Grantham Village School

75 Learning Drive

Grantham, NH 03753

603-863-1681

frontoffice@gvshawks.org

Principal: Kristen Reed

kreed@gvshawks.org

With the arrival of inclement winter weather and more limited bus routes, more cars are dropping off at GVS in the morning than in the fall and spring. Please remember that school begins promptly at 8:30 a.m. and those arriving afterward are marked with an unexcused tardy.

Drop off begins as early as 8:10 and kids can enjoy outdoor recess until school begins. We welcome your kids earlier so they can get some wiggles out before the school day begins with the added bonus of being on time.

If you are in car line, please pull all the way up to the front of the sidewalk so that more children can exit at the same time. And, if your child needs extra time and help, please consider parking in the lot and walking them in to help avoid delays. Thank you!

In the picture, you will see tardy data from the beginning of this week. Some of this, I assume, is due to the car line back up.

• On Monday, 12% of our student population was unexcused tardy.
• On Tuesday, 14% of our student population was unexcused tardy.
• On Wed, 16% of our student population was unexcused tardy.

Please note that when students are tardy, it impacts the flow of the classroom routines and academics.

If you happen to run across a spare pair of snow pants or other winter gear that your child has outgrown, we would happily take them off your hands for our lending closet!

Please and thank you!

• after school group activities (basketball, Destination Imagination, music groups)
• Bus Route/Stop changes

We had a whole school showing of The Polar Express on December 11. This was so much more than a fun time for students. This was the picture of community building. I am so very proud of our "big kids" who dispersed themselves around the gym to sit amongst "the littles".

GVS is participating in a drive to help supply the Grantham Village Food Pantry with supplies and food. To ensure a variety of items, each grade level is assigned a different category. Donations can be dropped off in Mrs. Carey's office and will be collected on Wednesday, December 18th.

For ideas of what to get, please visit this link. Thank you for your generosity!

It’s that time of year when COVID, flu, pneumonia, strep throat

and the stomach bug starts getting shared.

One of my primary goals as a school nurse is to keep students

in class as much as possible to ensure they have the best

opportunity for learning and instruction. I understand

when students aren't feeling well, it can be tempting to send them to school and encourage them to visit the nurse, but I ask for your help in a slightly different approach.

I have found that telling students, “Just go to the nurse if you’re still feeling bad,” may inadvertently encourage them to leave class, rather than trying to stick it out. While I always want to provide care and attention to students who are genuinely sick, my aim is to minimize interruptions to their learning. The more time students spend in class, the more they benefit from direct instruction and engagement with their peers.

If your child shows signs of illness at home-such as fever, fatigue, vomiting, or any other symptoms that suggest they might not be feeling well-it’s best to keep them home from school. This helps ensure they have the time and space to rest and recover without affecting (or infecting) their classmates.

Of course, if your student becomes unwell during the school day, they are always welcome to visit the nurse’s office for care. I will evaluate their symptoms, and if necessary, contact you to discuss whether they should go home.

Thank you for your continued support in helping maintain a healthy learning environment for all our students. Together, we can keep students in class, healthy, learning and thriving!

• Read more books: Set a goal to read a certain number of books per year, such as 10 or 20 books for beginners or 100 books for more experienced readers.

• Read a variety of books: Try reading a book in a different language, a book from a new country, or a non-traditional book.

• Read together: Set aside time for reading aloud together.

• Learn new words: Learn and use a new word each week.

• Improve fluency: Set a goal to read aloud at a certain speed with a limited number of errors.

• Improve comprehension: Set a goal to write a summary of a portion of a book you read.

• Develop phonemic awareness: Focus on recognizing and manipulating sounds within words

Due to the holiday break, our GPTG Public Meeting originally scheduled for December 23rd has been moved to December 16th at 7pm. The meeting will be held via Zoom. Zoom link below:

Grantham Parent Teacher Group is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.


Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84077447485?pwd=BKe5vgAJ2cHPpnspaupmZymoLfzalN.1

Meeting ID: 840 7744 7485
Passcode: a9i01E

• Today - Report cards distributed in Alma
• Dec 16th - 7pm GPTG meeting
• Dec 18 - 6pm Holiday Concert (ensembles)
• Dec 19 - On-site evacuation drill <This does not impact families... just an FYI>
• Dec 20 - Wear green and red day!
• Dec 23 - Jan 3 - Holiday Recess
• January 6 (Monday) - Back to school!

The GVS holiday concert is coming up soon! All are welcome to come listen to music by our chorus, bands, strings, guitars, and bell choir. The concert will be held here at the GVS gymnasium and will start at 6:00PM. Please email Mr. Hoefs at choefs@gvshawks.org if you have any questions.

During November and December our Four Winds classes have been exploring the reasons why some birds migrate while others are year long residents. What are some of the factors that determine if birds migrate or not? What are some of the dangers of migration? For birds that do not migrate, what are some of the strategies that help them survive winters in the North? Migrating is an instinctive behavior and birds have some amazing navigation strategies such as using the sun, the stars, listening for flight calls of other birds, listening to the sounds of the ocean, following visual clues such as rivers or mountains, and sensing the earth's magnetic field.

Some amazing bird facts:

•The longest single flight of any bird was an astonishing 7,100 miles! The bar-tailed godwit nests in Alaska and migrates to New Zealand in a nine-day, non-stop flight!

* The longest migration ever recorded belongs to the Arctic tern who migrates between the Arctic and Antarctic, a migration trip of 49,700 miles!

•The chickadee, a nonmigratory bird, hides thousands of seeds one by one. In the fall the chickadee enlarges the memory region of its brain, adding 30% more cells so that it can remember where all its emergency seeds are hidden.

*Blue jays can carry up to 5 acorns at a time in their expandable throats.

If your student is interested in bird identification here are some common winter birds. Challenge them to see how many they can find this winter! Another great bird identification tool is the Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab app. This app is super fun and you can identify birds just by opening the app and recording the bird songs around you. It also has the ability to identify birds from a photo.

Four Winds will return in January with a lesson on Trees in Winter.

Stop by the lobby of the Grantham Town Hall between Monday, Nov. 25 and Friday,

Dec. 20 to mail your letter to the North Pole. Click Here for hours and additional

details.

Whaleback’s After School Ski &amp; Ride program serves as a great introduction to snow

sports for beginners, and as an additional opportunity to get on the snow for the

seasoned snow sport enthusiast. There is something for everyone! Click Here for the

important details and to register for the program.

The Grantham Village School third grade class is collecting can tabs for David's House. Please send them in whenever you can. We have collected about 1,400 pounds since we began 20 plus years ago! We drop them off at David's House, where a volunteer brings them to a recycling facility for cash. The money is used to help defray operating expenses. Last year we collected 107 pounds! Let’s see if we can collect over 100 pounds again this school year.

Click on the David’s House link to learn more about this community treasure.

Thank you for your support!