Torringford Tigers

Dear Torringford Families,

As we step into the holiday season, we want to express how much we value and enjoy our partnership with you. Watching your children grow, learn, and achieve new milestones is truly the highlight of our work. Each day, they inspire us with their curiosity, creativity, and kindness. Together, we are building a foundation for their future success, and we couldn’t do it without your support!

As winter approaches, here are a few important reminders:

• Delayed Openings:
  In the event of a two-hour delay, students should arrive by 10:35 a.m. For a three-hour delay, school begins at 11:35 a.m. When school is delayed, breakfast is not served.

• Winter Clothing:
  Please be sure students are dressed warmly for outdoor activities. If the temperature or wind chill is 22°F or higher, we’ll aim to have recess outside. Boots, snow pants, hats, and gloves are encouraged for snowy days.

• Medications:
  All medications must be brought in by an adult and handed directly to Nurse Denise or Nurse Allison. Prescription medications require written orders from a physician, and even items like cough drops must be administered by the nurse.

• Absences:
  If your child is absent, please call the school at 860-489-2300 (option 1) to notify us and provide a reason. Upon your child’s return, send a note (or doctor’s note) explaining the absence.

  
  

Winter Break is scheduled from December 23 to January 1; classes will resume on Thursday, January 2.

As we close out 2024, we want to thank you for being such an integral part of our school community. Your children are the heart of our school, and we are so proud of the growth and accomplishments we’ve seen so far this year.

We hope you enjoy the winter break with your loved ones, and we look forward to seeing you in the new year!

In partnership,

Mrs. Galullo (Principal) & Mrs. Austin (Assistant Principal)

Stay healthy this month! Wash your hands often, cover your coughs and sneezes, and get plenty of rest. Don’t forget to eat healthy snacks and dress warmly when heading outside. Let’s all do our part to stay strong and well during the holiday season!

Click HERE for Spanish

In November, 347 Pawsome cards were awarded. Congratulations to the following Torringford Tigers:

We appreciate your partnership in promoting a positive learning environment for all students. Please be sure to celebrate your student when they share with you a PAWSOME award received at school.

This holiday season, the best gift you can give your child is a good education. And the best place to get an education is in school.

It’s tempting to extend your vacation by a few days, but remember, those days count as absences. Just a few missed days here and there, even if they’re excused, can add up to too much lost learning time.

Please make sure your child is in school every day (that they are healthy), right up until vacation starts. Our teachers will be teaching, and our students will be learning.

Every day of school is an important opportunity for students to learn

as well as connect to peers and their teachers.

Please reach out to Georgia Austin or Deb Mordecai with any attendance concerns.

• December 19: Early Dismissal (1:30); PLC
  
• December 23 - January 1: Winter Recess; NO School
  
• January 16: Early Dismissal (1:30); PLC
• January 20: Martin Luther King Day; NO School
• Second Half of January: PTO Sponsored Winter Wonderland (TBD)

Torringford School came together to honor the brave men and women who have served our country. Our PreK, Kindergarten, First, Second, and Third Grade students joined voices in a heartfelt performance to show their appreciation.

We invite you to enjoy our special video and song, showcasing the students' gratitude and pride as they celebrate our veterans. Thank you to all who have served!

If you see something, say something. Keeping our school safe is a team effort, and your safety is our top priority.

Mrs. Eseppi’s Pre-K class is talking about celebrations for the month of December! There are so many ways to celebrate so many things and they want to learn about as many as they can.

They have decided to get their passports, pack their suitcases and take a trip around the world!

So far, they have traveled to India.

In the pictures you will see them filling out their passport stamp, finding India on their travel map, coloring rangoli and practicing some sand art.

Their itinerary this month will take them to Germany, Jordan, Israel, France, China, Greece, Italy, Africa, Brazil and Mexico!

In Math, we’ve been learning about equations. We used cubes to help us solve addition and subtraction story problems and took turns writing equations to match.

Our math workplaces give us great opportunities to work collaboratively as we practice the skills we’ve been working on in our whole group lessons, such as subitizing, numeral identification, adding doubles, composing with shapes, and comparing numbers.

A shape walk in our school was fun! We looked for circles, triangles, and rectangles.

Shape Yoga ~ We’ve been learning about shapes in Number Corner.

We learned how to make the shapes using our bodies.

In ELA, we’ve been reading and writing about rules at school and home.

Check out these kindergarteners hard at work on their writing.

We have learned 10 high-frequency words in our Benchmark Advance curriculum so far.

Students are working on reading and writing these words with

increased automaticity to build fluent reading skills.

We are working on blending sounds to decode CVC words and building a love for reading!

As the school year goes on, we are learning to apply our phonics skills to more complex words!

Practicing our high frequency words

Using pop-it’s and magna-tiles!

We have loved having parents come to the classroom to read books to us!

In SEL, we’ve been learning about showing empathy and compassion to others.

For World Kindness Day, we read and drew/wrote about ways we can be empathetic and kind.

The food drive was empathy in action!

Thank you for all the donations!

Empathy is a skill that we learn about in our Social/Emotional curriculum.

During Play, we choose from centers to play at.

Our more structured curriculum gets mirrored in children’s natural play.

Here we are practicing math concepts of sorting by one attribute (sorting color bears)

and creating 2-d shapes ( playdough “cookies”).

During Play, students work together to explore the concepts they’re learning about in class.

Here you see kindergarteners creating a classroom height chart,

measuring one another, and comparing their heights.

Students have free choice of play activities that allow them to build their creativity, problem solving, spatial awareness, communication, emotional regulation, and fine motor skills.

Our dramatic play kitchen has turned into a holiday baking center just in time for December.

On Turkey Day, we read the book Turkey Trouble, in which the Turkey

dresses up as other animals to avoid becoming Thanksgiving dinner.

Then we created our own Turkey disguises!

After helping our turkeys find disguises, we also decided to disguise ourselves as turkeys.

Hopefully no one will eat us!

We also went on a “gratitude walk” around the school to

hand out thank you notes to staff members who help us learn and grow at school.

We celebrated the 50th day of school by making

“50 days smarter” bracelets!

During the Safe Touch Puppet Show, we learned about the

“uh-oh” feeling and how to tell a trusted adult if someone’s making us feel uncomfortable.

On Gingerbread Day, we went on an alphabet cookie hunt around our classroom to practice identifying uppercase and lowercase letters.

We also made gingerbread men and gingerbread hats

after reading and comparing several different variations of the stories.

Of course, Gingerbread Day wouldn’t be complete without a taste test!

We are working on showing our thinking with a partner.

We use the vertical thinking boards to share the pen and write our thoughts.

We are learning about singular and plural nouns that end in y. So we drop the y and add es!

We can tell stories from the beginning to the end.

In our social studies unit, we have been learning about community helpers.

Mrs. Meyer’s husband, a fireman came to visit first grade.

He showed us that we don’t need to be afraid, firemen are helpers.

He showed us all of the equipment and clothing to get ready and be safe in a fire.

We made our own version of the fireman. What a great day.

Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Meyers.

Miss Mattiello’s first grade class and Miss O’Connors third grade class are buddies! The third graders help us practice reading, writing and math games!

We love having helpers in third grade!

Pajama day calls for flashlight reading!

The kids snuggled up with a good book and read with a finger flashlight!

First grade got a visit from the Susan B. Anthony Project Safe Touch Puppet!

We learned what it means to have respect for our own and others boundaries

as well as what to do if a situation makes us feel uncomfortable.

We identified adults in our lives that we trust to go to for help!

We even got to dance with the puppet!

Students used our vertical thinking boards to do a “next door number” task!

They had to work together to make sure none of the numbers that

are normally next to each other on a number line, are near each other.

Students thought hard and worked well together to solve it!

Mrs. Meyers class uses the vertical thinking boards

in so many different ways!

Here, kids worked together to make

true equations using number tiles.

Students also did a phonics sort!

Can you sort words with digraphs?

Second Graders are exploring vertical learning.

Students work together on a task - cooperative learning for the win!

Second Graders practicing following step by step directions with a November directed draw

Second grade students practiced their counting skills.They know that 10 groups of 10 equal 100. As a school Torringford is raising money for CCMC this week!

How much money will we donate to the Children’s Hospital?

Students in third grade have begun researching different aspects of government. Many third grade classrooms have been researching voting. They are learning what government officials people can vote for and what the voting experience is like. They have also begun asking questions like why we vote and how we can vote. It has been a wonderful way to follow the Election Day of last month.

The research process involves: coming up with a topic, finding sources for their writing, and writing an explanatory/informative essay.

Students wrapped up their government unit with a visit from Mayor Carbone this month.

Did you know that the multilingual learners (MLs) here at Torringford speak ten different languages? Our students have gotten off to a great start this year learning their English. To date, some of our highlights include:

Grade K: Our kindergarten friends learned about the lessons we find in folktales. We really loved “The Tortoise and the Hare.” We even had our very own races! We had so much fun pretending to be each character and racing to see who wins.

Grade 1: Our first graders learned all about the animal life cycles of frogs, ducks and butterflies. We delved into the life of a butterfly and learned so much about them. One of our friends brought in a map of the route monarch butterflies take to one of the forests near his home in Mexico. We learned so much and enjoyed sharing with all of our schoolmates at Torringford by displaying our work on the walls in the hallway by Ms. Fabián’s room.

Grade 2: Students in second grade enjoyed learning about animals and their different habitats from around the world. Emperor penguins from Antarctica turned out to be their favorite. They were thrilled when Mrs. Borelli’s friend, Marcus Aurelias the emperor penguin, dropped by for a visit!

Grade 3: Our third graders studied a variety of ballads, myths, and folktales from various countries. We had many animated discussions about what we learned from the characters’ actions, and we wrote about whether or not the characters deserved the consequences of those actions.

IMPORTANT REMINDER: LAS Links Assessment

The annual LAS Links Assessment will be given to all MLs in January. This test measures a student’s English language ability and growth, and it is required by the state of Connecticut. Please encourage your student to put forth their best effort on this assessment.

Parent Resources

Being bilingual is a superpower! If you would like some tips to help support your student’s reading and writing skills in both English and your native language, please visit the links below.

Being Bilingual Is a Superpower!: Tips to Support Language and Literacy at Home

¡Ser bilingüe es un superpoder!: Consejos para apoyar el lenguaje y la alfabetización en el hogar

Torringford families gathered for an evening filled with fun and excitement as we explored the world of juicy words! This special event focused on literacy and provided engaging activities for the whole family to enjoy.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for a night of learning, laughter, and discovering the power of words!

Be on the look out for our next Family Literacy Event in the Spring!

Torringford School is a safe and welcoming community where we take care of people and foster positive relationships. Our team spirit supports and acknowledges everyone. Optimists persist to meet challenges with the flexibility and empathy to create healthy, enthusiastic, life-long learners.

Educate. Explore. Inspire.

Email: gaustin@torrington.org
Website: http://torringtontorringford.ss16.sharpschool.com
Location: 800 Charles Street, Torrington, CT, USA
Phone: (860)489-2300
Facebook: facebook.com/TorringfordTigers