Dear Family and Friends,
What an amazing weekend for CES! Seeing so many of you come together to show support for our small school was beyond heartwarming. Success of the 5K could not be possible without our families, staff, and community members. A HUGE thank you goes out to all of you from all of us at CES. Together we raised over $11,000!! This week we will continue with our theme, City Gardens and Country Farms. We will focus on farmers and others who grow the foods that we eat every day. We are also going to learn that food also comes from different animals. We planted seeds last week and we are going to continue to make observations as our seeds grow. Our new KinderRoots book will be, Peg’s Ducks, which focuses on the letter e. The kids noticed that the words are written in smaller print this week. We talked about how the books are getting longer and more challenging. We continue to encourage nightly reading practice to gain confidence and fluency! In Math, we are finishing up our current unit. We’ve been introducing the concept of counting by 2’s and 10’s. In kindergarten we do NOT expect them to master counting by 2’s but we do lay the foundation. By the end of the year we do like to see the kindergarteners count by 10’s to 100. We have been solving math problems like “How many eyes do we have all together?” or “How many fingers do we have all together?”. This week we will also be checking in with students to see how they are progressing with their counting, addition equations, number ordering and sorting. We will continue on with our How-To writing unit. This week we will be learning that it is important to write how-to books about things we learn throughout the day. We will also be learning about introductions and conclusions. We know this sounds crazy but believe us… Kindergarteners get it! The Kindergarteners will be going on a field trip on Thursday, April 25th to East Hill Farm. More information about the trip will be sent home this week so please be on the look out. Friendly Reminder: NO SCHOOL Next week, April 15-19 for April Break There will also be NO SCHOOL for kindergarteners on Friday, May 3rd Have a great week! Amy and Ashley
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Dear Family and Friends,
Happy Monday everyone. We have a busy week here at CES! The kids are very excited for our 5th annual 5K. It’s not too late to register if you haven’t done so already. Let’s try to have as many smiling faces as possible at the run. Don’t forget, you can run, walk or jog. This is a family friendly event and we welcome strollers. Prior to the race start there is a 100 yd dash for little kids that is run on Church Place and is free to all preschool aged kids! This week we will begin a new theme, City Gardens and Country Farms. We will focus on plants and what they need to grow. We will also discuss the different types of gardens and what they produce. This afternoon we are going to eat different parts of plants. We will also be planting seeds this week so we can make scientific observations. Our new KinderRoots book will be, The Fin in the Water, which focuses on the letter f. Be sure to continue reading and working with your child each night so that they become more of a confident and fluent reader. We appreciate all that you do each evening to help with your child’s success. In Math, we will continue to review previously taught concepts. We will also be comparing and ordering quantities, as well as, counting and representing quantities. It was so much fun taking surveys in the classroom that I am sure we will do it again this week! Our writing time has been so much fun. We are writing how-to books. The idea of these books is to get each child to write a book that teaches how to do something. Topics so far include; building a snowman, fishing, making banana bread, walking a dog, making a salad… Please remember that all sold raffle tickets and money need to be brought back to school by Thursday, April 4th. Also, if you have any unsold tickets, please send them back as well. Our 5K race will take place THIS Saturday, April 6th @ 10:30. This year our PTCO is sponsoring a spaghetti supper on Friday, April 5th. More information on the spaghetti supper will be coming home in your child’s folder this week. For all of the runners that attended Runners Club these last four weeks…. GREAT JOB!! It has ended for this year, but we look forward to even more students signing up next year. Thank you for all of your hard work! Have a Great Week! -Mrs. Rawling & Mrs. McCants Dear Parents and Friends,
What a beautiful weekend it was. Many of the kids came in and told us they spent some time enjoying the warmer weather. I have been encouraging them all to be on the look out for bugs and insects! We also did mention that if anyone sees insects that they should just observe them, not touch them! We will continue our theme, Buggy About Spring and will focus on Spring and all of the changes that happen in this season. We will be planting seeds this week and making scientific observations. In Math we are going to be gathering data and information, sorting and organizing our information and talking about results. This week we will be introducing surveys! The kids really enjoy walking around asking their friends survey questions. In KinderRoots, we will begin another new shared story, Tubb, the Cub, which focuses on the letter b. Please remember to sign the homework slip each night and remember to read the red and green words on the front cover. Thank you! Hope the reading each night is getting easier and easier. For those of you who have signed up for runners club it concludes this Wednesday right after school. Pick up is at 3:20. The students have really enjoyed this activity and it is preparing us for our BIG Central School 5K, which takes place on Saturday, April 6th at Central Elementary school. Please remember to sell those raffle tickets for the 5K. All money and or tickets need to be returned to school by April 5th. There are some incredible items that are being raffled off. If you need more tickets, please stop in the office and more tickets will be given to you. During school on Thursday, the entire school will be attending a sneak peak at the high school’s performance of Mary Poppins. This weekend there are three shows scheduled to allow for everyone’s schedules! March 29th at 7PM, March 30th at 2PM & 7PM. Tickets $5.00 each. Don’t forget about our ice cream social being held on Thursday, March 28th. This will be a great time to learn more about our 7 Habits AND enjoy ice cream together with family and friends. If you have not yet signed up but would like to, it’s not too late :) Have a Great Week! Mrs. McCants & Mrs. Rawling Dear Parents and Friends,
This week is finally going to be a regular week. It looks like the weather will be warming up however, please continue to send in all outside gear! We will continue with our theme Safe & Sound. This week we will focus on people that help keep our community safe. We will also be learning different ways that we can be safe when we are playing in our community. In Math we are continuing to work on our subtraction and additional strategies. Most of the math work we do is hands on while we working on recording our equations and numbers. This week we will also be learning different ways and combinations to show numbers. In KinderRoots, our new book is The Jumping Sack. We will be focusing on the letter k. We keep saying that the books are getting harder and harder and we are not lying! It is very important to practice reading each night. At the end of the week we pull each kid to assess how well they are doing in reading. We check letter names and sounds, sounding out words and finally have them read one sentence. We are starting our new Informational unit in writing this week. We will kick this unit off with some unsupported writing prompts followed by our first lessons. This unit is always so much fun! It’s interesting to see what the children think they are experts in :) Runners club will continue this Wednesday for our kindergarteners. It is very helpful if the runners have sneakers so please don’t forget sneakers on Wednesday if your child is signed up for runners club. Also, you may sign up to be in runners club even if you cannot sign up for the 5K. Pickup time is 3:30pm in the gym. *If there is anyone that has size 12 or size 1 shoes that are still in good condition we could really use them in kindergarten. There are many days that shoes are being left home and the typical size we are always looking for is 12 or 1. It would be great to have a couple of pairs on hand. *We would also like to welcome a new kindergarten friend, Angel! We look forward to getting to know Angel for the rest of the school year. Have a Great Week! Amy and Ashley Dear Parents and Friends,
Happy Wednesday! It is hard to believe that it is already the middle of the week! Since there is only three days this week, we will be reviewing and strengthening our skills. Report cards will be coming home on Friday, March 22nd. We will review and expand upon our Safe and Sound theme, which we will conclude next week. Our focus will continue to be on our community helpers and how important they are in our neighborhood. This week we will review who dentists and barbers are and what they do. In Math we are beginning to talk about subtraction. We are going to be asking the kids how they can tell if a problem is subtraction or addition. We are working on several different strategies to help us answer word problems. We have been using blocks, counters, number lines, pictures and equations. We are going to continue to work on our strategies this week. Many of the kids can actually do the math in their head which is fantastic however, now we need to focus on showing our work. In KinderRoots, we will be reading past Shared Stories to improve our fluency. On the homework slip this week, please just write the name of the past Shared Story that you and your child read at home. Remember to sign the homework slip each night. Thank you! In writing we are finally wrapping up our Narrative writing. To finish the unit off strong we let the kids share one of their best narrative pieces with the class. We will also have them work on an unassisted writing piece for two days. Using their writing pieces helps up identify strengths and weaknesses in their writing and allows us to help each child where they are. We will be jumping into Informational writing next week. Runners club starts today for our kindergarteners and we can’t wait to see them all running in the halls. On Friday, We will be taking a walking field trip downtown. We are going to visit Mrs. McCants’ mom who is a hair stylist. We talked about how a barber is someone in our community who cuts and styles hair. We will get a chance to see many of the different tools that are used to cut and style hair. This'll be a quick and fun trip for all! Have a Great Week! Amy and Ashley Dear Parents and Friends,
Happy Monday, day after vacation! We hope everyone enjoyed their week and got some extra rest. We are hopeful that all of the sicknesses that had been going around is gone. The winter months in school can be very tough on our immune systems. The last few weeks before vacation were tough for so many. This week we will begin a new two week theme, Safe and Sound. This week’s focus will be on community helpers. There are so many people in our neighborhoods that work together to help others and keep our community safe. In Math, we are going to be working on combining bigger numbers and counting larger quantities. We are going to be rolling 3 dice and finding the sum! Not only are we going to find the sum we are going to look at different strategies to get it. We have a new Shared story this week, Where Is Pit-Pat? This book focuses on the letter p. As we promised, the books are getting more and more challenging. As the books continue to get more difficult it is more important to get your child to read each night. Please remember to flip over the homework slips to complete the questions with your child. In Writing, we will be Finishing our Narrative unit. We will be focusing on giving our stories powerful endings and sharing some of our favorite stories. Each child is always very proud of their writing. Watching our kindergarteners read they own writing is extremely rewarding! A huge thank you to all of you who were able to donate goods to our Valentine’s party! All of the children thoroughly enjoyed sharing treats with their classroom friends. We also had a terrific time last Friday with our Cross Grade Level activities in the morning. We got the opportunity to draw architecture in our community, be involved in a human marble run and even engineered a structure using marshmallows and toothpicks. *Just a reminder there will NOT be any school next Monday, March 4-5th due to Teacher Inservice and Town Meeting Day. Have a Great Week! Amy and Ashley Dear Parents and Friends,
Happy Tuesday! We had a FANTASTIC 100th day yesterday. We enjoyed making hats and celebrating with a sweet treat. Please make sure to stay safe if you need to drive this afternoon. It sounds like the snow is really going to be falling down! We will continue our Unit this week, Words and Roads Take Us Places. Our focus this week will be on Transportation and how there are many different types that help us to move from one place to another. They are going to learn that transportation and communication can work hand-in-hand! Our KinderRoots shared story this week is Don Gets a Dog, which focuses on the letter o. Our shared stories are getting more difficult, so again, please read each night with your child. It certainly does make a difference in your child’s reading. If you are having any problems with the homework please reach out to us! We would be happy to give suggestions and offer support. In Math, we are beginning to revisit concepts that we worked on earlier in the year. We are introducing new activities such as; connect the dots (number lines), word problems, counting and sorting inventories (with higher numbers) AND representing quantities with numerals and pictures. In Writing, we learning how important it is to have a strong beginning. We are trying to make sure our readers WANT to keep reading our books. We are also learning to have endings that share our feelings. Some of these concepts can be challenging to our young authors however, we are getting better everyday! A friendly reminder: We will be have our Valentine’s Day Celebration on Thursday, February 14th. Please make sure that if you child is exchanging valentines that they bring them already filled out. I do have extras in the classroom if you would like to have your child use them. If you let me know that you would like to use them I can send them home with your child on Wednesday. Thank you in advance for your contributions to this celebration. The children really do love celebrating with their friends and that is what the day is all about! Have a Great Week! Amy and Ashley Dear Parents and Friends, It’s another Monday and hopefully this week will be a full week. The weather this time of year can make morning travel challenging. Always remember to take your time and be safe if you need to drive to school! If you are not getting the cancellation or delay calls from our district office please reach out to one of us so we can update your information. This week we will continue with our theme, Day and Night, Dark and Light. We will focus on Opposites and how two things can be related but, are very different from each other. We will discuss concrete examples such as big and little, clean and dirty when we read Harry the Dirty Dog. Then when we read The Empty Pot we will address opposite values of honesty and dishonesty. This unit is both serious and silly :) Our KinderRoots shared story this week is Nan’s Pet, which focuses on the letter p. As the weeks progress the books are getting harder for the children to read. So, please read each night with your child. We have been noticing that more and more children are not practicing their reading each night and are beginning to struggle when reading in class. Complete success with this program depends on reading both at school and home. Reading these stories only five times per week does not prepare the children for the next week’s book, which is more difficult. Thank you in advance for your support! In Math this week, we will continue to concentrate on 3-D shapes. You can practice this skill at home by asking your child to find everyday objects that look like specific 3-D shapes (cones, cubes, spheres). Many of the kids are already seeing 2-D and 3-D shapes all around in the classroom. Ways to help out our classrooms: We would love Lysol disinfecting wipes to keep the germs at bay, plastic spoons for snack time, and boxes of Kleenex (our school provides some basic tissues however, they are pretty rough on runny noses). We really do appreciate your support and generosity! Have a Great Week! Amy and Ashley Dear Parents and Friends,
What a great Monday to be a Patriots fan! For those of you who watched the Super Bowl hopefully you were able to settle down and get some sleep! Next week on Monday, February 11th we will be celebrating our 100th day of school! We will be sending a sign up sheet home to see who is willing to send in ice cream sundae ingredients, as we have been counting down our days until this yummy celebration! We can’t believe that we have been in school for 100 days already. This year is certainly flying by! We would also like for each child to bring in 100 items: pennies, Cheerios, macaroni… just a few examples! We will be sharing them in class. No worries if you can not make this happen as we will be sharing. We will also be sending home a class list so you and your child can make out Valentine cards together and send them in (If you wish to do so). A snack sign up for our Valentine’s Day Party which will take place next Thursday afternoon will be coming home as well. Thank you in advance for your contributions to these events. We will begin a new unit this week, Words and Roads Take Us Places. Our focus this week will be on Communication. Our students will learn the importance of sharing a message through communication. We will also learn that there are verbal and nonverbal forms of communication such as pictures, words, signs, and sign language. Our KinderRoots shared story this week is Sig the Pig, which focuses on the letter g. Our shared stories are getting more difficult, so again, please read each night with your child. It certainly does make a difference in your child’s reading. Remember to sign the homework slip as well. Thank you! In Writing, we are coming to the end of our Narrative writing unit. We have thoroughly enjoyed watching our budding authors as they continue to write about true stories that have really happened in their lives. *Don’t forget that Wednesday, February 6th is Walk to School Day-See you at Hetty Green Park at 7:30! Have a Great Week! Amy and Ashley Dear Parents and Friends,
Happy Tuesday! We hope everyone was able to enjoy the extra day with their families. We finally have our New England winter. It seems like we got all of our winter in one weekend with more to follow. This week we will beginning a new theme, Day and Night, Dark and Light. This week our focus will be on the differences with the sun and the moon. We will discuss the activities associated with certain times of the day or night. This helps our students concentrate on logical thinking. Hearing a child’s perspective on certain events can be an enlightening experience. Our KinderRoots shared story this week is Dogs In Hats, Dogs In Bows, which focuses on the letter n. Each week, usually on Monday, your child will be bringing home the new book as well as last week’s book. These previously read books are yours to keep. You and your child can practice them when you have extra time. We are hoping homework is going as well as reading is going in class each day. Please let us know if there are any problems with the reading at home. To clarify, the red and green words that we learn in class are colored as we learn them however, in the books they are not color coded. I know this is a little confusing and we wish they would just print them in color! If you feel like it is helpful you may find and color the words or underline them in their color (just a thought). Please keep those questions coming as you have them...Open communication is necessary for success! In Math this week, we will be learning about 3-dimensional shapes. We will be learning how to describe, identify and compare 3-D shapes. We will also be building our own 3-D shapes with clay. There will be a lot of hands-on exploring with 3-D shapes for sure! As we move into more shapes we will also continue to work with students on counting and writing quantities because we want them to continue to practice and sharpen their skills. A huge Thank you to those of you who were able to send in extra snacks last week. Please feel free to keep sending in any snacks and even those that your children may not eat anymore at home. They are very much appreciated!! The students are working very hard at getting dressed in their winter wear all by themselves. Thank you so much for helping with this skill at home. Your efforts do not go unnoticed. Each week, we have more and more students who are able to get ready independently. Have a Great Week! Amy and Ashley |