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MEMORIAL SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
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31 West Main Street Newton, NH 03858
603-382-5251
Principal, Jonathan G. Vander Els
Assistant Principal, Donna B. Johnson
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Principal's Message
Jonathan G. Vander Els
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Dear Memorial Community:
Amazingly, we have reached the mid-point of the last trimester of school. Progress reports will go home today with our students. As always, if you have any questions, please contact your child's classroom teacher.
There are a few very important dates (among many) that we wanted to make sure our community put on their calendars.
First, our annual
Memorial Day Assembly will be held on Friday, May 27th at 2:00 PM. We welcome all community members, and would especially like to extend this invitation to veterans in our community.
Our annual Volunteer Tea will be held on Friday, June 3 at 9:15 AM. This is always a great opportunity for us to share our appreciation for everything our parents and volunteers do for all of us in our school.
On Thursday, June 9th, please join us for our third annual Celebration of Learning beginning at 6:30 PM. This evening will provide an opportunity for our students to share their many examples of learning throughout the year. The night will culminate with our Glee Club's final concert of the year.
We would like to thank everyone for their tremendous display of thanks during Teacher Appreciation Week. Our parents really went above and beyond. Ms. Johnson and I comment often about our staff, and truly feel they exemplify professionalism, caring, and commitment. Our parents' devotion to ensuring they all know this, not only over the course of this past week, but throughout the year is echoed by both of us.
In closing, I'd like to share a truly special video with our community. Each morning, as part of the beginning of the day, our student council president, Brooke Malvey, and vice-president, Tyson Khalil, lead our school in the Pledge of Allegiance with students from different classrooms. Just before our vacation, our 3-year old preschoolers led the school for their very first time. As you will see near the end of the video, our entire school was proud of the great job they did. Please enjoy the video below, and have a great weekend.
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Preschool Pledge of Allegiance
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Jonathan G. Vander Els, Principal
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Kindergarten News
By: Mrs. Manning, Mrs. Patkin & Mrs. Carroll
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Adventures in Kindergarten
The kindergarten students have grown in many ways throughout this school year. The students came into Memorial school for the first time having to get to know about their new school, make new friends, and adjust to a busy day filled with movement, academics, and discovery. Our year has been very successful. Students have had the time to learn with each other, participate in unified arts, and participate in enrichment and reteaching opportunities. These are only a few of the wonderful, positive things that have happened this year. We are very proud of our students and the excellent job they have done with their first year at Memorial School!
Recently, we have done an introduction to informational text. The students looked at the text features that make informational books special. The students know that informational books teach you something, usually have real photographs, and have glossaries and captions. The students will continue to work with informational text as we start our study of community helpers. Each class will be learning about select community helpers. Mrs. Carroll's class will be learning about teachers, librarians, and postal workers. In Mrs. Patkin's class they will be studying police officers, firefighters and paramedics. Mrs. Manning's students will be looking closely at doctors, dentists, and veterinarians. Each class taking select helpers gives us the opportunity to use cooperative learning where we will teach each other about the roles and responsibilities of the community helpers we focused on. We are excited to have our students engaged in this rich learning experience.
The classrooms will also begin using the work of beloved children's author Eric Carle. He is the author of many stories that complement our areas of study. The literature is playful and engaging for the students. We will also be illustrating as Eric Carle does. The students will participate in a project of designing the papers just as Eric Carle does to create his colorful illustrations. Be on the lookout at the Celebration of Learning for these imaginative masterpieces!
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| 5th Grade - Stand by Me |
Re: Project Stand By Me for Grade 5 Students - May 18, 2016
Dear Parents of Fifth grade students at Memorial and Daniel J. Bakie Elementary Schools:
The Sanborn Regional School District and Drugs Are Dangerous, Inc. invite you to a very special conference for parents and students. This conference will address substance abuse resistance and provide an opportunity for fifth graders to socialize with students who will be classmates in the 6
th
grade.
We are excited about this annual event and have included a brochure that includes an agenda of the day. Parents are asked to meet in the auditorium of the Sanborn Regional High School at 8:30 a.m. for an introduction and discussion on tips for parents to protect against risk factors. Students will go directly from school to YMCA Camp Lincoln. At the conclusion of the presentation, parents will join the students at YMCA Camp Lincoln and enjoy a variety of activities including rope courses, cooperative games, boating and other fun activities.
We invite businesses to support this effort by allowing parents time away from their employment to be with their children on this day. We feel the commitment of parents, school, and community members working together can make a difference and be a major force for helping children make healthy, responsible, drug-free choices.
Please join us on Wednesday, May 18th, 2016 at YMCA Camp Lincoln in Kingston, NH. Pizza will be provided for lunch for both parents and students. We hope you will join us in support of this venture by participating with your child. We greatly appreciate your cooperation and invite you to call us if you have further questions about this project.
Sincerely,
Dick Gerrish, D.A.D. Inc. 603-642-8839
Jon Vander Els, Principal, Memorial School 603-382-5251
Debora Bamforth, Principal, D.J. Bakie School 603-642-5272
Click here for the Response & Reservation Form
Click here for the complete brochure
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Sanborn Budget Committee News
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Help us help you! Participate in a brief online survey for residents of Kingston and Newton
here
. The Budget Committee designed the survey in an ongoing effort to better understand your preferred sources for obtaining information about the school district and the budget process so we can help you become better informed before you enter the voting booth. We review your comments regularly and look forward to receiving more. Your survey comments contributed to the content of this article.
We hope to see you at a meeting soon!
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School Nurse
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New Contact Information
Ticks & Lyme Disease
Now that the weather is getting nice we are spending more time outdoors! Great! But be on the lookout for ticks, especially black-legged ticks that carry lyme disease and other diseases. They are most active April through October and New Hampshire has one of the highest incidence rates of lyme disease in the country.
Preventing Tick Bites:
Avoid Direct Contact with Ticks
- Avoid wooded and bushy areas with high grass and leaf litter.
- Walk in the center of trails.
Repel Ticks with DEET or Permethrin
Find and Remove Ticks from Your Body
- Bathe or shower as soon as possible after coming indoors (preferably within 2 hours) to wash off and more easily find ticks that are crawling on you.
- Conduct a full-body tick check using a hand-held or full-length mirror to view all parts of your body upon return from tick-infested areas. Parents should check their children for ticks under the arms, in and around the ears, inside the belly button, behind the knees, between the legs, around the waist, and especially in their hair.
- Examine gear and pets. Ticks can ride into the home on clothing and pets, then attach to a person later, so carefully examine pets, coats, and day packs.
- Tumble clothes in a dryer on high heat for an hour to kill remaining ticks. (Some research suggests that shorter drying times may also be effective, particularly if the clothing is not wet.
Tick removal:
If you find a tick attached to your skin, there's no need to panic. Several tick removal devices are available on the market, but a plain set of fine-tipped tweezers will remove a tick effectively.
How to remove a tick
- Use fine-tipped tweezers to grasp the tick as close to the skin's surface as possible.
- Pull upward with steady, even pressure. Don't twist or jerk the tick; this can cause the mouth-parts to break off and remain in the skin. If this happens, remove the mouth-parts with tweezers. If you are unable to remove the mouth easily with clean tweezers, leave it alone and let the skin heal.
- After removing the tick, thoroughly clean the bite area and your hands with rubbing alcohol, an iodine scrub, or soap and water.
- Dispose of a live tick by submersing it in alcohol, placing it in a sealed bag/container, wrapping it tightly in tape, or flushing it down the toilet. Never crush a tick with your fingers.
Follow-up
If you develop a rash or fever within several weeks of removing a tick, see your doctor. Be sure to tell the doctor about your recent tick bite, when the bite occurred, and where you most likely acquired the tick.
Mud Season
Parents, mud season is upon us! As the temperatures climb and rain comes, there is more slush and puddles on our playground area. You are asked to send in a change of clothing for your child to keep in the cubby here at school in the event that they "find' a puddle and become soaked. Clean dry slacks, shirt, underwear and socks should be in a bag labeled with your child's name and grade. Thank you for preparing your child for weather changes and outdoor play at school.
Immunization Requirements for Fifth grade students:
Please be advised that when your child is age 11 years or older, and it has been 5 years or longer since their last Tetanus toxoid-containing immunization, they must receive a booster dose of tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccine. If your child has a documented medical contraindication to pertussis vac
 cine, a Td booster is acceptable. In addition, every child entering grade 6 must have had (2) doses of Varicella vaccine (chicken pox). If your child had the disease of chicken pox, this must be listed with the date of the disease on a recent physical history and exam form completed by your child's health care provider. If your child is 11 years old, and has already received these immunizations, please provide a copy of the latest physical exam and updated immunization record to the health office as soon as possible. This may be faxed to the school nurse at 603-382-1466. If your child has a well-child visit scheduled within this school year, please discuss these requirements with the doctor at the time of the visit, and provide a copy of this physical and updated immunization record to the school nurse.
Medication Pick Up
As the end of the year is coming, I'd like to remind all parents that if your child has medications in the health office they need to be picked up by the end of the school year. The last day to pick them up will be June 17th. After June 17th all medications left in the health office will be discarded.
Thank you,
Sheila Koutelis, RN
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| Library Virtual Learning Center News |
There are new inviting spaces on the School Library Media Center floor.
Three days a week, during outdoor recess, boys and girls in grades 3, 4, 5 have been building their electronic engineer muscles. So far, they have made a Doorbell, a Prank Handshake, a Flashlight, and a Tickle Machine .
A special shelf space for Historical Fiction is happening! Already, students have found their way there to check out many "I survived...." series titles! When the Historical Fiction Area is completed, it will have about 9 shelves. NEW Great Stone Face titles line the walls.
 Fifth graders enjoy browsing these Research Topic shelves that take the place of delivery boxes to their classroom!
Click here
and scroll down to
a brand-new research site for early readers ! Students will be getting their new updated Username & Password sheets with the logon for this excellent resource about Animals, Science (physics, chemistry, space), Social Studies, and Biographies.
--- E N J O Y ! ---
Mrs. Mulcahy
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Lunch Payment Options
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We want to remind parents that they have a couple of options when it comes to paying for their child(ren)'s school lunch.
Option 1. You may set-up an online account using www.myschoolbucks.com, by using a Credit/Debit card to make deposits into your child's account. You will need to contact Memorial School for your child's ID#. In addition to providing you with a secure online payment option, the system will allow you instant access to details on what your child is purchasing in the cafeteria, as well as other convenience features such as automatic low balance alerts. This automated system will help increase the speed of service and allow students additional time for a more relaxing dining experience. Instructions for setting up your online account are available in print from your Food Service Director and posted on the Fresh Picks Cafe website.
Option 2. You may send a
check with your child made
payable to the Sanborn School Lunch Program (checks made out to Memorial School can not be accepted and will be returned). Please make sure to include the child's name in the memo line. We encourage parents to either utilize the online payment method or to send in a check - cash can also be accepted, but is discouraged at the elementary school level. Prepaid monies deposited by either method can be used for any purchases in the cafeteria, but at any time parents may contact the school food service supervisor and request that prepaid monies be used only for full meal purchases.
When sending in cash or a check, please make sure that your payment is secured in an envelope with child's name and classroom teacher clearly noted.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact the school at 603-382-5251.
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Summer Enrichment Programming
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The Sanborn Regional School District is excited to release its schedule for summer 2016 enrichment programming. This year, week-long full day programs are available to students entering grades 2-12 in the areas of Drama, Music, Writing, and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math).
Click
here to view a complete description of the programs offered, times and dates, costs, and registration details.
Registration is now open. You can print and mail the registration form from the link above or you may submit your registration online
by clicking here. Spots are limited, and your registration will not be final until the district receives the fees associated with registration. Payment details are noted in the link above and on the online registration link.
We hope you will consider registering your child for some of these great summer opportunities. If you have any questions, please contact your building principal, Mr. Jonathan Vander Els, at (603)382-5251 or [email protected].
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Memorial PTO
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Mark your calendars:
May 9th & 10th - Friendly's FUNraiser
May 20th at 6:35 PM is the Mother/Son Event at the Fisher Cats, flyers were sent home. If you have any questions please contact Heather Ingham at
[email protected].
Our next monthly meeting will be May 12th in the Library at Memorial School at 7:00 PM.
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NH Renaissance Faire
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Epping Regional Health Center
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Zebra Crossings News
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SST Summer Camps
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Click
here for a full list of camps
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Winter/Spring 2016 Adult Education Classes
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| Click here for a complete list of classes |
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Mosquito Control
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Internet Essentials
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Classroom Instruction of Skills and Dispositions
By Terry Bolduc, Jill Lizier, and Jonathan G. Vander Els
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The following article is a recent blog article published by Terry Bolduc, Jill Lizier, and Jonathan Vander Els. This article originally appeared on
CompetencyWorks.
This is the third in a series of article specific to the developing understanding of skills and dispositions of educators working with students in a competency-based educational system. There has been increased recognition nationally of the importance of skills and dispositions and how these are intertwined within the overall growth and College and Career Readiness of learners. The skills and dispositions are referred to in a number of ways (Non-cognitive skills, Habits of Learners, Work Habits, General Learning Outcomes, "soft skills," etc.) Our school has been delving into skills and dispositions for the past few years, but we have found that there are limited resources to support our work, and at times, this has caused frustration. We are very excited about the opportunity to work with the recently released Essential Skills and Dispositions Frameworks (Lench, S., Fukuda, E., & Anderson, R. (2015)) this upcoming school year to support our continued learning in this area. For the purposes of this series of articles, we will be using the term the State of New Hampshire recognizes,
Work Study Practices for skills and dispositions. Locally, we have aligned the Responsive Classroom's CARES to our State of New Hampshire's Work Study Practices, which are referenced in this series of articles.
Memorial School is a Pre-K to Grade 5 elementary school in southeastern New Hampshire, part of the Sanborn Regional School District. As we have made our transition to a competency-based educational model, our recognition of the importance of skills and dispositions has evolved significantly. This evolution in understanding has progressed from our very early days in our journey when we realized that academics and academic behaviors MUST be separated. Today, our teachers recognize the importance of providing time for students to reflect on their own strengths as well as areas for growth within these skills and dispositions. And our growth will continue to evolve, as teachers have begun developing lessons and opportunities for learning for students within their classrooms within these important competencies.
Growth in these areas, for our elementary students, will not happen all by itself. It is imperative that teachers willingly and mindfully plan lessons that will help students to make connections and assist them along in their learning journey. It is also imperative to debrief, reflect, and provide meaningful and timely feedback, just as it is within any type of formative assessment that is happening within a classroom.
The insight of two of our teachers below outlines their work with their students specific to the instruction of these invaluable competencies within not only their classrooms but outside of their classrooms and in the greater world itself. Their reflections provide a glimpse into the world of both a first grade classroom and a fifth grade classroom, and describe how students' increased self-awareness and understanding of the CARES (Cooperation, Assertion, Responsibility, Empathy, and Self-regulation) within their own learning are having a tremendous impact on not only the individual learner, but the entire classroom community as a whole.
Jill Lizier, First Grade Teacher
CARES in a first grade classroom starts with significant instruction at the beginning of the year. I kick the school year off with a lesson on what CARES is and what it looks like in the classroom. Students work together to draw pictures of what they think they are doing as a member practicing CARES in a classroom setting (below). For example, students drawing about Assertion may draw pictures of a student raising his/her hand. This kick off lesson helps produce visuals for the classroom that I can refer to on a daily basis throughout the year.
The use of visuals is essential for students to remember what each aspect of CARES is as well as for me to remind myself to incorporate CARES into all of my lessons. This year I have focused on discussing how CARES can help us through any activity. For example, before math centers we discuss which part of CARES each center will need to be successful for all involved. If there is a game center, students may think that self-control and cooperation is needed to make the game successful. These types of authentic conversations help students see the connection between CARES and real life application. As they become more comfortable and familiar with CARES terms, I use them as a reminder to students not aware of how their actions are affecting others. A student could be playing loudly on a math game and disrupting other learners. All I have to say is, "self-control," to help that students get back on track. Self-control at this point in the year has great meaning to the class, as they have taken quite a role in having it be an integral part of their successful classroom.
The next step is involving students to look deeper into each aspect of CARES and identify how it is important in academic and social life. My students helped me create this visual below. The conversation that went along with the visual was when the real learning took place. Every student had something to contribute.
Around mid-year, students have a solid understanding of how CARES helps us on a daily basis. This is when I can really start to individualize it and encourage students to self-assess their role in CARES. I give students the opportunity to assess which part of CARES they think they need to improve on. This conversation promotes a growth mindset. A student once mentioned to me that their growth in CARES is like levels on a video game. By midyear, they have made it to Level 3 with CARES, but they really want to get to level 4 by the end of the year. This is a great way for a younger student to understand that they are always improving. My role is to assist them in this journey.
Terry Bolduc, Fifth Grade Teacher
I did a lot of thinking over the past summer about how I wanted to improve my instruction around CARES for the upcoming school year. Knowing that in our competency - based system I should teach, and then reteach skills to help students arrive at mastery, I had to come up with a better plan for how I was helping my students understand CARES, as well. I also knew that I wanted to do more with mentor texts during the first six weeks of school, so I could use these common works repeatedly throughout the year, across the curriculum for lessons. It seemed logical to tie the two wants together and my CARES instruction blossomed from there.
As a practitioner of Responsive Classroom, I follow the suggestions outlined in "The First Six Weeks". It has proven to help build a strong classroom community and my goal of incorporating both direct CARES instruction along with including more mentor texts fit directly together with the time I would be spending with my students setting up routines and the foundation of our classroom community. I began by simply making a poster for each of the 5 letters in the CARES acronym, with the bullet points that students are graded on under each one. I remember the first time I gathered my fifth graders and asked them to explain to me what they knew about CARES. I was surprised when I realized that they knew they were graded on CARES but could not tell me what the letters stood for, let alone what each one meant. We spent some time looking at each letter then going over the vocabulary of the bullet points. I hung them in a very prominent place, near our morning meeting area (below). Every time I read a book aloud, my mentor texts, we would spend time after identifying which CARES trait or traits the characters exhibited in the book and we made a list. The children really enjoyed this and were soon able to connect just about every book to every CARES trait, with examples from the text (a Common Core skill I might add). These were casual conversations that coincided with all the community building activities we were doing at the beginning of the year anyway.
A few weeks into the year, I felt they had a good, basic understanding of the CARES attributes and decided it was time for them to apply it to themselves. I created a simple sheet which had each of the CARES letters on it and I asked them to set a goal for themselves for the week (below). They were to look at our posters and choose something that they would personally work on that week. And we were off!
We discussed that is was okay to try and fail and keep working at something because that's what grown-ups do. The children began to set a goal each Monday, thinking back over the previous week to see if they wanted to work towards the same goal or focus on something new. Each Monday our conversations got richer, with children really being able to explain either why they wanted to work on the same goal or why they felt it was time for a change.
Then I began thinking about ways to help them remember the goal they had set for themselves that week. I simply printed out a class supply of each letter of CARES. When the students set their goal for the week, they would affix the letter corresponding to their goal, to their desk. Students have shared that the letter really helped them focus. One student in particular has said that her mind would start to wander and she'd look down at that S (self-regulation/control) on her desk and know that she had to do something to get back on task. They were really beginning to internalize the importance of their responsibility around these behaviors.
It was in about the eighth week of school that I felt they were ready for the next push. I introduced a reflection column to their goal setting sheet. Now the plan was for them to set their goal on Monday then reflect on how they did with that goal on Friday of the same week. I encouraged them to think back and cite examples - either good or bad - that were evidence of their efforts. These honest conversations every Friday, with time, have become easier for the students and have helped us grow together as a classroom community. They feel safe sharing their failures and successes and have such a deep understanding of these important behaviors and how they help us all have better days at school. Don't get me wrong, my students are not angels but they are more easily redirected, they redirect themselves and each other and are proud of being role models at our school. What more could we ask?
About the Authors:
Jonathan Vander Els is the principal of Memorial School in Newton, NH. Jonathan has presented at multiple local, state and national conferences on topics related to competency-based education, enhancing teacher leaders in schools, maximizing collaboration of staff through highly functioning Professional Learning Communities, and providing tiered instruction for learners of varying abilities. Jonathan may be followed on Twitter: @jvanderels
Jill Lizier is a first grade teacher at Memorial School in Newton, NH. Jill is an active contributor to Professional Learning Communities within the Sanborn Regional School District. Jill has worked as team leader for her grade level and is currently a Quality Performance Assessment trainer within Memorial School. Jill may be followed on Twitter: @jilllizier
Terry Bolduc is a fifth grade teacher at Memorial School, in Newton NH. Terry has worked as a team leader for her grade level, participates in the PACE initiative as a grade level representative for the Sanborn Regional School District, has been member of the school's Training Team and is currently a Quality Performance Assessment coach within Memorial School. Terry may be followed on Twitter: @tabolduc
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