News From Mrs. Graves

Welcome to the Principal's Page!  You can follow this blog by entering an email address in the right sidebar.

Upcoming Events

Monday, 9/1  Labor Day Holiday - No School

Tuesday, 9/2  100% PTO Membership Drive Begins; First Day of Specialties; First Day of Musical Theatre, 4th grade

Wednesday, 9/3

Thursday, 9/4  International Festival Planning Meeting, Cafe 8:10 am

Friday, 9/5  PTO Meeting, Cafe 8:10 am

Monday, 9/8
Tuesday, 9/9  Curriculum Information Night, K-2, Cafe 6:30 pm
Wednesday, 9/10
Thursday, 9/11  Curriculum Information Night, 3-5, Cafe 6:30 pm
Friday, 9/12

Curriculum Information NightWhat is Curriculum Information Night?  Its an opportunity for you to hear directly from your child’s teacher about what you can expect this year.  Beginning at 6:30 p.m on either September 9th  (K-2) or September 11th (grades 3-5) you will first go to the Café to learn more about our school performance data and school improvement plan, and then report to your child’s classroom.  The teacher will outline the daily schedule, discuss the  curriculum, and tell you what to expect this school year.  You will learn how best to communicate with your child's teacher, and how to access the classroom blog and your child’s gradebook online. This is a great opportunity to get to know your child’s teacher, and lay the foundation for a strong partnership.  I do hope every child will have someone in attendance. This event is designed for parents only.  Later this school year students will have the opportunity to share their work with you in a student-led conference.

What's in the Ancillary Rotation?
Ancillary classes are offered daily for 45 minutes, on a six day rotation.  Here is the bite-size description of what your child is doing at school during ancillary.

Art 

Ms. Herrick has a scope and sequence that allows students to build art skill from year to year with work in 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional art forms.

Music 

Ms. Sauer will continue to teach students to read music, use tone and pitch for choral music, and learn the recorder in upper grades as a transition to an instrument at the middle school level.  New this year, all students in grades 3-5 will participate in a musical stage production, learning the music of the chorus in the music ancillary class.

PE 

Coach Alexander and Coach Montoya will offer two days of PE in each 6-day ancillary rotation.  We are thrilled to be able to again offer more time for physical activity to improve student health. 

Academic Skills Lab (ASL)

Ms. Anderson and Ms. Loeri work together to provide an opportunity for students to learn keyboarding and basic computer skills, but it is not only about learning to use the computer.  The ASL is an opportunity for students to use technology to learn other disciplines.  This allows teachers to differentiate and give children more time on task for critical areas specific to each student.  A student who is struggling with automaticity of math facts can spend time working on Think Through Math, First in Math or DreamBox, while a GT student may spend more time on Renzulli.  These are just a few examples of the differentiation we can provide through the ASL.  Most technology instruction is done in the classrooms, integrated in the IB Planner through research, collaboration or product.

Spanish
New to our faculty, Ms. Brandon is providing Spanish instruction for all Roberts students. Students are learning listening, speaking, reading and writing in the Spanish language.


Science Lab, Grades 1-5
This year, our Science Lab will be on a five day rotation for grades 1-5.  This ensures more time for hands-on Science learning in the lab setting for our students.  Ms. Masood is new to Roberts and comes from a family of scientists.  She is an experienced Science teacher, joining us from a charter school system.  She will be engaging your children in some exciting scientific investigations, and will support classroom teachers to ensure alignment between lab instruction and classroom instruction.  Ms. Masood will also be supporting Kindergarten teachers to provide engaging science instruction in the kinder classrooms.

Enrollment
We have had a increase in enrollment this year.  We have seen the increase in enrollment in area schools over the last few years, but this is the first year it has impacted Roberts.  The increase in enrollment is manageable at the classroom level, but we are working to find teaching assistants to help with our largest classrooms. 

The increase seems to have the greatest impact at this point on our schoolwide resources. Many of you have noticed the impact at dismissal.  More students means more adults, and the space in the dismissal area is limited.  We expect it to be more manageable this week, and are hopeful that we can go back to the original dismissal plan.  I ask that you support our efforts by being kind to our staff as they work to ensure the safety of all of our children.

Note From Our Webmaster:

Hi Roberts parents,

If you'd like to access the parents-only areas of the school website and don't yet have an account, please email roberts.info.services@gmail.com with your full name and your child's name and grade. You'll receive a return email with instructions for signing in.

This work is done by parent volunteers, so please be patient!