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 November these students best exemplify what it means to be a Freetown Elementary Student. Congratulations to the November students that were nominated…
Kindergarten: Phoenix Lord, Jack Rodgers, Austin Vaudry, Quinnlyn McNulty, Emily Ruest
Grade 1: Max Clondas, Adelyn Davis, James Cole, Quinn Hebert, Ariana Rosa
Grade 2: Kenley Grandfield, Carter Esteves, Aubree DeCosta, Madison Corrao
Grade 3: Brayden Fletcher, Reese Butler, Rhienne Smith, Nora Enes, Layla Magalhaes, Benjamin Oliveira
Thank you to all the families who participated in this week’s Parent/Teacher Conferences. Your support and engagement is greatly appreciated. Please do not let the partnership between home and school end there. Continue to speak to your child about school. Continue reviewing your child’s work that goes home. Even reach out to your child’s teacher at any point to check-in. All staff will be happy to assist you. Our partnership of home and school is nothing we ever take for granted at Freetown Elementary School.
Thank you to all the families who donated items to our Community Service Projects. Your willingness to give was greatly appreciated. Thank you for your kindness and generosity.
PTO Corner:
The next PTO Meeting will take place on Monday, January 9th from 6:30 - 7:30 PM. The meeting will be both in-person and virtual.
FES PTO website is...https://freetownelementarypto.weebly.com/
Amazon Smile…The Holidays will be here before you know it. Don't forget when you are doing your holiday shopping to start at AmazonSmile and select Freetown Elementary School PTO as your charity. Once you set up the AmazonSmile connection Amazon will remind you anytime you shop to start at AmazonSmile. The price of your products doesn't change at all, but amazon gives FES PTO a percent of your purchases. It's just that easy. Support us when you shop for holiday gifts http://smile.amazon.com/ch/75-3257492 and Amazon donates.
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!
Let’s keep that momentum going into the month of December.
December 5-9: 90%...Did not meet the goal!
For the week of December 19-23 it will be Holiday Spirit Week at Freetown Elementary School. There will be different themes for each day of the week. The holiday themes are below. Please know this is completely voluntary, students do not need to participate. Our hope is to bring some cheer and fun to the holiday season while still learning.
Monday, 12/19: Holiday Accessory Day - Students are invited to wear their best and most festive holiday accessories (headbands, hats, necklaces, earrings, ties, etc).
Tuesday, 12/20: Pajama Day - Students can wear their pajamas to school.
Wednesday, 12/21: Holiday Sock Day - Students may wear their favorite holiday socks!
Thursday, 12/22: Holiday Sweater Day - Students can wear their festive holiday sweaters/shirts to school.
Friday, 12/23: Red and Green Day - Students are invited to wear red and green or holiday colors to school.
Upcoming events:
December 13: Grade 1 Holiday Storybook Night
December 16: Kindergarten Gingerbread Night
December 21: Grade 3 Holiday Choral Concert beginning at 7:00 PM
December 23: Early Release Day for students. Breakfast and lunch will not be provided.
*Holiday Recess will begin at the close of school on Friday, December 23rd. School will resume again on Tuesday, January 3rd.*
Grade Level Happenings from the Week of 12/5 - 12/9:
Preschool: This week in preschool, the children learned about Hanukkah and Kwanzaa traditions. We continued graphing donated items on our Giving Graph. The children learned the letters q and k, and their corresponding sounds.
Kindergarten: This week in kindergarten our Fundations letters were v and w. Our high frequency word was “and”. Our Wonders skills were visualization, main topic and key details. For math, we worked on comparing within 10.
Grade 1: This week in first grade we started unit 5 in FUNdations. We learned about glued sounds -am and -an. We also discussed nonfiction and rereading to understand. For writing we are continuing to work on writing complete sentences and responding to a text. The students are learning to use evidence from the text to support their answer. For math this week we reviewed all the facts we know to 10. In social studies we are learning about holidays around the world. Our Holiday Story Hour is next Tuesday, December 13th, from 5:15-6:30. We hope to see you then!
Grade 2: This week in second grade reading we worked on finding the topic and relevant supporting details. In Fundations, we learned about open syllables and about using “y” as a vowel. In math we used strategies to add 3-digit numbers with regrouping. In writing we worked on further developing our Realistic Fiction writing. In science we talked about slow changes to land.
Grade 3: This week in third grade we focused on identifying fact vs. opinion in nonfiction text. In math, we solved addition and subtraction problems with regrouping and went over strategies to memorize the nine facts. In social studies we continued to read about the life of a pilgrim in their new world.
Art: Kindergartners continued to learn about non-objective art and Wassily Kandinsky. They started a project inspired by Kandinsky’s Concentric circles. Grade 1 students are cutting and gluing geometric and organic shapes to create a shape monster collage. Grade 2 students are learning about masks as an artform and are creating symmetrical African paper masks. Grade 3 students are creating adorable cut paper carolers in their own likeness.
Physical Education: The gymnasium has been transformed into a bowling alley. Each grade level is learning how to rotate through the jobs that make a bowling alley function: bowler, pin setter, and ball return. They are learning the grade appropriate grip, stance, and bowling delivery.
Music: This week, students K-3 have started the 4th week of their unit on improvising. Grade 3 will be improvising movements in Mama Lama, Grade 2 will explore improvising using mallet instruments. Grade 1 and Kindergarten will continue to improvise with arioso type songs. In addition, we have begun singing holiday songs chosen by the students.
Library: During library class this week, we celebrated The Hour of Code week (December 5 - 11) by playing Coding with Awbie on the iPads and we also worked with the Dash and Dot robots. Students used the programming language called Blockly to create sequences where the characters or robots follow a set of step-by-step directions.