The Week of June 5th

 

Upcoming Events 

WES Carnival- June 12th @ 8:45-11:30

Picnic Begins @ 12:00

Students will gather in mixed classroom groups to travel around the school taking part in amazing stations! This year, we will have a dunk tank, cotton candy and much more. Parents and families are welcome to attend :)

Preview Day- June 14th/ Last Day of School 

Early Release @ 11:30

First and second grade families please look for your student's placement letter in your student's home-folder. If you are unable to find the letter, please reach out and I will be happy to help.

On Wednesday, we will welcome the new first graders into our room! The second graders who will remain in our classroom next year will lead a scavenger hunt and some fun "get to know you" games. 

Trimester III Report Cards Go Home- June 14th 

Please look for your student's final report card in their home folder on June 14th.  All students have made lots of progress this year and should feel proud of their work here! We had lots of fun together and I will miss all of them over the summer :)

Writers' Workshop

In writing, we finished typing our fancy copies of our opinion letters! Students enjoyed choosing their favorite font and working with Miss Meg to type their piece. Together as a class, we spent time reading and commenting on each other's letters. This has become a special tradition in our classroom which we all enjoy! Please look for your student's letter coming home soon!

Mill River Field Trip

Our first trip to Mill River Park was a success! The weather was cooperative and we all enjoyed checking out the great nature trails. I hope you were able to see your student's nature scavenger hunt. Thank you to all of the families who were able to attend and to those who donated towards our "creemee fund". 

💗Pay it Forward 💗

On a great note, while getting ready to pay for our creemees, we were told a customer in line before us paid for our students! What a cool surprise! We are holding the family donations in the office at this time and are happy to refund any donation.

 Please reach out in an email or call the office if you would like your money returned. If I don't hear from you, we will use this money for future field trips and/or special k-3 celebrations. Thank you :)

                                                                               silly faces :)

The Week of May 30, 2023

 

Upcoming Events 

End of Year K-3 Field Trip to Mill River Park- June 8th 

Please be sure to send in your $5.00 donation per child and Mill River Field Trip Form by June 6th

K-3 students are excited for a day of hiking, games and creemees! Students will leave WES around 9:30. Students will need to bring a lunch from home, or sign up for a bagged lunch from the cafeteria.  Please complete the google form linked below.  Let me know if you are having any trouble viewing the google form and I will send home a paper copy! 

Mill River End of Year Field Trip Google Form

6th Grade Graduation Ceremony

Waterville Elementary School

June 13, 2022

6:00 PM

Last Day of School

June 14th

Classroom Snacks/Water bottles 

The end of the year gets very busy and hot. I encourage students to drink lots of water throughout the day and we have a short snack from 9:20-9:30 each day. Please work with your student to pack a snack and water bottle each day! WES no longer provides snacks at this time, and I am completely out of my emergency snacks. 

Preview Day 

The K-3 team has finalized our classroom placement for the upcoming 2023-2024 school year. As a team, we meet together to discuss each student. We take into consideration both social/emotional goals, and academic strengths and needs. We work to provide each student with the best experience and support we can. 

Students will get a chance to visit their next year's classroom. Please remember, WES is a small school with multi-age classrooms. 

We do break students into grade level groups for math and spelling instruction. 

If your child remains in the 1-2 classroom next year, they are STILL MOVING ON TO second grade.  

Big Buddies & Little Buddies 

On Tuesday, we spent time with our Big Buddies from the 4-5 classroom! Together we enjoyed playing Drip, Drip, Drop a variation of Duck, Duck, Goose, but with water! 

Properties of Matter

This week, we finished up our inquiry into heating and cooling types of matter. Together, we drew and wrote our observations about different types of matter. We predicted what would happen to different types of matter when it was heated. Would it return to a usable form or not? We began to form a claim about heating and cooling matter. 

First Grade Math

In first grade math, we wrapped up our last Number Corner unit of study. Students enjoyed solving +10, -10, +1, -1 mystery equations with double digit numbers. Each day, we solved an equation and colored the corresponding square on our 120 chart revealing a hidden picture. On Thursday, we were able to figure out what our picture was! A dragonfly! 

Students were working hard on their end of year math assessment. Each student should feel proud of their persistence and growth this year! When students finished a section of their assessment we played some of our favorite math games from the year. We call these games our "Hall of Fame" games! 

Even Steven is an all time favorite game! 

2D and 3D shape Problem Solvers 

Students enjoyed working with pattern blocks creating composite shapes, and reviewing names and properties of 2D shapes. We also reviewed 3D shapes and really enjoyed working with our polydron building blocks. 

Writers' Workshop

This week in writing, students selected their favorite opinion letter, and worked on revising it. Students reread their piece to be sure if made sense and added any needed details.  We will work on editing and typing our letters in the upcoming week. Students will celebrate their writing with their Big Buddies and will be sure to bring home their fancy copy to you! 

Waterville Town Library Pictures 

Each child recieved a library card on this field trip! The Waterville Town library has lots of books and activities for all ages- be sure to check it out!

Here is John Churchman a local author of some incredible children's stories! Click on the link below to see more information about his work.

https://www.sweetpeafriends.com/

The Week of May 15, 2023

 

**Please help your student pack a water bottle and snack for school each day**

Upcoming Events

Field Trip to the Waterville Town Library - May 23, 2023

Readers' Theater Performance / Early Release Day/Teacher In-Service

 May 24th, 2023

Please join us from 9:30-10:30 in our gym for a amazing performance by the 1-3 students!  

End of Year K-3 Field Trip to Mill River Park- June 8th 

K-3 students are excited for a day of hiking, games and creemees! Students will leave WES around 9:30. Students will need to bring a lunch from home, or sign up for a bagged lunch from the cafeteria.  Please complete the google form linked below.  Let me know if you are having any trouble viewing the google form and I will send home a paper copy! 

Mill River End of Year Field Trip Google Form

End of Year Benchmark Assessments

This week, I was busy working on the many end of year assessments with your students. I really enjoy this time of year, where I get to check in with each child and notice the incredible growth they have achieved since the beginning of the school year. Please reach out if you have any questions.

Science Unit: Properties of Matter

Students were busy making predictions, observing and recording their findings this week. As a class we learned that some types of matter can be changed by temperature and can return to their original form, while others cannot! Together we froze cucumbers, bread, soda, mustard,bananas, and maple syrup. We made observations, and then, left all of them out at room temperature for the night. It was pretty cool to see what was matter was reversible and what was not! 

Readers' Workshop

This week, Ms. Marie practiced with each readers' theater group in preparation for our upcoming performance! Students are learning to:

Change their voice to match the punctuation in the text.

Read with phrasing ( scoop words together).

Add expression and feeling.

Read at an appropriate rate ( not too fast, not too slow).

First Grade Math 

This week in math, the first graders continued to work in Unit 7. In this unit, students will work to add and subtract double digit numbers with various models and review counting by 2s 5s and 10s. Check out the links below for more info and to check out some of the cool games we  played together. 

Unit 7 Overview

Games:

Two Turns to Build

 Race to Zero

3D Shape Hunt 

On Thursday and Friday, the first graders had fun hunting around the classroom for 3D shapes. We created some fun "watchful eyes" headbands to help us find and name some cool shapes. We found spheres, rectangular prisms, cylinders, cubes and cones!

The Week of May 1, 2023

 

After School Plans

First and second grade families, please be sure to inform the school of your students' after school plans with a written note or phone call to the office. The end of the day is very busy and we like to make sure all students know what their plans are for the day.  Thank you!

Special thank you to Ms. Nikky for helping with our new classroom bulletin board :)

Upcoming Events 

WES Spring Concert - May 9th @ 6:00

Students should arrive by 5:45 and come to the classroom. We will walk down to the gym together. 

Early Release Day-  May 24th @ 11:30

Readers' Theater Performance - May 24th 

Grades 1-3 will perform our readers' theater plays for you! Our last unit of study in Readers' Workshop will focus on reading fluency. We will have time to showcase our amazing reading progress to our WES community. 

No School- May 29th 

Heads Up 7 Up- New Morning Meeting Game

Heads Up Game Link 

This crew is getting ready to tap some thumbs during our game! 

Readers' Workshop

This week, we wrapped up our unit of study on fiction stories and characters. In this unit we learned to describe how our characters look and act. We used this information to identify character traits. Students followed their characters through multiple books in a series and noticed common themes. We reviewed a high quality fiction story retell, and created some really cool posters too! The kids had NO FUN AT ALL!!! Just kidding we really enjoyed this project and it shows :)

                        Spelling/Fundations 

Ms. M's Group: This week, we wrapped up our study of open and closed syllable words and played a fun new 4 corners game with our Power Words. Students worked on sentence writing: upper case letters, spacing and punctuation. We learned the rule for using hard and soft c.

Ms Russin's Group: This week, students worked on words with short and long a sounds i.e. chain, train and dare, care + play, day, may etc. Students are reading and writing words with this pattern. Student's read a book called A Rainy Day to Sail. Students also enjoyed playing bingo with their new Power Words. 

States of Matter 

This week, we learned about the 3 States of Matter. We sorted items into groups of common materials. Students named commonalities and differences. Students explored with making models of molecules and how they fit together in each of the 3 States of Matter.  Up next, we will explore how some types of matter can be changed and return to original form, while others cannot. 

Everything is made of tiny pieces of matter

Check out our beautiful flowers!

The Week of April 17th

 

Readers' Workshop

In reading, the first and second graders have been studying characters! Students meet in small character study groups throughout the week to notice attributes and discuss their books and characters. We have learned to describe how a character looks, how they act and infer character traits. We are learning to retell and summarize chapters/texts. When we return from vacation, students will create a Favorite Character Poster! 

Here are some of our favorite characters from our Character Study Groups.

Writers' Workshop 

In writing, we have begun our final project: opinion writing!  Students spent the last week reading amazing mentor texts that share opinions. In this unit we are focusing on how to write our opinion in a friendly letter format. Students planned out different ideas around the theme Social Activism. Students thought and planned opinion pieces based on things they would like to change at home, in school, and in our world around us. 

States of Matter Science Unit 

Students have really enjoyed learning about matter! This week, we visited a foundry on a virtual field trip! Students watched workers as they melted metal and shaped it into various items. Later in the week, we learned that all things are made of molecules- tiny pieces of matter that make up bigger things. Here students worked with tiles, and created flowers with tiny pieces of colored paper.  Some tiny pieces can be broken and put back together, while others can not. 

First Grade Math

In first grade math, we a wrapping up our unit on different types of word problems. Student learned to identify key words in different word problems such as: all together, in all, how many were left, and how many more. 

We explored joining problems, separating problems and compare problems. Students wrote their own story problems about their favorite equation (adding numbers up to 20).  First grade families, I have emailed you a link to watch your student's video! 

Math Menu 

Students are also brushing up on their addition and subtraction strategies from 0-10. Ms. Russin and I worked with small groups to build a strong connection between addition and subtraction equations and the part/part/whole model. It has been really cool seeing students move from counting strategies to thinking strategies! 

Here are some of the posters we made to show the connections between adding and subtracting.

Spelling and Fundations 

Our spelling groups are working hard and making some great progress! It is always really cool to see how much students have grown over our year together:)

Ms. Russin's Group

This group of students is working on reading and spelling r controlled vowels and words with vowel teams.  Students work on word sorts, dictations, power word writing and other activities that build reading and writing fluency. 

Mrs. Marcelino's Group 

Our focus has been on new digraph blends ( shr, nch), and reviewing consonant blends and digraphs. Students are working with word sorts, word chains, connected texts and other fun games that help us build reading and writing fluency. 

Students are now working on a review of syllable types and are learning to identify open and closed syllables.  We are also learning to read and write words with the hard and soft c sound.