Upcoming Events

Please mark your calendars for several events coming up in the next two weeks. We have a group of students participating in the Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl at the Board of Education office on Friday, January 29. These students have been working very hard preparing for this event by reading a number of books. We want to wish them luck as they represent our school.


We will be having a Yard Sale on Saturday, January 30, in the cafeteria. This is an opportunity to find some great deals on many different items. We are also collecting donations. It is a great chance for you to clean out your closets. All proceeds will go toward our Relay for Life team.

Monday, February 1, will be the beginning of our annual cookie dough sale. This is a great chance to help our school raise some funds for educational items for the children. The children can also win some great prizes by selling the cookie dough. We hope that this is very successful this year.

Class and individual portraits will be taken on Wednesday, February 3. Since the fall portraits were taken in regular clothing, we are asking the children to wear their uniforms for this set of pictures.

Podcasting

    

     We began a new way of presenting the morning video on Thursday, January 21, 2010. Rather than doing a live broadcast, the morning news is now taped and distributed using a podcast. This allows students to view the news on the SMART Board rather than the TV. This makes the news easier to see and the students become more attentive. This is the first time we have used podcasting as a learning tool, but we hope to make great use of it as we proceed through the school year. Podcasting can allow the teacher to replay the video if any key information was missed. It will also allow us to film tutorials, which the children will be able to view at home. We have high hopes of turning this bit of technology into an excellent learning tool.

ABC Awards

Thursday, January 21, 2010, is the date for the ABC Awards ceremony to recognize students from the second grading period.  Awards will be given in three areas:
     A - Academics - Students who performed very well on their report cards
     B - Behavior - Students who have had excellent behavior throughout the grading period
     C - Change - Students who have had a positive change in either behavior or grades in the grading period
Teachers can nominate up to two children in each of the three areas.  We only believe in recognizing those children who have truely earned the awards, which means if a teacher does not feel any child has met the criteria for the award, they will give no nominations.   For this reason, parents can be certain that if their child receives an award, it is well deserved. 
Program times are as follows:
     8:30 a.m. - 2nd and 4th grades
     9:00 a.m. - 3rd and 5th grades
     9:30 a.m. - Kindergarten and 1st grade
Invitations were sent home on Tuesday, January 19, 2010.

Web Page Training

     Our teachers had an opportunity to learn a new program for creating web pages over the last two days.  This user-friendly program will help our teachers use web pages as a teaching tool.  Our students should also be able to create web pages as a way of learning social studies and science content. 

Inspirational Speaker

       Dr. Adolf Brown III spoke with all stakeholder groups on Tuesday, January 12.  He gave an important message to our students as he stressed the importance of being responsible and taking pride in your accomplishments.  He talked about how our actions and appearance can affect what we do and how we are perceived.  With the teachers, Dr. Brown spoke about the importance of making sure all students understand they are important.  We have to look past their problems and work to help each one understand they are important and can be successful.  In his talk with the parents, Dr. Brown emphasized that they need to expect their children to behave in class and do their best work.  He talked about how it is the parents' responsibility to support the school and its teachers.  He emphasized how it takes a community to raise a child. 
     I hope everyone enjoyed and learned from Dr. Brown's talks.  We appreciate his message and the time he took to speak to each of our stakeholder groups. 

Special Visitor at Frank Long Elementary

We are very pleased to have Dr. Adolf Brown visiting our school today to educate and entertain our students, staff, and parents.  Dr. Brown goes throughout the country visiting schools as he strives to motivate all stakeholders to do their best.  He will address the students in an assembly program at 1:00 p.m.  He is speaking to the faculty beginning at 3:00 p.m.  Finally, he will do a sessions for parents at 6:00 p.m.  The evening presentation will begin with a free turkey dinner beginning at 5:15 p.m.  We will then be entertained by Dr. Brown.  We also have a group of second grade students giving a musical program.  It promises to be a fun, informative, and entertaining evening. 

Book Week

     Spending time reading is a very important part of the instructional process.  We continually remind our students that in order to become better reader they must spend time reading.  We encourage our students to read at home every evening.   Depending on the grade level, this time should be between 15 and 30 minutes.
     To further reinforce the importance of reading, we will be celebrating Children's Book Week beginning on November 16, 2009.  We will have a series of fun, reading related activities that encourage children to read.  You can get more information about the upcoming events by going to the web site listed below.

http://flebooknook.blogspot.com/