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Fredericktown Elementary

Family Newsletter

Fredericktown Elementary Family Newsletter

Principal Letter

Dear Families,


Winter has arrived with cold temperatures, snow and a lot of winter fun. We will continue to go outside for recess as often as the weather permits. Encourage your child to dress for the weather.

Our school showed great community support with our successful food drive for Food for the Hungry. Thank you to everyone for their support and donations and to Mrs. Parry for coordinating the event.

As winter break approaches I encourage you to read to and with your children. Not only will your children keep their reading skills sharp during break, but you'll build shared memories of time spent going on adventures through the pages of a book.


Stay curious and keep reading,

Gina Sackman, Principal

Fredericktown Elementary

Looking ahead

December 20th.

  • Elementary PTO Fund Raiser: Bring a dollar and come to school in your festive holiday clothes. Only December 20th is the PTO Fund Raiser.


Winter break begins December 23rd

Students return to school January 6th

Thank you for your donations for our food drive!

A big thank you from Fredericktown Elementary for your support of the Food for the Hungry food drive. We were able to collect 45 boxes of food and bring in $2,573.75. Our winning homeroom was Mrs. Shrimplin's fourth graders with Vivi Levering-Smith as our top contributor.

Elementary Learning Adventures

Music

4th Graders have started our Recorder unit! We are learning how to read musical rhythms and pitches while playing. Pictured is Mrs. Shrimplin's class.
1st Graders are learning how to read musical pitches, So and Mi. Pictured is Mrs. McClay's class.
1st Graders are also learning how to create movement to music with the song, "Punchinello". Pictured is Mrs. Bender's class.

Art

Experimentation with color, mixing and liquid tempera paint Step one to our Winter Caribou project. Look forward to updates on our project in future newsletters.

Gifted Education

Explorations through Reading

3rd Grade Reading: Students in the third grade reading group join India Opal Buloni in her adventures in Naomi, Florida in Kate DiCamello's Because of Winn Dixie. They have been working on answering challenging discussion questions, and will be working on learning vocabulary words used throughout the book.


4th Grade Reading: Students are enjoying the movie The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe that goes along with the book that they just finished. Students also recently completed a challenging writing assignment where they were asked to either rewrite the final chapter of the book or write a fictional alternate story.


5th Grade Reading: Students are watching the movie Miracle at Midnight which parallels their most recent book, Number the Stars. Students also recently completed a writing assignment where they were asked to rewrite the ending to their book.

STEAM

Coding

Fifth grade began their adventures in coding. They started with an app called Scratch Jr. Then, they used Scratch on their Chromebooks to build basic word block codes. Ask your student to tell you about coding!

Will it Sink or Will it Float?

Fourth grade researched on the iPads to help them learn about displacement and how ships hold heavy loads and still float. Then, they took what they learned and built a boat out of tin foil. They added pennies and rocks to see how much their tin foil boats would hold. Some of our engineers were surprised with their results! (Sorry if your tin foil has gone missing from your pantry. Some students have continued their investigations outside of class!)

Bringing Characters to life!

Third grade was introduced to an app called ChatterPix Kids. They drew a picture of a character from a book they recently read in class. Then, they used the app to give the character a voice and make him talk. It was so much fun to hear the voices they created!

Engineering, Coding, Designing...Oh my!

Second Graders have been busy! They built a broom to balance candy pumpkins. They did some more coding and then they drew turkeys! They have gobbled up their STEAM activities this past November!

Young Engineers

First Grade designed and tested sail cars! They learned how wind is a force that pushes on sails to make boats move. Working in teams they built a car with legos and tested to see if they could use wind from a fan to push their cars. They were very successful!

Nursery Rhymes lead to Engineering Adventures

Kindergarten students spent several weeks learning nursery rhymes. The nursery rhymes inspired them to build a gate for the The 5 Little Pumpkins, a candle stick for Jack and a wall for Humpty Dumpty! They even used a catapult to make a cow jump over the moon!

Grade Level Learning

Kindergarten

Kindergarteners learned all about traditions and the Macy Day Parade! We created our own balloons and had a Balloons over Fredericktown parade throughout the school! We walked past the city buildings made by 3rd grade!

First Grade

First graders are ready to learn about how the world celebrates the holidays. They have their suitcases and ready to go!!!
First graders researched ways that animals get ready for winter. They took picture notes, and then restated the details they learned as a report. The reports were separated into sections, complete with headings and a table of contents. We are using these nonfiction conventions as we read to help organize and understand the new information. We enjoyed sharing our knowledge with each other after we published our books!

Second

Happy polling! Miss Curry and Mrs. Hoover’s students voted, not for president but for cookies instead! Students learned about the importance of voting and why we get to do it. The students got to choose between chocolate chip cookies or Oreos. They found out the next day which one won, just like a real election!

Mrs. Carpenter’s class learned a lot about leaves! They did scientific leaf experiments throughout a week in November. Here, the students chose a leaf that Mrs. Carpenter brought in. Students were also encouraged to compare their leaves to other students and write about their findings.

Third Grade

Students have been working on being “text detectives” when answering questions about a text. Students are working to find the answers to questions directly from the text. We have been color coding the questions and color coding the proof that we find. Students have been working together to answer the questions while restating the questions first. They have also been applying what we have learned about suffixes to find words that have them throughout the passage. We have some excellent text detectives in third grade!

Fourth Grade

Fourth grade has been spreading community kindness by coloring coffee sleeves.

Fifth Grade

What’s going on in 5th Grade? Students are diving into decimal multiplication, uncovering themes in their reading, and investigating force and motion. To study the concepts of force and motion, students created balloon rockets and launched them across the classroom. How are those radishes from the Outdoor Learning Lab?

Elementary Spelling Bee

On Thursday, November 21st, seventeen 5th grade students competed in the school Spelling Bee. The Bee went for a total of 12 rounds. Tanner Philpott successfully spelled the word "council”, and was declared the 2024 champion. Zoey Elliston was the runner up. Tanner will be competing in the Knox County Spelling Bee on Wednesday, January 15th at Mount Vernon High School.


In the bottom photo: 5th Grade Spelling Bee Champion: Tanner Philpott, Mr. McClay, and 5th Grade Spelling Bee Runner-Up: Zoey Elliston

Guidance

Erin's Law and helping our students

Mrs. White will begin class lessons to meet the state law on providing instruction about safety and protection against sexual abuse. All lessons are developmentally appropriate.

Reminder- If you wish to opt your student (in grades K-2) out of the abuse prevention lesson, your email or note must be received no later than 12/3. Please see the attached notification letter or the paper copy that was sent home several weeks ago for details. A letter will go home with your student with helpful tips for talking to your student about body safety on the day that their class receives the lesson.

Title Reading Tip

Tips for Reading Aloud

with Kids




  • Choose books that are appropriate for your child’s age and interests

  • Allow your child to choose books that interest them- especially as they get older

  • Make your reading interactive and fun

  • Talk about the pictures as you read

  • Build vocabulary by focusing on and talking about new words

  • Connect the story to your child’s world

  • Ask questions about the story and encourage your child to ask what they are wondering about

  • Make reading aloud a regular part of your routine- just 15 minutes each day can make a big difference in raising a reader

www.readingrockets.org




Reading aloud to your child is a great way to bond.

Children are never too old to be read to!

Outdoor Recess

We will continue to have outdoor recess during the winter months. Please encourage your child to wear weather appropriate clothes.

Lost and Found

If your child is missing jackets, sweatshirts or other items you may want to check the lost and found. We have many lonely items waiting to be reunited with their owner.

General Monitoring of School-Issued Devices

Please be aware that the Fredericktown Local School District, either directly or through a technology provider, is electing to generally monitor all school-issued devices (as that term is defined by R.C. 3319.325). The monitoring will include the following features: location tracking and student interactions with school-issued devices (e.g., keystrokes and web-browsing activity). The District generally monitors these features for the noncommercial education purpose of instruction, technical support, and/or exam proctoring. Additionally, these features are generally monitored as a necessary precaution for preventing and/or responding to threats to life or safety.

Gina Sackman
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