Dear Amazing Colt Families,

Happy December and Holiday Season!

Thank you for all that you continue to do to ensure your children are healthy and ready to learn everyday.

During this holiday season remember to take some time to relax and take care of yourselves in order to be good for everyone around you.

It’s the quality family time that chil-dren remember the most.

If students get restless during the December break, remind them to log into IXL and practice their math and reading skills.

On another note, our letter grade earned by our students for last year’s performance on AzMerit (3-8th grad-ers) is a “B”. We will continue to have data discussions with our students and teachers to continue to monitor teach-ing and learning on a daily basis. We know that our students are capable and we will also work on test taking strate-gies. Parents can log into Arizona De-partment of Education website and look

Colt News Continental Elementary School

Newsletter December 2019

up AzMerit sample assessments. This will give you a good indication of sample questions and format of the AzMerit Assessment. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Thank you and have a wonderful and safe holiday season. Roxana Rico Proud Superintendent

Thank You to the Evangelical Free Church Volunteers for helping serve Thanksgiving lunch to our students!

Principal’s Message Continental Families, It is hard to believe that we are al-ready in the month of December! Your children have been working very hard this semester. This month is a short school month and we have a lot on our calendar. We hope that you are able to attend this month’s athletic games. Come out and support our amazing Colts! On December 2nd we will have our Board Meeting at 6:00 pm and we hope you can attend. We will be recog-nizing students who were awarded Colt of the Month. On December 4th we will be having our 2019 Art Night. Our stu-dents have been working hard on their art pieces and are excited for you to come and celebrate their work. In ad-dition to our Art Night we will also be having winter concerts for grades pre-school through 8th grade. We look for-ward to seeing you at all of these con-certs. Last month students 2nd through 8th grade took their 2nd benchmark ATI test and are showing academic pro-gression toward mastering their grade level standards. These results help teachers to see student growth as well as areas intervention and enrichment are needed. You can access and view your child’s progress at http://www.ati-online.com and log in. In the drop down

menu select K-12 Student-Parent Center Link to gain access to your parent ac-count. There are step by step instruc-tions available in the front office. Thank you for all of your support this semester with your child’s academics. Your support is key in their growth and we appreciate all that you do. Have a wonderful month of December and happy holidays! Your Principal, Mrs. Cuevas

Dates To Remember Dec. 2 - Dec. 16 - Canned Food Drive Dec. 2 - Governing Board Meeting Dec. 3 - Boys Basketball & Girls Soccer Dec. 4 - Art Night 4:30-6pm Dec. 5 - Boys Basketball & Girls Soccer Dec. 5 & 6 - PTC Holiday House Dec. 6 - 2nd Qtr Sports Assembly Dec. 11 - Early Release/Noon Dismissal Dec. 12 - 6th - 8th Grade Winter Con-cert 6pm Dec. 16 - Preschool Winter Concert 5pm Dec. 17 - K-5th Grade Choir Concert 6pm Dec. 18 - Colt of Month and Awards As-sembly Dec. 19 - 5th—8th Grade Band & Orches-tra Concert 6pm Dec. 20 - Early Release/Noon Dismissal Dec. 23-Jan. 3- Winter Break/No School

We would like to invite everyone to join us at our Holiday Concerts. They will be held in the school gym at 6pm on;

Dec. 12th General Music 6-8 grade

Dec. 17th Kinder–5 grade & Choir

Dec. 19th 5-8 grade Band & Orchestra

Join us for Art Night on December 4th from 4:30 - 6pm in the cafeteria. We will have an art walk gallery of our students’ work, as well as activities for families to participate. Light refresh-ments will be served.

PTC Spirit Days! *Dec. 6th: Elf Day!- Dress in your best Elf attire OR Christmas Colors

*Dec. 20th: Pajama Day

*Jan.17th: Crazy Hair Day

*Jan. 23rd: 100th Day- Wear your best Continental Blue OR Dress like you are 100 years old (Primarily K-2 students) *Feb. 19th: Giddy Up Y’all!- Western Day

*Mar. 12th: Crazy Socks Day

*Apr. 24th: College Day

*May 13th (Early Release Wednes-day): Dress for success/ Dress for your future (Career Day) *May 19th: Tourist Day- Dress up as if you are a tourist going to your fa-vorite vacation destination.

Dear Colt Families, I hope everyone had a relaxful and enjoyable Thanksgiving Break with their families! Career Day Committee has been meeting to discuss plans for this school year’s Career Day which will be on Wednesday, May 13th. We are in search for any volunteers who would like to showcase their career. Please let either the of-fice or myself know, as I am part of the Career Day Committee if you are interested as soon as possible and we will get in touch with you. In the counseling classroom for the month of December, students are learning about Coping Skills when we are faced with stressful situa-tions. There are many methods students can use to deal with stressors and some of my favorite ones I like to teach are meditation and relaxa-tion, guided imagery, journal writing, and music therapy. The holidays are upon us and even though it’s a fun time to be with family and rela-tives, it can bring upon stressful times with traveling, time constraints, holiday planning and preparation, and more. This is a great time to teach students the benefits of coping skills so they can use them over winter break. They will also get a helpful handout to take home and practice! Our Peace, Respect, Changing Families, and Friendship groups are going very well. We will be changing groups next semester. This year, small groups were developed by teacher refer-rals, so please reach out to your classroom teacher if you are interested in signing your child up for a small group.

Don’t forget to check out Kelso’s Choices at www.kelsoschoice.com to review all 9 ways students are learning about how to solve a small problem. Also, another great teacher and parent resource for students with socio-emotional learning is Newsela. You can search for these types of lessons at www.newsela.com.

I wish all Colt families a very Merry Christ-mas and a Happy New Year! See you all in 2020! Kris Godfryt, M.S. School Counselor

School-wide Canned Food Drive hosted by the Builder’s Club. Please have your students bring in non-perishable food items to their class-room/homeroom teacher between December 2 and December 16th. The class that collects the most items will win a pizza party. Thank you for your generous contributions to help those in need!