image of a scholarly looking white dog with glasses, an apple and books with text of FES updates, May 7, 2023

Mr. Ward’s Message:

Next week will bring Teacher/Staff Appreciation Week to Freetown Elementary.  All next week staff members will be recognized by “special days” sponsored by the FES PTO.  If time allows within your household maybe your child could write a card to their child’s teacher outlining how special their teacher is to your child.  This is not required by any means but rather a nice gesture that would bring a smile and joy to your child’s teacher.  

News and Happenings around FES and FLRSD…

This weekend the Apponequet Players from ARHS will be performing the Little Mermaid at ARHS. If you are interested in watching the Apponequet Players perform the Little Mermaid there are shows scheduled for May 5th and May 6th at Apponequet Regional High School.  

Memo to Grade 3 Families…

On May 16th and 17th our Grade 3 Scholars will be participating in the computer-based Mathematics MCAS Exam.  Like ELA, we believe students will be prepared and ready to shine!  Our Grade 3 students' attendance was great for the ELA Exam and we are hoping for the same results for Math.  Please understand that time spent on the practice site outside of school hours is in no way a requirement.  This site is being provided as a resource for families who want to become familiar with the assessment and/or practice with their children.  The link is attached below.  Once you click on the link, scroll down to Mathematics Practice Test, and click on view Mathematics Practice Tests, then click Grade 3, from which you will need to select Computer-Based Practice Test.

PTO Corner:

The next PTO Meeting will take place on Monday, May 8th from 6:30 - 7:30 PM.  The meeting will be both in-person and virtual.   The meeting invitation is provided below…

  • Topic: May FES PTO Meeting

  • Time: May 8, 2023 beginning at 6:30 PM

Join Zoom Meeting

Attendance Matters Weekly Update:

Goal:  94% of the FES student population will attend school daily.  

May student daily attendance rate…

  • Week of May 1-5: 95%...Goal achieved

Upcoming Events:

May 5:  Early Release Day for Students 

May 8:  May PTO Meeting beginning at 6:30 PM

May 16 & 17:  Math MCAS for Grade 3 students 

May 17:  Grade 3 Spring Chorus Concert beginning at 7:00 PM

May 22-26:  “Buy one, Get One” Free Scholastic Book Fair Week

May 24:  Family Book Fair Night

May 29:  No school in observance of Memorial Day

Annual Art Show will take place on Wednesday, May 31st from 6:30 - 7:30 PM.  Each student will have 3 art projects on display and there will be over 1,000 art pieces for all to view.  

News and Happenings from the classrooms for the week of May 1-5:

Pre-School:  This week in preschool we learned a new Lively Letter, letter h.  Since he  looks like a chair, everyone sits in him when they are tired!  We also began our farm theme this week.  We discussed the importance of farms and what a farmer needs to do his/her job.  One class incorporated patterning into an art project by creating rows of crops.  Both classes began working on special Mother’s Day gifts.

Kindergarten:  This week in kindergarten our Fundations lesson was to review letter/sound writing, decode words and sentence dictation. In our Wonders curriculum our HF words were a review of the unit 8 words.  For comprehension skills, we made and confirmed predictions, discussed problems/solutions and our print concepts were discussing quotation marks,  reviewing left/right & top/bottom tracking and parts of a book. In writing, we focused on expository writing and our skills were left to right/top to bottom progression and what makes a complete sentence.  Our math lesson was naming both flat and solid shapes.

Grade 1: This week in first grade we continued to work on magic -e words like “hike”, “cute” and “slime”. For comprehension we focused on retelling stories and demonstrating understanding of their central message or lesson. For writing we continued to work on writing poems. In math, we finished up the geometry unit and started working with data. For science this week, we started to discuss plants and how they grow and change. 

Grade 2:  This week in second grade math we began to learn about money. In Fundations we worked on reading and spelling words with the double vowel teams “au” and “aw”. In reading we focused on using compare and contrast. In writing we began to work on opinion writing and learned about how to state an opinion and supply reasons to support an opinion.

Grade 3:  Students continued to explore the question: what do good citizens do?  Students continued reading a variety of stories and had great conversations around this topic.  In math, students learned how to find the area of shapes.  Students also continued to review important math concepts in preparation for the MCAS test coming up soon.  

Music: This week, students K-3 have started the first  week of their unit on performance. Grade 1 and Kindergarten are practicing performing by learning new songs such as Wishy Washy. 2nd grade will expand their musicianship and begin practicing for our Star Spangled Spectacular. 3rd grade will begin wrapping up performance on their recorders. 

Physical Education:  This week K-3 students practiced different skills in stations: Basketball shooting, frisbee throwing, juggling sticks, overhand and underhand throws, and striking a playground ball in four-square. On fair weather days we went outside and students worked on their cardio respiratory endurance.