THANK YOU!!!

To all of our PI faculty and staff Family.... THANK YOU for our beautiful Christmas gifts! We absolutely love the gifts and we are grateful for you all thinking of us. As I tell you often, you are greatly appreciated. Each one of us serves a special purpose here at Paine Intermediate School and everyone is fulfilling their purpose!! Paine Intermediate School has the BEST teachers and staff members a school could ask for (and it shows in all that you do)!! 

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!! Be safe and I can't wait to see you back in 2015!!!!

Service Learning for the Holidays

Mrs. Summers' 5th grade class collected and brought in toys to give to the Toys for Tots organization. What an awesome job of collecting to give to others! 

TAC-December

1.       Would it be possible to turn the volume down for announcements? 

Dr. Jeter will hold the handset further away to see if that helps with the volume.

2.       Please slow down the reading of announcements.  Sometimes it’s hard to keep up and follow.

That is an easy fix and Dr. Jeter will make an attempt to slow down during announcements.

Rockets Are Launching at PI!

GATE students are launching rockets this week.  They are learning about rocketry and the space program for their upcoming trip to the Huntsville Space Center in January.

Tall Towers

Fifth-grade students learned about geometry, design, engineering, balance, gravity, structure and support, and teamwork as they built towers using marshmallows and toothpicks.  This engineering activity was designed to determine which team of students could build the tallest tower under the guidelines provided.

PTO Grant

We are so proud of all that our PTO does for us, and just recently they provided a financial assistance grant to all of our teachers that applied for the funds. The goal is to purchase material and/or supplies to enhance their classroom(s) and overall learning. Here's a list of items that have been purchased so far...we'll provide pictures as they come in!!

Thank you to our PTO members!

iPad Air -2

Chromebooks-19

Spec. Ed. Activity Table

Shredder

Cassette Player

Reading/Writer Center

Classroom Rugs-7

“Think Tank” Set

Class White boards-4

Printer-14

Computer Chair-2

Lightspeed Microphone-2

Paper Cutter-2

Math Manipulatives Set-2

Book Cases-15

Kidney Table

iPad Mini-7

Apple TV-2

iPad Docking Station

Digital Cameras-2

DVD Player

Headphones

Otterbox for iPad-9

Hundreds of dollars of classroom books.

Family News

Please keep Lisa Lothspeich and her family in your prayers. Her father-in-law, Jim, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer (Carcinoma). A message from Lisa to all regarding his condition,

"We could use some prayer warriors to pray for him, along with us.  He is such a dedicated Christian man, so we know what his future holds.   This is an aggressive cancer.  We are praying for peace for the entire family, especially my mother-in-law, and that he does not experience a lot of pain as it progresses."

Thanks,

Lisa

Winter Wonderland by HTMS

Paine Intermediate enjoyed a holiday winter wonderland of music presented by the HTMS Honors Band and Jazz Band on Friday!! 

Congratulations

Congratulations to Auburn Lyle and Fran Box. They are graduating this morning from UAB!!! 

Girl Scouts

Paine Intermediate's Girl Scout Troop (and Brownie Troop 634) held an executive meeting with Dr. Jeter to discuss a possible service learning project for PI. The girls presented their request, discussed their ideas for implementation, and provided an overview of what's needed and what all they will do. The meeting was such a success that Dr. Jeter said yes to their proposal!

Parents Working in the School

Paine Intermediate parents help and support our school in so many ways. This is a glimpse of some of our parents working with students throughout the school day! 

Week of December 15th

Week of December 15th 

Courtyard	Darnell
Gym	Davis, Fox (A.M. - Chrisenberry / P.M. – Gudgen and Christopher)
Amphitheatre	A. Moore, Meacham
Outside Car Line	M. Wright
Bus Line	Naylor
Breakfast	Blain / Carlile
Computer Labs	Christopher and Dawson
MAGPI	Lothspeich, Walls, P Smith, Gudgen
Parking Lot (PM)	Griffith (PI)

Date	Event
Monday, December 15 H Day	Choir field trip to HTHS 2:00 Dismissal 2:00 p.m. Faculty Holiday Fun-cafeteria
Tuesday, December 16 A Day	Choir Performance @ HTHS 7:00 p.m.
Wednesday, December 17 B Day	Choir Performances for PI 3rd grade Christmas Parties TAC Meeting Drama Practice until 4:30 p.m.
Thursday, December 18 C Day	4th and 5th grade Christmas Parties
Friday, December 19	12:00 Early Dismissal for students 12:15...PI Christmas Social and Fun!!

Happy Birthday

13th- Karen Ekonen

19th- Ashley Nix 

Awesome Academic Growth!

Students making progress in class with academically written and verbal skills enjoyed showing off their work!! 

Amazing Math

5th grade students in Mrs. Summers math class are utilizing their higher order thinking strategies to solve and construct mathematical problems!

Parent Math Academy

Dear Parents,

Math instruction today is different from what most of us experienced in the past.  In order to provide you with information on current instructional approaches and strategies, we will be offering a Math Academy for Parents once a month.  For your convenience, there will be two sessions to choose from:  a morning session from 9:00-10:00 am and an evening session from 5:00-6:00 pm.  We value your time, so these sessions will be limited to one hour, and we will cover what we think is most relevant based on current instruction in the classroom.  We will spend the first half-hour with overall information, and we will break into groups by grade level for the second half-hour.  

The overall session for our first Parent Math Academy will be on the importance of the area model in developing conceptual understanding.  The breakout segments are: 

·        3rd grade - Multiplication Fact Fluency

·        4th Grade - Long Division

·        5th Grade - Multiplying Fractions.  

Your invitation to the Parent Math Academy on Thursday, December 11^th is shown below. 

We have also created a Math Blog for Parents.  If you haven’t already, please sign up to receive blog updates by entering you email address in the designated section on the blog.  The blog can be found at paineintmath.blogspot.com.  We have just added a section on instructional videos by grade level.  We will be creating/adding short video segments on various strategies being taught in the classroom.  These videos can be utilized by both parents and students.

Our goal with the Parent Math Blog and Parent Math Academy is to provide parents with important information and a better understanding of the concepts and strategies being taught in the math classroom today.  If you have any questions, please email Lisa.Lothspeich@trussvillecityschools.com, Math Instructional Coach.

We look forward to seeing you at the Parent Math Academy!

December 15th Holiday Fun Reminder

Good afternoon!

If you've already turned in money for the painting on the 15^th thank you.

 

If you haven’t but you want to paint don’t forget that tomorrow is the deadline.  $3 cash.  I do have change. 

Thanks,

Callie J

December 19th Dismissal

Parents:

As a reminder, students will be dismissed from school at 12:00 p.m. on Friday, December 19, 2014. We will operate an abbreviated school schedule that day. All students will be offered both breakfast and lunch as normal.

Thank you,

Family News

My son, Thomas, who is in 5th grade, fell and broke his finger on Thursday.  Due to the severity of the break, he had surgery this morning to straighten the bone by placing 2 pins in his finger.  As his older sister said, "All this over a finger??!!"  Hey, we don't pick our injuries!  Thomas will be in a cast for 6 weeks and then receive physical therapy after that!  The worst part for Thomas is that his basketball season this year, ended before it ever really began!  Oh well, there is always baseball season!

Elizabeth Wilson, a technology aide, is having surgery Wednesday morning to break up a kidney stone.  Please keep Elizabeth in your thoughts and prayers!

Week of December 8th

Week of December 8th 

Courtyard	Horn
Gym	C. Williamson, Fox (A.M. - Chrisenberry / P.M. – Gudgen and Christopher)
Amphitheatre	Sulser, Meacham
Outside Car Line	J. Moore
Bus Line	McGough
Breakfast	Blain / Carlile
Computer Labs	Christopher and Dawson
MAGPI	Lothspeich, Walls, P Smith, Gudgen
Parking Lot (PM)	Griffith (PP)

Date	Event
Monday, December 8 C Day	2:00 Dismissal 2:00 p.m. CAD Choir Rehearsal
Tuesday, December 9 D Day	3rd Grade field trip AR 1/2 way point
Wednesday, December 10 E Day	Drama Rehearsal  Grades Entered
Thursday, December 11 F Day	Parent Math Academy @ 9:00 a.m. & 5:00 p.m.
Friday, December 12 G Day	HTMS Band Performance 8:45 a.m. & 9:40 a.m. Friday Freeze

Researching Causes of the American Revolution

Students in 5th grade have been researching causes of the American Revolution.  They used their Chromebooks to conduct the research and also to create a slide presentation of their findings.  Students pictured are completing their assignments for Mrs. Moore, a 5th grade Literacy teacher.

Academic Vocabulary Spotlight

Mrs. Childs introducing and teaching the new academic vocabulary word to her students. 

Jenna Osborn from Mrs. Aldrich's 4th grade class very happily wanted to share with me the meaning of our last academic vocabulary word and how she can use it in a sentence in various ways!

William Yekel from Mrs. LoPresti's 3rd grade class grabbed my attention immediately to share with me how he compared all four of our academic vocabulary words. His paragraph writing was outstanding and he has a strong foundation of how the words relate to one another! 

Morning Intervention

Intervention this morning at Paine Intermediate!

4th Graders Visit Ruffner Mountain

Personal Playgrounds in Art Class

Students in Mrs. Ward's Art classes have been creating personal playgrounds. Goals were set for each playground and students used their creative level of thinking to design and develop their personal playgrounds! The children relied on prior knowledge of what they know about playgrounds to assist in the design of their project!