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Moorefield Station Elementary School

22325 Mooreview Parkway

Ashburn, VA 20148

Principal: Karen D. Roche

Assistant Principal: Colleen Flaherty

Administrative Dean: Joe Dolansky

November 2016

A NOTE FROM THE ADMINISTRATION:

Dear Families:

The first marking period is coming to an end. I hope you

have had an opportunity to meet with your child’s teacher to

discuss his/her progress and plan for the upcoming quarter.

Regular communication is the key to a successful home and

school connection. Studies show that consistent

communication can only help to improve your child’s

educational program.

Teachers will be using the teacher workdays to finish

conducting conferences, completing report cards, and

planning for the upcoming second quarter.

Please remember that the more challenging work starts in

November, so attendance is very important. When students

are present in class and punctual, they get the important

material covered by their teacher. Please make every effort

to have your child in school each and every day.

Test scores are one way to determine Accreditation and

Adequate Yearly Progress; attendance rates are also a

factor, so being in school ready to learn is a key to success.

November 14th-18th is American Education Week. I hope you

will mark your calendar and visit your child’s class to see all

the great activities that he/she is involved in on a daily basis.

Information on specific grade level activities can be found

on our website.

The School Board is again visiting boundary issues that will

impact the middle and high schools in the Dulles North and

South areas. Please consider attending information sessions

so you can have input on the upcoming changes. A list of

upcoming public hearings can be found in this newsletter on

page 7.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns please

don’t hesitate to contact me.

Karen D. Roche

Principal

Important Events for October:

Nov 1 – Last Session of Readers Are Leaders, 8am

Nov 2 – Book Fair Family Night, 4pm-7pm

Nov 4 – End of Grading Period 1

Nov 4 – Food Drive Ends

Nov 6 – Daylight Savings Time, Move Clock Back 1 hr

Nov 7-8 – Student Holiday, Teacher Word Day

Nov 8 – Election Day

Nov 9 – Moveable Monday

Nov 12 – Brambleton Fun Run

Nov 14-18 – American Education Week

*See schedule on pg 8

Nov 14 – 4th Gr FLE, Day 1

Nov 15 – 1st Gr AEW Activity, 9:30am

Nov 15 – 5th Gr FLE, Day 1

Nov 16 – 4th Gr FLE, Day 2

Nov 16 – Report Cards Sent Home

Nov 16 – Math Olympiad, 6:30pm

Nov 17 – 5th Gr FLE, Day 2

Nov 17 – Jamestown Yorktown Foundation visits 2nd Gr

Nov 17 – Kdg AEW Activity, 1pm

Nov 17 – PTO Meeting, 6:30pm

Nov 17 – 3rd Gr Musical, 6:30pm

Nov 18 – 5th Gr FLE, Day 3

Nov 23-25 – Thanksgiving Holiday, No School

Nov 30-Dec 1 – 2nd Gr Field Trip

A MEMO FROM MUSIC:

For the month of November, third grade students will be

featured in their grade level music program entitled “Once

upon a Folk Tale” on Thursday, November 17th at 6:30PM.

There will also be a daytime dress rehearsal (9:00am) of this

program. Specific information regarding costumes/special

parts has been sent home. If your child has been given a

speaking part, please encourage them to work on

memorizing it at home. Encourage all third grade students to

sing at home!

Fourth and fifth grade students continue to work on soprano

recorder. Encourage your child to practice at home when

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possible. Remember that if they come to music without their

recorder, an “Oops” email will be sent to you on the same

day. Three of these each quarter will impact their grade. A

special thanks goes out to the Fourth graders who have both

a recorder at home, and at school. Because of this foresight,

we are noticing a significant improvement in the recorder

learning process.

Winter Chorus continues rehearsing for the concert on

Thursday, December 15th at 6:30PM. Lyrics to all the chorus

songs have been posted on the music page of the school

website, which is updated regularly to keep you informed of

upcoming musical events during the school year.

This quarter, all music students will be learning about the

composer Georges Bizet. Encourage your child to share

what we are learning and maybe find some time to listen to

some of his music together! If you’d like to find out more

about what we are doing in class, ask your child!

SNIPPETS FROM SEARCH:

During the month of November, our SEARCH lessons will

focus on reasoning thinking. Kindergarten students will be

introduced to dominoes. We will discuss and practice the

rule for connecting dominoes as well as talk about their

features (including the real name for the dots). Students in

first grade will practice spatial reasoning as they work

cooperatively to solve square puzzles. Second grade

students will review the term “attributes” and use their

Perceiving and Reasoning Thinking Keys to play the Turkey

Baffler game. In third grade, students will rely on teamwork

and strong mathematical reasoning to figure out the mystery

number in our Hundred Chart Hunts lesson. Fourth grade

students will be introduced to the Sudoku-like game of

KenKen. November might be getting colder, but our brains

are just starting to heat up!

Please check my website for the most updated information

on LCPS Gifted services, eligibility criteria, and important

dates and deadlines. The site is located on our school page

under Specialists.

ART E-FACTS:

Students in grades first through fifth have started new

lessons focusing on Elements of Art. Mrs. Urbaniak and Mrs.

Pederson’s classes are learning about overlapping using

apples as the subject. While, first grade is completing a

lesson Piet Mondrian using vertical and horizontal lines. The

second grade class is reviewing warm and cool colors in a

tree silhouette drawing. They will learn how to blend oil

pastels in the negative space of the tree. The third graders

are currently reviewing facial proportions and combining

paper folding techniques for a crazy hair lesson. The fourth

grade classes are reviewing positive and negative space

while creating a notan design. Lastly, the fifth graders are

extending their understanding of positive and negative

space while creating symmetrical face collages.

Also throughout the month of November, the students will

continue using the elements of design in their artwork, along

with learning new “art words.” We will be learning about

new artists and works of art. In addition, we will be

integrating art with cultures learned in the classroom.

BITS AND BYTES FROM THE LAB: This month we have been very busy. Students in grades K-2

students have been working on their reading skills using the

program Raz Kids. Raz kids is an online guided reading

program with interactive ebooks, downloadable books, and

reading quizzes. We are also in full swing working towards

earning our school Digital Citizenship certification. In the

computer lab, students are learning about internet safety

and privacy, safe searching and cyberbullying. We hope to

earn our certification by December. Finally in grades 3-5,

we are excited to announce we have started 3D printing

projects as well as lessons incorporating our Minecraft

server. Students will be challenged to complete a Minecraft

corn maze at the end of this month as a fun fall activity.

LINK TO THE LIBRARY:

Please visit the Library page on our school’s website. You’ll

find important information regarding general procedures

and circulation policies for the library as well as what

students are learning during weekly library lessons.

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WATER, STAINS, AND GOO, OH MY!

Already this school year, we have had 10 library books

damaged due to water bottles spilling in the backpack or to

food stains/residue. Please help us by reminding your

children to be careful with their books. Every class has

already had lessons on how to care for books this year. We

appreciate your help and support as we do not want to have

any damaged books. Books that are damaged, such as

these, beyond repair have to be paid for by students so that

we can replace them in our collection.

LOST or DAMAGED library books can be paid for online

(visit the MSE website) or by check payable to MSE.

Volunteers

Thanks to our current parent volunteers who have been

helping students find books during check-out time and

helping shelve books. We are so grateful to have you! We

can always use helping hands! Please contact Mrs. Jacobson

with your availability – whether on a regular basis or just

once in a while – we are happy to have you any time.

Did you know?

*Our school library has 1,413 ebooks! And you can access

these for free! Go to mackinvia.com. Students login with

the same username and password as they do on devices at

school.

*LCPS subscribes to many online databases –

encyclopedias and search engines – all of which can be

accessed from anywhere! These include great alternatives

to searching other popular search engines that may be

difficult for elementary students to decipher. Login

information will be sent home separately.

*Visit the Library webpage for links to these great

resources! All can be found by clicking on “Alexandria

(Library Catalog).” You will find access to the library

catalog, online resources and ebooks on that page. There

are separate links to each as well on the Library webpage.

BOOK FAIR

Our first BOOK FAIR is happening now!!! This is the

library’s largest fundraiser! We earn a percentage of total

sales in the form of books and cash. This year, we are going

to start putting the cash toward purchasing a cart for the

Chromebooks in the library. (Thanks to successful book

fairs over the past years, we were able to purchase 30

Chromebooks for library lessons!) The book fair is most

successful with the help of many, many volunteers. Please

consider volunteering – even if it’s just one day for a couple

of hours. We need help to set up and pack up the fair. We

need help during the school day – helping students browse

the fair (writing wish lists) and shop at the fair (finding

books, counting money) as well as with our evening event.

All volunteers get 10% off their book fair purchases! Please

sign up here:

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0b4babaf23a13-

book1

Book Fair Schedule:

October 28: Set-Up 8:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. and then Browsing

for students 12:00 – 2:30 p.m.

October 31: Browsing for students 8:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.

November 1: Open for sales 8:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

November 2: Open for sales 8:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. and

Family Night 4:00 – 7:00 p.m.

November 3: Open for sales 8:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

November 4: Open for sales 8:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

November 7: Pack-Up 8:00 a.m.

COUNSELOR’S CORNER:

Classroom Guidance

During October our classroom guidance lessons deal with

Bullying Prevention. Each class learns/reviews “Stop, Walk,

and Talk”, our LCPS bullying prevention program.

Stop: Ask the person to stop

Walk: Walk away.

Talk: Talk to an adult you trust.

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We enrich our lessons with a variety of literature including

Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns about Bullies, The Band-Aid

Chicken, The Secret Bully, and Trouble Talk.

Each year, at Moorefield Station, we develop a theme for

encourage students to stand up to bullying. This year’s

theme is “Kindness Matters; Sharks Don’t Bully. Students

and faculty encouraged each other to be “Upstanders” and

stand up to bullying by wearing Orange on Thursday,

October 13th. Research shows that the most effective

method of bully prevention is teaching students to stand up

for one another. During the last two weeks on October,

students will have the opportunity to sign a grade level

poster to pledge to be an “Upstander”.

Small Groups

The school counselors recently began The New Sharks small

groups at each grade level for students new to Moorefield

Station. The Lemonade Club Group and the Changes group

will begin shortly. Please contact the school counselor if you

think that your child would benefit from participating in the

small groups. The school counselor have small groups

throughout the school year on a variety of topics including

social skills, friendship, self-esteem and dealing with worry

and stress.

Fifth Grade Service Club

The fifth grade service club is sponsoring a food drive

beginning October 24th and running through November 4th.

The food collected with be equally distributed to Dulles

Food Pantry and LINK. Both of these nonprofit organizations

serve the needs of families in the Moorefield Station

Community. The students decided to have a contest

between the grades to see who collects the most food. Let’s

see who will be the winner!

GYM SHORTS:

During the upcoming months we will continue to enhance

our components of fitness through different games and

activities. In the month of November, we will be practicing

different rolling games. We will also be working on our

cardiorespiratory endurance and coordination with our

dance unit. Our main health focus for this quarter will

Nutrition.

Additionally, our Running Club will continue until November

1, 2016. At this point, we will take a break until the spring.

Dates will be posted later on the PE website. We have had a

great turn out this fall; most days have had over 80 runners.

Make sure to check out some of the great local races that our

area has to offer. Also, make sure that your student has

appropriate shoes on their PE days. And as the weather

changes, please no boots in the gym!

READING MATTERS:

Moorefield Sharks are taking responsibility for “Building

Their Reading Lives.” We want all students to become avid

readers and realize that books can change their lives.

Students have been working on increasing stamina, fluency

and volume of books. In reading partnerships, students are

learning to retell and share ideas generated by the text.

Here are some tips from good readers. See if you can add to

the list of what good readers do every day.

GOOD READERS…

Choose books we love

Take charge of reading

Read “Just Right” books

Read longer & stronger

Make mental movies

Retell what just happened

Remember character’s names & setting

Notice when confused

Open ourselves to books

SAFETY FIRST:

All visitors to schools will be required to verify their

identification with school personnel prior to entry;

regardless of the frequency they may visit an individual

school.

To Request Entry:

Have Photo Identification Ready

Stand on the yellow footprints

Push and release button

Present photo id when asked

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Please go directly to the office to sign in and obtain

a visitor’s pass

All exterior doors will be closed and locked at the beginning

of school and remain so until students are released for the

day. Using the AIPHONE will be the only way visitors will be

admitted to the school.

These security practices are intended to assure parents,

students and staff of the school’s commitment to safety and

security, balancing both the needs of the public with

reasonable security provisions.

VOLUNTEER NOTICE:

Don’t forget that Loudoun County has a policy that all

volunteers must submit a “volunteer form” to the

elementary. If you are planning on volunteering at

Moorefield Station, please submit this form to our office staff.

A copy of the form can be found on our school’s website on

the right side bar.

HEALTH ROOM NEWS:

A HUGE ROUND of APPLAUSE for Amanda Karthik, Neeti

Sharma , Lavanya Thelu, Maria Nauert, Karen Miller, Quinn

Benedict, Melissa Hancock, Shannon Bradely, Rashmi Joshi,

and John Stuart. These wonderful volunteers helped with the

Vision and Hearing Screenings for all Kindergarteners, third

graders and students new to LCPS. We really appreciated all

their efforts to make the screening run so smoothly.

>Students are not permitted to transport any medicine to or

from school, including: prescription medications or over-

the-counter medications (cough drops, Benadryl, Motrin,

Advil, etc.) A parent /guardian must bring medication to the

health office specialist, or designee and fill out the

Medication Administration Authorization form.

>Students with the following medical concerns: had surgery,

seen in the ER, has a fracture, has a cast or diagnosed with a

concussion, need a written release, signed by a physician,

clearing him/her to return to school. The clearance should

include: 1/ Return to School Release Date; 2/ Any restrictions

and the duration of the restrictions.

Spills, bathroom accidents and mud happen to students of all

ages, from PK to 5th grade. Please put a change of clothes in

your child’s backpack- just in case it is needed!

>This year at MSE, there are children who have weakened

immune systems. In an effort to provide a healthy

environment for these students (and all students) we will

need your help. Students who have fevers should be kept

home until fever free for 24 hours without the use of

medication. Students who do not feel well should stay home.

>When students come to school ill, they not only are unable

to participate fully in class, but they may also infect other

students with their illness.

>If your child is ill because of a contagious disease such as

flu, strep, chicken pox, measles, etc. Note the reason for the

absence when you call the absentee call-line or absentee

email. This will allow the students’ parents to take measures

to protect their child and follow up with their child’s

physician.

>When requesting a copy of your child’s School Entrance

Health Form, please email jeni.stuart@lcps.com and include

your child’s name, grade and teacher. Allow a 24 hour turn-

around. The form will be sent home with your child.

“Sick Day Guidelines: Making the Right

Call When Your Child Has a Cold”

Should I keep my child home or send him or her to

school?

Consider keeping your child home if he or she:

• Has a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher

• Has been vomiting

• Has symptoms that prevent him or her from participating in

school, such as:

− Excessive tiredness or lack of appetite

− Productive coughing, sneezing

− Headache, body aches, earache

− Sore throat

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A minor sore throat is usually not a problem, but a severe sore

throat could be strep throat even if there is no fever. Other

symptoms of strep throat in children are headache and

stomach upset. Contact your pediatrician as your child needs a

special test to determine if it is strep throat.

Keep your child home until his or her fever has been gone

for 24 hours without medication. Colds can be contagious

for at least 48 hours. Returning to school too soon may slow

the recovery process and expose others unnecessarily to

illness.

Does my child have the flu?

• The flu is serious! Call your pediatrician at the first sign of

flu symptoms, which typically come on suddenly, including:

− High fever

− Chills

− Head ache, body aches, ear ache

− Nausea, vomiting

− Dry cough

If you’re unsure about the best way to treat your child’s cold

or flu, ask your school nurse, doctor, pharmacist, or other

healthcare provider.

How do I make my child feel better?

• Make sure your child gets plenty of rest and put limits on

TV watching.

• Encourage fluids; like water, soup, juice, and ice.

• Help your child relax by reading him a story and giving

him plenty of TLC.

• Consider using a cool humidifier.

• When used as directed, children’s cough and cold

medicines help relieve cough and cold symptoms while

your child is getting better. Read and follow the directions

carefully and give the exact recommended dose for the

child’s age. Do not use over-the-counter cough and cold

medications for children under the age of four in the United

States.

How can I prevent my child from getting a cold?

• Teach your child to wash his or her hands frequently using

plenty of soap and warm water. Proper hand-washing should

take about 20 seconds or the time it takes to sing “Happy

Birthday” twice.

• Teach your child to cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue

or their sleeve.

• Keep the child’s environment tobacco free.

• Try to minimize the time your child spends with other

children who have cough or cold symptoms.

• Pack easy-to-use products like disinfecting wipes and hand

sanitizers in your child’s backpack to use when he or she is

at school.

• Keep an annual well-child exam to follow changes in your

child’s health.

• Keep all of your child’s immunizations up-to-date (The

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines now

recommend a flu vaccine for most children aged 6 months

up to their 19th birthday).

• Serve a balanced diet with lots of fruits and vegetables.

Giving a daily vitamin may be recommended by your

pediatrician.

• After your child is feeling better, clean all surfaces; wash

the bedding and air out the room.

• Keep surfaces like door knobs, phones, remote controls,

toys, and keyboards clean.

• Always make sure to consult your doctor or school clinic

aid if you have any questions.

Source: National Association of School Nurses

Note: If due to a disability you need

assistance to enable you to

participate meaningfully in a school

meeting or event, please contact

the school office (571-252-2380) at

least five working days prior to the

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DAY CARE RIDERS:

If you are a parent with children attending daycare facilities

at the end of each day, it is important that you communicate

with them if your child is absent on a particular day or that

you have picked your child up early from school.

SPEED LIMIT ON SCHOOL GROUNDS:

We are concerned for the safety of your child at school. If

you are on our grounds, please pay attention to your speed

while driving on our campus. We have noticed adults going

over the state required speed of 25 MPH. Please help us

keep your children safe!

Tick-Tock…Time to

Turn Back the Clock!

Daylight Savings Time is on

Sunday, November 6th!

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Date of

Event

Time of

Event Name of Activity

11/15/2016 8:15 AM

Math Games -

Second Grade

11/15/2016 9:30 AM

"Turkey Tunes" -

First Grade Musical

11/15/2016 11:30 AM Fifth Grade Activity

11/17/2016 1:00 PM

Mayflower Boat

STEM Activity - Full

Day Kindergarten

11/17/2016 1:00 PM

"Caine's Arcade" -

Fourth Grade

11/17/2016

9:00 AM

and 6:30 PM

"Once Upon a Folk

Tale" - Third Grade

Musical

Transportation Changes: If your child’s dismissal plans have changed during the school day, please provide us with the following-

Note to teacher preferred OR phone call to the front office BEFORE 2:00pm

Do NOT email as teacher or secretaries may be absent

JOIN US FOR AMERICAN EDUCATION WEEK:

“ ”

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A great time had by all!!! We

want to thank the PTO,

parents, teachers, and students

for participating in this “FUN-

raising” event! With everyone’s

help we raised funds to

purchase more technology!

Help our school…

Support our Parent Teacher Organization (PTO). Meetings

are held monthly in our library.

The November meeting will be held on

Thursday, November 17th at 6:30pm.

Your participation can make a difference!!!

Our Fifth Grade is hosting a FOOD

DRIVE until Nov 4! Help them by

cleaning out your cabinets to

provide (unexpired) canned

food and nonperishables!

Report Card Time!

Teachers are completing report cards and you will be seeing them in

your child’s backpack on Wednesday, November 16th!