Please mark your calendars.

Patrice Harrell-Carter
Principal

Students in grades 3-5 will be taking the MCAP in April. The Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program will provide students, parents, educators and the community with better student information at a faster pace. In order to prepare, I encourage you to have your child(ren) to complete the PARCC Practice Tests Online. Here is the link: https://parcc.pearson.com/practice-tests/ The goal remains the same: to gather information that helps Maryland schools strengthen our instruction and improve student performance so that our graduates are ready to move into the workforce or a postsecondary institution. MCAP will continue to assess the Maryland College and Career Ready Standards in reading and English language arts. Maryland’s mathematics and English language arts assessments will continue to use test items developed by the PARCC consortium. The assessments have received high marks from education experts for their quality and rigor. The same scale scores and performance level descriptors will be utilized. All Maryland state assessments, including the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment, HighSchool Assessments in social studies and high school science, government and biology, as well as the fifth and eighth grade science assessments, will be part of MCAP. It is imperative that you work around the days and times when scheduling doctor's appointments. Additionally, school visitor access will be prohibited as we do not want to disrupt the testing environment. Below are the testing dates: April 9 & 10 April 24-26 April 30 & May 1

Patrice Harrell-Carter
Principal

There are only two more weeks in the quarter. Make certain that you speak to your children about the importance of finishing strong. March 28, ends the third quarter, the shortest quarter of the school year.

Patrice Harrell-Carter
Principal

In Reading, we have reread chapter 1-2 of our novel Shiloh and have moved on to chapter 3. We have continued discussing Points of View. As we continue to read we will continue to make inferences, compare and contrast points of views,and begin out routine writing. Look out for an official date for Chapters 1-5 test this coming week. In Social Studies, we are preparing to continue to explore Chapter 4 and dissecting the economy. In Math, we are wrapping up fractions, and will have an assessment on 4.NF.3 and 4.NF.4 on Monday. We will introduce 4.G.1, 4.G.2, and 4.G.3 to prepare for PARCC in the beginning of April. In Science, we will be wrapping up renewable and non-renewable resources, and discussing natural disasters and how humans are impacted. In Health, we will be identifying assets and sources of pressure that may lead to drug use, refusal skills, different types of drugs, health helpers and resources, and setting goals to make healthy decisions.

4th Grade Team

Happy Friday! Congratulations to the winners for the first round of the Multiplication Tournament! (Andre, Olumide, Camryn, Karina, Saniyah, Ashley, Brooke, Christian, Amadu, Derrick, Skylar, Aaron, Alanna, Alexis, AJ, Maria-Carole) Your hard work paid off, everyone was excellent, continue to keep up the good work! This week in Math we have started to review some key concepts in effort to prepare for the state testing. Please encourage your scholars to practice at home. Students only receive a few hours a day on each subject. If we consider how many hours they will need to master the concepts that will be covered on the state testing, then it will be essential, for students to practice at home as well. Thank you once again for all of your support!

-Ms. Libebe

Our week in review: ELA: This week we have a lot of fun learning about St. Patrick’s Day. Students made crafts and wrote about what they would do if they found a pot of gold. Students followed directions to color a rainbow. We also had fun drawing what we think a leprechaun looks like. The classes read the story How to Catch a Leprechaun by Adam Wallace and Andy Elkerton. Our sight words this week were HAVE and FOR. Science: This week we continued learning about habitats. We all designed specific animals, and sorted them into the correct habitats. We then created the habitat according to the things we would find there. Students have really enjoyed learning about these different plants and animals and where they live. In the meantime we have also been watering our plants everyday, they are growing great!!! Math This week we counted sets of shamrocks, skip counted by 10s with shamrocks, and added and subtracted shamrocks from leprechauns! We were able to incorporate this upcoming holiday to make math fun!!

Kindergarten Team

The past two weeks, we have been learning about Reggae in Music Class. I have made it a homework assignment for all students grades 2-5 to bring in a topic for their own Reggae song. Topics can include a problem in the world/school that students want to change, love, peace, and happiness. If you have any other questions please feel free to reach out via email or Class Dojo.

Jared Bailey Music Teacher CMIT South Elementary

Dear Parents and Guardians, We started our school-wide unit on basketball this week. Our first skill was working on dribbling with fingerpads, bouncing the ball up to the waist and keeping eyes forward. For older grades, 3-5, they worked on dribbling while also attempting to steal and shield their ball. Next we will move onto passing a basketball. Look for news on a teacher vs student basketball game coming up in a few weeks. Students who wish to volunteer should let their teachers know because each teacher in grades 3-5 will elect students to play in the game based upon behavior and work completed during testing time here at CMIT. Thanks

Garrett Loomer P.E. Teacher - Department Chair CMIT South Elementary gloomer@cmitsouthes.org

1st Grade is still working hard! This has been a busy week for our classes. For RELA, we are practicing fixing errors in sentences, as well as comprehension, letter sounds, and parts of speech! In math, we have continued practicing our introduction to fractions (equal shares) and place value, along with solving both sides of an equation. For science, we have continued learning about plants and animals, with an introduction to animal classifications, and in social studies we are going into detail about the similarities and differences between maps and globes! We have also noticed the weather starting to get warmer! While we have had some enjoyable weather this week, there are still some cool days ahead so please ensure that your child has an outdoor jacket with them on the days needed. Our 3rd Quarter ends on March 29th, so if you have any questions about current grades, please feel free to contact your child's classroom teacher. Enjoy your weekend!

Ms. Brown, Ms. Fleet, Ms. Madison, and Ms. McDonagh

Greetings Parents, Students have finished their MISA Testing for the year. They did an excellent job pushing through. PARCC/MCAPS is coming however. Students will be doing more Test prep in Literacy class in preparation. Readworks and ck-12 assignments are always available for turn in even if they are late. Please make sure students are keeping up with assignments. Also, students will be experiencing the Maker Space Lab starting next week. This is a part of their Science curriculum that will push a very hands on simulation. As always, I thank you for all that you have done for your students and as we push through, let us work together so students can finish this year strong.

Victor Hawkins

The latest on 2nd and 3rd grade art is here! Students are doing a unit on outer space and planets. We have been studying the appearance of planets and talking about their aesthetic qualities. After our discussion, we used watercolor paints to experiment with different patterns, textures and designs. One way that students created texture was by sprinkling salt into their wet paintings. This creates a crystallizing effect on the paper! This week, students started creating the background for their planets by flicking white paint onto black paper - creating stars!

Brittney Frei

Please view our Newsletter here! https://conta.cc/2FfO2NB Slides from our last PTO (3-12-19) Meeting

Attachment(s)

"The" CMIT PTO Board

Greetings Parents/ Guardians, This week students’ assignments are from 3/18 – 3/22 Assignment for K-3 graders: Visual Mapping: Attributes and Linking (Part 2) Students will be able to: • Learn to change the background color of the workspace. • Learn to change text color. • Learn to bold, italicize, and underline text. • Learn to change arrow attributes. • Gain additional experience using the link tool. • Gain additional experience using text to label clipart objects. Assignment for 4-5 graders: Word Processing: Revising and Formatting (Part 2) Word Processing: Basic Document Creation Students will be able to: Learn to format font style, color, and size. • Learn to format paragraph alignment and spacing. • Learn to insert page breaks. • Learn to insert symbols. • Learn to move text around and revise a document. • Learn to rearrange pictures and specify text wrap. www.learning.com Thank you, Mrs. AK Technology Teacher

Mrs. Ak

Parent/Guardian, Thanks to all our parents/Guardians who came to the Parent Workshop for 3rd -5th-grade students. It was an excellent opportunity to provide hands-on practice on PARCC assessment. Administration and teachers thank you for parenting with our school. Always let us know how we can support you. Pictures from the evening's event. Thank You. During the past weeks, I have posted 1-2-3 steps in supporting students as they learn to become organized. These were Getting Organized, Staying Focused, Getting it done. This week, the following will support you wherever you are in the process. Introduce the Idea Start the conversation by using the examples above and show your child the kids' article Organize, Focus, Get It Done. Read it together and ask for reactions (.https://kidshealth.org/en/kids/organize-focus.html) Will it be easy or hard? Is he or she already doing some of it? Is there something he or she would like to get better at? Get Buy-In Brainstorm about what might be easier or better if your child was more organized and focused. Maybe homework would get done faster, there would be more play time, and there would be less nagging about chores. Then there's the added bonus of your child feeling proud and you being proud, too. Set Expectations Be clear, in a kind way, that you expect your kids to work on these skills and that you'll be there to help along the way. Make a Plan Decide on one thing to focus on first. You can come up with three things and let your child choose one. Or if homework or a particular chore has been a problem, that's the natural place to begin. Get Comfortable in Your Role For the best results, you'll want to be a low-key coach. You can ask questions that will help kids get on track and stay there. But use these questions to prompt their thought process about what needs to be done. Praise progress, but don't go overboard. The self-satisfaction kids will feel will be a more powerful motivator. Also, be sure to ask your child's opinion of how things are going so far. Start Thinking in Questions Though you might not realize it, every time you take on a task, you ask yourself questions and then answer them with thoughts and actions. If you want to unload groceries from the car, you ask yourself: Q: Did I get them all out of the trunk? A: No. I'll go get the rest. Q: Did I close the trunk? A: Yes. Q: Where's the milk and ice cream? I need to put them away first. A: Done. Now, what's next? Encourage kids to start seeing tasks as a series of questions and answers. Suggest that they ask these questions out loud and then answer them. These questions are the ones you hope will eventually live inside a child's head. And with practice, they'll learn to ask them without being prompted. Work together to come up with questions that need to be asked so the chosen task can be completed. You might even jot them down on index cards. Start by asking the questions and having your child answer. Later, transfer responsibility for the questions from you to your child.

L. Watkis (Assistant Principal)