Jennifer Locke Principal

Ami Nunn

Assistant Principal

Pikes Peak Elementary 1520 Verde Drive, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80910 * (719) 579-2180 * Fax (719) 579-3565

FEBRUARY EVENTS

February 1—5

National School

Counseling Week

February 1—28

Love the Bus Month

February 4

HSD2 Board Meeting

Work Session

February 14

Valentine’s Day

February 15

No School

President’s Day

February 16

Teacher Work Day

February 17

Parent– Teacher

Conferences

February 18

Professional Development

No Students

February 25

HSD2 Board Meeting

6:00—8:00pm

Dear Pikes Peak Families,

We are more than halfway through the school year! We can hardly believe it.

Here’s to a very exciting and safe winter and spring in 2021 at Pikes Peak Ele-

mentary! We are thrilled to be back in person and hope that everyone stays

safe so that we can keep staying in person, for those families who have cho-

sen this type of learning. For our eLearners, we will continue to be here for you

as well!

Just a reminder that winter is here and it certainly has felt like it lately! If your student(s) is in need of uniforms or a coat, please reach out to Ms. Okal or Ms. Griffith, our amazing counselor and Social Worker, at rokal@hsd2.org or 719-579-3532 or egriffith@hsd2.org or 719-579-3569, re-spectively. They are always available for help! Here is what our school recent-ly looked like and we know that winter weather is a possibility through May here in the Rockies so help us help you keep your students warm and safe! Reach out! Kindergarten Round Up is coming! We are working with the District as well as CPCD for our annual Kindergarten Round Up! It will be socially distanced, but in person if we can, so stay tuned! We love this event and hope we can make it happen with our numbers of COVID cases decreasing in El Paso County. Please let anyone with a kindergartner know that we hope to have information

soon and to please check our website for more infor-mation! Here is a recent kinder class celebrating In-auguration Day! Thank you for your contin-ued support of our stu-dents! Great things are

happening at our school and in our classrooms and online! We cannot wait until you are able to come in person and check it out. Until then, we will see you at outside or online at Pikes Peak Elementary!

February 2021

HSD2 District Corner

Title IX is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on sexual gender in educational pro-grams and activities. Public schools receiving federal funds must comply with Title IX. All students and staff are protected by Title IX legislation. HSD2 has a representative for Title IX concerns: Pamela Aragon Director of Human Capital 1060 Harrison Road Colorado Springs, CO 80905 (719) 579-2023 office The School Choice and Open Enrollment Window is still open for the 2021-2022 school year! If you would like to request that your student attend a school other than the attendance area for your address, please do so immediately. Parents are notified of their status within one week. Choice forms are available on the HSD2 website, at your campus or in the Student Support office at the District Administration Building. Kindergarten Sneak Peek & Registration is the week of March 8 – 12, by signing up for an appointment via the elementary school’s website. Your child must be 5 years old by October 1, 2020, to attend Kindergarten next year. Questions? Call Student Support at 719-579-2554. El Título IX es una ley federal de derechos civiles que prohíbe la discriminación basada en el género de sexo con programas y actividades educativas. Las escuelas públicas que reciben fondos federales deben cumplir con el Título IX. Todos los estudian-tes y el personal están protegidos por la legislación del Título IX. HSD2 tiene una representante para preguntas o preocupacio-nes acerca de este programa federal: Pamela Aragon Director of Human Capital 1060 Harrison Road Colorado Springs, CO 80905 (719) 579-2023 Oficina El periodo de Elección Escolar (School Choice) y de Inscripción Abierta (Open Enrollment) todavía es- tá abierta para el año escolar 2021-2022. Se les informara a los padres si su solicitación es aceptada o no dentro de una semana. Los for-mularios de solicitación están disponibles en el sitio web de HSD2, en su plantel o en la Oficina de Apoyo de Estudiantes

(Student Support Office) en el edificio de administración del Distrito 2 De Harrison.

la Inscripción y un Vistazo al Kinder 8-12 de marzo de 2021 Visite www.hsd2.org para encontrar la escuela de su vecindario. Si desea visitar escuelas adicionales, comuníquese con cada escuela para programar una cita.

As we move into spring semester, we will be partici-pating in state assessments! ACCESS Testing: ACCESS stands for "Assessing Comprehension and Commu-nication in English State-to-State for English Language Learners." It's a test that's given to students from kinder-garten to grade 12, to assess their progress in learning Eng-lish. ACCESS testing will begin here at Pikes Peak on January 28th. While our testing window for ACCESS has been extended through March 12th, we are hoping to get all of our students tested before the end of February. If your student is an eLearner, Mr. Flinn and Mrs. Radle will be reaching out to schedule testing times with you. If you have any questions regarding ACCESS testing, please feel free to reach out Mr. Flinn or Mrs. Radle. Mr. Flinn: jflinn@hsd2.org or Mrs. Radle: kradle@hsd2.org

CMAS Testing: The Colorado Measures of Academic Success (CMAS) are the state's common measurement of students' progress at the end of the school year in English lan-guage arts, math, science and social studies. Students in grades three through five take the CMAS tests in math and English language arts. The window for this assessment opens on March 29th and will end in April 30th. Elearners will have to come in person to take the assessments, and as the testing gets closer, your child's teacher will share that schedule and work with you to schedule times for testing! If you have any questions or concerns about CMAS, please reach out to me, Ms. Nunn. anunn@hsd2.org Being Ready for Testing Here are some simple ways to support your student in being ready for testing:

1. Make sure your child gets a good night’s sleep.

2. If they usually eat at home, make sure they get a good breakfast. We will

have breakfast here, as well.

3. Remain positive and let your child know that it is important for them to do

their best. Unless they are ill, please have them at school each day and on time. We look forward to seeing your students shine and show what they know on these assessments

Counseling News

Is it rude, is it mean, or is it bullying? Because Everything Isn't Bullying As a School, we are committed to preventing and addressing bullying. We want our school to be a safe place for all

our students. In the month of February, counseling lessons will focus on anti-bullying. Students will learn what bully-

ing looks like, what it means to have a conflict, or a mean moment and how to be a positive bystander who helps

stop bullying. We will be using strategies that promote positive school and classroom climate.

You can get involved by talking to your child about the definition of bullying. Encourage them to report bullying to a

caring adult at the school. Give your child a clear message that it is never okay to bully others.

A school wide Choose Kindness Week will also be held on February 22nd-26th with activities to promote respect of

others and random acts of kindness.

Bullying prevention resources

BULLYING AND CYBERBULLYING: https://www.helpguide.org/articles/abuse/bullying-and-cyberbullying.htm STOMP OUT BULLYING: http://www.stompoutbullying.org PACER'S NATIONAL BULLYING PREVENTION CENTER: http://www.pacer.org/bullying/ STOP BULLYING: https://www.stopbullying.gov/

Make sure your child is coming to school everyday so that they are on track to learn and succeed. Here is what the research shows: Attendance matters as early as kindergarten. Studies show that children who miss too many days in kindergarten and first grade have trouble learning to read. A child with too many absences by grade 6 is a good indication that the student is at risk of dropping out. By grade 9, good attendance can predict graduation rates even better than eighth-grade test scores. Good attendance is an important life skill that will help students graduate from high school, college and keep a job.

What you can do: Make school attendance a priority Talk about the importance of showing up to school everyday, make that the expectation. Help your child maintain daily routines, such as finishing homework and getting a good night’s sleep. Try not to schedule dental and medical appointments during the school day. Don’t let your child stay home unless truly sick. Complaints of headaches or stomach aches may be signs of anxiety. Find out if your child feels engaged by his classes and feels safe from bullies and other threats. Make sure he/she is not missing class because of behavioral issues and school discipline policies. If any of these are problems, work with your school. Stay on top of academic progress and seek help from teachers or tutors if necessary. Make sure teachers know how to contact you. Stay on top of your child’s social contacts. Peer pressure can lead to skipping school, while students without many friends can feel isolated. Know the school’s attendance policy – incentives and penalties. Talk to teachers if you notice sudden changes in behavior. These could be tied to something going on at school. Ask for help from school officials, afterschool programs, other parents or other commu-nity agencies if you’re having trouble getting your child to school. Source: attendanceworks.org

Grade Level News

1st Grade News February 5th is the 100th day of school Celebration. February 12th we will celebrate Valentine’s Day. More

information to come. February 12th is also Awards Ceremony. More infor-

mation to come. No School the week of February 15th through February

19th. Parent Conferences February 17th It is important to have students read daily for 20 minutes to

ensure that they improve fluency. Please practice sight words and math facts in addition to

the daily homework. As the weather changes, remember to dress your child in

appropriate clothing and warm jackets. Thank you to parents who have brought in snacks. Snack

donations are always needed for each class for about 20 students.

Please continue to get your child to school every day and on time by 8:15am to eat breakfast. Their attendance makes a great deal of difference on the results of their assessments.

Kinder News

ELA: We will work on the letters K, U, G,

and W. We will continue to learn

sight words including for, have, of,

they, said, want, from, how, water,

these, people, and work. If your student has not yet learned to

recognize all the letters and their sounds, please help them do

so. As we read stories, we will discuss various comprehen-

sion skills including identifying main idea and key details. We

will continue to work on handwriting and sentences.

MATH: We are beginning Module 4. We will compose and decom-pose numbers up to 10 and introduce number bonds and number sentences. Please help your student succeed by en-suring they can write their numbers to 10 and count to 100 by 1s and by 10s. For social studies, we will study wants and needs. In science we will study weather. You can help by reading to your child every night and ensur-ing they do their nightly homework page. They should do this work independently but you can check it and help them under-stand and correct any errors they have made.

Thank you for everything you do!

2nd Grade News ELA: Our class will be focusing on what makes parts of the world different from one another. We will be looking at dif-ferent kinds of land forms, how the surfaces of Earth change with weather and erosion, and the different kinds of people who live on Earth. In comprehension, we will be able to com-pare and contrast different ideas in the text and explore cause and effect. Parent and child activities: Read nonfiction books or arti-cles together and find things to compare or contrast with your own worlds. MATH:

This month in math our students will learn place value strate-gies to fluently add and subtract within 100; they will learn to represent and solve one- and two-step word problems within 100; and they will develop conceptual understanding of addi-tion and subtraction of multi-digit numbers within 200. THINGS TO DO AT HOME: Practice adding and subtracting using pictures, algorithms, blocks, dominos, or even playing cards. They can be simple problems such as 10+8 or 10-8. You can even practice using double digit numbers. Make it fun for you and your student. WRITING:

We will review basic writing conventions and the writing pro-cess, emphasizing the editing and publishing processes. We will be writing about topics that align with the reading curricu-lum: climates, earth changes, and places around the world.

3rd Grade News

ELA: During the month of February, third graders will be working through Unit 4 which surrounds the Big Idea Question: What are different ways to meet challeng-es? We will continue to work on building our reading fluency and practice of the reading standards.

MATH: We are a week away from starting Module 5. In this module, we start fractions. This is such a fun unit! We have switched from Imagine Math to I-Ready. We will continue to use I-Ready everyday for 20 minutes at the end of Math class.

Grade Level News

5th Grade News

Reading with Mrs. Goodwin

Unit 4 of Wonders reading curriculum is “It’s Up To You” Students will read a variety of texts and explore themes of reaching a com-promise, seeking an answer, and a plan of action. We’ll use com-prehension skills and reading strategies of reread, sequence, con-text clues, and making inferences to answer questions of “How Do We Decide What’s Important?” Here are two activities you can do to help your child get ready to read.

Read together a fiction story. Discuss what happens in the sto-ry and who the characters are. Read together a nonfiction book or article. Ask your child what the story is about. Discuss what kinds of photos and images they see. What can they learn from these images? This year your child will learn how to become a confident and fluent reader in the 21st Century. Your interest and enthusiasm will sup-port your child’s efforts.

Social Studies and Writing with Mrs. Goodwin Students will work on writing paragraphs and essays, along with a unit on the American Revolution.

Math with Ms. Bennett We are diving into Module 3 this month, learning all about fractions! We will continue using addition, subtraction, multiplication, and divi-sion when working with “like” and “unlike” fractions. Here are two activities you can do to help your child get ready to read.

Have your child teach you how to work their magic to turn “unlike” units into “like” units. Continue to practice skip counting through 12s

Science and Writing with Ms. Bennett This month we will continue to learn all about stars! We will discuss how stars are formed, and how they move through their various stages. We will also talk about how astronomers are able to know information about stars and planets that are beyond what they are actually able to observe.

4th Grade News

READING: It is wonderful and exciting having our students back in school and still working with our e-learners. Hopefully, con-ditions will keep improving and we will stay together until the end of May. In Social Studies, the 4th graders will com-plete Chapter 5 learning about a changing Colorado. We will study how we grew towards becoming a state, what the Homestead Act means, how farming was done on the plains, building railroads and Denver becoming our capital city. Now that we know about the Gold Rush, we will add the Silver Boom and Bust, and how ranching developed throughout the state. This quarter there will be more writing in the assignments that will be included in their writing grades. Please encourage your child to develop their an-swers and stories by writing longer pieces, organizing their thoughts, and writing with clarity. Proper conventions should continue to increase and improve on all work. At least 15 minutes every night, have your child read some-thing that interests them; a story, novel or magazine and write about what they read. This is a great way to help them develop a habit and love of reading and writing. I wish you and your family a wonderful Valentine’s Day. Continue to stay safe and be healthy.

MATH: Is getting into the new calendar year by building on what they learned in grade 3 about fractions. We will add, sub-tract, and even multiply them by whole numbers! Not sure if we’ll get into dividing fractions by whole numbers, but if students can multiply them, division should come pretty easily! Our Math WIN time changed up a little bit when students returned to the building. In addition to continuing to work with computer assigned I-Ready math practice lessons and Prodigy, students will work in small groups with Mr. Matthewson to review and firm up what we learned last quarter. Whether in person, or an e-Learner, students will work on multiplying up to four digit numbers by single-digit numbers, two digits multiplied by two digits, and dividing up to a four digit number by a single digit number. Working in small groups should help us quickly fine tune what might still be a little unclear. Science lessons began when students came back into the building, too! While online students will only have one day worth of work to do, in person students will get to stretch out the lesson. This will give time to do some hands on work that will extend our understanding of the lessons.

Grade Level

Art News

It is the 3rd quarter of school which means in Art we are

starting Unit 3 in all grades. 5th grade students will be study-

ing portraits through the ages including Ancient Egyptian

and 19th century European. 4th graders will be learning

about and creating Impressionism and Cubism style art. 3rd

Graders will learn how to show their community and culture

in art through celebrations, food, clothing, hairstyles, and

neighborhoods. 2nd graders will learn about community art

from the murals of Keith Haring, as well as learning about

symbols and logos. 1st graders will be storytelling with their

art and “reading” stories in other artists work such as Nor-

man Rockwell and Jacob Law-

rence. Kindergarteners will be

learning about pattern and creat-

ing paper collages similar to Henri

Matisse’s and Eric Carle’s.

Music News

All students will be working with pitch in music, each at their own level. Kindergarten and First grade will be working on the difference between high and low, and up and down. This will also be added knowledge onto the four voices that they learned about last quarter. Second Grade will learn about the staff, steps, skips, and leaps. Third grade will be reviewing the staff and treble clef, and learning the note names of the notes on the staff. Fourth grade will be reviewing what they learned in third grade: the staff, treble clef, notes on the staff, and they will be adding to their knowledge by learning the note names above and below the staff. Fifth grade will be reviewing the staff, treble clef, note names, and they will be beginning to learn scales! They will begin by first learning about the diatonic scale. Lastly, with it be-ing the beginning of the second quarter of the year, Fifth graders will start deciding on their graduation song! It’s been really exciting and we hope to find some-thing that makes them all excited.

CLDE News HEALTH ROOM NEWS:

National Dental Health Month Life Habits begin at home. Make dental health part of your daily routine and share these reminder with your whole family: Brush your teeth at least twice a day with fluoride toothpaste, especially after breakfast and before bedtime. Drinking water after eating also helps to clear your teeth of food particles.

Floss every day. An adult should help children under the age of eight to floss. Older children should be ready to floss on their own.

Limit the number of times you eat snack, espe-cially the sticky ones and long lasting ones.

Visit a dentist regularly for a routine checkup and a cleaning.

Protect your teeth by wearing a mouth guard when playing sports.

We are excited to begin this semester like we do every second semester of the school year with the ACCESS 2.0 State Test. ACCESS 2.0 is the Colorado English Language Assessment used to measure a student's English language acquisition level in the areas of Speaking, Lis-tening, Reading and Writing in English. We have begun pulling our CLDE students into the computer lab for several practice sessions that are focused on getting them familiar with the online testing format. Our hope is that this will ease some of the stress associated with navigating through an online test and allow stu-dents to concentrate on just their language acquisi-tion skills. Help our stu-dents shine like stars!