February 2018

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Primary News

Isanti Primary and Early Childhood Center 301 Heritage Blvd NW, Isanti, MN 55040 ~ Office: (763) 691-8778 Fax: (763) 691-8700 http://www.c-ischools.org/school/isanti-primary-school

From the Principal Dear Parents and Guardians, Wow, I am in shock how fast this year is going. It seems like Christmas wasn’t that long ago. Our students have really been working hard and we have seen some nice growth in reading and math from our fall to winter NWEA tests. The level of supports at IPS are critical for the continued growth and mastery of the various skills we teach on a daily basis. We are gearing up for a busy February with conferences, Boosterthon, and Reading Night. Our conferences are a great way to connect with your child’s teacher to see how they are progressing the second half of the year. We look forward to seeing you next week. Boosterthon is brand new to IPS. We are going to be partnering with Boosterthon and PTO to have a Fun Run. Last spring CPS worked with this company and it was a great experience. The Fun Run is a healthy way of fundraising and we are excited about this opportunity. More information on the Fun Run will be sent home and will be featured on the website. February is I Love to Read Month and Mrs. Voss has done a great job coordinating this month of reading and fun. We have some friendly little competitions going on with reading minutes. If you get a chance, take a peek at the 2nd grade video and Mrs. Voss’ announcement by clicking this link . Check back as additional information will be added throughout the month. I can’t wait to see who the winners of the traveling trophy will be!

Literacy Update The last few newsletters have focused on ways to help with reading time at home such as asking questions while reading with your child. At school, we have been embedding time each day in order to confer with students regarding what they are reading. Book bins are a useful tool we use. Since each classroom has their own library, students have a chance to take their bins and go book shopping in their classroom. Book bins are a great way to help students have books available throughout the day and it is fun to see the books they pick out to fill their bins. It has been very rewarding to see the different types of books students are reading and conferring with them allows me time to ask about specific book series or characters the next time. If you get a chance, ask them what kind of books they are reading.

PTO News IPS PTO READING NIGHT: Friday, February 23rd from from 6 – 7:30 p.m. in the Media Center. IPS PTO MEETING: Tuesday, March 13th beginning at 6:30 p.m.

No School Teacher Workshop Day Friday, February 16, 2018 Presidents Holiday Monday, February 19, 2018

Attendance Line 763-691-8770

Primary News

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Fall to Winter NWEA Update

The above graph is an indicator of how each grade of students has shown growth in the area of reading. Growth is from fall to winter with our NWEA test. Again this is just one test on one day, but it allows us to take this data and support our students in the various reading strands. An example of 1st grade is 65% of the students met or exceeded their normative growth target in reading. We are very pleased with the direction we are going and the intentional instruction each teacher is delivering is a great example of this growth.

This chart shows how are students are progressing with their growth targets in math. This is a very similar explanation of the percentage of students who have met or exceeded normative growth from fall to winter. An example is 71% of students in second grade have met or exceeded their normative growth. NWEA is a great tool for us to dive into the various standards in math and reading. The goal is to see this growth continue as the students get more opportunities to master the various standards.

Bluejacket Pride Update On February 6th we had our fourth Bluejacket Pride Celebration. It was exciting to see the whole building together supporting our Character Traits. We had some drawings and had two lucky winners from each grade level and for the first time ever…Adventure Center! We also took some time discussing the character trait “Respect” and “Responsibility”. Students were informed of our new award, the “Golden Vacuum” and the first class awarded this prize was Mr. Hjeltman’s class!!! This trophy will be awarded every few weeks by our custodians to the classroom that has demonstrated responsibility in having a clean learning environment, being respectful of their space and taking pride in cleaning up after themselves. Click here to experience a bit of our celebration.