First graders have been busy getting into the St. Patrick’s Day spirit! As part of their learning, students enjoyed listening to the Magic Tree House Book, Leprechauns in Late Winter where they explored Ireland and its traditions, including the story of the Shee and the old folklore of leprechauns.
Excitement grew all week as students eagerly anticipated a leprechaun visit. With the help of their families, they designed and built creative leprechaun traps at home, each one more imaginative than the last. When the big day arrived, there were plenty of signs that leprechauns had been near and to everyone’s delight, the pots of gold had magically turned into candy!
It was a fun and engaging way to combine literacy, culture, and a little bit of magic in first grade. 🍀
Excitement grew all week as students eagerly anticipated a leprechaun visit. With the help of their families, they designed and built creative leprechaun traps at home, each one more imaginative than the last. When the big day arrived, there were plenty of signs that leprechauns had been near and to everyone’s delight, the pots of gold had magically turned into candy!
It was a fun and engaging way to combine literacy, culture, and a little bit of magic in first grade. 🍀
Friday Fun Day in First Grade! 😁🦷 Students explored good dental habits such as brushing twice a day and choosing foods that help keep teeth strong. We also discussed which foods can cause cavities when eaten too often. As part of our literacy work, students wrote step‑by‑step directions for how to brush their teeth and learned about the double “oo” sound (as in tooth). Each child received a new toothbrush and a small packet of toothpaste to take home. We wrapped up the day with fun tooth fairy stories, along with a take‑home book that connected the tooth fairy to money, coins, and their values, using rhyme to solve riddles.
Our 2nd grade literacy block is filled with engaging stations, including phonics practice, spelling work, comprehension activities with Scholastic, and quiet independent reading. Also happening, but not pictured, is guided reading with Mrs. Whittemore because she’s the one behind the camera!
Indoor recess can still be a lot of fun! Check out the last picture. Students were pretty excited that their tower ended up taller than Mrs. Whittemore and Mrs. Bellerose!
Our next Play and Learn is coming up on Saturday, March 21st. This is for ages 0-5 and their caregivers. We look forward to seeing you there!
With the warm weather finally here, students took advantage of the sunshine with some outdoor chalk play! The playground quickly filled with colorful drawings, creative games, and lots of smiles.
In first grade, we connected the real-life skill of counting money to our understanding of place value and adding numbers. Students practiced counting collections of coins in a variety of ways, including through games, “purchasing” classroom items, solving word problems, and completing coin-counting worksheets. Through these activities, children gained a deeper understanding of numbers, place value and how math is used in real-life situations.
Congratulations to our Core Value Students of the Month for Respect! Every month, our Core Value Students of the Month get to enjoy a pizza party with Assistant Principal, Mrs. Madore. These students show respect each day through their kind words, helpful actions, and the way they treat their classmates, teachers, and school community. We are proud of the example they set for others!
Friday mornings mean dance party time! Every Friday, ater breakfast, students get moving, have some fun, and start the day with great energy.
Mrs. Gallison’s class has been learning about subtraction this week! Students have been practicing the concept through a variety of math stations. In this activity, they are working on “Snowman Subtraction,” where they draw buttons on their snowman and then remove some to help solve a subtraction equation. ⛄
Second graders in Mrs. Whittemore's class are performing a little “surgery” in reading! 🩺📚 After completing Text Features Medical School earlier in the week, students reviewed their patient files to prepare for surgery day. Their patients’ symptoms? A need for text features! Students are using what they learned to diagnose and “treat” their patients by identifying and using the correct text features.
Mrs. Galison’s kinders had a fun, busy week! They enjoyed several Dr. Seuss read-alouds and activities, including practicing rhyming words and creating their own “-at” word family Cat in the Hat. They also had fun sorting and graphing colored Goldfish crackers. In our K for ME curriculum, students are learning about owls and wrapped up the week by creating these beautiful mosaic owls! 🦉📚
Nothing makes playing in the snow more fun than a warm, almost-spring day! Students enjoyed plenty of smiles, snowy adventures, and fresh air while making the most of the beautiful day outside. ❄️☀️
Mrs. Bellerose’s first graders are diving into learning all about money! 💰 There’s something extra exciting about learning when you can imagine coins jingling right in your own pocket. Be sure to ask them to sing the “Money in Your Pocket” song for you. It’s a super catchy tune that’s been stuck in our heads all week!
Celebrating Dr. Seuss’s birthday in first grade is always a joyful adventure! Each year during the week of March 2nd, we honor Dr. Seuss by diving into his silly, rhyming stories filled with colorful characters and imaginative fun. From mischievous cats to tricky foxes, his books help young readers practice rhyming, build confidence, and discover that reading can be exciting and playful. It’s a special independent reading time full of laughter, creativity, and a love of books that makes reading feel like a celebration.
First grade students working with our interventionist, Ms. Spaulding have been focusing on building strong fact fluency skills in math!
Students understand that to be a fluent mathematician, they need to:
Add quickly
Be accurate
Use strategies
To show mastery, students solve 20 equations in under 90 seconds with 100% accuracy. When they meet this goal, they earn a popcorn piece labeled with the skill they passed (for example, +2) to add to their personal popcorn bin.
Students begin by mastering their +0 facts and work their way all the way up through +10. We are so proud of their hard work — just look at all the popcorn they’ve earned! 🍿👏
After vacation, we have begun working on subtraction fact fluency and are excited to keep the momentum going!
Keep practicing those facts at home — speed, accuracy, and strategy make strong mathematicians!
Students understand that to be a fluent mathematician, they need to:
Add quickly
Be accurate
Use strategies
To show mastery, students solve 20 equations in under 90 seconds with 100% accuracy. When they meet this goal, they earn a popcorn piece labeled with the skill they passed (for example, +2) to add to their personal popcorn bin.
Students begin by mastering their +0 facts and work their way all the way up through +10. We are so proud of their hard work — just look at all the popcorn they’ve earned! 🍿👏
After vacation, we have begun working on subtraction fact fluency and are excited to keep the momentum going!
Keep practicing those facts at home — speed, accuracy, and strategy make strong mathematicians!
It has been wonderful to welcome some warm sunshine back to our days! Our students have been taking full advantage of the beautiful weather and were so excited to discover fresh, newly visible tar on the playground — the perfect surface for creative chalk fun.
Students spent time drawing colorful designs and creating hopscotch boards. One of the highlights was tracing each other’s shadows! As the sun moved across the sky, students noticed how their shadows changed in size and direction. They had so much fun outlining their friends.
This hands-on experience encouraged teamwork, creativity, and outdoor exploration. We love seeing learning come to life in simple, joyful ways — especially when it includes sunshine and smiles!
Students spent time drawing colorful designs and creating hopscotch boards. One of the highlights was tracing each other’s shadows! As the sun moved across the sky, students noticed how their shadows changed in size and direction. They had so much fun outlining their friends.
This hands-on experience encouraged teamwork, creativity, and outdoor exploration. We love seeing learning come to life in simple, joyful ways — especially when it includes sunshine and smiles!
This week our kindergarteners in Mrs. Gallison's class dove into some Dr. Seuss inspired fun with a rhyming sensory bin! Students searched through the bin to find matching rhyming picture pairs like frog/log and pig/wig. They were so excited to dig, discover, and say the words out loud as they listened for those matching ending sounds. It was hands-on, engaging, and such a great way to build those early phonological awareness skills.
Next week, we’re taking it a step further! Instead of just finding rhyming pairs, students will begin building their own rhyming words. They’ll use what they’ve learned to create word pairs and really focus on how changing the beginning sound can make a new word. We can’t wait to see them grow from recognizing rhymes to confidently creating them!
Next week, we’re taking it a step further! Instead of just finding rhyming pairs, students will begin building their own rhyming words. They’ll use what they’ve learned to create word pairs and really focus on how changing the beginning sound can make a new word. We can’t wait to see them grow from recognizing rhymes to confidently creating them!
Mrs. Whittemore’s class has been hard at work becoming grammar pros! ✏️📚
This week, students focused on finding and writing possessive nouns. Using their writer’s notebooks, they practiced forming singular possessive nouns and plural possessive nouns, paying close attention to where those apostrophes belong.
After practicing together, they were ready to try it on their own, independently writing possessive nouns and showing what they know! I love seeing their confidence grow as they apply new skills in their writing. Keep up the great work!
This week, students focused on finding and writing possessive nouns. Using their writer’s notebooks, they practiced forming singular possessive nouns and plural possessive nouns, paying close attention to where those apostrophes belong.
After practicing together, they were ready to try it on their own, independently writing possessive nouns and showing what they know! I love seeing their confidence grow as they apply new skills in their writing. Keep up the great work!
Our first February Play and Learn was a success! We had 11 kiddos join us for a fun, construction-themed hour. The children enjoyed a read aloud, played with puzzles and cars, and got creative making construction hats and pictures. We wrapped up our time together with a goodbye song and a snack. Such a sweet morning of learning, playing, and building community together!
