Mr. Ward’s Message:
Winter Scholastic Book Fair will take place this week January 29-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, January 31st from 5:30 - 7:00 PM.
Gentle Reminder...As we prepare for the winter season we will continue to use the Thrill Share Communication network to provide families with the necessary school cancellation and delay information. In addition to Thrillshare, we will utilize the school website and all local media outlets to communicate information in a timely manner for our families in Freetown and Lakeville.
Upcoming events:
January 29 - February 2: Scholastic Book Fair Week
January 31: Scholastic Book Fair Family Night
February 2: Early Release Day for students.
February Vacation Week will take place the week of February 19-23. School will resume again on Monday, February 26th.
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 8 & 9 for English Language Arts
May 14 & 15 for Mathematics
PTO Corner:
PTO meetings will be held in person and virtually. The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, February 12th, 2024 from 6:30 - 7:30 PM. The meeting invitation will be shared out the week prior to the February PTO Meeting. Hope you will consider joining the FES PTO.
FES PTO website is...https://freetownelementarypto.weebly.com/
Attendance Matters Weekly Update:
Goal: 94% of the FES student population will attend school daily.
January’s Daily Student Attendance Percentage:
Week of January 1-5: 96%...YEAH! We are well on track!
Week of January 8-12: 94%...Still on track, way to go!
Week of January 15-19: 93%...Not quite there!
Week of January 22-26 (excluding 1/26): 93%...Still not quite there!
Grade Level Happenings from the Week of 1/15 - 1/19:
Pre-School: This week in preschool we continued studying wind and rain. The preschoolers also participated in rectangle show and tell. We reviewed our Lively Letters.
Kindergarten: This week in kindergarten our letter and phoneme sound was Hh. We counted how many syllables in a word and blended sounds to make words. Our HFW was “my”. Our comprehension skill was main story elements- characters, setting and events in a story. Our math lesson was subtraction within 5 and in writing, we worked on opinion writing and end punctuation.
Grade 1: This week in first grade we started unit 3 in Wonders. We focused on magic -e with long vowel a words. We also learned about contraction words with the word “not”. For comprehension we read a poem about time and discussed the purpose of reading. During math, we learned a new strategy to subtract. The students learned to make a ten to subtract. In writing, we finished the how-to unit. For science this week, we finished up the light unit.
Grade 2: This week in second grade in reading we worked to determine point of view and plot of a story. In phonics we worked on reading and spelling words with the letter patterns “er”, “ir”, and “ur” for the r-controlled vowel sound /er/. In math we continued to work with strategies for subtracting 3-digit numbers with regrouping and solved word problems involving adding and subtracting with regrouping. In writing we worked on our narrative writing. We celebrated the halfway point in the school year on Wednesday, Jan. 24 with many fun “Halfway Day” themed activities!
Grade 3: This week in third grade, students learned how to write and draw equivalent fractions using a number line and pictures. They also learned how to write a whole number as a fraction. In reading, students explored a new essential question: what makes different animals unique? Students learned the characteristics of a folktale and explored a variety of short stories that dive deeper into this question. In writing, students completed their opinion essay, which focused on writing a clear introduction, three reasons with text evidence, and a concluding paragraph. Students had a chance to share their essays with their classmates.
Art: Kindergarteners explored symmetry while they designed color patterned mittens. Grade 1 learned about complementary colors and explored the process of printmaking. Grade 2 is making aztec sun and moon paintings while learning to mix analogous colors to make tertiary colors. Grade 3 learned about Georgia O’keefe and drew flowers from observation.
Music: This week, students K-3 have started the 2nd week of their unit on listening. Grade 1 and Kindergarten will listen to music for dynamics, tempo and directions as well as music from Haydn. 2nd grade will listen to music of Beethoven and respond to vocal and instrumental musical elements. 3rd grade will listen to music to evaluate their own performance on the recorder.
Library: During library class this week, kindergarten and first grade students took a virtual adventure to the farm. Students chose a farm animal to research and wrote sentences about the animal and worked on a drawing of it. Second and third grade students learned about the difference between what media is and what it is not. Students sorted pictures into examples of what media is and what it is not and labeled the pictures with words on Google Jamboard.