Important Dates

January 10 - Principal's Coffee, 9:30 am

January 17 - PTA General Meeting, 9:30 am

January 21 -  Martin Luther King, Jr. Day,  school closed

January 25 - Report Cards available

January 25 - Pocketbook Bingo, 6:30 pm

February 11-15 - Kindergarten Registration Week

February 18-22 - Winter Recess -  school closed

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CET Newsletter January 4, 2019

http://www.chufsd.org/schools/carrie_e_tompkins_es

Message from the Principal, Mrs. Kelly Maloney

Dear CET Families,

Happy New Year!  I hope that you all enjoyed some quality time with family and friends. Although the time off was enjoyable and much needed for many of us, it is difficult to get back into our routines.  I am sure that many of us slept a little later than usual and ate more than we normally do (at least I did!). We had a number of sleepy children on Wednesday, however today they seem to be back to their energetic selves!  Our second graders were fortunate to return to school and have a Day of Play! This was a great way to ease back into school! This special day was planned in response to the successful raffle sales from the PTA Holiday Hop.  If you follow us on Twitter, #CETelementary, you can see pictures from the Second Grade Day of Play. We will be participating in a schoolwide Global Day of Play on February 6. The Global Day of Play supports the importance of unstructured play. “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” -Plato

In addition to sleepy children returning to school this week, we had a number of children return to school sick with symptoms of vomiting and/or  diarrhea. Please, please don’t send your child to school sick. I understand that it is difficult to take even more time off of work and to find childcare however sending your child to school sick is unfair to your child and to the children and adults that are now exposed to their illness.

The Croton Free Library is now offering Homework Help on Wednesday afternoons for students in grades 3-8. This is a drop in service, and meant to help students with their homework-it is not tutoring.  

I know many of our CET students love Harry Potter so I thought you might want to know that the New York Historical Society has a Harry Potter exhibit that features magical objects and items related to the JK Rowling series. The exhibit is on until January 27. I haven’t been; I read about it in the paper.

Later this month, you will be able to access your child’s report card in the eSchool Parent Portal.  If you have still not set up your account, you will need your child’s Student ID number to do so. You can contact Jean Flandreau or Lisa Fitzgerald in the main office for this information. The eSchool Parent Portal also contains the results of New York State Grades 3-8 testing as well as the results of the STAR testing that is administered three times during the year. As your child moves through the grades, more information will be housed in the Parent Portal so it is important to become comfortable in accessing the portal.

Here’s to a healthy and happy 2019.

Warmly,

Kelly

News from the Assistant Principal, Mrs. Kerri Bianchi 

It is hard to believe 2019 is already here and we will likely soon see the full effects of the winter weather upon us.  With that change in weather also comes unfortunate cases of illness and of course, cold and flu season. While we encourage students to attend school every day, an ill child will not perform well and may expose other students in the classroom. Please use the following guidelines and keep your child at home if any of these symptoms are present:

Please keep your child home and/or contact your child’s doctor for:

• Fever greater than 100.4°  (taken by mouth)
• Vomiting and/or diarrhea within the last 24 hours
• Severe sore throat along with fever and feeling ill for more than 48 hours, or after exposure to Strep throat infection
• Honey-crusted sores around the nose or mouth or rash on other body parts
• Large amounts of mucous (liquid) from their nose, with face pain or headache
• Severe ear pain or fluid coming from the ear
• Severe headache, especially with  fever

*Taken from www.schoolhealthservicesny.com – SN Tool Kit -12/17

If your child has a fever of 100 degrees or greater, they must be fever free without medication for 24 hours before returning to school. A child also needs to be free of diarrhea for 24 hours to return to school.

Please notify the school when your child will be absent as well as the reason for the absence by calling 271-2947.

Thank you for your cooperation in our efforts to keep our students safe and healthy.

News from Robin Woolley, School Counselor 

Teaching Acceptance to Our Children

Today we had our 3rd whole school REACH Assembly.  REACH is an acronym that stands for Respect, Effort, Acceptance, Cooperation and Honesty.  All of these are character traits that we expect our CET students to learn and embrace. 

Over the past four months, students have been learning about and practicing being respectful to themselves, others and their school, as well as making an effort to show empathy to others.  Today’s assembly introduced the concept Acceptance of Diversity.  We focused on the following key points:

• Diversity is another word for differences.  We find differences in everything around us including eye color, hair styles, skin color, gender, clothing, where we live, what our strengths are, how we do our school work, how we play, our religion, our families, etc., etc..  
• When we walk through our school, we can see evidence of our diversity in the work that is displayed in the hallways.  Everyone contributes to the diversity of the school.  Diversity is to be celebrated.
• Everyone is different and deserves to be treated with respect and empathy.
• When we show someone the respect and empathy they deserve, we are accepting them for who they are.
• Respect, Empathy and Acceptance are skills that need to be practiced.  Everyone in our community is expected to make an effort to practice these skills every day.  

We ask for your help with continuing to teach children these important character traits and skills at home.  Below are a couple of resources that you may find helpful.

https://www.poehealth.org/celebrating-differences/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=oODXem4oRp0

http://www.pbs.org/parents/inclusivecommunities/differences.html

 News from Patricia Lynch, Math Teacher

C.E.T. Loves Math! 

Happy New Year!

Do you know why the names of our months seem a little odd?  If ‘septa’ means 7, why is September the 9 ^th  month? … ‘Octo’ = eight but October is our 10 ^th  month, ‘Novem’ = nine, and Decem = ten.  The Romans named some of the months after their position in the calendar year: September means the 7th month, October the 8th, November the 9th, and December the 10th month. However, when January and February were eventually added and the beginning of the calendar year was moved to January, the position of these months no longer corresponded with the original meaning of their names.

Your child may already be familiar with the days of the week and the months, but a quick review is always helpful. Writing the date is also an important concept to review. There are several standardized ways to write the date, as in August 25th, 2018. (Remind children about the position of the comma, just after the number of the day)  The date can also be written as 8/25/2018, using slashes, or as 8-25-2018 with dashes. Review with your children that a week is a unit of seven days.  A month is a unit of about four weeks or 28-31 days.  A year is a unit of twelve months, about 52 weeks, or 365 days.  There are 366 days in a leap year (next leap year in 2020).

Many children have problems remembering the days of the week and the months of the year or spelling them. Encourage your child to find patterns in the names and to think of strategies for remembering them.  To further this conversation with your child, you can access the Brain Pop Jr. site from C.E.T.’s homepage under the Students/Parents Tab and then go to the CET Digital Links/Tools.  Your child should know the user name and password.  Brain Pop Jr. and Brain Pop have wonderful age-appropriate, non-fiction short educational videos on a host of topics. 

https://jr.brainpop.com/math/time/calendaranddates/

https://jr.brainpop.com/math/time/timetothehour/ (elapsed time on the # line)

News from CET PTA

Happy New Year to all our wonderful families. We wish you the happiness and love you desire for the year ahead!

We would like to remind you of some upcoming important dates.

January 10th @ 9:30 am: Our first Principal's coffee of 2019
This coffee date will discuss the Role of a School Counselor and our Social Emotional Curriculum.

January 17th @ 9:30am: General PTA Meeting
We will discuss and vote on some proposed bylaw changes. We will also discuss other general changes to meetings and vote on those. 

January 25th from 6:30 - 9:00pm (doors open at 6:00pm) - First Ever  Pocketbook Bingo. This is an adults-only event. $40 - cash only - to be sent in an envelope to Mrs. Ana Maria Strattner. There will be 10 rounds of bingo and designer handbag prizes. Snacks will be available for purchase. We hope to see you there. Space is limited.

This event is exclusively organized by our wonderful teachers and many of them will be there to “bingo” in the New Year with us!

3rd GRADE CONCERT PERFORMANCE  RESCHEDULED

Dear Parents:

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KINDERGARTEN REGISTRATION

DATES: FEBRUARY 11-15, 2019

Students who reside in Croton and will be 5 years old before December 1, 2019 are eligible to attend kindergarten, If you are in need of a kindergarten registration packet and/or an appointment, please contact:  

Gail Anzovino, Secretary to the Principal 

914-271-5184 ext.3212

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CHANGES IN YOUR CHILD'S DISMISSAL

When emailing your child's teacher regarding a change to your child's dismissal, please include the Welcome Center, Laura Sherry at laura.sherry@chufsd.org.

Please REMEMBER - Any early dismissal pick-ups need to occur before 2:0 pm.

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Updating You and Your Child’s Information in the K12 Alerts System 

To be sure we have the most up-to-date information for you and your child, you may access K12 Alerts by either logging on to the CET Homepage where you will find “Parent Portal/K12Alerts” or by accessing the Croton-Harmon School District’s Homepage and clicking on “Parent and Resident Portal/K12Alerts”. Once you log in to the K-12 Alert System, you will be able to make any necessary changes to your or your child’s information.

If you have any questions please contact Denise Cuomo, 914-271-4793, ext. 4200.