Wekiva Whispers

Wekiva Elementary School Where Koality Education Happens Every Day! 1450 East Wekiva Trail Longwood, Florida 32779 Phone: 746-3150 Fax: 746-3163 February 2013 Principal: Marjorie Adamczyk Assistant Principal: Kyle Hughes Principals Message Big changes are happening at Wekiva! The second computer lab is ready and available to students. The district technology team, area technology specialist, and Wekivas Technology Facilitator & Media Coordinator, Ms. Cook worked together to help make the new lab a reality for Wekiva. The second big change will be coming at the end of February; Wekiva will be going wireless! It has been very frustrating without it. Many SCPS programs need wireless access for teachers to work remotely. Another big adjustment taking place this month is the Key Cards. Last May, I shared with the district the need to secure the double access doors surrounding the Media Center building. In October, our request was approved by the School Board and Key Cards will be installed in the near future. Our Pre-K program is growing and growing. Parents of Pre-K students must escort their children from the car to the classroom waiting area. Due to this, we have designated the car ramp circle by our cafeteria for the Pre-K parents only. Parents who are not Pre-K must use the main parking lot. FCAT Math for fifth grade will be changing as well this year. Grade 5 students will be taking it on the computer. Our new lab will help with the administration of this test. Speaking of FCAT, our FCAT Writes is on February 26th. Fourth grade teachers and students are busy preparing for it. Cafeteria Playground After school, the playground by the Wekiva Cafeteria is for our extended day students only. This area is not for parents and non-extended day students for security reasons. Other students and parents using this playground after dismissal will be asked to leave by extended day employees. Please use Wekiva Hills Park instead. Changes are not always easy but many times it is necessary for safety or to raise the achievement level of our students. We are Catching the Ever Changing Wave! Until next time, Ms. Adamczyk Community Kudos!!!! McDonalds supported our Scholastic Reading Inventory Reading Gains Luncheon!! Thank you! Wells Fargo Community Support is also appreciated. Wekiva thanks you for your generosity. Kudos to Cadet Girl Scout Troup 1113! True to their Girl Scout Promise; they dropped off well over 100 items for our food pantry!. To help people at all times and to live by the Girl Scout Law. Pappa Johns Pizza generously provided the Wekiva staff with food for our recent Faculty meeting! It was appreciated by everyone. Seminole County Rezoning Information The county has divided the district into zones. Wekiva is located in the West zone. The rezone suggestions were discussed at a work session on February 5. The community can review the plans at www.rezoner.com The School Board will share with the community on March 13th. Kindergarten Round-Up will not be scheduled until the district finalizes the rezoning. Student Council News Student Council is working hard to collect all the pop tabs we can for our Annual Ronald McDonald Charity event! There will be a contest between the grade levels from Feb. 11-15. Pop tabs will be collected and turned in the first week in April so start saving and bring in those tabs! PTA PTA Picnic in the Park PTA is proud to announce the first annual Picnic in the Park. Come join us for an afternoon of family fun. Pack your picnic, bring your family, and join us at Wekiva Hills Park on February 9th from 1:00 pm-till dusk. This is a day for families and friends to come hang out and enjoy the park. We are planning some fun with Coach Prose and Geo-Caching, and Kids vs. Parents kick ball game. See you there! Mark your calendar.... Wekiva PTA Family Dinner & Art Show Tuesday, March 12th 5:00 to 8:00 Plans are underway for another fantastic Family Dinner Night. This evening will include the Wekiva Art Show where each Wekiva student will display their own masterpiece! Are you ready for the challenge? Are you smarter than a 5th grader? How about a Minute to Win It??!! These are just a few of the family challenges we have in store for this fun evening at Wekiva. Spaghetti dinner tickets go on sale for $6 starting February 12th. PTA would like parents to be a part of this fun event. If you are interested, please contact Trisha Tamm at (407) 383-8395. It's going to be a blast! Lisa Romine Wekiva PTA President Grade Level News Kindergarten During February, Kindergarten students will be exploring American symbols and celebrations through literary and informational texts. Our youngest students will also be learning about the importance of asking questions to clarify the key ideas and details of a topic. In math, the kindergarten students are learning all about numbers to 20. By the end of chapter 6, all students should be able to represent, compare and order sets to 20.

Seminole County Public Schools www.scps.k12.fl.us or www.wekivaelementary.com

Wekiva Whispers
Wekiva Elementary School Where Koality Education Happens Every Day! 1450 East Wekiva Trail Longwood, Florida 32779 Phone: 746-3150 Fax: 746-3163 February 2013 Principal: Marjorie Adamczyk Assistant Principal: Kyle Hughes First Grade First grade celebrated our 100th day of learning January 25th. We used many number patterns to skip count to 100 and wrote about 100 things we would like to have 100 of and 100 things we would not like 100 of. We had outstanding 100th day projects shared in our classrooms. We are very proud of our hard workers. Reading at home for 20 minutes each day helps your child become a more confident and fluent reader. Make it fun. The more they read, the more they will learn. Second Grade The second grade teachers and students have been working hard on learning our second grade standards. In reading, we have been working on making inferences and understanding cause and effect while reading a variety of fiction and non-fiction books. We have also been reviewing, summarizing, and locating the main idea and details. In writing, we have been learning how to write both a narrative and expository paragraph. Some of the students are having a hard time getting their thoughts out on paper. To help this at home, encourage your child to write. Instead of them telling you about the TV show or game they just played; have them write you a letter explaining it. They can also write their request for dessert or dinner, and have them use complete sentences. You can also write letters to them to help model complete sentences and correct grammar usage. Encouraging writing any way you can at home would benefit them in the classroom. In math, we have learned how to add and subtract three-digit whole numbers. Remember when reviewing these skills at home to use the words regrouping hundreds, tens, and ones instead of borrowing and carrying. Next, we will be learning how to count money, tell time to the half hour, and measuring. In science, we have just started our unit on the human body, ask your child about their heart rate and bones. Just a little reminder to please make sure you are checking with your child about supplies that may be needed. A lot of kids are out of glue sticks, whiteboard markers and pencils. Thank you for your continued support in working at home with your child and making sure they are reading and writing nightly. Third Grade It's hard to believe, but one-half of the school year is over! Third graders have been busy working on their academic skills. In Math, we just finished learning about fractions. Our third and last Big Idea for the year is shapes, including lines, rays, line segments, angles, quadrilaterals, and triangles. In Reading, students are practicing reading with fluency and comprehension. We are teaching good reading strategies that students should use to comprehend various texts, including novels, Harcourt stories, and non-fiction texts. We continue to focus on many skills in Language Arts such as writing in complete sentences, using correct capitalization and punctuation, nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, sentencecombining, as well as choosing good words and organizing a piece of writing. In Social Studies, we finished the last two regions of the United States and next we will study Mexico and compare it to the USA. In Science, we are learning about forms of energy and heat sources. Fourth Grade Fourth grade is hard at work preparing for the upcoming FCAT tests for reading, math and especially FCAT Writes! The FCAT writing test will be on Tuesday, February 26th. All classrooms are doing extra morning practice in writing. We also have the added assistance of retired teachers, Mrs. Shirley Decker and Mrs. Jenna Kennedy, who are working with small writing groups four days a week. Seminole County Public Schools www.scps.k12.fl.us or www.wekivaelementary.com Fifth Grade Triskaidekaphobia? Not in our fifth grade! We are embracing the year 2013 with a flurry of superior reading, descriptive writing, and precise computations. In our Language Arts classes, we have begun to complete exercises in the Buckle Down FCAT practice book. The students are fine tuning the fifth grade level reading skills and improving their powers of deductive reasoning. Along with the regular reading text stories, our students are engaged in novel studies. These are literature works selected by the teachers and have accompanying activities to enhance the understanding of literary elements. The focus of AR this time is nonfiction. Check with your child and quiz them on their selection for this assessment. The Social Studies section of the day now centers on discussions of the Industrial Revolution. Our students are learning about the vast advantages of mass production and the effects war may have had on the look of the factory worker. Math has entered the world of fractions, decimals and measurement! Our students were amazed to learn only a few countries use the customary or standard units of measure. Can you name 2 other countries using our system? Science has taken us to infinity and beyond, so to speak! We have just finished our space unit. We modeled everything from the distances of the space objects from each other to the sizes of planets and craters. The biggest question was, Are we alone out here? Our next unit will take us into the study of weather, starting off with the water cycle. Speaking of weather, we are hoping for fine conditions as we take a walk in the mud later this month! Can you believe the students really look forward to this day of school? As you can see, 2013 is already jam packed with new challenges and surprises.

Wekiva Whispers
Wekiva Elementary School Where Koality Education Happens Every Day! 1450 East Wekiva Trail Longwood, Florida 32779 Phone: 746-3150 Fax: 746-3163 February 2013 Principal: Marjorie Adamczyk Assistant Principal: Kyle Hughes Exceptional Education and ESOL Our Exceptional Students Education and ESOL teachers are working diligently with our ESE/ESOL students to make sure learning goals and IEP/LEP goals are being met. ESE/ESOL teachers are always collaborating with our regular education teachers to make sure ultimate learning is occurring. If you have a question about your childs IEP/LEP, please contact your childs ESE/ESOL teacher. Art We have been working on a community service project called Valentine's for Veterans. Students have been creating Valentine cards to send to Marines in California and a Veterans Hospital in Tampa. Congratulations to Grades 2-5 who have been working very hard on a cover design for the yearbook. We have so many talented artists at Wekiva! It will be a hard decision for Ms. Adamczyk to select just one! All students are busy creating art for the Wekiva Annual Art Show which will be on March 12, from 5-8. I hope you will be able to come out and see the creative spirit alive at Wekiva Elementary. Music The music room buzzes and sings with activity. In December, Mrs. Kranz hosted a pizza party for those students who have attained the level of black belt in Recorder Karate, a sizable accomplishment. This year, fourth graders, Lorenzo Martinez and Nicholas Smith earned the honor during the first half of the year. Congratulations on a job well done! Students from previous years were invited to this inaugural party Ethan Hyuck, Dante Ardene, Beth Walls, Alexis Staudenmeier, and Jared Anderson. Along with those honors, seven students will participate in Seminole County's All County Elementary Music Festival on Saturday, February 16th at Lyman High School. These students have worked hard to achieve this opportunity, most participating in Koala MusicKidz for at least two years, with some of them participating since third grade. Those students are Ryleigh Graber, Amy Laurie, Serra Sowers and Claire Wisth in Chorus; Nathan Lach on Recorder, and Emma Vick and Sean Weathers in the Orff Ensemble. Congratulations to these wonderful students for their hard work and dedication. Mrs. Harrington and Mrs. Kranz will hold auditions for Once Upon a Time, the spring musical, on Monday, February 11, from 3:15 - 4:15 p.m. in the music room. Any child in grades four and five may audition. Please pick up the audition form including permission and teacher approval from Mrs. Harrington. And finally, Koala MusicKidz is invited to sing at Downtown Disney for Disney Magic Music Days once again! Our students will be performing at the Waterside Stage at Downtown Disney on Monday, May 20, at 11 a.m. If you have an opportunity to come out and hear them, please do! They always do a wonderful job, after which, they will spend the day at Epcot for free! We appreciate Disney's generosity in funding these opportunities. It's a busy spring, but we love it! Science News Science Expo 2013 has been amazing! 195 students signed up to participate, making up 119 total projects! This was our largest EXPO ever! Reading Students tracked their reading progress with their teachers in grades 2 - 5 to find out how many points they earned from their last Scholastic Reading Inventory test to their most recent SRI test. There will be another SRI test in the future. Students who made the most gains celebrated lunch with the Principal, thanks to our business partner McDonalds. Wekiva is proud to announce the names of top three students who made the most gains. Seminole County Public Schools www.scps.k12.fl.us or www.wekivaelementary.com Second Grade Nathan Nguyen Dacari Fitzgerald Makaila Mercer Third Grade Amelia Fein Anna Ardolina Lindsay Rosichan Fourth Grade David Redick Mariana Rivera Jade Linscheid Fifth Grade Alexis Lee Rowan Glefke Mateo Ramunno Cross Country Koala Run Congratulations to our Koala Run Winners. BEAR LAKE Top 15 6 and Under Boys Hudson Woods 2nd A.J. Eger 13th Jonathan Fitzgerald 15th 6 and Under Girls Hannah Hill 1st Anniston Bitner 3rd Lily Chase 8th 7 Year old Boys Connor Woods 2nd Jacob Clifton 13th Brandon Mauger 14th 7 Year Old Girls Kiley Strott 1st 10 Year Old Boys Andrew Pikalow 7th 11 Year Old Boys Ben Evelev 6th

Wekiva Whispers
Wekiva Elementary School Where Koality Education Happens Every Day! 1450 East Wekiva Trail Longwood, Florida 32779 Phone: 746-3150 Fax: 746-3163 February 2013 Principal: Marjorie Adamczyk Assistant Principal: Kyle Hughes FOREST CITY Top 10 6 and Under Boys Arnaud Babb 3rd 6 and Under Girls Aniston Bitner 1st Lily Chase 4th Hannah Hill 7th 7 Year old Girls Kiley Strott 1st 8 Year Old Girls Sierra Higgins 9th 10 Year Old Boys Andrew Pikalow 8th We have three remaining meets: Lake Orienta at Seminole State College on February 9th, The All County Meet at Winter Springs High School on February 23rd, and Hamilton Elementary on March 2nd. We also have the opportunity to participate in the Smile Mile for Kids; on March 9th in Baldwin Park. It supports the Track Shack Foundation which granted our program $2000.00 this year and many more in the past. If we have the most participants from Seminole County at the Smile Mile, we receive $500.00 more for our Cross Country Club. Look for information to come home with your child in the near future. Saturday, February 9th the P.E. Department is teaming up with Wekiva PTA for a Family Day in the Park. The P.E. Department is supplying our GPS units for a fun Geocatching Scavenger Hunt in the area. Bring your family out for a day of fun! Calendar FAMILY DAY IN THE PARK Cross Country Meet at Seminole State College February 11 Fifth Grade Field Trip Mud Walk (Hull/Lofton) February 12 Fifth Grade Field Trip Dry Walk (Hull/Lofton) February 14 Happy Valentines Day ! February 18 NO SCHOOL February 19 Fifth Grade Field Trip Environmental Center Mud Walk (Soltren, Powers, Harrington) Dry Walk Perdomo) 4th Gr Hewitt Project Create Field Trip February 21 Fifth Grade Field Trip Environmental Center Dry Walk (Soltren, Powers, Harrington) Mud Walk Perdomo) February 22 9:00am Martin Luther King Jr. Play Mr. Pierres Classroom February 23 All County Cross Country Meet at Winter Springs High February 25 End of the 2nd Quarter February 9 February 26 FCAT WRITES SHH!! NO DIVIDENDS TODAY! February 26 Kindergarten Field Trip February 27 FCAT WRITES Make Up NO DIVIDENDS TODAY! February 28 Dr. Seuss Day! March 2 March 6 March 9 March 11 March 12 Cross Country Meet at Hamilton REPORT CARDS GO HOME Smile Mile in Baldwin Park Spring Book Fair PTA Family Dinner 5 8pm

Koality Education Happens Every Day

K O A L A

Kindness to Others Organized Always be Honest Learning 1st Achieving Goals

Seminole County Public Schools www.scps.k12.fl.us or www.wekivaelementary.com