image of a blue backpack overfilled with school supplies and books with text of AES updates, January 15, 2023

What a great week here at AES!  We had some fun celebrating the 80th day of school as all students also enjoyed an 80s dance party!  

 

 

Upcoming Dates:

January 16 - No School

NO PTO meeting in February

February Break - February 20 - 24

 

MCAS Dates

Grade 3 Only

Math - May 17 and 18

ELA - April 11 and 12

 

A look into our classrooms:

Art:

Kindergarten students used oil pastel and watercolor to create alphabet soup! It helped us practice writing our letters while creating an work of art!

First graders heard the book, It's Okay to be Different, by Todd Parr. We drew with black crayon, and painted with bright colors.

Second graders are practicing their ruler skills by making Minecraft Selfies.

Third graders areTRANSFORMING their cursive first names into mythical creatures.

 

Music:

K: This week the K classes worked on keeping a steady beat using unpitched percussion instruments, using the dynamics piano and forte.  They also worked on their rhythm patterns using popsicle sticks. 

1st: Mark your calendars….the 1st graders will be performing for their families on Wednesday, 

April 5, 2023 @ 10:00am in the AES gymnasium… more details coming soon!!

2nd: This week the 2nd grade classes worked on a fun movement routine to the song Starships using pool noodles, as well as worked on rhythm patterns.

3rd: This week the 3rd grader classes are working on learning the notes of the treble clef staff, in preparation to play their recorders! 

Library:

Mark your calendars for our second Scholastic Book Fair! The dates are February 6th to the 10th and students will be visiting during their library time. Keep an eye out for more information soon!

Students in kindergarten are exploring our nonfiction section and we are continuing to read books from the Who Would Win series and learning about informational text.  Students in first grade are continuing to learn about fractured fairy tales. This week we are comparing Beauty and the Beast to No Lie, I Acted Like a Beast: The story of Beauty and the Beast as told by the Beast. Our second and third graders are starting a book trailer project. This project will take several library sessions to finish. This week, students in groups are deciding on the book and beginning to write their script.

PE

This week in PE we are continuing our fitness unit. Each class is warming up working on a different muscle group. In grade 2 we are doing a short ab workout, in kindergarten we are working to increase our heart rate, and in grade 1/grade 3 we are doing a whole body workout to improve strength in our upper and lower bodies. Students are also working with hula hoops to increase stamina and playing a tag game with an exercise you must complete to get back in the game. In grade 2 and 3 we are working on push-ups and in grades K and 1 we are practicing squats. 

Kindergarten

Our Wonders Reading Program had the kindergarten students continuing their discussions about what we can learn by going to different places. This week our essential question had us focusing on different sounds we hear. We read the book Clang! Clang! Beep! Beep! Listen to the City about a boy who notices sounds in the city throughout his day. We compared the sounds in this story to the sounds in another text The Turles and the Flute (a tale from Brazil). We worked on proper letter formation when writing uppercase/capital letters and learned a new sight word: “and”.  In math we continue to work on our understanding of addition by acting out addition stories.

Grade 1

This past Tuesday, our first graders celebrated the 80th day of school.  The boys and girls learned about popular trends of the 80’s and participated in various activities  to learn about this decade. Fun Fact:  Did you know that Sour Patch Kids were first introduced in 1970 and at that time they were called “Space Men”?  Many years later, in 1985 they were reintroduced as Sour Patch Kids. 

We have started Unit 3 of our Wonders program.  This week’s essential question is: How Do We Measure Time? All of the stories that we will be reading this week discuss the concept of time.   We have also been learning about Martin Luthur Kings Jr.  and discussing the importance of “kindness” and being respectful of others. 

Grade 2

This week the second graders have been working very hard! In reading, the students are continuing working with Wonders and the essential question “How are offspring like their parents?”. We have been focusing on the text Baby Bears and answering questions with this expository text. The students have learned about all different bears and have been using the RACE acronym to respond to open response questions. RACE stands for: Restate the question, Answer the question completely, Cite text evidence and Explain text evidence. We are working on Unit 6 in Fundations. In math we have continued with comparing three digit numbers and have begun introducing addition of 2 digit numbers. With Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, we have been learning about him and the importance of all the work he did. This has opened up very thoughtful conversations in our classrooms. 

Grade 3

In reading this week, we are looking at some poetry. We also continue to work on responding to text in the form of an essay. In math we are working on fractions on a number line and starting to look at equivalent fractions. In science we are learning about inherited traits in plants and animals; we have an assembly coming up later this month on that topic.

The kids loved the 80s day; thanks for all you did to get them excited and dressed up!

 

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Thank you!  Have a great weekend.  

Bethany Pineault

Principal