Steere Farm Elementary School

Spring is upon us and we are down to the final two months of the school year. Our students and staff have been working diligently to meet their yearlong goals! It is important to keep up this momentum throughout May and June. Please continue to encourage your student to put their best effort into making each remaining school day count. Let's finish strong!

As such, I would like to give a well deserved shout out to our third, fourth, and fifth grade students who have been putting excellent effort into RICAS testing! As a reminder, RICAS and NGSA (science) testing continues through May 14th!

I would also like to take the opportunity to give our teaching staff a much deserved shout out for their constant dedication to doing what's best for students. I look forward to celebrating our whole staff during Teacher Appreciation Week, May 5th-9th!

We have a busy few months ahead and are excited for our highly anticipated end of year events!

Warm Regards,

Courtney Francis

The school year is coming to a close, the weather is getting nice, and the students are getting antsy. For parents, these last few weeks before summer can feel like a marathon, attempting to keep your children from completely checking out from the classroom mentally—without losing your own sanity. Looking for some fresh ideas? Here are five things parents can do at home to keep their children motivated in the classroom through the end of the school year.

1. Give in to the great outdoors

Once the air warms up and the sun comes out, the pull of the great outdoors is hard for all of us to ignore. Make a point of quenching your child’s thirst for time outside during the hours you have with him or her at home. Walk to the local park after school, sign him or her up for an outdoor sports league, take a weekend day trip to go hiking, or simply eat dinner in the backyard as a family. Any time you spend outside with your child will help manage his or her need to escape the indoors while he or she is busy learning in the classroom.

2. Ask questions

Contrary to what you may hear from your child, his or her time in the classroom is valuable right up to the last day of the school year. Teachers are racking their brains every bit as hard as you to keep students busy and learning during the final weeks of school. Help them out by making a concerted effort to get your child talking about that learning at home. Avoid the impulse to focus on upcoming summer activities or indulge in complaints, and ask your child about what the day’s lessons included. As always, express your own interest in those topics—enthusiasm for learning is infectious.

3. Maintain a routine

The days may be getting longer and summer activities may be getting started, but that’s not an excuse to disrupt the school year routine. Make a point of maintaining consistency in your child’s homework time, family mealtime, bedtime, wake-up time, and any other daily rituals you have. This will help keep your child in the mindset for school and improve his or her focus in the classroom right up to the last day of the school year.

4. Reflect on the year

For students, each school year is a distinct experience. As the school year is wrapping up, make it a priority to help your child reflect on all that he or she has learned and done in the classroom over the past nine months. Try having your child write a letter to his or her younger self from the start of the school year—what advice would he or she offer, what challenges can he or she expect, and what should he or she look forward to? This kind of reflection is a great way to get your child thinking about all the progress he or she has made throughout the year and motivate him or her to keep up the academic momentum.

5. Provide some incentive

Never underestimate the motivating power of a little reward. Think about different incentives you can offer your child for displaying continued effort and achievement at school during these final weeks. Maybe it’s an extra hour of TV time if he or she finishes all of the night’s homework before dinnertime or a special outing if he or she achieves a certain grade in a subject that has been challenging. Big or small, dangling a carrot can make a big difference in keeping your child engaged at the end of the school year.

Looking for an at-home program that can help you and your child set personalized learning goals and reward hard work with customized incentives? Study Island for Home provides state-standards aligned practice in core subjects with engaging activities and games that make learning fun. See it for yourself—start your free trial today!

(Source: http://blog.edmentum.com/5-parent-tips-keep-children-engaged-end-school-year)

For the safety purposes, students are not permitted to wear slippers, slides, or shoes with a heel to school. Shoes without a back or with an open toe are not safe for recess. Sneakers are preferred and must be worn on Physical Education days. Please reach out with any questions or concerns!

Burrillville students now have access to Hazel Health, a free virtual mental health telehealth service. Parents and guardians who are interested in services for their child should contact the school psychologist or school social worker: Mrs. Dittrich (dittrichl@bsd-ri.net) or Mrs. Lapierre (lapierrem@bsd-ri.net).

All referrals must be made by June 6th for telehealth services to occur during the summer. (We cannot accept Hazel referrals during summer break). The referral process will resume once school starts again at the end of August.

All Hazel Health telehealth visits for Burrillville students will take place online outside of school hours.

The partnership with Hazel Health is part of a state-wide initiative to provide all RI students the ability to access mental health services. Read more about the partnership with Hazel Health on the RIDE website.

Congratulations to Mr. Latendresse for being named the 2026 Steere Farm Elementary School Outstanding Teacher of the Year Nominee!

This accomplishment in and of itself speaks volumes about the respect administration, colleagues, and families have for Mr. Latendresse, his teaching, level of professional engagement, and advocacy for the music program in Burrillville. As a school-level nominee, Mr. Latendresse is now a candidate for the 2026 Burrillville School Department Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award!

Each month SFE recognizes students who have gone above and beyond to show their 3Rs: Respectful, Responsible and Ready to Learn! Students are nominated by their classroom and/or special subject teachers. Congratulations to our April recipients!

Teachers are nominated by students, who were extremely thoughtful about their nominations! Congratulations to Mrs. Hammond, our April Teacher of the Month!

Toodle Tickets continue to be a hit! Students are invited to fill out a Toodle Ticket to give a special shout out to another student who was kind or helpful! At the end of every month, Toodle Tickets are chosen from grades 2-5. These students are then invited to have a special popsicle with Mrs. Francis. Check out the pictures below from our recent Pops with the Principal!

Administrative Assistant Appreciation Day was April 24th and a great opportunity to express our sincere thanks to Ms. Tiffany for all that she does for SFE students, staff and families! Ms. Tiffany plays an integral role in keeping our building running smoothly! Thank you, Ms. Tiffany!

Students continue to participate in a weekly lesson rooted in one of the four Units: Courage, Gratitude, Forgiveness and Compassion in Action; all part of the Choose Love Formula. This month is a focus on being mindful!

A copy of the Choose Love calendar was sent home to all families. We hope the calendar is a daily reminder of the small steps we can take daily to Choose Love at home!

April may have been a short month in school, but the multi-age classroom has been busy.

We learned some really exciting news! Mrs. C, our behavior specialist, is having a baby in October. When the students found out, we made predictions of whether it would be a boy or a girl, created a graph of our predictions, learned about baby pandas and how their mother's comfort them. The students were also able to take part in a gender reveal for Mrs. C. After all of the excitement and anticipation, we found out that it is a BOY!

This month we would also like to send a huge shout out to Mr. Pilling, Mrs. Ciancio and the Burrillville High School Construction Management class for modifying our light table, so all of the students in our classroom can enjoy it.

Grade 2 students are working hard to solve word problems related to money and used a class Kahoot to review the foundations of multiplication ! We also want to give a shout out to Mrs.Corbitt, Mr. LaDuke's student teacher, who finishes her placement here at SFE next week! Thank you for your hard work and dedication to our second graders!

Grade 3 has been working on our "Structures of Life" unit. We saw some math/science overlap when we created line plots during science. First, we measured bean pods and represented their lengths on a line plot, then we counted the seeds inside and made another line plot to show that data.

4th graders had a special field trip to the Museum of Work and Culture in Woonsocket to learn about the Industrial Revolution, child labor, immigration and nativism, Americanization, labors & unions, and life at the turn of the century.

Special thanks to the RISCA - Rhode Island State Council on the Arts for a Big Yellow School Grant to help with bus transportation!

Mrs. Rodgers’ intervention group has been working on a project that we got to share with our third grade friends! Students first created a special menu and then wrote word problems based off that menu for 3rd graders to solve.

Rooster games is a tournament all about books on the Rhode Island Children's Book Award (RICBA) list. Students are asked to identify objects that belong to a book, match authors and titles, and answer questions about all the books on the list. At the end of the tournament, students celebrated with a pizza party!

Special thanks to our SFE and WLC librarians for organizing this fun educational event bringing together 5th graders from both schools, and thank you to all the parents who volunteered!

Our SFE Broncos have talent! All the performers impressed a "full house" of families and friends, everything from playing instruments, singing, doing standup comedy, magic, and fact-sharing, to dance routines. Excellent job!

A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who donated to the March Giving donation drive and the Burrillville Weekend Snack Pack Program Stuff the Gazebo donation event!

Shout out BHS Broncos Dylan Franklin and Jillian Russell who organized the drive and donated the items collected for Amenity Aid, St. Patrick's Church Food Pantry, and Burrillville Animal Control.

*Kudos to Mrs. Gould's class for donating the most items and earning new Bronco tshirts! Special shout out to Cooper Bruscini for donating the most items in the school!

Spring is here which means our recess shed needed a restock! Look at everything our PTA elf’s dropped off this morning. Soccer balls, soccer nets, basketballs, gaga balls, jump ropes and hula hoops. Thank you PTA!

Students in grades 3-5 are always encouraged to use scrap paper on RICAS! This year we had some fun with it! Students who used scrap paper during testing are entered into a raffle to win a gift card to Five Below! Congratulations to our first two winners, Eva and Charlotte!

We will have one final reading challenge, May 26th-30th, sponsored by Dr. Romani!

The classroom who reads the most minutes during the week will win:

• A pizza party!
• READING ROCKS t-shirts
• Teacher’s gift card of $100 to Staples

In the end, everyone wins with Romani Orthodontics’ $500 donation to our school library.

Field Day is scheduled for June 5th! The rain date is June 6th.

🖊️Sign up now to volunteer, 📧put in your PTO, make sure your 🚨BCI🚨 is up-to-date and gear up for a day of 🤾FUN🤾 + lemonade🍧🍋!

We look forward to our special Moving Up ceremony for our fifth grade students on June 13th @ 10:00 a.m. in the gymnasium!

The next PTA meeting will be Wednesday, May 7th at 6:30pm in person in the library or via Zoom.

Saddle up - Put on your boots and mosey on over! The Steere Farm someone special dance this year is at Arrowhead Acres in Uxbridge, MA on Friday May 9 from 6:00 - 8:30 PM. Doors will open at 5:45. There will be pizza (GF as well), chicken tenders for a light dinner and cookies for dessert! This is a prepaid event, tickets cannot be purchased at the door!

Please remember this is not a drop off event so please keep an eye on your children.

We are always looking for an extra set of hands to help - If you would like to volunteer for the dance signup using the link below.

Don't forget to order your yearbook! The deadline to purchase is Friday, May 2!

The Get Moving Club is starting again on Friday, May 2nd. We need volunteers to help - without volunteers we can't offer this fun recess activity.

• May 5th-9th: Teacher Appreciation Week!
• May 6th-7th: RICAS Math (Grades 3-5)
• May 7th: PTA Meeting @ 6:30 p.m.
• May 9th: PTA's Family Dance
• May 13th-14th: NGSA Testing (Grade 5)
• May 14th: Student of the Month Family Ceremony @ 8:25 a.m.
• May 16th: Max Man/Recycling Presentation
• May 19th-23rd: End of Year Benchmarking Window (STAR Testing)
• May 21st: Grade 3 Field Trip
• May 22nd: Grade 4 Field Trip
• May 23rd: Bronco Friday
• May 23rd: Alien Ice Cream & Bouncy House Testing Reward (PTA Sponsored)
• May 26th: No School - Memorial Day
• May 26th-30th: Dr. Romani's Reading Rocks Challenge
• May 27th: Grade 2 Field Trip