5/6, 5/8, & 5/9 Second Grade Tour of Southwick Trip

5/7 School Committee Meeting 6:00 Powder Mill Cafeteria

5/15 PAWS PTO Meeting 5:30 at Powder Mill School

5/17 Spring Concert (See below for more details)

5/18 PAWS PTO Golf Tournament

5/21 First Grade Springfield Museums Trip

5/23 End of Year Family Night 5:30-7:00 at Woodland School (More info to follow)

5/24 Half Day Staff Collaboration (12:00 Dismissal no PM PreK)

5/27 Memorial Day Schools Closed

5/30 & 5/31 Kindergarten Screening for incoming students

• NO KINDERGARTEN FOR CURRENT STUDENTS THESE DAYS

6/4 School Committee Powder Mill Cafeteria

6/5 Field Day (Rain Date 6/6)

6/7 Second Grade Visit to Powder Mill

6/10-6/13 Spring Book Fair

6/13 PAWS PTO Spring Picnic - Save the Date

6/14 PreK Last Day of School & Graduation

6/17 K-2 Last Day of School (Half Day)

Once again our annual field day is nearly upon us. Field day is a day of fun in which the students participate in 10 challenging events. It will be held on Wednesday, June 5, 2024 (rain date Thursday, June 6th.). The morning session will run from 9:40 – 11:00, and the afternoon session will run from 12:50 – 2:10. Volunteers will be accepted on a first come first serve basis. If you would like to assist us, please contact the school office at wes_office@stgrsd.org as soon as possible. We will contact you shortly thereafter with further details.

During the month of May, preschoolers will continue to learn about people in our community. They will learn about police officers, fire fighters. doctors and dentists. We are working on having a field trip to visit our local police/fire station and DPW. The children will continue reviewing all the Lively Letters and their sounds. We will continue to learn about Phonemic Awareness through our Heggerty Program. The children will learn about the life cycle of a plant by planting bean seeds. They will start a plant journal documenting the growth of their bean plant. During math, the children will continue to review counting objects, practicing their numbers 1-10, and naming shapes.

ELA: Kindergarten students are in the final weeks of the ELA Module, "Zooming in." As children read, view and interact with Module 7 texts and read alouds, they will build deep knowledge on what it means to look closely and observe the world around them. The Unit's essential question is, "What can I learn when I look closely?" Students will spend some time learning about the genre of informational writing and practice writing sentences that state facts they have learned from some of the unit read alouds.

In Foundational Skills, students will be learning to blend, segment, read, and spell words with digraphs ch, ck, ng, and wh.

Math: Students will begin their final math unit of the year, where they will be practicing how to apply all the skills that they have learned throughout the year to perform different math tasks. Students will use their sequence counting knowledge to fluently determine what is one more or one less or two more or two less of a number. Students will create, share, and solve their own story problems. Students will work with different number compositions to 5, and use that skill to determine the missing part in a math expression. For example: 2+?=5. Finally, kindergarteners will close out the unit practicing skills and completing tasks of composing and decomposing 10, and teen numbers.

Social Studies and Science: Kindergarten students are continuing to learn about plants, and how trees are important to our earth. They will continue to study the importance of recycling and even get opportunities to repurpose recycled materials in Art Center. In Blocks center, students will make their own representations of trees, gardens, and plant life. In Discovery center, students will study and record their observations of their bean plants growth as it develops from seed to plant.

Recently, all of first grade participated in a very special contest. Students had the chance to draw a picture and write all about their “ideal school”. Each first grader shared what they love about Woodland and three things they would want or wish for in their ideal school. We heard about schools with water slides, pools, nail salons, trampolines, and even zoo animals. So many creative ideas! This was a statewide contest where our first graders are judged amongst other first graders in Massachusetts. We are so proud of the hard work and creativity of our students here at Woodland!

Math: In this upcoming month of May, first graders will continue to be busy learners! We are beginning a new unit in math all about geometry. First graders will learn about solid and flat shapes, as well as dividing shapes into equal parts. We will also learn about telling time later this month!

ELA: During our new reading unit, we will integrate our science topic about plants. Students will be reading stories all about how plants grow and what they need to survive. We will even get to grow our own plants and make scientific observations about what we see!

Speaking of being scientific thinkers, we are also looking forward to our upcoming field trip to the Springfield Science Museum!

Second grade students are working hard and preparing for third grade! They recently began working on Module 10 in ELA. The theme of the module is Many Cultures, One World. In this module, students will be learning about the different cultures and traditions of people all around the world. They will read about the ways that people celebrate and honor their heritage. Children will also write a thank-you letter to someone who taught them something about his or her culture.

In math, second grade is wrapping up Unit 7. The focus of this unit was adding and subtracting within 1,000. Students used place value understanding, the relationship between addition and subtraction, and properties of operations to add and subtract within 1,000. The topic of Unit 8 is equal groups. In this unit, students will develop an understanding of equal groups as the foundation for multiplication and division in grade 3 and beyond. This understanding builds on students’ experiences with skip counting and finding the sums of equal addends.

In science, the unit on ecosystems and biodiversity will end soon. The final project of this unit will involve students using their imagination to write about a new species they discovered! Students will describe the habitat the new species lives in and how they survive in this habitat. After this project, second grade students will end the year by exploring their family heritage and researching a country from which they have ancestors.

Willow demonstrated kindness towards a classmate during literacy in her class. Great job Willow!

May 1st was School Principal's Day. The students and staff took the time to stop by and wish Mr. Pescitelli a happy day, sing him songs, and make cards and posters. Woodland School is lucky to have such a kind and caring principal!

Just a small example of the outpouring of love.

Officer Sanders came with his cruiser and spoke with our Preschool students about his job. The students were able to ask questions and sit in the cruiser.

Woodland School was alive with laughter and excitement on April 11th as students and families dove into the thrill of our Annual Bingo for Books night! From PK to 6th grade, everyone joined the fun, playing word Bingo and indulging in delicious snacks. With every round, cheers filled the air as each student left with arms full of new adventures to explore in their own personal libraries!

On May 17th the students will be having their spring concert. The concert times are as follows:

Kindergarten: 12:45-1:15

First Grade: 1:30-2:00

Second Grade: 2:15-2:45

As we did for our winter concert, permissions slips will be coming home with your child soon. Please take the time to fill out and return the form to the school. If you plan on dismissing your student following the concert this is the easiest way for us to manage the large number of dismissals. If we do not have a permission slip or a note, you will need to sign your child out at the reception window.

Screenings are coming up! May 30th and 31st we will have our spring Kindergarten screenings. If you or someone you know has a child that will be turning 5 on or before September 1st have them reach out to the main office and they can help assist them with the enrollment/screening process. You can find our enrollment packet by clicking on the picture below! Please note that there will be no Kindergarten on those days.