New Durham School
October 11th, 2024
News from Principal Seavey
It is hard to believe, but we are fast approaching the first trimester interim date. On October 25th you will receive an email with your child’s progress report. If you should want a paper copy, please let us know.
We are excited for our new playground structure and for the work that our PTO has done so far to bring this to us. If you are volunteering next Friday, October 18th, please sign into the office before going to the playground. Construction begins at 9:00AM. Volunteers will provide food for you during the day. Please bring some tools with you (like shovels, rakes, etc).
Parent-Teacher Conferences are just around the corner! If you have yet to sign up, please do with your child’s teacher. Teachers are available all day on Voting Day (11/5), which is a no school day for students, and in the afternoon of 11/6 (an early-release for students). Teachers are willing to accommodate your schedules as much as possible. Our goal is to have 100% of our students having a conference. On that day, we would like you to park in the rear lot, so that you can enter the back of the school building and go directly to classrooms instead of entering with the mass of voters who are expected.
Other important dates coming up:
No School Monday, 10/14 Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples’ Day
Wednesday, 10/16 School Picture Day
Wednesday, 10/16 5:30 Our first “Whine and Cheese” night to have a book discussion of The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, 5:30-6:30PM
Thursday, 10/17 Kindergarten Trip to Butternut Farm
Friday, 10/18 Playground Community Build, Grades 2 and 3 to Winnipesaukee Playhouse to see “A Year with Frog and Toad”
Saturday, 10/19 Playground Build concludes
Friday, 10/25 Student Flu Clinic, First Trimester Interim reports sent out.
Wednesday, 10/30 Grade 6 Parents Meeting 5:30PM
Thursday, 10/31 Halloween Parade 1:30, parties follow. PTO Trunk or Treat here 5-7PM
Kindergarten: Mrs. Malo
Hello!
Your kindergartner is awesome! We have been busy practicing our routines, procedures, and expectations of our classroom and school. We have been playing listening games to practice our listening skills. The students are learning how to show whole body listening and I am so proud to see so many first time listeners! The kindergartners are also learning about our school motto - The Wildcat Way (Be Safe, Work Hard, Play Fair, Be Kind) as we work together to develop our classroom rules. As we move through the year, when students are ‘caught’ showing the Wildcat Way, we fill out a ‘pawprint’ for them to acknowledge their good behavior. These will then be sent home - please celebrate your child when they receive a Wildcat Way pawprint. The students have learned how to use and have had many opportunities to practice using their school tools. They are excited to bring home their ‘school tool certification’ necklaces! We have just a few more tools to practice with.
We have enjoyed many wonderful stories together and the students love shared reading with big books, charts, and our daily morning message (where we read together). The students are learning that letters make up words, that words have spaces between them, words have parts called syllables that we can clap, and that both pictures and words give us a message. They are able to find and name letters they are learning within print and also to find words with a certain number of letters. They are learning how to tell how many words are in a sentence and that rhyming words sound the same at the middle and end of the word. They are practicing listening for beginning and ending sounds in words, as well as blending word parts (syllables) together, and segmenting words apart into syllables.
The kindergartners have worked with the letters m, a, l, o and h so far. Students learn the letter name and the sound of the letter isolated, as well as how to properly form the lowercase and uppercase letter when writing. We have many opportunities throughout the week to practice letter sounds and formation in many different ways. You will see work come home with letters traced in green crayon each week so you’ll know what our new letter is weekly. You can have your child practice tracing the letter over the green crayon with their finger. While we trace we say: letter name, says /letter sound/ So for example, h says /h/ (like in horse). We do many fine motor activities at school to build those hand muscles to ready students for writing, but playing with playdoh, legos, tongs, tweezers, and other small parts at home can be helpful.
We have also learned our first 2 ‘red words’ - these are high frequency words that can be tricky to learn because they don’t always follow the ‘rules’. We also call them heart words because we have to learn them by heart. Our first two words are: the and a (also pronounced /u/). These words will also come home to practice, written in red crayon.
The students are having fun exploring math materials during whole class lessons. These lessons focus on oral counting, counting objects accurately by using ‘touch and count, move and count or mark and count’ strategies, sorting objects for sameness, rolling a die and saying the number of pips (dots), matching numerals to sets of objects, and breaking (decomposing) a number into parts, and other activities involving all of these newly learned concepts. We also learned how to play math games with a partner. We also are building math language such as same/different, more/less, strategy. Some of these things you and your child can practice at home! Please note, I send home a family math letter each time we begin a new topic that has great ideas for working with your child at home.
If your child has not yet brought in a photograph or drawing of their family, please have them do so as soon as possible. We have started sharing these and will be sharing more with our class. Thank you! We will hang them in the classroom on our ‘Family Love’ board.
We are all getting very excited for our field trip to Butternut Farm to go apple picking. Please note, our field trip has been switched to next Thursday 10/17 instead of Friday 10/18. We will leave promptly at 8:45 am, so please be sure your child arrives at school closer to 8:30 if they are a car rider. Thank you! I will send home a small paper lunch bag for you to put in a small fully disposable snack to send with your child to school that day. With our apples, there’s a lot to carry, so the paper bag makes things easier. Next week is also school picture day on Wednesday 10/16. Also just a reminder that there is no school on Monday 10/14. Trimester interim reports will be sent home on Friday, 10/25. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Have a great long weekend!
First Grade: Mrs. Creighton
Happy first newsletter of the year!! The first graders have been working hard learning the new expectations of a new grade and a new teacher (for some). We have been practicing our classroom routines and following our school rules: Work Hard, Play Fair, Be Kind, and Be Safe! We have also been working on whole body listening, keeping our hands to ourselves and raising our hands instead of blurting out an answer or a thought.
Our IMSE block is in full swing. Our newest concept this week is: Two-consonant beginning R blends. We learned that a blend consists of two or more consonants that blend together when speaking and reading. This week we focused on R blends: tr-, gr-, br-, pr-, fr-, cr, dr-. We came up with quite the list and even enjoyed an “R Blend TRail mix” at snack time. We practiced words with these blends during dictation. In your child’s folder today, is a handout your child can show you that tells all about our concept this week! We have also been recently introduced to syllable division. During this activity, we practice breaking words into syllables to help us decode them. We love mixing up the strips of paper afterwards to make silly words.
During Workboard time, students are independently working on their literacy concepts and skills that we practice throughout the week. This week, we reviewed open and closed syllables. During this time students play many games to review our concept, practice red words, work on poetry and read and write about a favorite part of a story. During this time, we also practice our weekly decodable books. Beginning next week, students will be choosing a book to bring home and read a few nights a week. Please have your child read their book to you and practice their red word ring. This bag needs to be returned the following day so we can continue to practice at school.
In math, we have been busy mathematicians so far! Your child has practiced using graphs to organize, represent and interpret data. We have also interpreted graphs and charts by comparing the categories using the greater than and less than symbols to write comparison number sentences. In addition, your child has been practicing the addition strategy of counting on from the greater part to find the total. We discovered that starting at the larger part is more efficient but starting at either part will give us the same total. When counting on, your child uses their fingers or a number path. We learned that when both parts are the same number, they are called doubles.
Thank you for sharing your wonderful children with me! At any point in the year, please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or concerns. Enjoy the long weekend!
Second Grade: Ms. Stevens
We have been working very hard in second grade. The first weeks of school are all about learning new expectations and procedures in our classroom. Your second graders have created goals around things they’d like to get better at in second grade. We talked about how our classroom would need to feel in order for those things to happen and created rules and expectations that would help make our classroom a perfect place to learn. The rules they created are:
Be leaders
Respect Ourselves and Others
Work Hard
Show Whole Body Listening
Use Tools Appropriately
We also spent the first few weeks talking about self control and having a growth mindset. Students read a story about having a “bubble gum brain” when they are faced with a challenge. Bubble gum brains use positive self talk to encourage themselves to keep trying instead of giving up.
In science we are learning about different types of scientists and the steps they follow to conduct an experiment. We did our first science experiment this week to answer the question “is a permanent marker really permanent?” We followed the scientific method and used science lab safety rules!
In math, we are reviewing base ten concepts. We have practiced counting and bundling groups of ten. We are using these skills to find efficient ways to add and subtract. We are practicing counting forwards and backwards with numbers less than 120. Specific math details for our latest topic were sent out earlier this week in parent square.
In reading, we have started our centers. We are practicing using our sounds and blending them together. Mrs. Benson is helping us with our centers so we can work hard and become expert readers! We learn about one new sound each week and practice reading and writing words with that sound.
Please make sure your student is either reading or listening to a story for about 20 minutes every night. Exposure to language is very important for your students. If you need resources for this please reach out to me and I’ll be happy to provide you with some.
Next week, we will be going on our first field trip to see Frog and Toad at the Winnipesaukee Playhouse. If you haven’t already, please be sure to return your student’s signed permission slip. If you need a new one sent home, please let me know.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Third Grade: Ms. Daniels
Students in 3D are working on learning the concepts of multiplication and division. We are learning how to represent word problems with drawings and arrays. In literacy we are practicing reading and writing with ending blends. We are working on fluency and learning lots of vocabulary games. We have started a chapter book read aloud and have talked a lot about characters, settings, and other story elements. We are thinking about the question "Where do clouds come from?" We have lots of other questions that we want to answer during our weather unit! We are also learning about working together as a community. We made our own class rules and are starting our class jobs. We have a class store and are learning to think about our needs vs. our wants.
Third Grade: Ms. Horsken
Dear 3rd grade families,
What an exciting month of school we have had! Third graders have been hard at work learning the rules and expectations for our classroom and school. I can already tell it is going to be a fun and exciting year!
In literacy we have been learning the start of the year class skills, such as how to pick books for our book boxes, working together in a book club, and monitoring our reading stamina. To continue working on literacy at home, please have your student read 20 minutes each night and ask your child about their nightly reading.
In writing, we are reviewing what it means to write complete sentences and paragraphs. We have started writing procedural texts, answering prompts that require them to write in a sequence of actions or steps needed to make or do something. Students have been engaged in IMSE phonics instruction as well as guided reading groups.
In math, the students have begun to work on the concept of multiplication. We are learning about equal groups; identifying the number of groups, and the size of the groups while solving number stories. Students have used a variety of manipulatives and math tools to build arrays and number bonds. They have been participating in math stations and developing independent working skills. We have been focusing on our Growth Mindset when faced with challenges to see math as a positive creative expericnce where our thinking and process is a key component to our success.
I look forward to our year together!
Fourth Grade: Ms. Woodward
Hello 4W Families,
I have really enjoyed getting to know the students. We have been working hard deciding what kind of classroom community we want to have. We came out with the:
4W Code of Honor
- Be responsible with our materials and time.
- Be respectful.
- Be welcoming.
- Treat everyone fairly.
The students have become hard workers!
In reading we finished our first novel study. The kids loved learning about Nick’s adventure in the book Frindle. We also have been focusing on the protagonist and antagonist in stories.
In writing we have started our personal narrative masterpieces. They are learning how writers fine tune their work.
In math we are still learning how to be critical thinkers and find strategies to solve problems. We enjoyed hopscotch math where we got to find patterns in multiplication then went outside and played hopscotch.
In social studies we have finished learning about the national parks. Each student became an expert on one national park and got to present in front of the whole grade. I was so impressed by their bravery!
Keep working on those Let Grow projects. Our class has already added a few leaves to our classroom tree. I can’t wait to see all the things the students learn this year.
I am looking forward to having our first class party for Halloween on Thursday October 31st.
Fourth Grade: Ms. Foy
Happy Friday!
We’ve had a great start to the year! Students have been working hard to learn the routines and expectations of fourth grade. We’ve been working on building our classroom community by creating class rules and sharing our hopes and dreams for the year. I have really enjoyed getting to know your students.
In math, we have been building our understanding of place value and practicing the different ways we can write numbers. We are transitioning to addition and subtraction of multi digit numbers and solving multi step word problems.
In literacy, fourth graders are learning new phonics concepts each week. We have been working hard during centers to practice our writing, learn about similes and metaphors and find books to read independently. We have been reviewing story elements and themes. Students have enjoyed identifying the themes of the books we read in class
In social studies, we have learned about different types of maps and their features. We are now learning about physical features and natural resources. We have started to focus on New Hampshire’s history and how our state got its shape. Soon, students will start a project researching a New Hampshire landmark and creating a brochure.
Fifth Grade: Mrs. Beaverstock
The fantastic fifth graders have been busy beavers this past month and a half of learning.
In math, we started with understanding place value to the thousandths place. We moved onto multiplying and dividing by the powers of ten. We are currently working on using our understanding of the area model to apply to the steps needed in using the standard algorithm of multi-digit multiplication.
In reading, we finished a class book called The Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus. The students are currently in small book groups. We have four different books between the groups. The students meet daily to discuss the evening’s reading and comprehension questions. All of the books revolve around the theme of empathy, for each main character has a physical or mental disability.
In writing, we reviewed the parts of speech of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. This is so students can identify when they have a complete sentence, and how to make their writing more sophisticated. We have started reviewing figurative language. Students are asked to find examples of figurative language in their reading to share with the class. We will start adding figurative language to our journal writing pieces soon. Students are practicing their writing through their nightly journals. We are also working collaboratively with Mrs. Nottage in our Media special. Students are researching a person during Media time, and we will create informational writing pieces in the classroom soon.
In spelling, we are reviewing some spelling rules such as: when to double the consonant, when to change y to i, contractions, plural vs. possessive s, and plural possessive s. We have also started our IMSE Morphology.
And in social studies, we are coming to the end of our Explorers unit. Students are able to name a few important explorers and share their contributions to the New and Old Worlds. They can identify the reasons for exploration: God, Gold, and Glory. As well as discuss the impact these explorers had on the native people and environments.
As you may know, students have reading and writing homework every school night. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions or concerns.
Take care,
Sixth Grade: Mrs. Craycraft
This week the Sixth Grade Superstars have been contemplative crayfish. In class we have thought about our classroom expectations and the behaviors that demonstrate being a person of good character. We realized that consistently meeting expectations requires mindfulness and self-control.
In writing, we completed an informational and descriptive piece looking closely at ONE tradition that we participate in with our families. We wrote about things such as trick or treating, going to the national forest to get a Christmas tree, special birthday activities, and yearly reunion cookouts. In our writing, we focused on writing introductions that guide our piece and on using sensory language to help the reader feel like they are there with us.
In math we have had some breakthroughs in our understanding of ratios. We practiced using bar models, double number lines and ratios tables to solve ratio problems. We also practiced reading and discussing problems and solution strategies with a partner.
In ELA and social studies we watched videos and read informational texts about the earth, early man, and the development of agriculture. We had time to read our self-selected books and began learning the expectations for writing reading-journal letters.
In word study we continue to learn and review morphemes. This week we added some latin bases to our study decks. We have also started to focus on vocabulary development. We are jotting down unknown words to explore and are stopping during videos and read-aloud time to discuss words that are important to the comprehension of the material.
Art News: Mr. Stasiuk
Kindergarten students practiced drawing, cutting, gluing and painting to create underwater fish with a two-color pattern.
Their work is on display along with tree drawings made with color pencil.
1st grade students got an introduction to paper mache making spiders.
The spiders are on display along with “Crows and Birch Trees” made with a combination of cutting and drawing.
2nd grade students are making paper mache rattles, a multi-stepped construction that begins with casting over a clay form.
3rd and 4th grade students painted “The Full Corn Moon.”
3rd grade work is coming soon.
4th grade work is on display.
5th and 6th grade students created large silhouettes designed with positive and negative shapes. Their work took inspiration from California artist Vincent Jackson.
Currently students are constructing story boxes.
Music Notes: Mrs. Johnson
Holiday Concert:
Here we are approaching the middle of October… wow! Time is moving right along, and before we know it, our winter concert season will be upon us! THE NDS/TCS WINTER CONCERT WILL BE HELD ON WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11th AT 6:00pm AT THE KINGSWOOD ARTS CENTER IN WOLFEBORO. All students in grades K-3, all 4th graders on recorders, the 5-6 concert band, and the 4-6 chorus from New Durham School AND Tuftonboro Central School will be performing together - wow! Please mark your calendars now and make arrangements early! More details about the concert will be forthcoming as we get closer. Stay tuned!
Music Classes:
We are off to a great start this year! K-2 classes are working their way through the First Steps in Music curriculum by Dr. John Feierabend, helping them become tuneful, beatful, and artful musicians! It has been amazing to see their musicality already growing in 7 short weeks! Grades 3-6 have jumped back into singing projects (a couple patriotic songs for grade 3 and several canons/rounds in grades 4-6), the music literacy program called Conversational Solfege (also by Dr. John Feierabend), reviewing folk dances from last year and starting on new ones, and several other projects! We’ve been busy so far! Grades K-3 will be starting serious preparations for the winter concert musical right after Halloween.
Band/Instrumental families:
Please help your child remember to practice at home! Remind them to practice and help them carve out a small chunk of time in their busy schedules. Playing their instruments only here at
school each week results in minimal improvement, at best. Kids often feel like they’re “spinning their wheels.” Band members risk not having their music ready for the concert if they aren’t working on it at home in between weekly rehearsals. Playing at home every day is not required; two to three days a week for only 10-15 minutes at a time is great, important, and doable for busy schedules. Thank you for your help with this!
Nurse Notes: Mrs. Eddows & Mrs. Jendrock
Happy October from the Nurse's Office
In October, the primary health awareness focus for children is National Children's Health Month, which aims to raise awareness about important children's health issues and strategies to prevent them through healthy habits and regular checkups. This month often includes promoting healthy eating, regular exercise, vaccinations, dental hygiene, and mental health awareness for children.
A few reminders....
If your child has an illness with a fever, please remember that they must be fever free without any fever reducing medication (Tylenol-Ibuprofen) for at least 24 hours. This 24 hour medication free rule also applies to vomiting or diarrhea. If you have a question about whether or not you should send your child back to school, please give us a call anytime. We will be happy to walk you through any questions or concerns.
Water bottles. This is a big issue. We do have bottles in our office for those that have forgotten them but there are many children that forget them most days. If your child is a frequent forgetter, please send them in a "school bottle". This is one that they can leave in their classroom for the week and either bring home on Friday to get washed or we would be happy to throw in the dishwasher with ours on Monday morning. Please also make sure these are marked.
Getting into the cold season. Please send your child in with the appropriate clothing to be able to play outside. Boots, winter coats, hats and gloves. If you need help with these, please let us know. We can help!
If you have any questions, concerns or ideas for us, please call, email or come on in! We love feedback!
We hope everyone has a safe and happy October.
What is the NH Maternal & Child Health Survey?
NH Family Voices is conducting a survey to inform a statewide needs assessment for
the Bureau of Family-Centered Services. We want to understand the current needs of
NH families with children under 21 who have chronic health conditions or disabilities.
The more families who participate, the more accurate the results will be. All responses
are anonymous.