RH Highlights Volume 2 Fall 2018

Rolling Hills primary School

A Special message from Mrs. Santarpia Dear Rolling Hills Families, The first two months of school have been amazing! It has been great getting to know everyone and spending lots of time in the classrooms! I want to thank you all for the warmest of welcomes!

We recently highlighted the character traits of Courtesy and Compassion at our STAR Gatherings. The students enjoyed singing and sharing together as a school community!

A special thank you to the PTA for all of our fabulous events that we have been enjoying! The Fall Fair was a great day and families enjoyed games, arts and crafts and treats. Pumpkin picking was another great day at RH! Classes enjoyed picking pumpkins together on the field.

The students enjoyed a visit from the Dix Hills Firehouse and learned how to be safe. They also enjoyed the tour of the fire truck.

As Thanksgiving approaches the students will be creating Thanksgiving Happy Meals for families in need. A special thank you to the classroom teachers, class parents and the SBMT for helping to make this a success. I look forward to seeing everyone at our upcoming Parent/Teacher Conferences. I want to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving and a wonderful holiday season filled with many memories with family and friends.

Warmly, Jessica Santarpia Principal

Kindergarten Korner

September was a busy and exciting month! Learning new routines, making new friends and adjusting to a new school are just a few of the milestones that we encountered.

Your children are becoming quite independent and responsible citizens. They are unpacking and packing up their backpacks independently, learning patience when raising their hands quietly, participating in class discussions and fun math activities and listening to new and exciting pieces of literature. They love to play outside and enjoy any opportunity to share their work and ideas with their new classmates and teachers.

Throughout October, we explored the signs of autumn and prepared for our Halloween celebration. The children were interested in learning about Christopher Columbus and his voyage and also learned about fire safety and prevention. Another exciting day in October was the day of the Rolling Hills PTA Fall Festival!

The children and the parents had such a great time there.

The fun will continue through November as we study about the lives of the Pilgrims and Native Americans and learn about different Thanksgiving traditions. We will be thinking about the things that we are thankful for and talking about the importance of family and friends.

We look forward to many more months filled with wonderful opportunities to learn and grow together!

The First Grade Buzz!

Fall is a wonderful season! We love reading and writing about this refreshing time of year! As the first graders adjusted to the procedures and routines of the classroom, we discussed classroom rules and manners. This relates to our social studies curriculum about Citizenship and Government. The students learned how they can show they are good classroom citizens and those special magic words to be polite.

Our literacy program got underway! We’ve been busy during Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop. We have been book shopping for “Just Right” books so that we can put them in our Book Baggies. It’s so important that we practice reading each night. We also participate in shared reading (close reading), partner reading, independent reading, and small group guided reading during the day. During these times we can focus on phonics and decoding skills, as well as comprehension strategies. We love learning about and actually doing, what good readers do! And when we are not reading books, we are engaged in literacy related centers around the room. First grade sure is busy!

As writers we are trying to remember that every sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a punctuation mark. We also have become authors of our very own Personal Narrative stories. We write about actual events that took place in our lives and write them in a story format with a beginning, middle, and end.

Math, math math! We are enjoying using cubes and counters to model “ways to make 10”, to compare, and to find number patterns. Number bonds also help us figure out the parts that make a whole. Fluency in math facts will help us later on during more difficult concepts so we enjoy playing a variety of games to reinforce these facts. We can’t wait to get to the bigger numbers!

This fall, the first graders became experts in Fire Prevention and Safety! We learned it’s important to have an escape plan and every family should have fire drills at home too. We know how to “Stop, drop and roll” and “Stay low and go” during a fire. Our Health Smart Health program reviews these safety tips! We look forward to sharing more throughout the year!

The Second Grade Scoop!

Rolling Hills’ second graders have been working very hard and enjoying their time together. In ELA, the children have been reading and writing Realistic Fiction stories. We read many different stories and discussed whether they had the components necessary to be categorized as Realistic Fiction. The children will be using this knowledge to create their own characters, problem, solution and setting to write their own stories. Many of the children are discovering that this is their favorite genre to read and write.

In science, we have been exploring the life cycle of the apple tree and plants. The students began the unit with a nature walk around Rolling Hills. We explored all of the trees, leaves and plants and took notes, using our 5 senses, about everything we encountered. We then examined the inside of an apple and discovered where apple seeds are hidden. The children are now growing and learning from their own snap pea plants, recording data on how, where and under what conditions they grow best. Our second grade scientists are truly enjoying this unit!

Our second grade mathematicians have been studying place value and mental math. They have learned how to solve math problems without pencil and paper, which made them very proud!

Communities and how they grow and change has been our social studies focus. We are looking forward to the opportunity to travel back in time to visit 19th century Long Island. During this upcoming trip, the children will enjoy a typical day in a one room schoolhouse.

We look forward to sharing more about our fabulous days at Rolling Hills with you!

We Are Loving Our Days in the Rolling Hills Library!

The students have enjoyed visiting the library with their classmates. Each week, students take part in a lesson focusing on a specific library skill using the terrific literature we have in our library collection. At book selection time, students can browse the library collection and choose a book of their choice. Our library is filled with books and stories of all kinds. We try our best as teacher-librarians to educate the children on what a library patron does in order to make a good book choice. We talk about browsing through the book, where to go to find books in the collection that interest your child, and to help him/her make a good, but exciting choice, in what he/she chooses to read. Teaching and sharing how the library is organized has helped students make good book selection choices each week.

Our kindergarteners are excited to visit the library each week. Early in the year, we focused on how to take care of the library books and the responsibility we must show to keep the library a happy place for all students. We have focused on learning the parts of a book, as well as learning the parts of a fiction story, like the setting, characters, order of events, and conclusion. Each week, we spend time reviewing those skills. As the year progresses, we will be learning about the parts of a non-fiction book. We will also be learning about the different genres in the library, focusing on several popular authors and their works, and using a variety of fiction and non-fiction resources to compare and contrast.

Our first graders were enthusiastic and excited to come in and explore what is new in our collection. Our Easy Reader section in the library offers great choices and many different topics for a developing reader. We have focused on the 5-finger rule and making good book choices. We are reviewing the parts of a fiction story and retelling a fiction story in order. We are learning about the different genres in our library. Our first graders will be working on an author study on Erin and Philip Stead. Digital citizenship is also a focus of our learning in library this fall too!

Our second graders have been doing a great job exploring the different sections of the library each week, looking to find engaging material. We see a variety of material being circulated from fiction, to chapter books, and nonfiction. There has been a focus on digital citizenship and comparing fiction to non-fiction. We will be moving into the text features found in non-fiction and how we use a non-fiction resource. We will also be focusing on learning how to access the online catalog to do a book search as the year progresses.

Incorporating literature into our weekly lessons is a great way to teach and enhance our young readers' skills. We model thinking aloud about what we are reading from predicting and inferencing, to making comparisons as we read along. For the newer readers, we talk about how pictures add so much to the story, often helping us understand the story better. There is so much great literature and sometimes it is okay to reread a favorite book – it's like visiting with an old friend. Some days we read for the simple pleasure of sharing a great book with our students and to help them develop a love of literature! As we head into winter, it is a great time to cozy up with a good book!

Events and News for Rolling Hills

Character Education Our STAR Gatherings have been a huge success!

Here are some of the character traits and books: September - Courtesy - Monster Knows Excuse Me October - Compassion - Good People Everywhere November - Responsibility - Pip's Picnic December - Respect - The Sandwich Swap

Assemblies and Special Rolling Hills

Events The Kindergarten students enjoyed the Singing Bus Driver assembly at the end of September. The second grade is looking forward to going to the One Room Schoolhouse in Stony Brook at the Long Island Museum.

Our upcoming assemblies include the AAA Passenger and Pedestrian Safety as well as workshops on Native Americans and Mammals.

HELPFUL INFORMATION ABOUT THE ENGLISH AS A NEW LANGUAGE (ENL) PROGRAM at RH!

Rolling Hills Primary School is home to the K-2 ENL program for the Commack School District. Children from all four primary schools are bussed to Rolling Hills to receive ENL instruction, if needed.

The following is some helpful information about our program.

Who needs ENL services? Childr en who need to lear n English because they speak a differ ent language in their homes may receive ENL services.

Do all children who speak another language need ENL? Not all childr en r eceive ENL ser vices. When families fir st register their children to attend school in the Commack School District, they complete the Home Language Questionnaire.

If another language is spoken in the home, an interview and screening take place. Children in grades K-2, who need to learn more English, are then enrolled into general education classes at Rolling Hills, where they will receive additional instruction from one of our certified ENL teachers.

How will children who live near other Commack Schools get to Rolling Hills each day? Commack School Distr ict will provide all children who live more than one half mile from Rolling Hills with busing to and from school.

Will children miss doing class activities while they receive ENL services? ENL students never miss going to specials like physical education or lunch because of ENL support. ENL teachers work very closely with each child’s classroom teacher. ENL teachers often support their ENL students in their regular classroom, during ELA or math instruction.

How do we know when a child no longer needs ENL services? Each spr ing, the childr en take the New Yor k State English as a Second Language Achievement Test (NYSESLAT). Their performance on this exam determines the amount of services they will receive in the following school year. The results can be in one of the five performance levels: Entering, Emerging, Transitioning, Expanding, and Commanding. Children who score at the Commanding level are considered to be fluent in the English language and will receive limited ENL support for another two years. The results of the NYSESLAT are mailed to parents in late August or early September.

How can teachers communicate with parents who do not speak English? The Commack School Distr ict offer s translators during parent-teacher conferences. If you need one, please let your teacher know and we will arrange for one to attend your conference. We are also working to translate important documents into many different languages. Finally, your ENL teacher will speak to you during parent-teacher conferences about other available modes of communicating with teachers if you are not comfortable speaking English.

If you would like to view the Parent's Guide to the NYSESLAT online, please use this link: www.p12.nysed.gov/assessment/nyseslat/parentsguide/archive/pgeng.pdf

The Rolling Hills ENL Teachers: Dr. Lopes, Mrs. Barricelli and Miss Buckley

Mark Your Calendar!

11/4—Daylight Savings Time Ends 11/5—Food Drive Begins 11/6—School Closed—Election Day 11/7—Math & Movement—Family Fun Night—CMS 11/8—Board of Education Mtg.—8:00PM at HUBBS 11/12—School Closed—Veteran’s Day 11/13—RH PTA Meeting—9:30AM District Wide Blood Drive at MSIS—1-7PM 11/14—SEPTA Holiday Boutique at CHS—6PM 11/16—RH RHINGO—7:30PM 11/21—Early Dismissal Drill - 15 Minutes Early RH is FIT to READ 11/22—School Closed—Thanksgiving Day 11/23—School Closed—Thanksgiving Recess 11/27—Picture Retake Day 11/28—RH Winter Boutique 11/29—1/2 Day Parent Conferences 11/30—School Closed—Parent Conferences 12/10—Visitation to MSIS—Grade 2 12/13—Board of Education Mtg.—8:00PM at HUBBS 12/24-1/1—School Closed

A heartfelt thank you to: Our Birthday Bulletin Board Committee for posting our birthday information in such a creative manner.

Our Picture Day Committee for planning a day filled with smiles.

Our School Spirit Wear Committee for distributing a Rolling Hills shirt to all our kindergarten and new students and for ordering a wonderful selection of spirit wear.

Our Fund Raising Committee for the Prestige Orders for families, the yummy Thanksgiving Pies and for planning our RH ROCKS! Our Fall Festival Committee for organizing the walk to benefit the Nassau/Suffolk Autism Society and for planning a wonderful Saturday of fun for our families.

Our Box Top Committee monitoring our box top donations.

School Phone #: 631-858-3570 Nurse’s Office # 631-858-3573