Hilton Elementary School #21 Newsletter
December Newsletter
Volume 3, Issue 3
Principal Khaleel Desaque
Vice-Principal Renee Burgess
Principal’s News
The school year is quickly flying by. Here we are, in the 2 nd Quarter, and the
Holiday Season is upon us. I am constantly reminded and encouraged of the
intelligence that your child/ children possess on a daily basis. Please continue
to encourage your child/ children to read at least 20 minutes each night, to
build both their fluency and comprehension. Your child/ children’s teacher is
a great source for additional reading materials. After the Holiday break, we
will be in “full testing mode” in preparation for the upcoming State
Assessments (MSA) in March.
Contents
Principal’s News
1
Dear Parents
1
Upcoming Dates
1
Thank you Mr. Desaque
Dear Parents
After School Information 1
Switching gears to our fundraising efforts, our latest endeavor,
The Green Sustainability
1
November Student pictures was a huge success. Students will have a
Pre-Kindergarten News
2
second opportunity to take pictures again in the spring, specifically on
Kindergarten News
2
First Grade News
2
Second Grade News
2
Third Grade News
3
Fourth Grade News
3
Elementary T-shirts that are priced at $10 for kids and $12 for adults.
Fifth Grade News
3
They can be purchased in yellow, navy blue or purple. Money raised
PAL & Life Skills News
3
from T-Shirt sales will be used to support special instructional programs
Fifth Grade News
4
/ assemblies, as well as student field trips. Please see one of our main
Honorable Mentions
4
office staff if you are interested.
Dates to remember



December 14, 2011
early dismissal
December 16, 2011
Progress reports sent
home
Winter Sharing
December 22, 2011
Pre-k-2 8:30-9:45
Grades 3-5 10:0011:15
March 2, 2012. On that picture day, students will only take individual
pictures, and will be allowed to wear their favorite outfits. There will
be no class pictures taken in the spring. Currently, we are selling Hilton
After School Information
Child First Afterschool Program
Days and Times of operation: Monday-Thursday 2:25pm-5:30pm
The pickup time is 5:30 everyday unless otherwise stated.
If a parent is habitually late on 3 occasions those will be grounds for a
student to be dismissed from the program.
If you have any questions please contact Ms. McNeill
Grade Level News
Page 2 of 4
Pre-Kindergarten News
Attendance
Please continue to monitor your child’s attendance. Be sure to bring
your child to school on time and in uniform each day.
What are we learning in Pre-k?
Our next unit will be “Winter Around the World”. We will be discussing
winter the season and holidays celebrated in the month of December.
Patterns will be our next unit in Math. Our winter celebration will be Dec.
23rd @ 1:00 pm. Parents please see teacher to sign up for donations.
The Pre Kindergarten Team
Kindergarten News
Reminder:
Early Dismissals are
discouraged. Students
miss out on classroom
instruction, which will
In language arts, students have learned about alliteration. Sentences that have the same
beginning sounds repeated can be fun to say. More commonly known alliterative
sentences are: She sells seashells down by the sea shore. Or try out this one: Peter
Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. In class, the students chose their own
alliterative sentence to illustrate. We are also learning about consonant digraphs. When
these letters are put together, they make a brand new sound! We have learned about sh,
th, and ch, in the month of November. Ask your kindergarten student to give you
examples of words that begin with these sounds. In late November we learned about
magic “e” and how the magic “e” makes the vowel say it’s name, such as in cape and bite.
See how smart they are! In math, we have worked on describing attributes of shapes.
We know that a triangle has 3 sides and rectangles and squares both have 4 sides. We
are also learning how shapes look when we flip them, slide them, and turn them. Our
latest adventure in math is to experiment with solid figures like cubes, cylinders and
spheres. Continue reading at home and practicing those sight words!
The Kindergarten Team
ultimately have a
First Grade News
negative impact on
In the month of December we will bring our Neighborhood Unit to a close and begin a
new unit on The Weather. The first grade team is excited about the upcoming holiday
season. We are planning to host activities that explore the 3 major holiday celebrations
that we enjoy.
his/her grades.
The first grade team would like to thank the parent volunteers who work in our
classrooms and from home to make our jobs easier. You are appreciated!
Sincerely,
The First Grade Team
Second Grade News
Time is flying! We have finished 4 weeks of the second quarter already! This quarter, we want to focus on
strengthening the fundamental skills of reading, math, writing, social studies, and science. Looking for
materials to use at home? Dollar Tree has a variety of resources for reading and math that are cheap and
useful: flash cards, spelling books, dictionaries, math books, writing materials, and much more. You can
also see me for any supplemental materials. Please make sure that students are attending school on time,
daily. Please continue to use the homework to practice the skills learned in class at home. Remember, you
are always welcome to visit our classroom. We hope to see you soon.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Kanaval
Grade Level News
Page 3 of 4
Third Grade News
The students in third grade reading are doing a wonderful job on their text features unit. They have been studying
text features and are going to be moving onto text structures. We are also preparing for benchmark b and for our
unit 2 text. Soon we will be studying folktales and fairytales.
Ms. Casson
For the month of October the 3rd grade students will be competing against the 5th grade students on the math website
SUMDOG.COM. Good Luck 3rd Graders
Mrs. Conaway
Fourth Grade News
We are off and running in the fourth grade. Students in 4 th grade will be working on a Realistic Fiction
Book Project in the coming weeks. These will be exciting to complete and share with each other. In
addition to this project students will be learning their state symbols, and putting together a class
Brochure all about Maryland!
There is also an exciting field trip coming up to Carrie Murray Nature Center.
Stay tuned for details.
Mrs. Toney
Fifth Grade News
We are on a roll with FRACTIONS in 5th grade!
In the next few weeks we will be preparing for the middle school choice fair.
We are excited about going to Middle School
Mrs. Nicholson & Mr. Johnson
PAL & Life Skills News
The students in the PAL and Life Skills classes have been working on so many wonderful things.
The students had the chance to measure ingredients and prepare a tasty treat. We are starting of
December with concepts in geometry and independent writing samples.
Ms. Hildreth & Ms. Barnes
Additional Information
Page 4 of 4
Fuel Up to Play 60
Attention ALL Parents & students
We got the Fuel Up To Play 60 Grant in the amount $3,000!!!!Please continue to sign up to take the Fuel Up to Play 60
pledge at www.fueluptoplay60.com . We would love to win a visit from a Baltimore Raven this year!!
Ms. Burgess
BOX TOPS!!
Please continue to collect Box Tops. Each Box Top is worth 10 cents for our school. The class that
collects the most at the end of each month will receive a prize. Will it be your class??
Fall Pictures are Back!
Please look for your child's Fall pictures to come home TODAY, November 7th. Only students
who pre-paid will receive picture packages.
ALL students will receive 2 FREE Smile Safe Kids ID cards. Thank you for supporting Hilton's
school picture day!
ATTENTION 5th Grade Parents & Students,
Middle School Choice Forms are due to Ms. Stork ASAP. Please see Ms. Stork in Room 207 if
you have any questions or concerns before or after school on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or
Thursdays.
The Green Sustainability Team
The "Green Sustainability team" is collecting soda (beer) aluminum cans.
Please rinse them out and they can be dropped off in the art room. Mrs.
McCarthy is also in need of newspapers and magazines for the art room.
Hilton Elementary School
3301 Carlisle Avenue
Baltimore, Maryland 21216
Phone:
(410) 396-0634