Important Calendar Change Information

The 2007-08 School Year Will End One Day Early for Goddard School District students! The last day of school for students for the 2007-08 school year will be Wednesday, May 21. This is a change from the school calendar issued last summer. There will be no school for students on May 22.

ATTENTION 4TH GRADE PARENTS!!!

You are invited to attend the next meeting of the Challenger/Discovery PTO. Come find out what we are up to. We are looking for volunteers of all types. We also have some openings for officers for next year. Please come visit with us on Wednesday, May 14, in the Discovery/Challenger Library, at 3:00 pm. If you can't make it, but would still like to volunteer, please contact PTO President Jennifer Smoot at 706-2331, 794-7280, or jsmoot@midwestroofingservices.com. Hope to see you there!

Special Note to Parents:

When dropping students off in the morning on the west side of the building (circle drive), be advised that the doors will close at 8:50. This allows our teachers to be in their classrooms by the time students arrive for class.

If you are dropping off your child at 8:50-8:55, please bring your child to the front doors so they can check in through the office. Students will be counted tardy after 8:55 and will need a parent to sign them in.

Thank you for letting us be such a large part of your child’s life. It’s been a wonderful
year so far and will only get better.

It is the end of April already? Not much longer and school will be out for the summer! YAHOO!

We are still working hard to finish our year off strongly. We have been working on the letters Y, Q, V, and U. We have been learning how to do sign language for each letter, learning uppercase and lowercase, as well as the sounds that each letter makes. For the remainder year, we will just refresh our memory of the letters we have already learned. Keep working with your children at home, and don’t forget to work with them over the summer to keep their skills fresh for next year.

We have had the first hatching of our Praying Mantis and, boy, oh boy, it has been exciting! Our caterpillars are on their way to the next stage, growing bigger and bigger each day. Soon we will have Painted Lady Finger Butterflies to release into the wild. It is very interesting to the children to see nature at its best.

Plans are official for our zoo field trip. Thank you so much for being willing to help transport your children. That helps out more than you know. Remember these dates:
                  AM - May 8 (No School for PM PRE-K students)
                  PM - May 9 (No School for AM PRE-K students)
**Remember to pack your child a disposable nonperishable lunch. Reminders will come home closer to time.

We are planning to have a Pre-K graduation ceremony at the end of the year, but a date has not been confirmed as yet. We will send more information about this at a later time.

It was great to see lots of parents at the Kindergarten Pre-Registration. The children are so excited to go onto Kindergarten next year. If you have not signed up for a kindergarten screening time, please do so as soon as possible. If you are unsure which school your child is zoned for, you may call the District Office at 794-4000 to find out. Otherwise, call your zoned school to schedule a time.  
       Explorer 794-4181                     Oak Street 794-4200
       Clark Davidson 794-4260           Amelia Earhart 794-4080

The Kindergarten classes were busy in April! They enjoyed learning about what takes place on a dairy farm when they went on a field trip to the Klausmeyer Dairy Farm. Thank you to the parents who accompanied us on our trip! The students also had fun learning about Earth Day and different ways to help the environment. They have planted seeds and are enjoying watching them grow into flowers. In math, they finished learning numbers to 30 and are starting to learn about addition and subtraction. Work on these skills with your child over the summer.

We have met all of the Letter People in reading and the students are doing a great job blending the letters together to read simple words. We will spend this month reviewing the letters, sounds, and sight words. We look forward to celebrating the end of the Read To Me program by having the students pick out free books. We also plan to have a Fun in the Sun party and eat hot dogs and other goodies! Don’t forget to turn in any reading logs you still might have at home. Keep reading this summer!

We recently started attending the Success Maker computer lab once a week. (This is a special computer lab that first-fourth graders go to). The students are getting acquainted with the lab and are doing the beginning program that helps them with their reading and math skills.

On Wednesday, May 7, Thursday, May 8, and Friday, May 9, there will be NO school for kindergartners. We will be screening incoming students for next year. Thanks for your cooperation!  Have a wonderful summer!!!

We have a very busy month and are anxiously awaiting our first field trip!!! We head to Crown Uptown on May 2, with a fun trip to the zoo following on May 16. 

Please make sure you continue to work on reading homework and sight words.     

In math we are working on fractions, temperature, and wrapping up addition and subtraction! Please encourage your child to practice their facts if they are still struggling.  Flash cards are a great tool for practicing.

Please remember to have your child study the weekly spelling words. We take the test on Friday. Remember, weekly grades are taken on these tests that also include a one dictation sentence. Just as a reminder, this month we will start doing two dictation sentences. Only one will be on the spelling list that comes home.

With summer just around the corner, we encourage you to set up a routine for your child to keep up with their reading and math. The kids have grown so much this year and we want them to stay sharp and ready for second grade!!!

A few dates to remember:
         May 2         Crown Uptown field trip
         May 2         Fun Night
         May 16       Zoo field trip
         May 19       Field Day!!!!    
         May 21       Last Day of School

First Grade in the Computer Lab

The first grade classes go to Computer Lab once a week for forty minutes and it is amazing to see the progress they have made this year. Mr. Haynie, our computer tech, has been a huge part of this learning experience. He has allowed teachers the ability to create a file and then “drop” it into a folder that the children can access to complete projects.  It can be anything from word processing, story writing, practice spelling tests, math facts, or anything you can think of.

First graders in Mrs. Gosch’s and Mrs. Blasi’s classes are just a couple of the classes at Explorer that have been taking advantage of this wonderful program. The students have been taking weekly practice spelling tests and writing stories in Microsoft Word. The most recent project they completed was writing a story. Mr. Haynie scanned a picture for them and the students had to come up with a story to match their picture. These will be posted outside the Computer Lab, so stop by and take a look at all the wonderful things that are going on, and to also tell Mr. Haynie “thank you” for all his work!

We’d like to thank all our wonderful 2nd grade parents for your support, kindness, volunteering and generosity this year.  You don’t realize the impact you truly have on your children, us and our school.  Thank you, too, for donating your time and items for Explorer Fun Night. Meteorologist, Andrew Kosak, came out and gave a nice presentation on weather and thunderstorm safety to our 2nd grade students. We’d like to please remind you to have your child join a summer reading program and continue to read over the summer weeks. Stay sharp on math skills such as adding and subtracting double digit numbers with regrouping, measuring, telling time and counting money. Keeping these skills on the front burner will help in transitioning into 3rd grade.  : )  We certainly wish you all a very wonderful, restful and safe summer.  Thank you for sharing your children with us this year.

Language Arts:

Math:

Reminders:

Explorer Fun Night:  Friday, May 2
2nd Grade Reading NWEA Map Testing:  May 5-9
(Please have your child eat a healthy breakfast and get plenty of rest)
2nd Grade Math NWEA Map testing:  May 12-16
(Please have your child eat a healthy breakfast and get plenty of rest)
2nd Grade to the Zoo: Thursday, May 15 9:15-2:00
(Students are to bring a sack lunch and wear sunscreen) 
2nd Grade Field Day: Monday, May 19, 9:15-12:00 at Challenger Intermediate (Students will be bused over to Challenger from Explorer) Please remember to put sunscreen on your child before he/she comes to school.
Last Day of School for Students: Thursday, May 21
Report Cards Issued: Thursday, May 21

We would like to welcome Marina Mills, a new student in third grade. Marina is in Mrs. Noller’s room and comes to us from Wichita.

Many “thank yous” go out to all our students who worked so hard on the state reading and math tests. You are wonderful thinkers and workers!  We would also like to thank the parents for encouraging and supporting us during the testing.

We took our last DIBELS fluency test in late April. The results will be sent home in report cards in late May. Third grade will take the NWEA test in reading and math during the first two weeks of May.

The third grade students are still working hard on their multiplication facts. We will be getting more information to you on the banana splits the middle of May. Keep working with your students – they are getting better and better!

We are so excited about Explorer’s Second Fun Night! Our PTO has been wonderful to all of us this year! We hope you will all be able to enjoy and/or help with the event.

Our field trip to the zoo was lovely, even though we thought we might blow away. We are looking forward to the Pioneer Life Exhibit at CDS on May 5. More information will be coming home shortly.

Mrs. Hommertzheim, Mrs. Noller, Mrs. Riggs, and Mr. White would like to thank all our wonderful parents for working with us this year.  We have enjoyed working with your children and you have been great. Remember to read and practice math with your children this summer.

Time sure does fly when you’re having fun!  April was an exciting month with State Science testing and a field trip to the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson. Our students did a tremendous job on the reading, math, and science state assessments.  We are very proud of their hard work and effort!

We will be touring Challenger and Discovery schools this month so the students will see the schools they will be attending next year. 

We’ve had a lot of fun working and learning together! We’d like to thank you parents and families for all of the wonderful support through the year. We’re going to finish the year strong! As always, please contact any of our teachers with your questions or concerns at 794-4181. We will finish exploring and learning...together!!

Upcoming dates to remember in May:
         May 2          Explorer Elementary PTO Fun Night
         May 19        Field Day 12:30–3:30 at Challenger
         May 21        Last Day of School 
                             Report Cards Issued