Issue 15
November 21, 2023
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Sharon Elementary School News |
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Wednesday 11/22- Friday, 11/24- Thanksgiving Break
Wednesday 12/6- PTO Meeting at School, 6-7 PM
Thursday, 12/7- Community Forum for Building Project, 5:30 PM (5:00 Dinner option, childcare available, RSVP encouraged...khaley@wrvsu.org)
Friday, 12/8- Early Release
Tuesday, 12/12- Special School Board Meeting for Building Project, 5:30
Tuesday, 12/19- School Board Meeting, 5:30, See Website for Agenda
Wednesday, 12/20- Winter Concert, 5:30 PM
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Letter from Principal Haley |
Sharon Community,
With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I want to take this opportunity to express my thankfulness to our staff, parents, and community members who show so much support for our school. As we continue to build connections between our community and school, please feel free to reach out to me to suggest ways that we can build stronger ties with one another. Our lives continue to evolve. How we teach our children is vastly different than it was even ten years ago. So much in our world changes and with it, so do our ways of interpreting it. It takes a community, together, to help our youngest members navigate their way to becoming adults who contribute to the health and vitality of our town. I hope everyone has a moment to give thanks to their loved ones and for the support they receive in an ever-evolving world. Please see below for important information regarding our proposed Building Expansion Project.
Proposed Building Expansion Project Information
We need your thoughtful feedback. There are many opportunities to learn more about this project!
Dec. 7th, Community-Wide Forum dinner and childcare provided. (Dinner at 5:00 - program at 5:30)
Dec. 20th, 5:30 pm Winter Concert We will take a few minutes to address families before the program.
Consider attending one, or all, of our school board meetings. Building tours are open to the community at 4:30 before each of the following meetings:
Thursday, Dec. 12th, 5:30 pm
Tuesday, Dec.. 19th, 5:30 pm
Respectfully,
Keenan Haley
Principal
Sharon Elementary
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Each month, we will highlight a different staff member with a Q&A session. This month, we are featuring Laura Lewis, our Literacy Interventionist.
How long have you worked at Sharon Elementary School?
I started working at SES in 1995 as an Educational Support Paraprofessional. In 1997 I started teaching first and second grade at SES and in 2018 I took on the role of Interventionist at SES!
What is your favorite thing about working at SES?
I have so many favorite things about working at SES! I love how the community is so supportive of the school, the staff are caring and helpful, and most of all, the students are amazing!
What do you do to take care of yourself?
I love going for hikes with our black lab and quilting.
I enjoy riding my horse and spending time with my family.
I love cooking and watching my daughter swim in swim meets.
What brings you joy?
Watching students learn! I love seeing when the light goes on and a student gets what was hard for them.
What do you want people to know about your job?
There are so many tricky parts to reading that impact decoding and language comprehension that affect reading comprehension. My door is always open to students, staff, and families. Reading every day is so important!
What is one fun fact about you?
I’m a certified NCAA swimming and diving official! Meets I’m officiating this year include UVM, Norwich, Colby-Sawyer College, and the GNAC Championships.
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Kindergarten has been very busy these past couple of months! We have been learning how to be learners!! One of our favorite sayings is..."if you're looking, you're learning!"
In math, we are comparing numbers and groups of objects. We have started to talk about greater than and less than. We have also been comparing numbers based on how many more or how many less. Some students are working really hard on making sure their numbers are written correctly and not reversed. We will dive into addition after the Thanksgiving break!
In literacy, we have started working with the Fundations book program, Geodes. The students seem to enjoy the books so far. We have been looking for pictures that begin with certain sounds. It is very similar to an ISpy book but in Sound Search format! They have also been working very hard on learning all of their letter names and sounds. We are using these phonics skills to start tapping out CVC words like cat and hop! Fundations has been a huge help with this letter keyword sound practice! In writing, we have been making connections to books. The students have been drawing pictures and they are starting to sound out the words that they want to write to go along with their drawings!
We have been working so hard in Kindergarten and they are doing an amazing job staying on task and following the group plan. I think we have filled our class reward candy jar at least 5 times already this year!! Keep up the great work Kindergarteners!!
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We went on a field trip to Swett’s Forest. It was really chilly and we had to keep moving around to stay warm. Some of us played “bunny”. We hopped around and looked for food and collected leaves for our bunny homes. Some used sticks and twigs and built shelters. Some of us saw a wasps nest and used hand lenses to get a closer look. Some of us went inside the shelters that kids made, it was really cool. We took turns riding on the tree swing. We found woodpecker holes and looked into them. There was chewed up wood inside them. We saw some dead trees and lots of trees getting ready for winter.
In math we have been looking closely at coins. On the penny is Abraham Lincoln, our nation’s 16th president. He was a self taught lawyer. On the back of the penny is the Lincoln Memorial and we could see the statue between the two columns. If we go to Washington D.C. we can actually see it up close. Not all of our pennies have the same backs, some have a shield and some pennies have Abraham Lincoln sitting on a log. A penny is worth 1 cent which means that it would take 100 pennies to equal a dollar. We dumped a whole jar of pennies, organized them into groups of ten and counted by tens then ones to figure out how many pennies were in the jar. It was $8 and 47 cents. We found some Canadian pennies and talked about money around the world. The penny also has the year it was minted on the coin and some coins have a letter under the year that tells us where it was minted. We also saw a latin phrase on the penny.
In reading we have been previewing our books to get the vocabulary to the front of our brains. We are trying to memorize some tricky words and decode other words. We have been working on reading smoothly and discussing what we read. We have also been writing sentences and trying to remember to start a sentence with a capital and to put a punctuation mark at the end.
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November is a great month to start a Gratitude practice, but by all means, try to make it a regular part of your routine year round! Science shows practicing gratitude leads to a greater sense of well-being, positivity and happiness.
Some helpful prompts for each category:
G-describe a favorite part about your room/house/school
-share something that made you smile or laugh today
-name one thing you loved about today's weather
L-what's one thing you wish you could learn more about?
-what did you hear that surprised you today?
-what made you think hard today?
A-what is something you've been practicing a lot lately?
-how have you been kind lately?
-tell me about a tiny win you had today
D-describe the most delicious thing you ate today
-tell me about something you love to do that you wish you could do more often
-what is one thing you love about being you?
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