SRES Eagle Times

Inspire, Create and Grow a Community of Lifelong Learners

Happy Friday SRES Families!

SRES students are ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! I am so proud of their expressions of gratitude on our Tree of Thanks! Here are a few quotes from the leaves of thanks:

• I am thankful for my friends, family, and school.
• I am thankful for my sister and the food I get.
• I am thankful for everything.
• I am thankful for my dog and my bed.

Relocation/Options Drill

• On Thursday, we had our first relocation drill and our students followed all expectations. I was truly impressed with their ability to listen and follow adult directions. YAY, students!
• I shared why we may need to relocate (safety) and reasons why (unsafe to be in our school (flooding, fire, outages, etc.)).
• Please let me know if you have any questions.

Parent Conferences

• Monday, November 21st
• We are hoping for 100% participation!
• If you haven't made an appointment yet, please reach out to your child's teacher; it's not too late!

Title I Information for Families

• Click on the link above to learn more about the federally funded program, how the funds are used within schools, and learn more our School-Home Compact.
• This information will also be available during in-person conferences. If you would like a copy, please let me know.

Winter Outerwear

• PLEASE make sure you send your child to school each day with appropriate clothing for outdoor play so that they can fully enjoy recess.
• Winter outerwear includes: jacket, snow pants, boots, hat, mittens/gloves.
• We have a VERY limited supply of outerwear for students to borrow.

2-hour delays

• When we have a 2 hour delay, it is important to remember that supervision does not begin until 10am.
• Please do not drop your child off prior to then as we want to make sure they are supervised and safe; thank you!

Winter Sports update

• We've been ironing out a few kinks over the past weeks and we hope to get more information to you the week of the 28th.
• In the meantime, we have learned that rental equipment at Okemo is limited AND they are not renting helmets or snowboards this year. Helmets; however, are required for participation. Ski/pole/boot rentals will be $65 and will be on a first-come, first-served basis on December 6th and 7th, from 4-7pm AT OKEMO. Okemo has shared that they will not be able to accommodate everyone and encourage participants to look to local shops for season-long rentals. Additional information will be coming the week of the 28th.

White Elephant Sale

• What is the SRES White Elephant Sale? It is a day that SRES students choose gifts for members of their household family! A truly joyful and magical day!
• WE NEED: GENTLY USED OR NEW ITEMS for students to choose from. If it is something you would like to receive or give, then please donate! We especially need items for men.
• Keep in mind, they are primarily selecting items for siblings and parents.
• Thank you, in advance for your donations!

Looking ahead:

• NO SCHOOL NEXT WEEK. School resumes Monday, November 28th.
• December 2nd: 1st trimester closes.
• December 5th: PTO Little Caesars Pizza delivery.
• December 13th: White Elephant Sale at SRES
• December 14th: Early Release; 11:45am dismissal
• December 16h: Report cards go home (if not sooner)
• December 21st: Early Release; special performance for students in the morning!
• December 22nd-January 2nd: No school

Three cheers to our 1st graders who facilitated our All School Meeting today! We learned the turkey wobble and a fun turkey greeting (see photo below). Well done, 1st grade!

Happy Thanksgiving to you! We all have so much to be thankful for!

(Ask your student to sing our Attitude of Gratitude song!)

Your partner in education,

Laura Hazard

laura.hazard@wnesu.com

In anticipation of winter weather delays and cancellations, the following communication process will be implemented:

- After consultation, Superintendent Haas will send out a robo-call to the district, announcing a delay or cancellation as well as impacts ( transportation, after-school programming).

- Kate O'Connor from the SU office will post on:

1. WNESU & SRES Facebook pages
2. SRES & WNESU websites
3. WCAX & WKNE press outlets

If you have not reached out to Sara Wunderle, Administrative Assistant at SRES, with your preferred email and phone number for the system to use - please email her at sara.wunderle@wnesu.com.

On the afternoon of November 14th, Ella Cademarton, visited the 4th Grade SRES students as part of her Free to Read Every Day program. This program was founded by Ella's aunt who ran it for 20 years in the state of Arizona.

Ella, a Bellows Falls Central School alumni, wanted to continue her aunt's legacy by bringing it back to her Rockingham community. The Free to Read Every Day program provides 4th grade students with a bag of seven free books. One book for each day of the week! Students after receiving their bags have the opportunity to trade books with other students depending on their individual preferences (graphic novels, biographies, etc.).

Ella, is a librarian herself and is very passionate about reading and shared her seven favorite books as an elementary student with our SRES 4th grade students.

With the generous support of the Bellows Falls Rotary Club, Ella purchases the books locally from the Village Square Booksellers before then adding them to homemade sewed bags.

Thank you to the Bellows Falls Rotary Club, the Village Square Booksellers and to Ella for sharing the Free to Read Every day program with our SRES 4th grade students.

Parks Place has Frozen Turkeys available for the holidays! They can be picked up at Parks Place starting November 21. Families are welcome to call and reserve one, they are first come first serve.

This week Nurse Jenn used S.E.L. class time to do a health lesson on handwashing. I had fun helping Nurse Jenn with the "pepper experiment." See the Health Office section of the newsletter for more information.

Lunch Bunch is a hit at SRES! I have now had lunch with every 3rd and 4th grader who wanted to participate in lunch bunch. This month I have been offering "lunch bunch" to 2nd graders and have almost gotten through the class. During "lunch bunch" we practice our manners, conversation skills, and have fun together! Here are some pictures of the 2nd graders playing in the sand after they finished lunch.

Need a new podcast to listen to? Lynn Lyons is an anxiety expert with a great sense of humor. Her most recent episodes include "How To Support Your Anxious Child 101" and "How To Build Healthy Boundaries." To see her library of current and past episodes, click the link below, or search "Flusterclux" where you stream podcasts (Spotify, Apple podcasts).

Flusterclux Podcast

I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Stephanie Fuller, School Counselor

stephanie.fuller@wnesu.com

Vision Screening

The Springfield Lions Club conducted vision screenings on all SRES students on Monday, November 7, 2022. Please be on the lookout for your childs results. If you have any questions or concerns regarding your child's vision results, please contact Nurse Jenn.

Hearing Screenings

Hearing screenings will be done in house by Nurse Jenn. The goal is to have all hearing screenings done before December break.

Communication

It is now easier than ever to communicate with Nurse Jenn.
Visit https://www.remind.com/join/sreshe to join the SRES Health Office.

COVID-19

As a courtesy, please notify the school (Nurse Jenn) if your child tests positive for COVID-19. This will help us monitor for the virus better. Please self report any positives to the Vermont Department of Health at:

https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/6507748/Vermont-COVID-19-Self-Test-Result-Reporting-Form

COVID-19 Tests Available

If you need COVID-19 tests, please contact Nurse Jenn. Please keep in mind that the original expiration date has been extended. Please visit the following websites to check the extended expiration dates for the tests that you have.

https://ihealthlabs.com/pages/news#expiration

https://www.letsongo.com/product-updates-ongo

https://www.lucirahealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Notice_of_Shelf_Life_Extension_Rev_H.pdf

Handwashing Lessons

During the week of November 14th Nurse Jenn did a handwashing lesson with each class. Ask your child the steps to handwashing or better yet, ask them to show you the “pepper experiment” and why we use soap when we wash our hands.

Head Lice

Anyone can get head lice and it does not reflect poor hygiene or social status.

The “no nit” and “no live lice” policies have been discontinued here at SRES. These policies cause unnecessary absences for students and loss of parent workdays and family wages. Exclusion from school can adversely affect students emotionally, socially and academically. Therefore, we ask that you do your part and prevent the spread of this communicable condition by checking your child(ren) daily for the next few weeks, and on a regular basis thereafter. Lice infestation is much easier to treat if caught early.

Water Bottles

Every student should be bringing a water bottle to school every day. Water is the only beverage that should be in a water bottle. We ask that all other drinks be saved for lunch or snack time. Please refrain from sending your child in with beverages high in sugar.

**IMPORTANT**

It is expected that all students come to school with proper winter gear. Proper winter gear includes:

• Winter jacket

• Snow Pants (when there is snow on the ground)

• Boots (for snow and mud)

• Hat

• Gloves or mittens

We have resources available for those who don’t have proper winter gear. Please reach out to Nurse Jenn or Mrs. Fuller if you need assistance. Students who do not have proper winter gear may be asked to stay inside or may need to stay on the black top on the playground (which is no fun!!!). Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter.

Need Health Insurance?

Visit www.vermonthealthconnect.gov or call 1-855-899-9600

Please reach out if you have any questions or concerns regarding your child's health.

Phone: 802-869-2637 or Email: jennifer.vaughan@wnesu.com

These Kindergartners are growing so fast! They have been building friendships and connections within our classroom.

In Math, the kindergartners are doing great using their centers and transitioning from one space to another. These kindergartners have worked so hard to fluently count to 20! After break we will begin working on adding two groups of numbers!

In ELA we have mastered many of our letter names and sounds! These kindergartners are doing great learning sight words.

The snow this week was a welcome event for kindergartners. They were super excited to watch it snow out the windows.

Please remember to send winter jackets, snow pants, boots, hats, and gloves each day. They will also need shoes to change into.

☆ Reading: During our Interactive Read Alouds, we have been reading different stories such as Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems and Turkey Trouble by Marc Maron and thinking about the problem and solution in the stories. Ask your child while reading a fiction story what is the problem and solution of the story and how they know!

☆ Fundations: We have continued to work on our digraphs (sh, ch, ck, wh, th). We learned about how the digraph /th/ can make an unvoiced sound (like in the word ‘that’) and a voiced sound (like in the word ‘this'). Next, we will be learning about glued sounds -an and -am!

☆ Math: The first grade mathematicians have been learning about 2-D shapes! We have been working on how we can tell the difference between 2-D shapes (i.e. triangles, squares, hexagons, trapezoids, circles) based on how we can describe their sides and vertices. We learned new games for math menu time such as “Guess My Rule”, “Roll, Add, and Cover”, and “Build a Turkey”. Fun activity for home: have your child go on a 2-D shape hunt in your home and ask them what they know about that shape!

☆ Writing: Students have been working hard on publishing their trick or treating narrative stories! We will be sharing these with you at conferences. In our next unit, we will be starting to learn about informative writing as we learn about different animals in nonfiction books and how they adapt!

Reading

• Second Grade Readers have been exploring different genres of books, both fiction and nonfiction. They have also been practicing retelling a story using the BME model and telling only the important information.

Writing

• Writers finished writing their personal narrative stories. They learned how to write a powerful ending to wrap up their stories. They are continuing to practice editing and revising their work once they are completed with the drafting process.

Phonics

• Second graders used their knowledge of closed syllables to learn about what sounds make an exception and why they make that exception.

Math

• Second Grade Mathematicians explored place value with 2 and 3 digit numbers. They learned how to represent numbers with expanded form, standard form, base 10 drawings and word form. They also learned how to add and subtract 100, 10 and 1 to these numbers.

Theme

• Second Graders have been learning about Thanksgiving and Native American culture through read alouds.

REMINDERS
Parent Teacher conferences are Monday November 21st!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Break!!

Math: The third graders have learned several new games to develop their multiplication knowledge. Two of the games they learned were “Kaboom” and “Multiplication Whirl.” They have strengthened their 2's, 3', 4’s, 5’s and 10's math facts.

Reading: Students have continued to explore the text features of nonfiction texts. They can identify diagrams, side bars, headings and captions. During interactive read alouds, students have explored the journeys of different animals during seasonal and life changes.

Writing: Students have begun writing memory stories. First they had to think about general memories to more specific ones. Next, they then started recalling as many details in those memories as possible. Finally, students will order the details from start to finish.

Social Studies: Students worked with partners to create the 7 continents out of Play-Doh. They know the names of the continents, the 5 oceans and countries within each continent. Map skills also have been developed using the compass rose.

Hello From Fourth Grade!

• In math, we are learning about the area model to multiply multi-digit numbers. We have practiced decomposing, multiplying by multiples of 10, and finding the area using base-10 blocks. Each of these steps will allow us to use models and multiplication facts that are more friendly to solve more challenging equations.

• Reader’s Workshop this week has focused on finding text evidence to further our writing about reading. We have used color coding models as well as digital challenges to find and record text evidence.

• In writing, we continue to practice complete sentence writing, paragraph formation, grade-level spelling, and stamina. This week we disguised turkeys and wrote creative essays about them.

• The past few Tuesdays Ms. Wade, our district STEAM coach, visited. While the girls met with Mr. Francis, where they are learning about social emotional regulation as well as empowerment, the boys have had the chance to engineer newspaper towers. Did you know that it is possible to hold up 15 atlases with just two pieces of newspaper and twenty-four inches of tape?!

• On Monday, 11/14 we were visited by Ella Cademartori and Marty Gallagher (representing the Bellows Falls Rotary). Each 4th grader was gifted seven books as part of the “Free to Read” event! We just LOVE our free books and handmade book bags!

~Thank you for signing up for a conference on Monday, November 21, 2022. Please check the sign-up link in your email for your time slot. ~

Kindergarten through 4th Grade reading groups have been working hard! Ms. Rose and Ms. Curtis have the opportunity to reinforce what our students already know and support them to grow their skills to become stronger and more independent, efficient readers.

Some of the skills Ms. Rose works on with the lower grades are letter sounds, sight words (Including trick words like ‘was’) and phonological awareness. Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and produce rhyme, count the number of words in a sentence, syllables in a word, or sounds in a word, then delete a word, a syllable or a sound, or blend sounds together to make a word.

Ms. Curtis is working with students in the upper grades on syllabication. How do we break larger multi-syllabic words into smaller, more manageable chunks of words to read? To do this we must recognize the syllable ‘type’, including irregular sight syllables like, ‘-tion’.

(COM-MU-NI-CA-TION) We must also be flexible when putting these syllables together, because of the SCHWA (The unaccented syllable(s)). Communication has two Schwas! Ask your third and fourth grader which vowels/syllables in ‘com-mu-ni-ca-tion’ are the unaccented schwa sound. We are getting really good at this with practice!

Along with sounds and syllabication, we work on our fluency. Fluency is putting our reading skills together efficiently and effectively so we sound smooth and phrased as we read. Every day we have fluency practice, often with poetry. Ask your child what poems they are reading lately and include poetry in your exploration of genres for your child when going to the library or the bookstore.

Children love poems because of the subject matter, the rich language and the rhythm and/or rhyme within the poem (And often the shorter length!) Remember to try to set time together as a family, or time just for your child to read. Even a short amount of time spent reading daily will impact your child’s vocabulary, comprehension and general knowledge of text!

Library visits often include attention to how distinctions in books like fiction and nonfiction are mirrored in the layout of the library.

Today the 2nd graders looked at two books: Moe the Dog in Tropical Paradise and The Everything Book about Dogs and Puppies. After discussing, the students listed a number of ways they knew which book was fiction and which was nonfiction. One student then volunteered to show where nonfiction is kept in the library, and then all the second graders proceeded to point where the fiction is kept.

After book borrowing, the second graders immersed themselves with Makerspace activities.

Below is the second grade upon learning they’d won the “Quiet Cat” award. Also featured is Teddy with a straw construction, and Juno with a cat she made with recycled materials.

The library always needs small recycled boxes! Examples of the sizes we need: toothpaste boxes, butter and tea boxes. Please save and send in with your child for the library Makerspace projects!

Students have been working on their basketball skills. We are starting with ball control, dribbling and passing. In this picture, you can see students working in small groups. This allows them to practice their skills with each other and work together. Students are already showing progress in their ability to control a basketball!

Kindergarten, First and Second Grades are on their last lesson of our twelve week First Steps In Music Curriculum. All students have improved in their beat keeping, movement and singing skills. I am proud of their progress!

Kindergarten: Ask your student to sing "Pitter Patter", "Wise Old Owl" or "Chop Chop" (in time for Thanksgiving!).

First Grade: Ask your student to sing "Neighbor Neighbor", "Oliver Twist" or "Mother's Knives and Forks".

Second Grade: Ask your student to sing "Hello There", "Standing Like A Tree" or "I Shut The Door".

Third and Fourth Graders have been very industrious. They have been working on playing instruments on cue, decoding and reading rhythm, singing and moving. Both classes have started "Hop Old Squirrel", playing drums and sticks as well as neighbor notes on xylophones. Both classes also learned the play party "Old Roger" for Halloween. They have been singing "Barnyard Dance" and "Over The River and Through The Woods" just in time for Thanksgiving. As the weather gets colder, we are looking ahead to some winter themed activities!

Here are some pictures of the Third Grade dancing the "Barnyard Dance" and practicing two parts of "Hop Old Squirrel" that they transferred to xylophones.

4th Grade

Fourth graders have been working on their messy rooms inspired by Angela Meyer. We are coloring our works of art with colored pencils. Below you can see some of the works in progress!

3rd Grade

Third grade is working on words of encouragement inspired by Robert Indiana. We are working on creating designed letters that stand out and next will create our own words of encouragement to share like Indiana's "LOVE" movement.

2nd Grade

Second grade has finished their shield art project and now will move into becoming Architects! They have worked hard to create their own coat of arms for their shield!

1st Grade

First Grade artists have been hard at work using our "artist eyes" to design our own city. We looked at buildings around our community to help draw details.

Kindergarten

These artists are wrapping up their first color wheels! We learned about Primary and Secondary colors and how to mix the primary colors to create the secondary colors! They have worked hard and the color wheels look amazing!

It was nice to be back for a regular week here at SRES ASP.

Monday: STEAM night: We had some much fun engineering vehicles for our turkey eggs to fly in. Some made it and some did not. Back to the design board!

Tuesday: Craft night: Each student made a bead pumpkin for their Thanksgiving table.

Wednesday: Choice night: This week the ASP students chose from a paper pumpkin, the bead table and the game Switch. Our first choice night was a blast.

Thursday: MSA night: Trish from Main Street Arts joined us to continue practicing on our play. The performance is planned for December 15th!

Friday: Board game night: Our favorite night of the week! We learn patience, how to be a good winner and a good loser on game nights.

Please check out our new ASP bulletin board in the lobby!

Friendly reminders: Please send your student ready to play outside. We are getting some snow but will be outside for afternoon recess weather permitting or unless it is colder than 15 degrees.

No ASP Next for Thanksgiving break.

Look forward: No ASP December 19th or 20th due to Holiday Break.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tina White

SRES ASP Site Coordinator

Email: laura.hazard@wnesu.com
Website: https://sres.wnesu.org/
Location: 15 School Street, Saxtons River, VT, USA
Phone: (802) 869-2637
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sresvt