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The Bison Press Celebrating Students’ Successes

Kindergarten

Kindergarteners have been work-

ing really hard this semester. We

are so proud to see all the pro-

gress they are making! Kindergar-

ten is participating in the 4H em-

bryology program where we can

learn about the life cycle of chicks.

The students love visiting and ob-

serving our eggs that we hope will

hatch into chicks in approximately

13 days! Ask your kindergartener

about a chick’s life cycle. We re-

ceived our caterpillars and we look

forward to seeing them turn into

butterflies in a few weeks! The

students are currently studying

plants and they were very excited

to plant their own seed. The stu-

dents will observe the process of

growth and will bring their plant

home in a few weeks! We can’t

wait to see when the plants will

start sprouting! Congratulations

to all our Bison of the Month!

Thank you for helping your child

use all our wonderful home re-

sources such as Tales 2 Go, Raz

Kids, and Reading Eggs. Keep up

the great work!

First Grade

First grade students have been working diligently this quarter and we are very delighted with our stu-dents’ efforts! We want to give a big shout out to our Bi-son of the Month: Nate Sanders, Ashley Green, Caleigh Shedeck, Kareena Ohri, Nicolas Monroe, Olivia Gray, Lenah Meyer and Joshua Williams. First grade stu-dents have been saying “YES” to RESPECT and have earned a grade level reward. We enjoyed our on Friday, April 22nd during lunch where the students enjoyed sitting with other classes and the fresh air of spring! Also, we are very pleased to announce that first grade won the spring reading incentive! We are so proud of our students. The students will enjoy an extra recess with icy juicy pops for their accomplishment! Keep up the great work first grade and continue to read at home every night! First grade will have their field trip to the National Zoo on Friday, May 13th. Please look in your child’s take home folder for more information in the upcom-ing weeks. First grade has really enjoyed their science experiments that include making butter and a sink and float activity. Ms. Pow-ers’ class really loved finding their special reading nook and creating their animal coverings! Please review the quarter 3 nine week plans and go over the topics we have covered at school with your child each night. Thank you for your support at home!

From the Office

Thank you to all our

families for a success-

ful Fun Run! Please

be sure to send in the

collected pledges.

Volume III April 2016

Pre-K

STEP Preschool just completed Reading with Bentley Bear . Bentley and his bag of books and reading response journal went home with every family. We loved hearing about the books the families enjoyed reading together and the adventures Bentley had outside of Buffalo Trail. A recently completed project was a class mural while learning about the letter V. Stu-dents in the morning class painted Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night and the afternoon class painted van Gogh's Fourteen Sunflowers. In the coming month we will study the life cycle of a butterfly, grow seeds and practice our alphabet and reading simple sight words as we prepare for Kindergarten.

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Third Grade

Third grade is having a blast welcoming the wonderful warm weather and preparing for our first SOLs. Students are in the full swing of fractions and are enjoying our animal in-vestigation units. Students truly loved our field trip to Claude Moore Park. It was a blast exploring animal habitats and animal adapta-tions.

ELL

The ELL Team finished WIDA Access Testing in March. This was the

first year our English learners in grades 1-5 took part or all of their test

on the computer. Look for your child’s score report to come home

sometime in June.

As we prepare for SOL testing, be aware that your child may be

pulled for additional review. Testing vocabulary, strategies, and

material will be covered.

We have had several new families join Buffalo Trail in the past few

weeks and we are so excited to be working with your children!

Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help make this

transition easier for your child.

Multi-Grade Classrooms

The Multi-Grade rooms enjoyed a FANTASTIC Adaptive Field Day in April at John Champe HS, and were thrilled to have our PE Teachers, Ms. Brown-Berry and Mr. Arnold there helping! We are currently planning a Fieldtrip to see Seussical the Musical at George Mason to celebrate our advances in read-ing. Thanks to all for your sup-port! Mr. Landis, Mrs. Purdy, & Mrs. Powell

Thank you to everyone who partici-pated in our Autism Awareness Day at Buffalo Trail on April 4th.

Art

1st Grade—Creating their own animal families out of cut pa-per and shapes.

2nd Grade—Finishing up weaving and starting on clay birds for the spring time.

3rd Grade— Creating 3D Animal masks.

4th Grade—Exploring milestones and memories and learning how to blend colors with chalk pastels.

5th Grade—Starting on new ceramic tiny homes project.

Second Grade

The 2nd grade classes are very excited about their field trip to Movern State Park. We learned all about the butterfly, plant, white tailed deer, and frog life cycles and were excited to see these things in real life. We are also very excited about our live caterpillars that we are watch-ing grow and turn into butter-flies. They are getting ready to climb up and go into their chrys-alises so we can move them to their new gardens in our rooms!

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Music The music department at Buffalo Trail Elementary School is so excited to share the All-County Choir Con-cert!!! Our amazing students sang their hearts out on Saturday April 23rd at Briar Woods High School in Ashburn. These stellar singing stu-dents left the audience stunned!!!

Watch Dog Dads

Thanks to all our DOGS

who helped out marking

shirts and passing our

water at the Booster-

thon!

Fifth Grade

This quarter we have begun to do research on famous inventors. We will discuss different inventions and how they helped make things better or easier for people. Our next step will be to start thinking of inventions that could make our school, neighborhood, or even the world and better place. This will be a One To The World project. In science we have been learning about the Periodic Table of Elements. Everything in the Universe is made from elements. We continue to practice our reading and writing skills also, as we prepare for our SOL tests in May.

Fourth Grade

As the third quarter comes to a close, the Fourth Grade Team is celebrating another success-ful quarter of Project Based Learning. The projects have motivated students to gain knowledge, the chance to apply the skills they learn in school to personally real-world situa-tions, and how to think critically, solve problems, work in teams, and make presentations. These skills will help students succeed in the future, both in a school setting and outside the classroom. Some of the recent favorites (based on student feedback) include: Ms. Reid’s “Pay it Flowered” project, Ms. Coleman’s “American Revolution in a Box” assignment, Mrs. Porada’s “Duck Catapult” lesson, Ms. Williams’ “Important Virginians 4-layer Cake” and Mr. Powell’s “Force & Motion Marble Madness” experiment.

While these, and all other PBL projects, are extremely fun…students take home so much more than just a good time. Students are assessed individually on their content knowledge, their collaboration skills, and their presentation skills. They also give feedback, become inter-active learners, discuss metacognition and develop critical thinking skills. This creates a cycle of learning that not only respects the learner and the standards being applied, but also uncov-ers new concepts. PBL also completes a circle of information that can potentially lead to amazing academic connections and perhaps…the next great idea or invention!!!

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Technology

Loudoun County Public Schools would like to remind you that we provide Microsoft Office to every student and staff mem-ber free of charge! With Office 365, your child will now have access to the latest version of Word, for writing; Excel, for spreadsheets; PowerPoint, for presentations; OneNote, for organization and note taking; and much more.

Install on up to 5 compatible PCs and Macs, plus 5 tablets (including iPad!)

Use with OneDrive for automatic device syncing

Gain valuable skills on the world’s most popular productivity software

Office subscription lasts for as long as your child is a student at LCPS and the Microsoft program continues

As Buffalo Trail Elementary begins its BYOT pilot program for 4th and 5th grade students, parents can download Office 365 on a student device before it comes to school. Directions can be found on the BTES website. Use this link to access the information - http://bit.ly/1ZQjMeZ

Mrs. Breeden and Mrs. Fawley, our reading teachers, were VERY pleased with the participa-tion in our spring break reading incentive. The participation rates were:

Kindergarten-51% Third Grade-41%

First Grade-70% Fourth Grade-66%

Second Grade-66% Fifth Grade-54%

First grade was the grade level with the highest percentage of participants, so they earned ex-tra recess and icy juicy pops. Second and Fourth grade also did a great job and will be re-warded with extra recess on a nice, warm day! Also, all the students who read over spring break were winners because readers are winners!

Grades K-2 are working hard to improve their reading skills before the end of the year Phono-logical Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) and Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) are given. Grades 3-5 are reviewing for the Standards of Learning (SOL) tests which begin mid-May. They are reviewing content as well as learning test taking strategies.

Buffalo Trail will once again offer the Flip Flop Summer Reading incentive. Look for more infor-mation on the requirements toward the end of the school year.

Library

April is National School Library month and students and staff at

Buffalo Trail are celebrating! Stop on by to see how and why

we love our library. Happy reading everyone!

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May 2 - 6

Teacher Appreciation Week

May 6

Parent Input Letter due

May 9-10

Munchkins for Moms

9th - Last Names A-M

10th – Last Names N-Z

May 13

1st Grade Field Trip

SOLs Begin

May 30

Memorial Day—No School

May 31

3rd Grade Music Show

With the weather improving, mile-age club is kicking back up for the spring. Starting April 25, the club will meet every Monday, Wednes-day, and Friday morning from 7:30-7:45. Additionally, we will offer speed stacking club for students who own their own cups on Tues-day and Thursday mornings in the

gym. All students, grades 1-5 are wel-come to attend!! Please make sure that joggers are wearing appropri-ate footwear.

June 1

8:30 DARE Graduation

1:00 4th grade Music Show

June 2-3

Doughnuts for Dads

2nd - Last Names A-M

3rd– Last Names N-Z

June 6-7

Invention Convention

June 8

4th Grade Field Trip

June 9–10

Class Parties

9th - K, 1, 2

10th – 3, 4, ECSE, STEP

June 13

5th Grade Promotion

June 14

Last Day for Students

Guidance

Our Guidance department is helping students succeed in school! Students have been learning how to stay organized and how to manage their time wisely. A BIG THANK YOU to every-one who donated so generously to help our local animal shelter, FOHA. BGB collected 13 boxes full of dog/cat food and other necessities for our furry friends.

Please see

the school

website and

student

agendas for

times and

updates to

the calendar.