Calendar
Monday, January 18 No school, Martin Luther King Day
Tuesday, January 19 No school, Teacher Professional Development Day
Tuesday, January 19 School Board Meeting 6:30 pm
Wednesday, January 27 School Club Meeting 6:00pm
Tuesday, February 2 School Board Meeting 6:30 pm
Thursday, February 11 Early Release Day, Professional Development
February 22 – 26 No school, Winter Recess
From the Principal’s Desk
Rosemary FitzSimons
HAPPY NEW YEAR! It has been a busy week with the beginning of our winter sports. The students were excited about this event. Please remember to send your child with scarves, snow pants, mittens and hats. We need them to be prepared for the weather. Thanks to all parents who are able to support this and volunteer their time.
New Year’s resolutions and we have ours – to become a greener school. The School Club is once again providing a supplement to student lunches several days of the week. This year we are cutting down on waste by reusing bowls and silverware. The School Club purchased bowls that will be coming home for washing and returning for the next lunch. I have also asked them to stop purchasing plastic silverware. I know your children are used to being able to get these from the kitchen when needed but…. Be sure your child has the silverware needed for their snacks and lunches as we are also seeking to cut down on breakfast waste. The frequency of the soup program depends on volunteers to heat and serve. There is more information from School Club and a sign-up sheet within this newsletter.
Connections News – We currently have 26 students signed up for the various offerings. There is availability in all sessions (some limited). Let us know asap if there is an interest. I am teaching the Speed Stacking (along with Charlie Cummings). Charlie Cummings and the students will probably be teaching me! One opportunity that is underused is Daily Connections. This is the opportunity for your child to get homework help or extra support in one or more learning areas. Think about needs that teachers discussed at parent conference time. We have one more session planned after this one.
Enjoy the winter season!
Dear Families,
Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a safe and restful vacation. Students came back well rested and ready for learning. This week students were excited to learn that we would be starting a new unit on dinosaurs. We have been reading new books to learn new facts, singing new songs as well as poems and finger plays. If your child has anything related to this theme, they may bring it in for their sharing day.
Our trip to Letterland introduced us to a noisy nine year old boy. See if your child is able to tell you his name and the sound that he makes at the beginning of his name.
During math, Kindergartners started Chapter 11 on addition. Some new vocabulary words that we are learning are plus, equals, in all, sum, add and addend. We will be working on how to put two groups together and find out how many in all. I have sent home the Family Involvement letter for this Chapter. These are activities for you to do at home with your child to reinforce concepts that we are learning at school.
We have started up our guided reading groups. Please make sure that if your child comes home with a book bag that they reread it to an adult, sibling, pet or even a stuffed animal. Also please make sure the book bags are returned to school the following day.
Tuesday was the first winter activity day. I heard from students that they had a fantastic time either sledding or skating at the Stratton Rec area. What a wonderful way to come back from vacation.
Hope you all have a great weekend.
Mrs. Bates
First and Second Grade
Mrs. Parker-Jennings (PJ)
It was great to welcome back the first and second graders. I must say that I too was happy to be back at school. It sounded like everyone had an enjoyable holiday and week off. Now, we are back and ready for some new learning.
If you have not picked up your child’s Now and Then project please do so. I think we have 3 left outside our room.
Guided reading groups are back up and running. We are reading many books and focusing our learning around what is in the text, beyond the text, and about the book structure or authors craft. First graders began spelling this week, and will have their first spelling test on Friday.
During word work first graders have continued learning new activities to work on their high frequency words. Also, first graders practiced strategies to recognize words quickly. Second graders have been exploring vowels with an r, or as WE call them the Vowel Stealers. Also, second graders began to explore the y sound in words.
Our new theme is Dinosaurs. Students will be learning about how a particular dinosaur survived, and will be writing a report about that dinosaur. Also, there will be another AT HOME PROJECT assignment based on the student’s dinosaur. The reports and projects will be displayed at our first Author’s Tea on Friday February 19th at 1:30pm.
During our Math Workshop we finished learning addition and subtraction strategies. We will be diving into our measurement unit, which will be fun with our dinosaur unit.
Thank you for your time and support. I hope everyone has a fun and safe weekend.
Yours Truly,
Cris PJ
Dear Third and Fourth Grade Families,
Happy New Year and welcome back! I hope that you all had an enjoyable vacation and holiday.
We have quickly jumped back into our regular routines, with a few exceptions. You have probably noticed our biggest change. The assignment notebooks that were used in the fall only had enough pages to get though January. We found that they did not hold up very well, so to replace them for the remainder of the year we will have an assignment page in their assignment folders. Please continue to sign these pages nightly as you signed the assignment books. The other change with assignment books is that the students will not be bringing them home on winter sports days so that they don’t get lost up at the Mountain. It would be a good idea for the students to pull their spelling words out of the folder Monday night and leave them at home so they can complete a spelling activity Tuesday night.
We are back to doing our guided reading groups most days. On Thursdays I don’t meet with all groups because we have an extended writing workshop time. This week we have begun to work on writing a response to literature.
In math we have begun to study fractions as many of you have noticed from this week’s homework.
The final change is that we are working hard to help kids stay caught up on work on a more regular basis we are sending home unfinished work during the week. If you notice that your child has a lot of homework it may be that they are not completing enough during the day at school. Hopefully this will encourage students to use their time wisely and complete work in a more timely manner.
Please remember that next Wednesday grades 3 through 6 will be going to see the Little Prince in Weston. The show starts at 9:15 so we will be leaving as soon as second bus arrives. Please make sure children are on time Wednesday or they will miss the show!
Enjoy your weekend!
5th and 6th Grade Newsletter from Mrs. Shakespeare
January 7, 2010
Welcome back! Here is a brief synopsis of what we are up to!
Just before the break, fifth grade students learned about using Roman Numerals and shared what they learned with the sixth grade students. Sixth grade students reviewed Roman Numerals at the beginning of this week also.
Students in the fifth and sixth grade are learning about place value and decimals.
We have also begun comparing different aspects of early civilizations such as the: Olmecs, the Mound Builders, the Anasazi, the Mayas, the Aztecs, and the Incas.
Continuing our study of the world continents, students completed political maps of South America.
Next week we will join the third and fourth grades on a field trip to see a production of, The Little Prince. On Thursday we began reading the English version of that story.
MAPS testing, (Measures of Academic Progress) will take place for the fifth and sixth grade students during the week of January 25th.
Stay warm!
Tap Dance Lessons
Registration for Tap Dance lessons will be held at school on Thursday, January 14 at 4:00pm. Lessons will be at the Wardsboro Town Hall this year. Lessons will begin on January 21st. Call Kathy Meeks at 896-6013 for more information.
School Club Soup Program
The following dates are planned for Supplemental Hot Soup (free to all children!). We need volunteers to assist…if you can commit to any of the days below, please include your name and phone number. We would need you from approximately 11:30-1:30.
At this time we are planning to serve three days a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday – however we can do Thursday if you are available. Please indicate below what dates you are available to keep this program going.
Name:
Phone Number:
Email Address: