Simonton
Says...
“ A Community
Committed to
Excellence in Education”
CALENDAR
V O L U M E
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I S S U E
6
F E B R U A R Y
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2 0 1 2
OF
EVENTS
Feb 1st
Paper Drive Begins
Order your Yearbook Now!
Feb 10th
Family Night 6-8 PM
“Minute to Win It”
Feb 14th
Arizona’s Centennial Birthday
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Feb 15th
PTO Meeting 5:30 PM
A Word from Our Principal
Dear Simonton Families,
The month of February is
an exciting time within our
classrooms. Teachers and
students are engaging in
multiple learning activities.
The activities will highlight
our state’s Centennial
birthday, influential
presidents on President’s
Day as well as Valentine’s
Day which provides a time
for us to remember and
acknowledge the special
people in all of our lives.
Throughout the month of
February we will be
hosting a school wide
paper drive. Our school
goal is to collect 100 reams
of copy paper. If the
Simonton community can
collect 100 reams of paper
Mr. Cover and Mrs.
Whitlark will hold a
special school wide
assembly to honor the
support of the community!
child. This is an ongoing
recognition program that
everyone is encouraged to
participate in.
I would like to remind the
Simonton community to
continue to recognize our
amazing staff. At the very
bottom of the last page of
this month’s newsletter you
will find a Stallion Staff
Acknowledgement Form. I
encourage all parents to
recognize the Simonton
staff member who has
made a difference for your
[email protected]
Thank you for sending
your children to Simonton!
You can always reach me
by email
or by phone 480987-5330.
Feb 20th
President’s Day/No School
Feb 21st
Wake Up with Whitlark
8:15 AM Room 319
Feb 27th
Kinder Registration Begins
Every Wed
College Day
Wear your College Gear
Counselor’s Corner
Pro-Active
Parenting
One aspect of
parenting that everyone can agree is
that it requires a lot of energy. Children’s needs are diverse and change
with age. It requires skills that range
from communication to discipline to
support. Beyond that our efforts often
see little immediate effect so parenting requires a 24 hours a day, seven
days a week commitment. Often we
defeat ourselves with an inconsistent
approach. Here are a few ideas that
can assist with the toughest job you
will ever have.
Build character and develop skills
in your child. Watch television
programs with them and discuss what
they would do in the situation or have
they ever seen anything like that
happen, etc…
Build a strong relationship with your
child. Find time to do activities
together, ex. doing chores together,
eating dinner together, volunteering,
family game night.
Talk persuasively about risks
they could face. Trying to ignore
potential dangers leaves them
at risk. Help them come up with
strategies they could use in
risky/dangerous situations.
Filter out negative influences in your
child’s life. Know their friends and
monitor what they spend time doing.
Video games and television programs
rarely role model good behavior.
Make it easier for them to spend time
with friends or engage in activities
that you approve of.
Mr. Grafing or “Mr. G.”
School Counselor, M.C., N.C.C.
[email protected]
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2
Kindergarten News
Go Team!
Wear your
College Gear
on Wednesdays!
Love is in the kinder
air! Our students are
loving little books!
They are loving sight
words and loving
counting. Teachers
and parents are loving
how they are all
learning. In January we
had a ball celebrating
the 100th day of school.
We had a successful
Read to Kids Day.
Thank you parents for
helping us earn 50
new books for our
classrooms. February
is full of hearts,
friends and fun!
Happy Valentine’s
Day,
Mrs. King and
Mrs. Wright
Title I - Notice to Parents: Right to
Review Teacher Qualifications
As a parent of a student at Simonton
Elementary, you have the right to know
the professional qualifications of the
classroom teachers who instruct your
child. Federal law allows you to ask for
certain information about your child’s
classroom teacher and requires us to
provide you this information if you ask
for it.
Specifically, you have the right to ask
for the following information about each
of your child’s classroom teachers:
Whether the AZ Department of
Education has licensed or
qualified the teacher for the
grades and subjects he or
she teaches.
The teacher’s college major;
whether the teacher has any
advanced degrees and, if so,
the subject of the degrees.
Whether any teachers’ aides or
paraprofessionals provide
services to your child
and, if they do, their
qualifications.
1st Grade News
Health
Office
News
February is Dental
Health Month
A Dental Hygienist
will be coming
to speak to
K thru 3rd Grade
Information will
be sent home.
It is also time for
Blood Pressure
Screening for
our 5th Graders
SIMONTON
“The new year is off
to a fantastic start. Our
students have already
learned so much. We
celebrated the 100th day
of school together doing
some fun activities.
We finished DIBELS
testing. Please make sure
they continue practicing
their reading fluency in
their homework
packets. Their reading
fluency goal for the end
of the year is 47 words
per minute. We are
working on long vowels
and silent /e/ and time
to the hour and half hour.
Please help them to make
sure they are continuing
to work on complete
sentences including
capitals at the beginning
and punctuation marks at
the end. Good job 1st
graders! Keep up the
good work!!” 
From Your 1st Grade
Teachers!
2nd Grade News
2nd grade will be very
busy in February. We
will be learning about
time, geometry and
measurement. We will
begin a 4 week long unit on
the weather. We will write
letters to the president and
also write biographies about
our best friends. We will
SAYS...
learn the difference between
adjectives, verbs, and
homophones and
homonyms. Our spelling
words will consist of
prefixes, suffixes,
contractions and vowel
digraphs. We will be able
to tell you all about fact/
fiction, plot, and compare/
contrast. 2nd grade is
excited for our field trip
coming up in
March!
VOLUME
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ISSUE
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PAGE
3
3rd Grade News
The third grade students
have finished DIBELS
testing. They did a wonderful
job on their tests! The students
will continue to read weekly
stories and learn new
vocabulary words and spelling
words. We recently read a
Native American tale and a
West African tale. Ask your
student how coyote placed the
stars or why mosquitoes buzz in
people’s ears! In math this
month, we will be focusing on
fractions and measurement. The
students will learn how to
compare and order fractions and
put them in order on a number
line. They will also learn how
to add and subtract fractions
with like denominators. We
will be learning about
measurement in inches, feet,
yards, and miles . We will
practice measuring to the
nearest ½-inch and ¼-inch. We
will be celebrating Valentine’s
Day this month. Watch for more
details on Valentine’s Day. As
AIMS testing approaches,
please continue to work with
your student to make sure that
they have memorized their
multiplication and division
facts. These concepts are so
important for your child to
understand.
“Anything is
possible.
Anything
January’s
Student of the Month
Katrina Pellum
3rd Grade
Congratulations!
can be.”
― Shel Silverstein
4th Grade News
3rd quarter has gotten off
to a great start! We finished
up geometry and are now
learning all about fractions.
Please continue to practice
multiplication and division
facts at home. Learning their
facts will help your student
succeed for years to come.
We have moved to science
for the third quarter, and will
be working on inventions/
inventors, magnets, and
electricity. In reading we
will continue to work on
our stories each week along
with reading skills.
Language/Writing will be
spent working on sentence/
paragraph structure and parts
of speech. On another note,
we are looking into several
different options for a field
trip in the spring, please be
on the lookout for more
information from your
child’s classroom teacher.
Thank you for your support
and all that you do!
5th Grade News
Congratulations to Angel
Madera for winning the
district spelling bee!!!!
Don’t forget that if you are
participating in the Battle of the Books
to make sure you are reading those
books. The 3rd battle is March 27th.
Math: We will be working on Area of
squares, rectangles, triangles, and
parallelograms. We will be learning
about Perimeter of different
polygons. Finally we will be finishing
with converting feet, inches, meters, and
centimeters.
math. We will also be working on
writing excellent conclusions
to stories.
Reading: We are going to be reading
“Frindle” by Andrew Clements and
“The Fun They Had” by Isaac
Asimov. This is the conclusion of
Theme 5. We will then move to Theme
6 which is made up of nonfiction stories.
Social Studies: We are
learning about how the
people settled New
England. We will also learn
about what their life was like
and what jobs they had while
living there.
Writing: We are going to be working on
writing a story about why we chose
rooms in our mansions that we drew for
Order your
Yearbook
now for $16.00
Price goes up
on February
13th to $17.00
Kathryn Sue
Simonton
Elementary
40300 N Simonton Blvd.
San Tan Valley, AZ 85140
Phone: 480-987-5330
Attendance Line: 480-987-5331
Questions or Comments on the Newsletter
E-mail: [email protected]
“Stampede To Success”
PTO News
It seems like the year is just flying by.
Simonton PTO would like to thank everyone for
the continued support. Our school's efforts in
collecting Box Tops brought an $1100 check to
our school! Also, we received a $500 check from
Fry's for our school community's shopping link
to the VIP card. These are huge successes for
Simonton...thank you! PTO is excited about our
upcoming events. February 10th we will be
hosting a "Minute to Win It" game night from
6:00-8:00. The cookie dough sale, our spring
fundraiser, kicks off on February 15th. After
Spring Break, look for information on our next
Bingo night, another Subway Spirit Day, the
Spring Family Dance and a night at the
Diamondbacks game! If you have any questions,
comments or would like to volunteer, please
contact PTO. Thank you!
[email protected]
Simonton Staff Acknowledgement Form
Has a Simonton staff member gone above and beyond for you or your child? We would love to hear about it!
Please share your appreciation for a Simonton staff member and turn it in to the front office.
I would like to recognize____________________________________________for_________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
Has a Simonton staff member gone above and beyond for you or your child? We would love to hear about it!
Please share your appreciation for a Simonton staff member and turn it in to the front office.
I would like to recognize____________________________________________for_________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________