Council Rock School District s1

COUNCIL ROCK SCHOOL DISTRICT Rolling Hills Elementary School

Welcome Parents!

Back to School Night

Third & Fourth Grade ROLLING HILLS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 2009-2010 3RD & 4TH GRADE BOOKLET

Welcome back to all 3rd and 4th graders and your parents!

This booklet will try to answer any questions that you may have about curriculum, homework, and other important matters! When you're finished, if you or your folks have any other questions, please feel free to ask your homeroom teacher.

To begin, we should let you know which sections of this rather large building comprise the 3rd and 4th grade learning areas:

Located inside "Blue Pod", which is the large open area with a blue rug centered smack-dab in the middle of the building, will be two third-grade classes of Mrs. Long, Mrs. Aubel, and Miss Kelly; Miss Schindele and Mrs. Fitzpatrick; and two fourth-grade classes of Mrs. Pollack and Mrs. Bollenbach and Mrs. Swenson and Mrs. Zaccaria - Learning Support. Located right outside the pod is the third grade classroom of Ms. Alesczyk. Mrs. Brady, fourth grade is located in trailer classroom B-4.

Now, even though we have two distinct grade levels, and despite the fact that we're a tiny bit spread out, we like to think of our third and fourth grade teachers and students as one big, "extended family"! We'll meet as a group for many varied activities (speakers, round-robins, educational films, etc.). We'll have a terrific time learning together and getting to know each other.

And... speaking of "getting to know each other", let's meet the classroom teachers and other staff members you'll be in contact with this year!

Our THIRD GRADE staff this year has had some changes and additions.

MRS. NANCY LONG is the 3rd grade coordinator this year and is excited to be back teaching in the Blue Pod. This will be her 7th year teaching 3rd grade at Rolling Hills. She and husband Steve reside in Churchville, and are parents of three sons. Michael is an Air Force pilot, Jonathan manages the dining facilities at Twining Village, and Thomas is in his 2nd year at Penn State, Abington campus . Times spent doing anything with family are the best days for Mrs. Long, along with jogging and taking “long” walks with Mr. Long and their black lab, Sadie.

MS. JACQUELYN ALESCZYK is excited to be teaching third grade for her third year at Rolling Hills! She previously taught Kindergarten and first grade at Maureen M. Welch Elementary for three years. Ms. Alesczyk graduated from Council Rock and now lives in Newtown. She attended Elon University in North Carolina for her bachelor’s degree and received her master’s degree from Temple University. In her spare time she loves to Spin at the NAC, cook for family and friends, travel, and go to Phillies games!

MISS CINDY SCHINDELE is extremely excited about being in third grade again this year! This will be her third year at Rolling Hills and her second year as a third grade teacher. Previously, Miss Schindele served as the kindergarten through first grade learning support teacher as well as worked as the sixth grade learning support teacher at Richboro Elementary. Miss Schindele lives in Doylestown and she even attended Churchville Elementary when she was younger. She received her bachelor's degree as well as her master's degree at Saint Joseph's University. Miss Schindele really enjoys taking the time to play golf on the weekends, ride her bike, travel when she can, and go to Penn State Nittany Lions’ football games. Although, she is most thrilled about planning her wedding this year!

MRS. COLLEEN AUBEL is our third grade learning support teacher. This is her 7th year of teaching and her 6th year at Rolling Hills Elementary. Mrs. Aubel is a proud graduate from Council Rock School District. She received her bachelor’s degree from Temple University and her master’s degree through Walden University. She resides in Abington with her husband Matt. They are expecting their first child in September and are very excited! Mrs. Aubel loves to read and spend time with her family and friends.

MISS JACQUELINE KELLY is our third grade learning support teacher. She will be the substitute for Mrs. Aubel while she is on maternity leave. Miss Kelly is a graduate from Council Rock School District. She received her bachelor’s degree from Millersville University. This is her second year teaching in the Council Rock School District. Miss Kelly will be marrying her high school sweetheart in March. She enjoys spending time with her family and watching her twin nieces.

MRS. DENISE FITZPATRICK is a teacher assistant in 3rd. grade with Miss Schindele. She has been at Rolling Hills for 15 years. Mrs. Fitz has 4 children. Jack is a 7th grade teacher at Richboro Middle School and he is the proud father of our first grandchild, Caden who is 22 mos. old. Michael is in finance at UBS in San Francisco and he is expecting his first baby, a little girl, on Oct. 9th, Shannon is a 4th grade Special Ed. teacher in the Centennial School District and Kate is in Pharmaceuticals with J&J. Mrs. Fitz and her husband John live in Langhorne and enjoy traveling and vacationing with their children.

Our FOURTH GRADE staff:

MRS. SUZANNE SWENSON is the 4th grade coordinator this year. Suzanne resides with her husband Jeff, and two children in Churchville. Her son Joe just graduated from Penn State with an Electrical Engineering major, and now works for the Department of Defense. Her daughter Colleen is a sophomore at Bucks County Community College majoring in Wildlife Conservation. Suzanne is looking forward to another exciting year with her new 4th grade class!

MRS. DOTTI BRADY is starting her 35th year at Rolling Hills. She lives in Levittown. Her wonderful daughter Mackenzie is a faculty member of Penn State University, where she is a research technologist and an avid football fan. In her free time, Mrs. Brady likes to exercise, cook, read, craft, garden, watch Penn State football and visit her daughter in “Happy Valley.”

MRS. COURTNEY POLLACK is in the pod again in fourth grade. She lives in Yardley with her husband Neal, their 4 year old son, Ian, and 10 month old son, Ryder. In her spare time, she loves to be outside biking and running. Mrs. Pollack enjoyed vacationing at the beach this summer. She spent most of her time chasing her boys! Mrs. Pollack is very excited for the new school year!

MRS. ANN ZACCARIA is the 4th grade resource/inclusion teacher. Mrs. Zaccaria thinks fourth grade is the best grade of all. She enjoys teaching and learning with Mrs. Swenson and Mrs. Pollack. Mrs. Zaccaria and her husband, Ed, recently celebrated their daughter, Laura’s graduation from Drexel University. Lisa, their youngest daughter, is a junior at St. Joe’s this year. Lisa will be doing an internship accounting this coming year. Mrs. Zaccaria’s favorite thing to do is to spend time with her family in Ocean City, New Jersey. Mrs. Zaccaria is excited about learning new ways to teach fourth graders.

MRS. BARBARA BOLLENBACH is the Learning Support Assistant for fourth grade. She resides in Ivyland with her husband, Jerry, and daughter, Kelly. She has three children Jerry, Tim and Kelly. Mrs. Bollenbach is a proud grandmother. Her oldest son, Jerry, and his wife, Tina, have two adorable little girls. Ashley Grace is 2yrs. 5 months and she already loves to read books. Taylor Marie is 5 months old. Mrs. Bollenbach enjoys spending as much time as possible with Ashley and Taylor and loves to baby-sit. Mrs. Bollenbach spent her summer in Ocean City, NJ. Her favorite pastime is riding her bike on the boardwalk. She is already looking forward to next summer when her son, Tim, will be getting married.

Other very important people you'll work with this year include our marvelous Specials Staff – MRS. HILARY ADAMS our Lovely Librarian and her very able assistant, MRS. DONNA ULRICH who none of us could do without; MR. BRIAN HAMBLETON, who has been with Council Rock as a Gym Teacher many years; and MRS. MARIAN HEFFREN, our very talented Art Teacher. MRS. ANNE WARF our marvelous Music Teacher that keeps us all on key.

In addition to these people, you may have a lot of contact with these other extremely important members of our school family:

MR. JOSEPH J. MACCLAY, our school principal, resides in Jamison with his wife Colleen and sons JJ who is 8 and Garrett who is 6 and their 2 year old daughter Callie.

MRS. MARY WHITTLE is our smiling secretary as well as being very efficient. Mrs. Whittle holds everything altogether for us all, as well as giving us reminders and support. We are so happy she is in our office.

MRS. WENDY PICARELLA our secretary-aide gladly does numerous jobs for all of us and is always two steps ahead!

MRS. LAURIE GOUZA our secretary-aide fills several roles. Happy to help teachers in the AM and taking care of kids in the cafeteria at lunch.

Other staff members whose names you should know include our Reading Specialist, MRS. CAROLE HOLDEN; our Math Specialist, MRS. JULIE EASTBURN; our Humanities teachers, MRS. LYNNE GOODWIN; our school Nurses, MRS. SARAH BARFOOT and MRS. DIANNE ERNEST; our head of the Cafeteria staff is MRS. ANNE NONEMAKER; and our school Custodian, known as LUZ.

Well, now that you’ve met the people you’ll work with this year; let’s talk about the Curriculum and other important things!

LANGUAGE ARTS The Council Rock School District is striving to insure that each child will be proficient or better by achieving the standards set forth by the State of Pennsylvania. For this reason, we strive to deliver a program that offers a balance between teacher directed, guided reading and writing experiences, and independent reading and writing. Students and teachers are working together to promote individual literacy and achieve the State’s standards in reading, composing, speaking, viewing, and research.

We use a variety of materials to accomplish our goals. Level books, Houghton- Mifflin themed readers and novels are employed to teach the language arts standards.

Assessment is ongoing throughout the year. QRI, RELA, Portfolios, writing samples, and performance tasks in reading inform and direct our teaching and help us to assess student learning.

MATHEMATICS

The Council Rock Elementary Mathematics Program provides a balanced curriculum approach to teaching and learning mathematics. This program provides problem solving activities as well as building necessary basic mathematical skills. This balanced program also includes a combination of traditional and hands-on instruction. The components used to reach the district’s mathematical goals are Scott Foresman Addison-Wesley materials and TERC Investigation Units.

It is our hope that as students are “doing” math, they will learn concepts- the big ideas, acquire mathematical and reasoning skills, develop methods for investigating mathematical ideas, and develop problem solving abilities.

SCIENCE / HEALTH

Well, all you future Einsteins, are you going to learn a lot in SCIENCE this year!

3rd graders will be doing investigations on three main topics this year. Rocks and Minerals, Sound and Plants will be our Units of study. 4th graders will be taking a long, hard look at Electricity and Magnetism, Land and Water and Weather. Both grade levels will be doing many hands-on experiments using Delta Science materials. In HEALTH, both grade levels will be mainly finding out about how to live better through proper nutritional habits and exercise, and also about just how your bodies function.

SOCIAL STUDIES

We are excited to be using a new social studies program this year at Council Rock. Third grade will be using Horizons People and Communities, and will begin with Communities. Fourth grade will be using Horizons States and Regions. Pennsylvania will be the first unit in their study. We are excited to expand our horizons using these beautifully illustrated texts.

Now, let's take a look at other topics of interest to everybody!

SUPPLIES A special Thank You for all the supplies we have received!

KEEPING TRACK OF SPECIAL ASSIGNMENTS EASY!!!! At the beginning of the year, your teacher will give you a Rolling Hills folder and a neat assignment book supplied by the Home and School. You'll use this book to copy down your daily homework assignments. Your Rolling Hills Folder will be used to pass communications between home and school.

This system is a very simple way for both you AND your parents to keep track of home assignments and upcoming tests.

KEEPING TRACK OF YOUR PROGRESS

One thing you and your parents don't have to worry about is lack of notification of what you're doing in school.

Also, any tests that you take should be looked at by your parents, and, if any of these tests indicate that you need some help in a particular curricular area, your teacher will notify your folks.

Fourth graders, in addition to bringing home classwork and tests, will receive a progress notice midway through the marking period. This notice will let your parents know how you are doing in each of your subject areas, and will let them know if you need to do anything to improve your classroom performance.

Third and Fourth grade will both be using the Report Card which was used last year.

LUNCH (YUM!), SNACKS, AND ...RECESS (YAY!)

As in the past, 3rd and 4th graders will be asked to bring a good, healthy snack that you can eat at a mid-morning break for third and fourth grade. (Yogurt, unbuttered popcorn-Yes!! A juice box is great also. (NO CANDY PLEASE).

Lunch will again be provided (for those students who choose to buy) by our wonderful cafeteria staff that is supervised by the incomparable MRS. ANN NONEMAKER. MRS. FRISCH and MRS. GOUZA will be our cafeteria monitors. We are encouraging students to add money to their lunch account pin number to lessen the handling of money by students.

TIP: Make your lunch time an enjoyable, relaxing experience. Remember to use "restaurant manners" and to observe the rights of others.

This year our recesses will be before lunchtime. Your recesses, for the most part, will be supervised by the wonderful duo of Mrs. TONI COLETTI and MRS. MARIE CRANE, who ask that you enjoy yourself WHILE you follow our playground rules!

WELL, THAT'S ABOUT IT! HAVE A TERRIFIC YEAR, WORK HARD...

AND… READ !!!!