Panda Press

September 16, 2022

Dear Thacher Families:

While we are back to our pre-COVID practices here at school, I want to take a moment to remind everyone that unfortunately, it continues to impact us and we've seen a fair number of students and staff out over the first few weeks of school. Please keep your student home if they are symptomatic.

We are following the DESE protocols for positive cases:

Day 0: the first day of symptoms OR positive test.
Day 1-5: must stay home (isolation period).
Day 6-10: return to school on day 6 IF they have improved symptoms and no fever for that last 24 hours and must wear a mask through day 10. (Clarification: there is NO requirement of a negative test result to return to school)

While we certainly all recognize that COVID has become part of our daily lives, it's important that we all do our part to keep each other as safe as possible.

Sincerely,

Frank W. Rich

Principal

Attleboro Public Schools App!

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We HIGHLY recommend everyone download the new Attleboro Public Schools app. This will be a fast way for families to receive information and will also function as our replacement of the Remind app. This will also be how the district alerts families of snow days or other important, urgent announcements.

Returning families may rememeber receiving messages directly from their child(ren)'s teachers over the past few years through Remind. Our new App has a similar function called Rooms which will be activated next week. Unlike Remind where all families were automatically enrolled and could be used through email, the new program (Rooms) only works through the app. You will not see Rooms in the app until it is activated on the September 22nd.

Community Flyers

All APS Community Fliers can be found within the Welcome Center website. To view this week’s fliers, including information from the ARC of Bristol County, Triboro Youth Theater Auditions, Tauton/Attleboro Family Resource Center and Attleboro Recreation Center - After School Programs, please visit the Welcome Center webpage, or click here.

This week in PE

Greetings Thacher Families,

We are so excited to have our kiddos back and look forward to another fun fitness filled year! Our focus for the first month of school is creating a safe, open learning environment through cooperative games and team building activities.

Thank you in advance for all your support throughout the year!

Go Pandas!!!

Mr. Rendell drendell@attleboroschools.com

Mr. Howland dhowland@attleboroschools.com

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From the Music Room

Kindergarten

Students in kindergarten will focus on meeting expectations in the music classroom. Students will continue to demonstrate classroom procedures before exploring basic musical skills. We will explore our speaking and singing voices, experience and sing a variety of songs, and we will finally focus on moving to music. I am so excited to welcome the kindergarteners (and all grade levels) to the music room!

First Grade

Students in the first grade will continue building their fundamental musical skills. Echo singing provides a safe place to explore pitch matching, moving with scarves provides a fun and physical way to explore the space in between beats.

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Second Grade

This week, second graders are continuing to sing, chant, and move to a variety of styles of music with special focus on dance movement. Students will begin to learn a dance that involves moving to the left and right, so we will all learn the difference soon! Last week, students learned how to move to a steady beat while staying in place, so we are ready to explore moving to a steady beat while safely moving around the room!

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Third Grade

After showing off some impressive rhythm skills during our first week together, third-graders are officially ready to show off their skills reading rhythm patterns. Before we begin reading traditional music notation, we will play some games using “longs” and “shorts.” Students will also practice moving in a dance style during the song Circle ‘Round the Zero.

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Fourth Grade

Fourth-grade students will continue to build fundamental music skills in singing, moving, and chanting rhythms. This week, there will be a major focus on body percussion and moving to the steady beat in more complex ways. Semi game-based videos keep students engaged while working on our skills. Finally, the fourth graders are getting ready for their second chorus rehearsal after some fantastic music-making last week. It’s going to be a great year for music!

We are fortunate to have an incredible group of volunteers who run our PTO. Please consider joining the PTO and even if you can't make the commitment to join, we hope you'll attend as many of our monthly meetings as you can.

Make sure to follow their page on Facebook!