February/March 2016
Lynch Pride Newsletter
Lynch Elementary School
Johnnie Crawford III, Principal 1901 71st Street North, St. Petersburg, FL 33702
Julie Jones, Assistant Principal Phone 727-570-3170
The Mission of Lynch Elementary School Community is to prepare every student for college, career and citizenship by
providing quality educational experiences and integrating literacy through all disciplines.
Vision: 100% Student Success
The School Board of Pinellas County, Florida, prohibits any and all forms of discrimination and harassment based on race, color, sex, religion, national origin, marital status, age, sexual orientation or disability in any of its programs, services or activities. www.pinellas.k12.fl.us
February/March 2016
Crawford’s Corner
Johnnie Crawford III, Principal
Greetings Lynch Families,
It’s hard to believe we have left our 100th day of school behind and the last day of school will be here before you know it. In the mean time we have plenty of learning to do. Encourage your child to give 100 percent effort every day. Sometimes students have a difficult time seeing the connection between what they learn and do each day and the impact on their future.
Grades three, four and five will soon take the FSA (Florida Standards Assessment) so if you did not attend our Parent FSA information night, contact your child’s teacher and find out what you can do to help your child succeed. We had about 100 families attend our student led conference night. Thank you for coming out and we will take the feedback you gave us and continue to improve the event because our goal is 100% participation.
You may have heard that our Florida Legislature is considering making recess mandatory beginning with the 2016-17 school year. We hope to provide recess while minimizing the impact on the instructional time. We believe recess is important and we have plans to enhance our current recess experience. If you would like to donate your time, resources or expertise to this endeavor, please contact me.
Finally, I am looking for parents who are willing to serve on our PTO and/or SAC committees for the 2015-16 school year. If you cannot commit to becoming a committee member, please support us by agreeing to be a “one time” volunteer at a school event such as Fall Festival, Spring Fling, etc. We will be sending a volunteer form home in the coming weeks. Thank you for your support.
Arrival/Dismissal
Reminder that student hours are: 8:35 a.m. - 2:35 p.m.
Staff is on duty at 8:05 a.m. to supervise students; before that time you are responsible for your child. Please do not drop off before 8:05 a.m. It is important that students arrive and are in their seats ready to learn by 8:35 a.m.
Dismissal is at 2:35 p.m.
If you need daycare before or after school please contact one of the following resources:
YMCA (housed on campus) – 895-9622
Roberts Recreation Center – 893-7754
Fossil Park (Willis S. Johns) – 893-7756
Artistic Touch
Esta Levine, Art Teacher
I am proud to announce that three of our 4th graders who participated in the Kids Tag Art project have been chosen as award winners. Aliyah Aunspaugh and Carmine Delio from Mrs. Quinlivan’s class and Schyler Peel from Ms. Wilcox’s class are the three honorees.
These students received awards at a ceremony on Thursday, January 21, at the Capitol Theatre, in Clearwater.
A huge thank you to our Lynch PTO! They approved the purchase of a clay slab roller for our Art Department This will make clay preparation faster and more consistent. I’m appreciative of PTO’s support of the Arts.
Jones’ Jots
Julie Jones, Assistant, Principal
Dear Lynch Family,
Testing preparation is in the February air. It is vital that your child is here every day and on time! The days of our students are jam packed with rigorous and engaging instruction!
4th and 5th Grade Writing Assessment: This year, grades 4 and 5 will be taking a writing assessment. The testing date for writing is March 1st.
FSA Reading and Math/FCAT Science schedule:
March 29-30, Grade 3, Reading
March 31-April 1, Grades 3 and 4, Math
April 11-15, Grades 4 and 5, Reading
April 18-22, Grade 5, Math
April 26-27, Grade 5, FCAT Science
SAT-10 This assessment is for our 1st and 2nd graders to see how well they will be prepared for the intermediate grades. Their testing will be from March 9-16.
Please don’t hesitate to contact your child’s teacher or me if you have questions or concerns about the upcoming tests.
Chapman’s Chats
Michael Chapman, Behavior Specialist
Changing Kids’ Behavior Begins By Changing Your Expectations
If you have a child who is doing something you don't like, get real upset about it on a regular basis and sure enough he'll repeat it for you. Too much yelling and too much anger on the part of a parent are destructive for several reasons. First, they move the focus off of the child's misbehavior and on to the parent's own outburst. Second, many children take the emotional eruption of a parent as a challenge to a fight, and there are plenty of kids who love a good fight. Third, parents who over explain and give three, four or five reasons to a child to encourage right behavior are almostsaying"You really don't have to behave unless I can give a number of good arguments as to why you should". This is not discipline, it is begging, and the shrewd enough child will simply take issue with the parent's reasons.
Changing children's behavior often begins by changing parents' expectations of their children. Trying to teach young children appropriate behavior is actually closer to training than it is to teaching "little adults." This means choosing a method and repeating it consistently until the "trainee" does what the trainer wants. Very little of the training involves extensive verbal explanations. Most important, the trainer remains calm, patient and gentle, but also persistent and firm. Keep in mind, children need consistency and repetition in a warm and loving environment. From 1-2-3 Magic Parenting Newsletter by Dr. Thomas Phelan © April 2015 Simple, straightforward parenting advice and helpful tips from Dr. Phelan's award-winning, best-selling parenting programs. To learn more or to subscribe visit 123magic.com/newsletters/
PE Update
Our mileage club is in full swing. Here are the students who have completed running 20 miles through January:
5th grade - Dillon Doyle, Jacob McDonald, Raja Pla, Logan Gardiner, and Arianna Morrow.
4th grade - James Zolg, Patrick Bond, and Andrew Bustillo. Keep up the great work Lynch Lions!!
Title I Tidbits
Denise Malone, MTSS Coach
10 Tips to Help Your Child Write a Story - by Connie McCarthy
Getting young students to write good stories is a challenge. Most youngsters can tell a great story, but are reluctant writers. I tell my students that writing is simply “telling” a story on paper. If you can tell a good story, you should be able to write one.
Parents can help their child become a good writer with simple techniques to practice. Here are my top 10 ways to help your child organize their story writing:
Help him practice telling stories. Practice should include the stories’ beginning, middle, and end. Once he masters that, practice retelling the same stories with more detail. Encourage additional story elements with questions like “Where did that take place?” “Was it daytime?” “How did that make you feel?”
Make writing easily accessible. Have a “writer’s box” with supplies handy. In a shoe box or other small container, keep a small notebook, different types of paper, sharpened pencils, crayons, markers, and other writing enticements.
Stress that the first sentence should be a “hook” that “catches” readers and makes them want know more. “You won’t believe what happened yesterday!” Or, “Have you ever heard a dog count?”
Don’t overuse “and.” When young writers get good thoughts flowing, they often end up with a story that is one long run-on sentence full of ands! Help them eliminate the and to show that each sentence is one complete thought. For example, instead of “Yesterday I went to the zoo and saw all different kinds of animals and my favorite were the monkeys and they were funny and we had a good time.” Help her break it down: Yesterday I went to the zoo. We saw all different kinds of animals. The monkeys were funny! We had a good time.
Help him stick to the topic.
Pay attention to sequence. The order in which things happen helps the reader have a better understanding of the story.
Use a variety of words and synonyms. For example, help her brainstorm different ways to say “big.”
Have him double check for capital letters at the beginning of sentences and proper nouns.
Encourage question and exclamation sentences. Have her go back and check her ending marks. “I took my dog out for a walk. All of a sudden it started to rain! Has that ever happened to you?”
Go for a “punch” ending that ties the ideas together. “My day at the zoo was the best day I’ve ever had!”
With a little practice you can help your great storyteller become a great author!
Media News
Sherri Magill, Media Tech Specialist
Save Those Books!
Do you have any gently used books that your children have outgrown? Our Annual Book Swap will take place in May. Last year, over 950 books were collected and redistributed to students anxious for a good summer read. Students who donate a book will be given a “Golden Ticket” to choose a book first from the swap. We hope to have enough books donated so that every child will receive at least one book to take home for summer. So, as you unclutter those shelves, or see a great buy at a local garage sale, think of us. We will start collecting books after Spring Break. And….thanks in advance for supporting our children’s literacy!
Community Resources
2015-2016 ~ Lynch CalendarMarch 14, Monday / ProDev Day, no school for students
March 17, Thursday / St. Patrick’s Day
March 21-25 / Spring Break – School Closed
March 28, Monday / School reopens
March 30 / Report Cards distributed
May 19, Thursday / Spring Fling, 5-7 p.m.
May 30, Monday / Memorial Day – School Closed
June 7, Tuesday / Last day for students –Report cards distributed
2-1-1 Tampa Bay Cares is a non-profit organization that provides the only free, confidential, multi-lingual, 24-hour dialing code 2-1-1 - for access to community information, services and resources for employment, food for your family, help for an aging parent, addiction prevention programs for teenage children, a place to stay for the night, affordable child care options, support groups and ways of becoming part of the community.
2-1-1 connects you to information about critical health and human services available in the community for every day needs and in times of crisis.2-1-1 provides a one-stop service and enables people to get assistance before they give up by providing someone to talk to and someone to listen.
Call 2-1-1, e-mail ,or visit our services site www.211connects.org. If you experience a rapid busy signal when dialing 2-1-1, please dial 727-210-4211.
Box Tops for Education
Lynch Families please keep those Box Tops coming in. Each one is worth 10¢ for our school. Just a reminder when sending in the Box Tops, please make sure your child’s teacher’s name is written on the Ziploc bag to get credit for their class. Also, check the expiration dates. There will be a monthly incentive for the class in the whole school who has the most Box Tops for December and January combined.
Our top earning classes so far this year have been:Ms. Wilcox’s 4th grade class with 1,097 box tops, Ms. Clingman’s kindergarten class with 320, Ms. RJ’s 1st grade class with 167. The school total so far this year is 8,721 box tops!That’s $872.10 for our school! Great work!! Now let’s try and hit our goal of $2,000.00 for the year!! We can do it! Let’s get clipping Lynch Lions and thank you for your support.
School Psychologist Says…
Eileen Bonilla, Ed.S, LMHC
Teaching Our Children about Empathy!
Everyone, including very young children, canlearn to be kind and compassionate. Kindness cannot be learned over night. It is a gradual learning process that takes place over time with constant reminders and good examples. Harper Collins, the author of What to Expect: the Toddler Years, says it will be years before toddlers can consistently put others’ feelings first. Showing children that other people have feelings is taking a step in the right direction towards developing empathy. Here are some evidence based tips for teaching empathy to children:
· Tip # 1 Address your own child’s needs and teach them how to “bounce back” from distress. Children are more likely to develop a strong sense of empathy when their own emotional needs are being met. When children have secure attachment relationships they are more likely to show sympathy and offer help to others in distress.
· Tip # 2 Be a “mind-minded” parent. Treat your child as an individual with a mind of their own and talk to them about the ways our feelings influence our behavior.
· Tip # 3 Seize everyday opportunities to model and induce sympathetic feelings for other people. By modeling empathic behavior and pointing out situations that call for empathy, parents can generate sympathetic responses in their children.
· Tip # 4 Help children discover what they have in common with other people. Research suggests that children are more likely to feel empathy for individuals who are familiar or more similar to them.
· Tip # 5 Teach children about the hot-cold empathy gap. We can use moments of discomfort as opportunities to induce empathy. As an example, a child makes plans with your child then breaks the plan. This is an opportunity to remind your child of the importance of following through with a commitment and how the other person feels when plans are changed.