Mr. Ward’s Message:
Kindness continues to bloom everywhere at Freetown Elementary School as we welcomed in the first week of Spring.
Update on the Kindness Challenge…
As you know the challenge calls for FES as a school community to create a Rainbow of Kindness using cut-out hands to create the rainbow. Each grade level has a designated color, including staff, to help build the rainbow. Look how many acts of kindness have been witnessed.
Yet another project that spreads kindness - Project 351 Clothing Drive Update…
Join us for a clothing drive to benefit those most in need. Your donations of like-new children’s clothing will go a long way in helping others with their basic needs. The event will take place from March 20-31at the Freetown Elementary School during school hours. There will be boxes in the main entrance for your donations. Together, we can make a difference in the lives of our neighbors.
PTO Corner:
The next PTO Meeting will take place on Monday, April 10th from 6:30 - 7:30 PM. The meeting will be both in-person and virtual. The meeting invitation will be provided as the meeting approaches.
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!
The January average student daily attendance was 95%. Goal achieved!
The February average students daily attendance was 93.4%. We did not achieve our goal!
March student daily attendance rate…
March 1 & 2: 96.5%...Goal achieved!
March 6-10: 94%....Goal achieved!
March 13-17: 94%...Goal achieved!
March 20-24: 93%...Not quite our goal!
Upcoming Events:
March 27: Term II report cards will be sent home
March 27: Preschool Literacy Night
March 29: FES School Council Meeting beginning at 8:15 AM
April 7: No School - Good Friday
April 14: No School for students and staff
April 17-21: April Vacation Week (School will resume again on Monday, April 24th).
Notice to Grade 3 Families…
A gentle reminder that our Grade 3 Students will be completing their Grade 3 ELA MCAS on April 4 & 5. Students will again participate in their Math MCAS on May 16 & 17.
Our students are prepared and will be ready to shine on their upcoming MCAS exams. We will have an MCAS Pep Rally on Friday, March 31st. At Freetown Elementary School we make every effort to ensure a testing environment that is worry-free, stress-free, and one where students have an opportunity to demonstrate their skills and knowledge. We are proud of all of our Freetown Foxes and they will put their best foot forward and that is all we ask of our students…to try their best and be proud of their work. Believe to Achieve!
News and Happenings from the classrooms for the week of March 20-24:
Pre-School: This week in preschool, we learned about the Lively Letter, z, who sounds like a zipper zipping up and down! We continued learning about community helpers and this week’s focus was doctors, nurses, veterinarians, and zookeepers. We learned about preventing the spread of our germs with a fun craft that showed the proper use of a tissue. We ended the week with a celebration of the color purple. Preschoolers were invited to wear something purple to school.
Kindergarten: This week in kindergarten our Fundations lesson was to decode and blend both real and nonsense cvc words, as well as listening for long and short vowel sounds in words. Our High frequency words were- have, for. Our comprehension skill was rereading a story or passage and we discussed the difference between fact and opinion. In math, we counted and identified numbers 1-100. We are working with expository writing and also focusing on sentence capitalization and describing words.
Grade 1: This week in first grade we started unit 10 in FUNdations. We worked on words with 5 sounds. For comprehension, we read about a boy that learned to train his dog to do tricks. We focused on retelling stories including using key details and understanding the central message or lesson of the story. In writing we wrote opinion pieces this week about our favorite season. This also ties in with our science unit where we are learning about seasonal patterns. For math, we learned about adding tens to any number.
Grade 2: This week in second grade reading we worked on sequencing events from a fiction text using words such as “first”, “then”, “next” and “last”. In Fundations we spelled and read multisyllabic words with the long /o/ sound spelled with double vowel teams “oa”, “oe”, and “ow”. In math we solved word problems involving the lengths of various objects. In writing we worked on our personal narratives. In Science we learned about the building blocks of matter.
Grade 3: This week in reading, students continued with the essential question, “how can using what we know help others.” Students read a variety of short realistic fiction stories that explored this question deeper. In writing, students prepared for MCAS by reading short passages, answered multiple choice questions, and answered open response questions with text evidence from the story. In math, students learned the definitions and examples of how to measure in milliliters, liters, kilograms, and grams.
Art: Kindergartners explored painting textures with textured rollers and other fun tools like matchbox cars! Grade 1 drew fish and learned how to add a scale pattern for the look of texture. Grade 2 finished their lion drawings with oil pastels. Some classes have started a paper mache mask project. Grade 3 finished their oil pastel pineapple drawings by observing and recreating the patterns and textures they saw.
Music: This week, students K-3 have started the 3rd week of their unit on musicianship. Grade 1 and Kindergarten are practicing elements of the beat. 1st grade will also practice rhythms. 2nd grade will expand their musicianship with Sol Mi patterns. 3rd grade will be writing and reading music for their recorders and practicing pitch patterns.
Physical Education: This week all students started basketball skills. Second and Third grade students practiced dribbling in place and on the move. They then practiced shooting at a basket height that was just right for them while using the word BEEF to have the proper technique. Kindergarten and first graders practiced dribbling in place and played the game “Copy the Coach” where they followed along with the dribbling that I was doing. First grade then practiced shooting with lighter basketballs at lower hoops.