Walking the Halls
By VANESSA PHILLIPS Principal, Few Primary

Walking the halls of Few Primary you will find excitement in the air. With the holiday season upon us, students are striving to stay focused on their school work. Their minds are dancing with all the new things they have learned so far.

With our new balanced literacy curriculum, the students are excelling and doing an outstanding job. It is amazing to watch a child recognize a letter, discover that letters have sounds, realize that a group of letters makes a word, and that a collection of words makes a story they can read.

We see the same thing with numbers. Students recognize the number, they discover they can count items, they realize that a group of numbers makes a larger number, and then they can add.

Our parent conference day was a success. We had an increase in the number of parents attending over last year. Parents will have another opportunity to visit with our teachers on Nov. 29 at our parent night. We will have booths set up in the gym and cafeteria for parents to observe and learn different age-appropriate reading and math activities they can do with their child at home.

Other booths are: response to intervention, PRIDE, signs of autism, technology, and PE/health. We will be serving snack food and will have door prizes to give away. Our grand prize will be a computer. We hope to see all parents Nov. 29 at our parent night.

Jasper ISD will be hosting the Elementary UIL Academic Competition Dec. 11 and 13 on our campus. Rowe (5th), Parnell (3rd and 4th), and Few (2nd) students will be participating with students from Kirbyville, Silsbee, and Hardin Jefferson school districts. Few students will compete in storytelling, coached by Renee Dickerson, creative writing, coached by Judy Dickerson, math coached by Diane Holmes and spelling coached by Lindsey Jeansonne.

The students are working hard and practicing their skills so that they will be successful in their competition. Each year our students participate and compete strongly with students from other schools in our area. They represent Few Primary well, and we are so proud of each of them.

We started earlier this year with our reading tutorials in first and second grade. We have eleven teachers who are staying late each afternoon working with students in small groups. This gives the students the opportunity to work at their level and have additional exposure to the skills needed to be successful, confident readers. We will have two more rounds of reading tutorials in the spring and plan on having math tutorials as well.

In addition to these happenings at Few, you will see our PRIDE volunteers actively helping at school. Volunteers cleaned out and planted pansies in the front flower beds. They have decorated in front of Few for the fall season. Everything looks great. Upcoming events include pictures with Santa and our annual Snowflake Shop. If you would like to volunteer at any time, please contact us. If you would like to be a part of PRIDE, we will let the PRIDE officers know of your interest.

Finally, when walking the halls of Few Primary, you will see learning occurring everywhere; our parents, teachers, staff and administrators are all partners in the education of each child at Few Primary. We are creating a strong educational foundation for all students.