This week brought Read Across America Week to Freetown Elementary School. Students participated in many literacy activities as well as participating in various “theme” days such as Wacky Wednesday, Pajama Day, Primary Color Day, and Bring Your Favorite Book to Class Day. Thank you for all that participated. Based on the smiling faces from staff and students many had lots of fun.
As you know on Tuesday, February 28th Freetown Elementary School was going to conduct a practice drill of the Emergency Response Protocol. However, Tuesday’s Snow Day eliminated that possibility. The Emergency Response Protocol Practice Drill will now take place next Thursday, March 9th in the morning in coordination with the Freetown Police Department. After the drill all families will be notified of the practice drill and any feedback we should receive from the Freetown Police.
This past week brought the 100th Day of School to Freetown Elementary School. We are all 100 Days smarter. Students participated in 100th Day activities such as counting to 100, jumping to 100, sorting to 100, writing 100 words, and the list could go on and on. Now we are down to our final 80 days of the school year and we will be pushing our students to reach their full potential. We can do it!
FES News and Happenings…
Grade 3 News...Students in grade 3 across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts participate in their first MCAS exam. Students will be tested in English Language Arts and Mathematics. The MCAS exam is a computer based exam in which students will take the exam on the computer. MCAS dates for students in Grade 3 at FES will be:
April 4 & 5 for English Language Arts
May 16 & 17 for Mathematics
Please note the date change for Math MCAS. The change was due to the Grade 3 Spring Choral Concert.
PTO Corner:
The next PTO Meeting will take place on Monday, March 13th from 6:30 - 7:30 PM. The meeting will be both in-person and virtual. The meeting invitation will be provided as the meeting approaches.
FES PTO website is...https://freetownelementarypto.weebly.com/
Attendance Matters Weekly Update:
Goal: 94% of the FES student population will attend school daily.
The September average student daily attendance was 95%. Goal achieved!
The October average student daily attendance was 95%. Goal achieved!
The November average student daily attendance was 94%. Goal achieved!
The December average student daily attendance was 89%. We did not achieve our goal!
The January average student daily attendance was 95%. Goal achieved!
The February average students daily attendance was 93.4%. We did not achieve our goal!
March student daily attendance rate…
March 1 & 2: 96.5%...Goal achieved!
Upcoming Events:
March 16: Spring Class Picture Day
News and Happenings from the classrooms for the week of February 27 - March 3:
Pre-School: This week in preschool we reviewed the letters o, m, n, r, and l. After reading The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss, we used our feet to measure the length of objects in our classroom. We read several other books by Dr. Seuss including Green Eggs and Ham, There’s a Wocket in My Pocket, The Cat in the Hat, Wacky Wednesday, and Hop on Pop. We learned about words that rhyme and we listened for rhymes while reading Dr. Seuss’ books. The preschoolers also enjoyed participating in our schoolwide literacy themed spirit days!
Kindergarten: Welcome back from vacation! We started the week by reconnecting with one another and practicing our speaking and listening skills when we shared our adventures from vacation. In Fundations, we worked on listening for sounds in words, decoding and nonsense words. Our high frequency words this week were- is, little. In Wonders, we revisited visualizing, tracking while reading, parts of a book and focusing on one idea when writing. Our math lesson was counting teen numbers. We completed a variety of activities centered around Read Across America week and famous author Dr. Seuss.
Grade 1: We hope everyone had a nice February break! This week in first grade we focused on non-fiction texts and discussed the topics and details. We continued to work on consonant blends in FUNdations. For writing this week, we wrote about our opinion on which animal team we thought was the most interesting. In math, the students learned to add and subtract tens. We also celebrated Read Across America week by reading his books and participating in Spirit Week.
Grade 2: This week in second grade reading we worked on identifying author’s purpose in writing a text. In Fundations we worked on spelling and reading multisyllabic words with the double vowel teams “ea”, “ee” and “ey” for the long /e/ sound. In math we began to explore tools for measurement and measuring length. In writing we began to brainstorm ideas for personal narratives. We celebrated Read Across America throughout the week with Dr. Seuss readings and activities.
Grade 3: In reading and writing, students read a story called, Martina, The Beautiful Cockroach. Students discussed and wrote stories from the perspective of one of the characters. In math, students used visual models such as number lines, fractions tiles, and pictures to compare fractions. In social studies, students learned about the leading causes of the American Revolution.
Art: Kindergarteners learned about warm and cool colors and painted paper for next week's cool sky warm sun project. Grade 1 learned about the value of color and pop art. They drew and painted 3 scoops of icecream, one tinted, one shade, and one medium value. Grade 2 learned about Japanese vases and painted a paper vase with different values of blue. Grade 3 learned about textile art and learned to sew ribbon into burlap.
Music: This week, students K-3 have started the 6th and final week of their unit on listening. Grade 1 and Kindergarten will listen to music for dynamics, tempo and directions as well as music from Haydn. 2nd grade will listen to music of Beethoven and respond to vocal and instrumental musical elements. 3rd grade will begin on the recorder.
Physical Education: This week all students participated in mini-golf. This unit works on sportsmanship, striking skills, and engaging in an activity that is a lifetime physical skill. Students learned golf safety and etiquette, how to grip the putter, the stance, and how to putt the golf ball successfully. They learned that golf is a sport that requires patience and focus.