Hawk Talk

It's hard to believe that the month of March is here! For me, this month often feels like the longest month of the year--especially since we are waiting for the warm weather and arrival of spring. Because this month can sometimes drag along, we've planned a number of fun activities to keep our students engaged and having fun while learning.

We've decided to design a number of fun experiences for students around reading, as the month of March is designated as National Reading Month. At the Duran School, reading is integrated into our daily school lives in a variety of ways. In addition to our regular reading activities, we have planned a variety of ways to celebrate reading:

1. Reading "March Madness": All students will read a variety of Maine books and vote on their favorites. We will have March Madness brackets displayed in the 4th grade hallway as we narrow down our favorite Maine books.

2. Maine 15 is Maine's Birthday: Students will read Lynn Plourde's Happy Birthday, Maine! We will all dress up in our finest for "Dress Like a Mainer" Day. The food service staff will be serving a Maine-themed lunch: red hot dogs in a bun, baked beans and blueberry cobbler.

3. Bikes for Books: We will start our reading challenge on March 15. Students will record the books they've read for a chance to win a new bike! The contest will end in April.

We are excited for the fun things we have planned for the month of March--and excited that spring is on its way!

Melissa Davis, Ed.D

Principal

Third graders just wrapped up a reading unit about information/biography texts. For our end-of-unit celebration, students chose one topic that they learned about to write facts and create a clay sculpture.

In writing, students worked hard at speech and petition writing. They chose topics that mattered to them - something in which needed attention or needed to change.

In math, we've worked hard at multiplication and division and the relationship between the two. Students played games such as Line 'Em Up and Division Capture.

Over the winter Pre K has been working hard to become curious and engaged learners. We have learned the importance of following the school rules and what a kind, respectful, responsible and safe learner looks like. We use a number of strategies and materials to develop early literacy skills such as fine motor, language development and pre-writing skills. Students engage daily in a variety of small groups and center choices that help them achieve success in these areas. Some of these activities include building blocks, a variety of materials for patterns and sorting, sensory tables, play doh, and dramatic play. Imaginative play is a great way to foster language development, peer cooperation and turn taking. We have already seen so much academic and social growth in our students this year. We cannot wait to see what else they accomplish!

Students especially enjoy our new Letterland program and meeting a new character each week. They are enthusiastic and excited each time we go to Letterland and are disappointed if we take a week off for a special event. They are learning so much and we are excited to see how it will contribute to kindergarten readiness! Learning is so much fun in Pre K!

Each year the local Masons group donates bikes for two children in each grade in conjunction with our school's reading initiative. Beginning the second week in March, students enter their name in the Bikes for Books drawing for their grade level each time they read a book. At the beginning of April we make the drawing. We are very excited to bring this opportunity to our students again, and so thankful for the donation. Look for more information to come home from your child's teacher.

Registration for fall preK and Kindergarten have opened. Applications are available in the main office during school hours or on our school website. In addition to the application, parents should provide updated immunization records, an official copy of the child's birth certificate, and two proofs of residency documentation. We look forward to meeting all of our new families!

In order to celebrate reading and the culmination of our work for Bikes for Books, we will be celebrating with a book character day. Students are invited to dress up as their favorite book characters for the day. We can't wait to see our students' favorite characters!

Thank goodness spring is almost here! Unfortunately, we are still experiencing very cold temperatures out at recess. Please make sure to send your child with winter clothes (mittens, hats, snow pants, etc.). We are also dealing with wet snow at times, so packing an extra set of clothes would be helpful for those wet days!

When your child is absent, please verify their absence by calling the main office at (207) 848-4000, option 3 for the Duran School. Please do not send information regarding absences to your child's teacher via SeeSaw. They are often not checking SeeSaw during the day. We are required by law to track student absences to ensure that students are attending school on a regular basis.

Excused absences include: illness, health related appointments, observance of recognized religious holidays when observance is required during school hours, family emergency situations, educational absences approved by the principal in advance, absences caused by school activities held during the school day. As a school, we are required to maintain and report truancy data to the state. Students who accumulate five consecutive unexcused absences or seven unexcused absences are considered by the state to be truant.

As you all know, dismissal and arrival times can be very chaotic. With close to 500 students to dismiss, it is critical that we have student plans. Please do not send dismissal information to your child's teacher through SeeSaw. Please call the main office or send your child with a note if their dismissal plans change. We begin preparing for dismissal at 2:00 and request that if plans need to change, they are done before 2:00.

We had our first concert (grades 1 and 2) since the pandemic. We were extremely happy with the turn-out and our students were so excited to perform for a crowd. While we were excited to share this performance, we did receive feedback from people regarding audience etiquette that I thought would be helpful to mention for our two upcoming performances.

We have reviewed how to be a respectful audience member with all grades this year for assemblies and performances--and our students have received so many compliments from visitors on their behavior. I want to make sure that we show them the same respect. When attending concerts or performances at the Duran School, we ask that all audience members:

1. Remain seated for the duration of the performance. Getting up and moving around, going up front to talk to students on stage, or running up to take a picture can be very distracting to our young performers. If you must leave, please do so between musical numbers.

2. Keep young audience members with you. We had a number of students running around behind the seating or scaling the bleachers during the performance. Please ensure that children are seated and respectful to the performers. We ask that parents and children are seated, and that the area behind the seating remains open for an exit route.

3. No side conversations please. Please put your phones on silent and conversations to a minimum. Our gymnasium does not have the best acoustics for a performance. The more quiet the audience is, the better everyone can hear.

4. Show your appreciation for the performance by clapping. We love to celebrate a job well done!