Mr. Ward’s Message:
With each passing month it is with great pride at Freetown Elementary School that we continue the deep, embedded tradition of Student of Month ceremonies. With each month a student from each classroom is nominated by peers and/or their teacher. Students nominated have put forth their best efforts in their school work, behavior, and efforts. For the month of January these students best exemplify what it means to be a Freetown Elementary Student. Congratulations to the January students that were nominated…
Kindergarten: Grace Brangwynne, Seraphina Gagnier, Shayenn Milosek, Weylyn Carvalho, Anna Menard
Grade 1: Hadley Pinheiro, Emily Ruest, Alana Griffin, Lucas Couto, Maddox Esteves, Aria DeGroat
Grade 2: Logan Peryer, Thomas Auger, Julian Mello, Holden Bonanca, Mackenzie Foye
Grade 3: Mason Moakley, Kennedy Murphy, Adrienne Oliveria, Genvieve Pellerin, Quinn Rodrigues
Upcoming events:
February 12: February PTO Meeting beginning at 6:30 PM.
February 15: FES PTO Bingo Night (Registration is full!)
February 19-23: February Vacation Week
March 5: No School - Primary Election
February Vacation Week will take place the week of February 19-23. School will resume again on Monday, February 26th.
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 8 & 9 for English Language Arts
May 14 & 15 for Mathematics
On Wednesday, February 28th Freetown Elementary School will be practicing our Emergency Response Plan (ALICE). The purpose of this plan and the practice of this plan is intended for all members of the Freetown Elementary School Community to feel safe while at work or at school learning. Safety of all of our students is our highest priority. Within our plan we are working closely with the Freetown Police Department to ensure our safety protocols are efficient and appropriate. At the completion of the drill families will receive a One-Call Thrillshare email about the practice drill and how it went. Again, our Emergency Response Plan Drill will take place on Wednesday February 28th.
PTO Corner:
PTO meetings will be held in person and virtually. The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, February 12th, 2024 from 6:30 - 7:30 PM. The meeting invitation link is shared below for anyone who would like to attend virtually. Hope you will consider joining the FES PTO.
Topic: February PTO Meeting
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 504 427 3489
Passcode: FESPTO
FES PTO website is...https://freetownelementarypto.weebly.com/
Attendance Matters Weekly Update:
Goal: 94% of the FES student population will attend school daily.
February’s Daily Student Attendance Percentage:
February 1 & 2: 89%...Did not reach our goal!
February 5-9 (Excluding 2/9) 93.75%...Not quite there, but much better!
Grade Level Happenings from the Week of 2/5 - 2/9:
Pre-School: This week in preschool we learned about the letter L and its sound. We learned about hibernation and celebrated “Hibernation Day” in our classrooms. Our projects this week included bears and special Valentine gifts for our families. We also practiced counting by putting counting bears into a cave.
Kindergarten: This week in kindergarten we focused on 2 letters- Ff and Rr. We also learned 2 HFW which were “with” and “he”. Our comprehension skills focused on topic and details, rereading and list writing.
We concentrated on stretching sounds to write words and in math we focused on addition and subtraction facts to 5 with an introduction to fact families. Kindergarten celebrated 100 days of school on Friday.
Grade 1: This week in first grade we learned about the soft sounds for c and g along with -dge. For comprehension we focused on folktales and characters and settings. In writing, we are working on restating and answering questions related to a text we have read. For math this week, we took a look at the 120 chart and learned to use it in different ways to solve math problems. In science we are finishing up the light unit and working on communication. We also celebrated the 100th Day of School on Wednesday!
Grade 2: This week in second grade in reading we learned about how images such as diagrams and charts support a nonfiction text. In phonics we began working with double vowel syllables and the double vowel teams “ai” and “ay” for the long /a/ sound. In math we continued to solve word problems involving adding and subtracting with regrouping and began a review of unit 2 skills. In writing we worked on our narrative writing. We explored properties and states of matter in science. We had a great time on Wednesday celebrating the 100th day of school!
Grade 3: This week in math, students learned how to compare fractions using fraction bar models, number lines, and pictures with the greater than, less than, and equal to signs. In reading, students explored a new essential question: how is each event in history unique? In writing, students had an opportunity to reread a story called, “Martina, the Beautiful Cockroach” and write a story from another character’s perspective.
Art: Kindergarteners celebrated 100 days of school with a 100 lines project. Grade 1 learned about pop artist Jim Dine and started a warm and cool color heart painting. Grade 2 completed their Aztec sun and moon paintings. Grade 3 experimented with color and texture while using Gelli Plates to make monoprints.
Physical Education: Students practiced basketball skills with 2nd and 3rd graders focusing on dribbling and shooting. Kindergarten and 1st grade students focused on dribbling.
Music: This week, students K-3 have started the 4th 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 listen to music to evaluate their own performance on the recorder.
Library: We celebrated World Read Aloud Day this week on February 7th with four virtual author visits from the authors Songju Ma Daemicke, Debra Shumaker, June Sobel and Meera Sriram. The authors read one of their books aloud and answered questions from the students! It was a great experience to be able to talk with them and learn about their books.