniform each and every day. Students are expected to have mostly black shoes. They may wear a navy blue or school logo jacket or pullover during class. Students will be asked to remove any jacket or sweater that is not following the uniform policy.

Fourth Grade Reminders:

i-Ready:

i-Ready is a computer based math and reading program that is available for all of our scholars. Scholars have completed their diagnostics and are working on programs based on their areas of need. If scholars have access to a computer at home, we recommend that your scholar is getting at least 45 minutes of practice a week in both reading and math. Please encourage your child to complete lessons and ensure they complete the lessons independently to accurately improve their skills. i-Ready is accessed through clever.pgcps.org, and scholars will use their PGCPS logins to access the program.

Absences:

This is a friendly reminder that late work is only accepted if a student has an excused absence! If a scholar is absent and does not bring a note they will earn a 0 on the assignment that was missed. Please read the reminders to ensure that you are partnering with your scholars to make them successful for school. If a scholar leaves early or arrives late to school and it is not excused they will earn a 0 for all work that is not completed.

If your scholar is absent, please share a note with the homeroom teacher and attendance managers within 3 days of your scholar returning back to school. In order for students to receive make-up work you must provide a note stating; the student’s name, the date of absence, and reason for absence. Work is provided to students upon their return to school with an absence note.

Communications:

Students must bring their agenda book each day. Teachers will note the agenda book and it should be signed nightly by the adult at home.

Please allow up to 48 business hours for all responses to emails and Classdojo messages. Teachers are not actively monitoring their emails during the day because we are engaged in instruction. Emails are not monitored over the weekend or in the evening hours when teachers have gone home. If the message sent relates to dismissal changes please call the school directly to leave a message with the front office.

Grading:

Please check Synergy weekly to see scholar’s updated grades. Canvas is a Learning Management System in which scholars utilize to complete assignments and get access to materials.The grades provided in Synergy are those that will be used to calculate progress reports and report cards.

Parent Teacher Conferences:

Conferences with teachers are available with families as needed. Please reach out to the homeroom teacher about scheduling a parent teacher conference.

Reading Updates:

All texts that are being read in the classroom are also available for students to reread at home in their Vol. 2 textbooks. Please have students continue to read and discuss with you information that they find in the text. Students should always read a portion of the text and share any thoughts or questions they had while reading. Students should also note the text underlining, circling, and highlighting parts of the story that were important to know. Homework continues to be sent home on a weekly basis on the first day of the week.

This Week:

Crusoe:

This week students continued to read our novel “The Hero Two Doors Down.” This week students worked to find the point of view of the text and main idea of a chapter.. Students will continue to watch how the character grows and changes throughout the story. We will also explore how character actions will affect events in the story.

Next Week:

Crusoe:

Students will continue to read our novel “The Hero Two Doors Down.” This week students will work on finding examples of cause and effect and analyzing the setting of the text comparing our time period to the setting of the stories. Students will continue to watch how the character grows and changes throughout the story. We will also explore how character actions will affect events in the story.

Math Updates:

This week we will close Topic 7, Factors and Multiples; 4.OA.B.4 and 4.NBT.B.5) and taking the assessment. We will begin our next topic focus, Fractions!! Topics 8-10 will focus on comparing, adding, subtracting, and multiplying fractions.Our Essential Question for these upcoming topics are; “Extend Understanding of Fraction Concepts including Equivalence and Ordering.”

At home, please continue practicing with basic math facts focused on multiplication and division to support math fluency and the computation strategies for this topic.

Science Updates:

This week we closed Topic 4 Earth’s Features and began Topic 5: Earth’s Natural Hazards. In this next topic, we will take the learning from our previous topic and apply that to the two types of natural Earth Hazard, tectonic and weathering hazards. Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Hurricanes, and other recurring natural hazards. The objectives for this topic are to; describe the impacts natural hazards have on the lives of people, describe how hazardous weather can affect humans and solutions to reduce the impact of natural hazards.We will be focusing on the skills, observation, weather island erosion, and on analyzing and interpreting data. Key vocabulary from this topic for lesson one; fault, earthquake, tsunami, volcano, and eruption.

Please check Synergy ParentVue and Canvas with your scholar to ensure completion of assignments

Social Studies Updates:

This Week:Students read “Global and the Economy” and explained how international trade impacts the nation's economy. They discussed how trading with other countries can influence economic growth, create jobs, affect prices of goods, and shape global relationships.

Next Week: Students will share their mini business projects with the class. In their presentations, they should tell us the name of their business, what they are selling or doing, who they think will use it, how they will tell people about it, and how their business can help the community.

Grade Level Blurb:

We’re Done with Testing!

We are thrilled to share that testing is officially behind us! To celebrate, we had a fantastic first field trip to the bowling alley. Students had a blast bowling, enjoying the arcade, and sharing pizzas with friends. They even calculated the averages of their bowling scores—bringing math to life with lots of laughter and joy!

Here’s what we’re learning this week:

Reading Updates:

We are continuing our engaging book study. Be sure to ask your child about the characters and themes they’re exploring!

Math Update:

• Ms. Jenkins’ Class: Wrapping up our line plot unit with a study guide for review.
  

• Ms. Lewis’ Class: Continuing our review of dividing fractions to build fluency and confidence.

Science Update:

We’re concluding our unit on energy in plants. Ms. Jenkins’ class has been growing their own plants—and they’ve officially started to sprout!

General CARTS Message:

Please remember to check your student's Canvas assignments and Synergy grades regularly!

Music:

*Kindergarten and 5th graders are also working on promotion songs.

Kindergarten - Found sounds in the environment and same and different

1st Grade - Finish Legato & Staccato, Begin Musical form

2nd Grade - Simple melodic accompaniments and Musical Form

3rd Grade - Review standard notation and Perform Staccato & Legato

4th Grade - Found sounds and Soundwaves

5th Grade - Complete 12 bar blues song lyrics and begin rehearsing songs.

Hello All,

This week in Legos and Robotics, the students created complex video games for their friends to play/test and rate.

Day 1- All students will create and design

their games.

Day 2- Students will pick 2 of their peers to

play their game. Those 3 Students

will test each other's games. After

the games are tested, the students

will have a discussion about the

games played.

2024-2025 School Calendar

School Meals

School Violence Resources and Support

PGCPS TV

CMIT South ES Enrichment Program

Vendor Managed Child Care

Parent Handbook

Students’ Rights and Responsibilities Handbook.

Synergy ParentVUE Support for Parents and Guardians