March Family Newsletter
Hello EDEMS Families!
Thank you for being supportive as we prepare to close the third quarter of the school year. The coming months are busy for our school community. Our scholars are preparing for state testing that takes place in March and April, field trips are happening, and we have multiple school events.
Below are some important dates to keep on your radar:
IREAD-3 Testing
IREAD-3 testing started March 5th for 2nd, 3rd and some select 4th and 5th graders. Please make sure your scholars get adequate sleep and they arrive on time, so that they can perform at their best!
Clearsight Testing
On March 12th & 13th scholars will be taking the Clearsight Test. This test is to measure scholars grade level proficiency. Please make sure your scholars get adequate sleep and they arrive on time, so that they can perform at their best!
Report Cards
Report cards will go home with scholars on March 13th.
Family Conference Day
Family Conference Day is March 22nd. On this day, there will be no scholars in the building. Family Conference Day is an opportunity for you to connect with your scholar's teacher(s) on their performance in school. In addition, we are adding mini-workshops that families can attend on this day to gather additional resources for support academics.
Thank you again for all of your support. GO BEARS!
Mr. Gammons
Middle School Principal
Upcoming Events
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1
Staff PD - No School for Scholars
2
3
4
5
6
8:30am Event: Latino Literacy Project
7
8
Solar Eclipse - Remote Learning Day for Scholars
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10
11
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Event: Middle School Spring Dance
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8:30am Event: Latino Literacy Project
14
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Field Experience: Martin University - 5th Grade
16
Field Experience Butler University K-1
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Q4 Progress Reports Go Home
18
Event: Spring Family Dance - K-6
6pm Middle School Soccer Game @ Sidener
19
Be the Best You Can Be School Show with the Colts
20
8:30am Event: Latino Literacy Project
21
22
Qtr 3 Perfect Attendance Incentive
23
Assessment: ILearn - ELA CAT
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25
Assessment: ILearn - ELA PT
6pm Middle School Soccer Game @ Sidener
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27
11am Middle School Soccer Game @ Christel House
1pm Middle School Soccer Game @ Christel House
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29
30
ILEARN - Math CAT
1
Assessment: ILEARN - Math PT
2
Assessment: ILEARN - SS/Sci CAT
3
Assessment: ILEARN - Science PT
6pm Middle School Soccer Game @ Sidener
4
Event: Stronger Together Community Event
8:30am Event: Latino Literacy Project
Family Conference Day Sign-Ups
Join us for our spring Family Conference Day on Friday, March 22nd. Scholars will engage in remote learning, allowing teachers to spend the day meeting with families.
Secure your preferred time slot now by signing up. Teachers are eager to discuss your scholar's progress and achievements with you.

Update Your Contact Information
Ensuring that families are fully informed about events, critical updates, and scholar news is paramount to us. For this to be effective, it's essential that we maintain up-to-date contact information for each family.
This encompasses your phone number, physical address, and email address.
We urge you to promptly notify the front office whenever your contact details change. Our front office team can be reached at (317) 226-4272 between 7:30 AM and 3:00 PM. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated in keeping our communication seamless and effective.
Scholar Field Experiences
There are several field experiences taking place in March!
K-6 scholars will enjoy a trip to the Fun Factory in March! This is an incentive-based field experience. Scholars must earn this trip based on the following criteria: 90% or high attendance, less than three referrals in February, and no suspensions in February.
8th-grade scholars will go to visit Ball State University on March 15th. Scholars can explore the campus and learn about the college experience. In addition, our middle schoolers will be able to experience some magic this month. A magician will join lunch one day and provide table-side magic tricks for scholars.
Classroom News
Welcome to our new addition to our newsletter!
Each month, we will provide a high-level overview of what your scholar will learn in English Language Arts (ELA) and Math. Resources are linked to support you and your scholar with the practice of skills at home.
Remember to contact your scholar's teacher for additional information about their academics.
Remember to check out our academic support pages on our website for additional educational resources. This page is updated monthly!
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Kindergarten
Academic SupportsKindergarten with Ms. Bales and Ms. Sullivan!
What are we learning?
ELA:
- Use words and pictures to write a main idea and details about a topic.
- Spell simple words by tapping out, using spaces between our words, and neat handwriting.
What can I do at home?
- Have your scholar practice telling you about a topic (like cars, their favorite foods, their weekend) and then 2 details about the topic.
- Have your scholar write their sentences, tapping out each word, using a finger space between their words, and using their neatest handwriting.
Math:
What are we learning? Addition and subtraction
What can I do at home?
- Gather 2 different types of objects (ex: 3 cookies and 4 pieces of candy) and have them add them together
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First Grade
1st Grade with Ms. Bedford and Mr. Ford
What are we learning in ELA?
- Identifying story elements (character, setting, problem, resolution)
- Asking and answering questions about a text
- Writing a complete sentence by tapping out or sounding out each word, including a capital letter and punctuation
- Spelling and reading CVC words (bag, top, fun) as well as words with blends (blast, trick)
What can I do at home?
Complete the daily trick word homework
- Take turns echo reading books at home that interest your child and prompt them with questions about the story
- Practice ABC flashcards, prompting your child to say the name of the letter and the sound it makes, refraining from showing the cards in alphabetical order.
What are we learning in Math?
Understanding of the terms ''longer than" and "shorter than." Measuring different objects using centimeters and other non-standard units such as paper clips.
What can we do at home? Have scholars find some things at home and have them tell you_____ is longer than ____ and _____ is shorter than _____.
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Second Grade
Practice Counting Coins2nd Grade with Mrs. Nally and Ms. Nigam
What are we learning in ELA?
- Asking/answering questions
- Speaking in complete sentences
- Understanding point of view.
- Narrative writing
- Vowel Teams
What can I do at home?
- Ask comprehension questions based on genre: If a narrative text: What is the setting, character, problem, resolution and lesson learned?
- If a non-fiction text: What are the key details? Main idea? And the author's perspective?
- Provide scholars with words to read and spell that have these vowel teams in them.
- Provide scholars text and have them do a word hunt to find words that have these vowel teams.
What are we learning in Math?
- How to count and subtract coins with values of 1 cent, 5 cents, 10 cents, and 25 cents.
What can we do at home?
- Have your scholar add up the coins to make change!
- Start a coin jar at home to collect change, then have your 2nd grader count the total!
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Third Grade
Area and Perimeter Video3rd Grade with Mr. Jones and Ms. Johnson
What are we learning in ELA?
- Narrative writing
- Write a multiple-paragraph explanatory essay that compares and contrasts two stories
What can I do at home?
- Have your scholar write a multi-paragraph narrative about the most exciting parts of their school day.
What are we learning in Math? Finding the perimeter and area of shapes
What can we do at home? Measure different objects in the house & calculate the area and perimeter of them
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Fourth Grade
4th Grade with Mrs. Finn and Ms. Hill
What are we learning in ELA?
- How to write an explanatory essay
- How to write an opinion statement and paragraph
- Write with supported reasons and with text evidence
What can I do at home? Provide your scholar with a prompt that allows them to give their opinion. Have them write their opinion on the topic and 3 supporting details.
What are we learning in Math:
- Measurement
- Solving problems involving adding and subtracting mixed units of capacity, length, weight, and time.
- How to convert larger mixed measurement units to smaller units
What can we do at home?
- Three-digit by three-digit addition and subtraction
- Multiplication and division practice
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Fifth Grade
Academic Supports5th Grade with Ms. Birt and Ms. Hills
What are we learning in ELA?
- Writing from first person point of view
- Writing an explanation paragraph with text-based evidence
What can I do at home?
- Practice writing an opinion essay by selecting a topic that you believe in or love. Write about it.
- Reading daily to increase reading fluency
What are we learning in Math? Multiplication and division of fractions of decimals and finding the volume and area of shapes
What can we do at home?
- Multiplication flash cards
- Multi-digit multiplication problems (once scholars have mastered 12 by 12 times tables)
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Sixth Grade
6th Grade with Mrs. Bernacchi and Mr. Sterling
What are we learning in ELA?
- Writing an argumentative essay
- Write an argumentive essay with supporting claims, clear reasons, and relevant evidence.
What can I do at home?
- Pick a argumentative topic and write an essay about it that includes evidence and clear reasons
- Read daily to increase fluency
What are we learning in Math:
- Negative Numbers
- Solving Inequalities (i.e. < or > problems)
- Graphing Coordinates on an x- and y-axis
- Finding the common factor between two numbers
What can we do at home?
- Find common factors and quiz them (i.e. "For what numbers is 21 a factor?" The answer is 1, 3, 7, and 21 because if you multiply them, you can get to 21).
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Seventh Grade
7th Grade Ms. Roney and Ms. Lund
What are we learning in ELA?
How to write an argumentative essay with a claim statement, reason for the claim, and evidence to support it.
What can I do at home?
- When your scholar is trying to convince you to let them do something or have something, ask for their CREE argument. What is their claim (the idea they believe is true)? What is their reason for believing the idea is true? What is their evidence to support
- Once they have said their CREE argument, have your student write it in order!Y
- our scholar will also bring home nightly readings from their assigned ELA text. After they read, ask them to tell you what the reading was mostly about
What are we learning in math?
How to calculate the measurements of a bigger object based on a smaller one. This is called a scale copy.
What can we do at home?
If you have different sized hardware or tools at home, have your scholar figure out the dimensions of each by measuring the height, width, and length. Then, figure out if you have two tools that are scale copies of each other.
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Eighth Grade
8th Grade with Mr. Ewing and Ms. Hogan
What are we learning?
ELA:
- How to write and analyze argumentative essays with a claim statement, reason for the claim statement, and evidence to support (CREE structure).
What can I do at home?
- Read an opinion piece from the newspaper. Ask them to identify the claim (the idea the author believes is true), the reason the author believes the idea is true, and the evidence the author provides to support.Then ask your student to state if the author's argument is well-supported or not supported and why?
- Your scholar will also bring home nightly readings from their assigned ELA text. After they read, ask them to tell you what the reading was mostly about?
What are we learning in math?
A right triangle is a triangle with one 90-degree angle. Pythagoreas, a mathematician from Ancient Greece, figured out that if you know the length of just two of those sides, you can figure out the length of the other one. This is Pythagorean Theorem - a2 + b2 = c2.
What can we do at home?
- Find all the examples of right triangles (triangles with 90-degree angles) throughout your home!
- Measure the height of your home up to the roof. Then, measure a distance in the yard, facing the house. Then, imagine if you threw something from that spot in the yard up to the top of the house, how far would you have to throw? Use Pythagorean Theorem to figure that out!
Kindergarten Open House
March 16th , 10AM - 2PM
Help us spread the word about our Kindergarten Open House! Potential kindergarten students or those who have already enrolled for the 2024-2025 school year are invited to this event!
Families can learn more about the school, tour the building, meet our staff, and enroll on-site!
Refer a family, and you could win a prize!
Family Satisfaction Survey Next Steps
Thank you to all the families that attended our February Family Advisory Council Meeting. We were able to gather additional insight into our Family Satisfaction Survey results. From the survey, we have developed a goal for our team to focus on for the remainder of the school year. We understand the importance of communication. We want to ensure families have the information they need to support their scholars' success. Here is what you can expect to see from us for the remainder of the school year to improve our communication:
- 1. We will add a new section to our monthly newsletter that communicates academic topics that scholars will learn in ELA and Math each month.
- 2. We will increase the number of resources for academic support on our website by adding 2-3 new resources each month.
- 3. We will work with families to ensure that contact information is up-to-date in our student information system and that all families receive digital communication if they choose to.
- 4. We will streamline our communication to ensure that families receive information promptly. PS! Did you know we only send home things on Wednesdays? Be sure to check folders and backpacks!
We appreciate your support as we work towards our goal. In April, we will have another Family Satisfaction Survey for you to provide insight on our progress.
February in Pictures
Community Events & Resources
We unite in solidarity with our families and community to create a joyous neighborhood school, preparing all scholars to graduate from college and lead lives of leadership and service to Indianapolis.
CONTACT US
317-226-4272
info@adelanteschools.org
1202 E. Troy Ave.
Indianapolis, IN 46203
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