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UPCOMING DATES TO REMEMBER
THURSDAY - OCTOBER 5 - OPEN HOUSE 5-6pm
FRIDAY - OCTOBER 6 - TEACHER IN-SERVICE/
NO SCHOOL
MONDAY - OCTOBER 9 - HOLIDAY/NO SCHOOL
WEDNESDAY - OCTOBER 11 - Picture Retakes
FRIDAY - OCTOBER 13 - Trailblazers for Hunger Hike
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Trailblazers Against Hunger Hike
Friday, October 13 (Rain date: October 20)
We are excited to once again participate in our annual all-school hike to help support the Thetford Food Shelf! On Friday, October 13th, our school will participate in Trailblazers Against Hunger (formerly Hike for Hunger), a whole school hike up to the top of Mimi’s Trail. At the top of the trail, students will enjoy lunch and then hike back down. This event will take most of the day.
Trailblazers Against Hunger is a culminating event to celebrate our food drive and an opportunity for students to learn about food insecurity, while also supporting the Thetford Food Shelf.
This year we will also be offering an opportunity for students to collect financial pledges for each mile they hike. Money donated will go directly to the Thetford Food Shelf. Pledging is optional, and families may choose which option (or both options) to participate in. Please see pledge forms for more detailed information.
We will accept food in the Main Lobby on October 2 through October 13. Permission slips and pledge forms will be sent home with students on Monday, October 2nd.
Please direct any questions or concerns to Sara Bailey at sara.bailey@oesu.org or 785-2426 Ext.122.
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BUTLER'S BUS UPDATE
ALL BUSES ARE SCHEDULED TO RUN NORMALLY STARTING MONDAY, OCTOBER 2.
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Message from Principal Mills
Greetings TES Families
As we bid farewell to an extraordinary September and eagerly look ahead to what the future holds, I want to take a moment to acknowledge and celebrate the incredible efforts of our professional and support staff.
This first month of school has been nothing short of remarkable, and it's all thanks to the unwavering dedication, passion, and hard work of our staff. They have worked tirelessly to create the best possible learning experience for your students, and their commitment is truly inspiring.
The staff at TES are more than educators; they are mentors, guides, and champions of knowledge. Their relentless pursuit of excellence in the classroom has a profound impact on the lives of our students, shaping them into future leaders and lifelong learners.
I am humbled and privileged to work alongside such a phenomenal group of educators. Their expertise, creativity, and compassion shine through in everything they do. It is their enthusiasm for teaching and their genuine care for our students that make TES the extraordinary educational institution it is.
So, please join me in giving a resounding shout-out to our teachers. They are the heart and soul of our school, and their dedication deserves our heartfelt appreciation. Your support, encouragement, and partnership with our teachers are essential in ensuring a successful and enriching school year for your children. If you would like to celebrate a TES staff member please send them a shout-out.
https://www.thetfordeschool.org/about-us/staff-shout-outs
As we move forward, let's continue to stand by our remarkable staff, fostering a culture of collaboration and learning. Together, we can empower our students to reach new heights of achievement and personal growth.
Thank you, professional staff and support staff for all that you do. Your impact is immeasurable, and we are truly fortunate to have you as part of the TES family.
Best,
Bernice Mills
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P2
Character Strength
Shout Outs
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Charlie Huling
Charlie is passionate about learning, and truly shows a spark of joy when learning something new. He shares his passion by asking questions and joining in on the discussions. He is especially excited about Science and Social Studies topics.
Tucker Dubuque
Tucker has stepped into a 4th grader leadership role this year. He is helpful and demonstrates great self-control daily. He is always eager to assist in the classroom and to give helpful reminders to his peers. It has been a lot of fun to witness Tucker's positive growth from last year to this year.
William Schneider
William has a love of learning in all subjects. He always is open-minded to new topics and loves to share his own knowledge with classmates and teachers alike. Way to go, William!
Mel Fraser
Mel loves to learn and asks great, thoughtful questions. She even chose to go home and learn more about 9-11 and bring back information that she talked about with her mom!
Nico Rochon
Nico has done a fabulous job by being willing to try new things, being ready and willing to learn, remaining on task, and requesting a break when he needs one!
Samuel Covalla
Sam is a calm boy and holds both his excitement and frustration to a level that doesn’t go above and beyond.
Avi Siegel Bromberg
Avi's love for learning is contagious! They are always open to asking questions and sharing new insight with the class. They are eager to complete their work and to complete it with enthusiasm. Avi is great at taking constructive feedback and applying their new knowledge to further activities.
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Gavin Lacasse
Gavin has made so much growth as a second grader, showing great control of his emotions and behaviors in the classroom. He is truly a role model!
Violet Norden
Violet always has a love of learning new things and perseveres to focus!
Navaeh Watson
Nevaeh does a great job with self control and helping remind the class of the expectations.
Zachary Martin
Zachary is very inquisitive and loves to learn about a wide variety of topics! He is always asking good questions and retains great knowledge from what he has learned
Cyrus Judd
Cyrus shows great self-control and regulates himself well in all situations. He thinks deeply about his actions and always responds in a thoughtful, kind, and respectful way.
Maria Martin
Maria is a hard and careful worker, and stays on task and topic no matter what is going on around her - which means she practices self control even if others are not on task. She also knows when it is the right time to play and have fun, which shows even more that she practices self control in the classroom.
Sophia Busnach
Sophia shows a love of learning each day. She is excited to learn new things and is always engaged in class discussions by sharing her thoughts in a positive way.
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Mr Colin's Kindergarten Class
Eagle's Nest News,
The Eagle's Nest Kindergarten has been busy, busy, busy for the past few weeks. We are learning about letters, sounds, words, and sentences. As we dive into the science of reading and understanding how the sounds that letters represent are the building blocks for our language. This is the hard work in kindergarten that will make us readers! Additionally, we practiced writing our name, drawing pictures of ourselves at school, identifying uppercase and lowercase letters, tracking print from left to right, and identifying and counting letters and words in sentences. In math we are practicing identifying and writing numbers, working with patterns, and exploring what happens when we combine numbers through adding. We have already come so far since the beginning of the year!
Over the first six weeks of school, the main event is still building a positive classroom community. Through our emphasis on kindness, safety, and respect, we are laying the foundation for a successful school year. By taking our time now and directly teaching our routines and expectations we save valuable instructional time in the long run.
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Mrs Rogers' Kindergarten Class
In the Kindergarten "Mink Den'' the children have been writing their names a lot! They colored their own bubble letter name, and made a "Rainbow Fish" that was a follow-up activity after we read the story "Rainbow Fish''. The children are learning how to write their name with an uppercase letter at the beginning and lowercase letters for the remainder of their name.
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Several of the students have been enjoying our classroom library. They have discovered how much fun it can be to sit with friends to look at, and read books together! | | |
On Fridays we have SCC with Sara Bailey. Last Friday when Sara came in she read a story about feelings. The children did a fun activity using playdough and an acorn mat. They showed different feelings by making faces on the acorn. Can you guess how the different acorns are feeling? | | |
Ms Oliver's 1/2 Class
The Fox Den warmed things up with a homemade harvest soup. Using vegetables from the classroom garden, we washed, chopped and cooked parsnips, potatoes, carrots, beets, kale and basil, and added in onion and veggie broth for an amazing soup! But what is even more amazing, the vegetables we harvested were planted as seeds last school year by this year's second graders! Mrs. Kendall joined us to help children chop safely, and Ms. Mills, Ms. Bridget and Nurse Kate all came down to enjoy a taste of our soup. I am very proud the foxes did such a wonderful job cooking together.
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Ms Kate's 1/2 Class
Ms. Kate's class has enjoyed starting literacy stations the past few weeks. So far some of our stations have included building words with wikki stix, handwriting, rhyming games, sentence writing, and independent reading. Our class has also been enjoying reading aloud Kevin Henkes books, and discussing the problems and solutions the main characters have. Later they will compare what made the books similar and different.
Our class has also enjoyed visiting the TES gardens and the Forest Classroom now that we've had some sunny spells again. On Wednesday we started looking for signs of fall in the forest.
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Ms Maggie's 1/2 Class
The Wolf Pack has been wrapping up a unit on learning about ourselves as individuals, and as members of a learning community. Part of this included creating self portraits. Students wrote words to describe themselves in white crayon in the background, and then painted over the words with watercolor to make the words pop out. We've been working on creating our classroom contract with our expectations for how our class should look, feel and sound this year. We read a book called Iggy Peck, Architect, a story about a second grader who loves to learn about architecture, but whose teacher is afraid of buildings. In the end, Iggy saves the day and convinces his teacher that architecture is amazing. Students have been talking and writing about the things they hope to learn about this year, and we are creating "hopes and dreams" buildings in honor of Iggy's architectural dreams. We also earned our first class celebration, and made food art. We used food items to create wolf faces, and then got to eat them!
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Ms Audrey's 3/4 Class
Miss Audrey’s 3rd and 4th Grade Class
We are finishing up our 5th week of school strong! Students in my third grade math class have been introduced to Prodigy Math, a game they play online, answering math questions at their own level in order to gain magical powers. You can imagine their excitement to do math! A few of our students have already been playing prodigy at home and have proven to be great helpers to other classmates. Students have also been introduced to their first math menus. Math menu is a great way to offer math to students at their level. Menus also give students choice in how they wish to spend their math period. There is a variety of worksheets, problem solvers (these get students thinking “outside the box”), and math games. Nothing in menu is new content for students, but instead use their current knowledge to practice their skills. During menu time, I will be taking small groups of students to teach a main lesson at their level. This is where students' current knowledge will be expanded to welcome new information. So far, these third grade mathematicians are embracing math menu and have been working very hard!
In literacy this week, students have been working hard to finish up their All About Me newspapers. Students have also been taught about shape poems and had the opportunity to create their own shape poems. Students have worked very hard on their poems, first with a rough draft and then a final draft. We have been so impressed with the number of phenomenal artists and writers in this class! In addition, our Literacy menus are in the works and will be used similarly to our math menus. I am excited to get these introduced to our 3rd and 4th graders.
Last Friday, our class discovered our new forest classroom, spending much of the day outdoors. This included engineering, team work, and communication. It is so magical to see how children blossom when they are provided freedom to explore our natural world. This Friday will include more outdoor classroom time, focusing our time and energy on creating a safe space to build our fire pit.
Our class is so great at demonstrating safe, kind, and responsible behavior that we have already enjoyed two celebrations! Next week we will have our third celebration as we have earned almost 800 more tickets as a class in the past 2 weeks!! Woohoo!
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Ms Mousley's 3/4 Class
Ms. Mousley’s class had a great time at the fair. Some of our favorite spots were on Antique Hill and seeing all the animals.
The third and fourth graders have been working hard to complete All About Me Newspapers. This has been a great way to review paragraph writing and revising and editing your work to produce a final draft.
Ms. Mousley’s fourth grade math class has completed a mini unit about place value and how to write numbers in standard form, expanded form and written form as well as comparing and ordering numbers based on place value. We are currently working on rounding numbers to the nearest ten, hundred and thousand.
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Mrs Atherton's 3/4 Class
The third and fourth graders in Mrs. Atherton's classroom are off to a great start. Routines are underway and students are earning tickets for being safe, kind, and responsible. They have already earned a celebration which arrived in the form of a s'more roast in the outdoor classroom!
Pawsome tickets have a little extra value in our classroom, as they can be exchanged for classroom money. Each ticket is worth $0.05 and is exchanged on Fridays. When tickets are exchanged and students have counted their money, they may peruse the "quality junk" in the class store. If the quality junk doesn't pique student interest, they may opt to purchase an experience that the whole class can enjoy (think: reading with hot cocoa, crafternoon, extra recess or outdoor classroom time, etc.) or save their money for another day.
The last way students can earn money in the classroom is to sign up for daily classroom jobs and keep track of how much money they earned through their job. On Friday when kids exchange their tickets, they are also paid for their jobs. The best part of this system is that it is completely student run--the only job Mrs. Atherton has is to price items in the store!
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Ms Banning's 3/4 Class
Dear Parents,
Happy almost October! It's incredible how quickly time is flying by!
Literacy Adventures: In literacy, we've been diving into an exciting "Literacy Menu" approach. This involves a variety of engaging activities that help our students develop their reading and language skills. Some of the activities include reading books, working collaboratively on vocabulary words, and playing interactive games. It's been wonderful to see how much the students are enjoying these activities!
Exploring Comparisons: This week, we embarked on a fascinating journey of comparing and contrasting. Our focus was on sharks. The students read several books about these amazing creatures and then used a Venn diagram to organize their thoughts. It's not only a great way to expand their knowledge but also to enhance their critical thinking skills.
Math Marvels: In math, we're also following a "Math Menu" approach. Students are given a variety of math challenges, including "windowpanes" (pages with various math problems), math games, and problem solvers (word problems). This approach allows each student to explore math concepts in a way that suits their learning style.
Classroom Behavior: In the 3/4 homeroom classroom, we've been focusing on important social skills like lining up quietly and showing respect to teachers. We're working on active listening during class discussions and avoiding side conversations. These are skills that we will continue to nurture throughout the year, as they are crucial for a positive and focused learning environment.
I'm thrilled to be a part of your child's learning journey, and I look forward to the many more exciting adventures and learning opportunities that lie ahead. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. Your involvement and support are invaluable in creating a successful and enriching classroom experience.
Wishing you a wonderful October ahead!
Ms. Banning
Third/Fourth Grade Teacher
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Mrs Lacasse's 5/6 Class
Historians in Mrs. Lacasse's class have enjoyed beginning our Greek Mythology unit! We have started reading a variety of Greek Myths and exploring maps of Ancient Greece.
We enjoyed a field trip to the Tunbridge Fair a few weeks ago. Students displayed kind, safe and responsible behavior throughout the fairgrounds and enjoyed exploring exhibits on Antique Hill and in the various barns.
5th grade Mathematicians have begun work exploring volume. We are finding the volume of rectangular prisms and have explored decomposing figures into rectangular prisms to find the volume. We enjoyed beginning our learning of volume through building and creating prisms with cubes!
We have begun work in small reading groups! Reading groups are a wonderful chance for students to practice using decoding strategies and discussing books with others. We have also been talking about different genres of books and how to decide what genre a book we have read is.
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Mrs Despins 5/6 Class
There is so much to tell families and community members about our ⅚ class!
We learned about rubrics by creating one on how to score monsters! Please see the rubric to score the “excellent” monsters in the photo. (Rubric typed by Gali and Mel).
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Social and team building time together-- apple picking, establishing our outdoor classroom setting, and trying to untangle our tangled selves (see photos below).
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Sixth graders in math learned how to make and jump origami frogs. The fifth graders were quite curious. So the 6th graders taught them how to make and jump frogs! (Photo of Jake teaching Cyrus to build a frog and George jumping the frog). | |
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Writing several focused paragraphs, almost completing the volume unit in math (5th graders), peer editing, and building excitement and stamina in reading.
We met our goal of earning 30 tickets per 16 students to fill our jar with Pawsome tickets. We determined that there were 480 safe, kind, and responsible acts! Together we voted and will have an hour of free choice time!! Students, keep up the great five star work!
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Mr LaRoche's 5/6 Class
As the weather gets colder, Mr. LaRoche’s class is just warming up! The fifth and sixth graders decided as a class what rules, routines, and guidelines we should have and what should be included in each one. We also defined what it means to be safe, kind, and responsible as a 5/6 grader.
We have also launched into our first major unit of study: Ancient Greece! We will tackle this huge topic from two fronts: mythology and social studies. In literacy, we will be reading Greek myths and discussing why cultures create mythologies. In social studies, we will be studying the history of Ancient Greece, as well as the geography. The students have been working hard making some beautifully detailed maps of Ancient Greece!
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