Hornsby Happenings

Thursday January 5th

Ms. Vasile’s Class 5:30p Choir performance 5:55

PTA Membership Drive at 6p Parent Literacy Workshop

“Fabulous Fluency: Learn how to help your child become a smooth, accurate reader” at 6:10p

STAAR(new state test)Presentation/ Campus Report Card Night 6:45p

Tuesday January 10th Tutoring begins

Monday January 16th - MLK Day No School

Thursday January 26th Honor Roll Assemblies

2nd grade at 8:30am, 1st grade at 9:30am, and Kinder at 10:10am

Friday January 27th Honor Roll Assemblies 3rd grade at 8:15a, 4th grade at 9:00a, and 5th grade at 9:45a

Tuesday January 31st

Kindergarten 100th Day Parade

Hornsby Dunlap Community, I hope that each of you enjoyed the winter break. The teachers and staff are excited to be back at Hornsby and working with your children. With many people making new year resolutions the staff at Hornsby maintains our com-mitment to our mission of providing a safe and supportive learning community to educate the whole child with chal-lenging curriculum, high expectations, and varied interven-tions. Happy New Year! Mark Estrada

We are thrilled to bring a peer mediation program to Hornsby this year! A group of 23 students participated in nine hours of training and gained valuable conflict resolution information.

They learned about empathy, validation, and the importance of resolving conflict. These students will be able to help other

students solve problems using a guided process. This program will allow students a safe and effective way to resolve conflict.

For more information please contact the school counselor.

Principal’s Pen

Counselors’ Corner

Volume 1, Issue 4

Hounddog News

3rd Back to School 5th PTA Meeting 6:00 5th Parent Reading Workshop 6:10p 5th STAAR/Curriculum Night 6:45p 16th No School 18th Report Cards Go Home 26th Honors Assem-blies K-2 (1st grade 9:30am 2nd 8:30a, Kinder 10:10a) 27th Honors Assem-blies 3-5 (3rd 8:15a, 4th 9a, 5th 9:45a) 31st 100th Day Parade

Hornsby Dunlap Elementary School 2011-2012 Del Valle Independent School District

January 2012

Please remember!

December was so much fun! We discussed and  learned of  winter  holidays  around  the world. We had many  activities that  dealt  with  “The  Polar  Ex‐press”.  We  were  allowed  to wear  our  pajamas  and  see  the movie.  Our  teachers  gave  us hot  chocolate,  just  like  in  The 

Polar  Express”!  We  made  many projects  to  celebrate  our winter holiday. ) In Language Arts, some of  us  are  starting  to  write  and read  more  on  our  own.  I  still make  several  mistakes,  but  my teacher says it’s ok – it  is an op‐portunity  to  learn.    In math, we will continue working on sorting and  classifying  by  color,  size, shape and  function, we will  also identifying  numbers  and  their 

position  on  a  number  line  0‐10.  

 

also be taking their first Writing Land-mark Test on January 23rd. Students are expected to write a brief story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Punctuation, grammar, and spelling are all important! A great way to strengthen your child’s writing is creating stories at home. In Math, we are moving into measurement and geometry skills. In Social Studies, stu-dents will understand characteristics of good citizenship as exemplified by historic figures and ordinary people. Don’t forget to check planners daily

Welcome back! We hope you had an enjoyable and restful holi-day break. We plan to start off the New Year strong and posi-tive. School starts at 7:30a.m. Please have your child here on time!! The kids will have their 2nd Science Landmark Test on January 12th. It will cover topics such as weather and how it changes through the seasons, tools used to measure weather, and the water cycle. They will

and study spelling and vocabu-lary words every week! You can expect report cards to come home January 18th. Thanks for all you do!

Kindergarten

entation. It was fun for all first grades. We would like to thank you and everyone who helped with program to make it a success. We also worked so hard in our classes learning Math patterns, ad-dition, subtraction problems and learning reading strategies as well as blends. This month will we also be busy. We are looking forward to our school field trip this month. We will learn geometric shapes and investigate their properties.

We will look at patterns a little bit more closely. We will be writing and reading with more fluency. We ask for your support with your child’s reading at home and with his/her home-work. As always, we thank you for your help at home and we appreciate your support.

Happy New Year and welcome back!!! Wow, Hard to believe its January 2012 and half the school year is over. We hope you enjoyed the winter break. December was a very busy month full of many activities such as our Holi-day Program and RIF (Reading Is Fun). We hope you enjoyed our winter pres-

First Grade

Second Grade

Page 4 Hounddog News

Welcome back, Third Graders! We hope you had a fantastic holi-day!! Now that Winter break has come to a close, it's time to get down to business! Help us ring in the New Year by setting positive goals for our chil-dren. We will be looking for positive role models to join our Hornsby K9 crew. Behavior logs and Wednes-day folders will continue to go home this semester as usual. On Jan 5th, we are having another family night. On this night, our principal, Mr. Estrada will be discussing important details regarding the upcoming STAAR Test in regards to how we are prepar-

ing the kids at school and ways you can help them at home. In February we will have another round of MOCK testing to see where the students are performing so far so we can help them further with the areas they are still struggling in. To start the new semester we will be start-ing multiplication in math. The stu-dents will have flash cards that they can use to practice their multiplication facts with at home. We will be testing them weekly on their facts 2-12. We are planning to have a celebration party for all the students that pass all of their tests in the allotted time. In reading we will be starting letter writing. The students will be writing a variety of let-ters including, friendly letters and per-

suasive. Ways to practice friendly letter writing at home could be for them to write a letter to a family member or a soldier overseas. January 16 there will be no school so we can observe Martin Luther King’s birthday. Our February fundraiser is coming soon! We will be selling Hound dog Hearts. All money raised will help fund special activities for our Third Graders. Stay tuned for more details. As always, we thank you and appreciate your continued support. Love, The Third Grade Team

guides before the test and getting plenty of sleep. Reading/LA To start off the new year, we will be beginning a poetry unit. 5th graders will be reading, analyzing and writing their own poetry. Stu-dents will be asked to look for symbolism and literary elements in the poems. In grammar, we will finish up our focus on verbs and move into pronouns. As we move toward our second semester, we will be reviewing comprehension skills that we previously learned, such as; compare and contrast,

!Science In science, we have been see-ing some great science fair pro-jects. Please remind your child to continue working hard and to turn in all work on time. The students will present their final projects at the Science Fair on February 2nd. In addition to the science fair, we just started a unit on landforms. Students will be learning how different landforms were created, the rock cycle and plate tecton-ics. Our 2nd benchmark test will be in mid-January. Students should be studying their study

problem/solution, sequence, and making inferences. Please continue to make sure your children are practicing these skills at home by reading every night. Math We are starting measurement in 2012! We will learn about Customary length, ca-pacity, and weight. We will also learn about Metric length, capacity, and mass. The students will learn how to convert from one unit to another as well. The stu-dents really enjoy this unit and don’t be surprised if they are asked to bring in items from home to measure.

Third Grade

Counting! Tenths! Hundredths! During December, 4th graders learned all about fractions and decimals. From fraction picture models, we determined the frac-tions, and then compared and ordered. Students also converted fractions with 10ths or 100ths denominators to deci-mals, and then added, subtracted, and ordered. We a used a ruler to measure length to the nearest ½, ¼, and 1/8 inch. For the next six weeks, fourth grade fo-cuses on measuring and converting meas-urement units. Not only will we continue to measure and estimate length in stan-dard inches, feet, yards, and miles, but we

will also work with metric millimeters, centi-meters, meters, and kilometers. Fourth graders are looking forward to getting out the scales and balances to weigh and find the mass of different objects. Finally, on our list of measurement topics are liquid capacity and volume, and elapsed time. Hornsby-Dunlap Elementary School Science Fair has been postponed until February. During January, 4th graders will decide on a project to complete with a partner. More informa-tion will be coming soon.

We are excited to start a new year in reading and writing. Our young writ-ers have grown so much this school year. We will be re-visiting the ex-pository essay this January as our students research future career choices. We are excited to announce that we will be hosting a writing night on February 2nd! So please mark your calendars. More information will come home soon! Multiples! Skip

Fourth Grade

Fifth Grade

Page 5 Volume 1, Issue 4

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 1 2 3

BACK TO SCHOOL!!!

4 5 -PTA MTG @ 6 pm - STAAR/Curriculum NIGHT @ 6:45pm

6 7

8 9 10 Tutoring begins!!! 3-5p

11 12 13 1st Grade Field Trip

14

15 16 HOLIDAY

17 18 Report Cards Go HOME

19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26

Honor Assemblies

K-2

27

Honor Assemblies

3-5

28

29 30 31 100th DAY PARADE

O

January 2012