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 December these students best exemplify what it means to be a Freetown Elementary Student. Congratulations to the December students that were nominated…
Kindergarten: Nora Brogan, Amiyah Alvarez, Kinsley Cooper, Maddox Esteves, Carter Frias
Grade 1: Olivia Ferro, Asher Deneault, Charley Salmond, Derrick Sanford, Alexander Neves
Grade 2: Grayson Buck, Cali Carvalho, Ayedan Demoranville, Madison McCoy, Brady DeTerra
Grade 3: Kaitlyn Sesin, Ben Calheta, Keegan Baker, Brayden Clauson, Adrian Freitas, Hannah Pierce
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 17 & 18 for Mathematics
Winter Scholastic Book Fair will take place during the week of January 30 - February 2. Teachers will share with their students the day and time they will visit the Book Fair. Additionally, there will be a Family Book Fair Night on Wednesday, February 1st from 5:30 - 7:00 PM.
PTO Corner:
The next PTO Meeting will take place on Monday, February 13th from 6:30 - 7:30 PM. The meeting will be both in-person and virtual.
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!
January daily student attendance…
January 3-6: 96%...Goal achieved!
January 9-13 (excluding 1/13): 94%...Goal achieved!
Upcoming Events:
1/16: No School - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
February Vacation Week will take place the week of February 20-24. School will resume again on Monday, February 27th.
Grade Level Happenings from the Week of January 9-13:
Pre-School: This week in preschool we learned two new Lively Letters, letter a and o. We learned about walruses and snowy owls, and how they have adapted to survive in their arctic habitat. The children participated in an experiment, which taught them about how blubber works to keep arctic animals warm. We began learning about Martin Luther King and how we are all the same inside even if our skin is a different color.
Kindergarten: This week in kindergarten our Fundations’ lesson was an introduction to tapping out cvc words. Our sight word/high frequency word was “you” and we are discussing using describing words and supporting details in our writing. In math, we continued with addition and added numbers within 10. We discussed Martin Luther King and completed activities. In science we’ve begun a unit on winter animals.
Grade 1: This week in first grade we worked on Unit 6 Week 2 in FUNdations. We are working on suffix -s. For comprehension we started Unit 3 and focused on identifying the main story elements in a story. We read the book “A Second is a Hiccup”. For writing we are continuing to work on responding to a text. This week we added a page of our own to the story “On My Way to School”. In math we learned about making a ten to add. For science we are starting the light unit.
Grade 2: This week in second grade reading we worked on finding main idea and key details in nonfiction texts. In Fundations we learned about r-controlled vowels /or/ and /ar/. In math we continued to work with strategies for subtracting 2-digit numbers with regrouping. In writing we began a new unit on Informative writing. We will be researching an animal and writing a report. In Science we started to work on understanding properties and states of matter.
Grade 3: This week in third grade we read historical friction and talked about themes. In writing we wrote an opinion piece trying to convince the audience to visit our favorite US landmark. In math, we solved two step word problems by writing two equations and solving them with an efficient strategy. This week we also had a fun in-school field trip where students got to experience a school day during Puritan times.
Art: Kindergarteners created a cut paper snowman on top of the tissue background they made last week. Grade 1 is learned to mix primary colors to make secondary colors with an adorable painted popsicle
Project. Grade 2 learned about the banyan tree and colored in negative shapes with warm and cool color oil pastels. Grade 3 learned about the Fauvism art movement (wild beasts) and drew and colored a fox in the fauvist style with oil pastels.
Physical Education: Students in all grades worked on their muscular strength and endurance, cardiorespiratory endurance, and flexibility while they practiced and performed step aerobic and resistance band routines. The class ended with the “Class Noodle Pass Relay”.
Music: This week, students K-3 have started the 1st week of their unit on listening. Grade 1 and Kindergarten will listen to music for dynamics, tempo and directions. 2nd grade will listen to music for form.
Library: During library class, kindergarten and first grade students chose a book to read from the Martin Luther King Jr. choice board and then responded to a question about it on Seesaw. Second grade students continued to work on their independent research projects. Third grade students learned about what is and isn’t a mobile device and read two ebooks about technology.