The Pulse of the Pride

Lyme School Friends,

We hope you are well! It has been another busy few weeks at school. Even with the disruption of snow days and delays in January, our students and staff have stayed focused on learning.

Last Friday, we had our longest all school meeting of the year. The 4th grade and 8th grade recited a poem and the 2nd grade performed Peter and the Wolf. All three grade levels did a fantastic job with their preparations and performance. It is always great to see our students show off their work.

Wow! It is cold. When we have these frigid days, it is very important that students bring to school what they need for the outdoors and appropriate clothing. We do try to go outside whenever possible even if it is a shortened recess period. I made some announcements about the cold and dressing appropriately at this morning's all school meeting.

The next few weeks will be full, as students and staff alike will want to go into the February winter break at a good transition point.

The next newsletter will hit your inbox on February 17th. Have a great weekend!

John P. D'Entremont, Principal

2/10 - Middle School Activity Night

2/17 - Winter Carnival

2/20 - 2/24 - No School/February Break

3/20 - Teacher In-Service Day

Kindergartners through 4th graders should turn in their Passport for Winter Fun front flaps by the 17th! We hope our students are participating in these fun winter activities!

Please check your My Mealtime Lunch Accounts to ensure you have a positive balance. We have had some families tell us My Mealtime has not notified them of a negative balance but the emails from My Mealtime have actually gone to spam. If you could please check your child's lunch account and ensure you have a "low balance alert" set up, we would appreciate it.

The process of putting together next year's school calendar has started. This is a process that takes time, coordination with other districts such as Hanover and Thetford and then goes to the School Board for approval. It is likely that a calendar for next school year will be ready for the School Board some time in February or March.

The Lyme School Apparel Store has a variety of apparel and accessories all customizable with a variety of school logos. The Lyme School PTO earns 12% of all sales. Thank you for supporting our school and go Lions! #LYMESCHOOLROCKS

Kati Miller RN BSN: Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri

Matthew Greenway RN BSN: alternating Weds and coverage as needed

Celeste McCool RN BSN: alternating Weds and coverage as needed

It is the time of year when an extra set of clothes can be helpful for students to have at school. With the freeze and melt, students can sometimes get wet during recess. Although we have some items at school for emergency purposes, ensuring your child has what they need for the weather and in case of emergency is appreciated.

We have seen an increase in cases of Strep throat among students over the past few weeks.

Strep throat is caused by the bacteria Group A Streptococcus.

Symptoms typically include pain with swallowing, quick onset of symptoms and fever. It is important to treat Strep throat with antibiotics to prevent complications such as rheumatic fever. Strep throat is a bacterial infection, not a viral infection.

Individuals can return to school 24 hours after starting antibiotics and being fever free.

Learn more about Strep Throat

Hand washing frequently throughout the day and especially before and after eating is recommended, as always.

If your child is experiencing symptoms, please test for COVID. If a person is not positive but has any symptoms, we kindly request a mask.

Thank you so much for your partnership in keeping us all healthy.

Hello Lyme Families!

Over the last two weeks during advisory time, our middle school students were participating in a door decorating contest. Their audience/judges were our kindergarten friends downstairs. Advisory members planned and decorated their doors this week and kindergarteners traveled around to the different doors and voted on their favorite ones. They were so impressed and delighted by the features of the doors which included:

-Spanish stickers for students

-Olaf riding a chicken!

-A turtle seeing it’s shadow

-Dinosaurs skiing

-Ice Age and Frozen characters having a snowball fight

-decorate your own book marks

-make your own pokemon cards

-butterfly bookmarks

-color your own turtle

-lots of love and hearts

-intricate snowflakes

See pictures below! The votes are being tabulated and the results will be announced at morning meeting on Friday 2/10.

Big thanks to our K-judges and our middle schoolers for making some really sweet and joyful doors! Next Stanton Time, K students will be creating some cards and pictures of gratitude for our middle school students and thanking them during their lunch time.

We are wrapping up our professional discussions about reading instruction next week. The focus of our discussion group has been on the podcast series: Sold a Story produced by American Public Media. Teachers discussed trends in teaching reading from whole language approaches to balanced literacy to direct phonics instruction. The podcast illustrated how publishers in the past sold a curriculum to many schools that was not actually based on the science of reading and what we know about how kids learn to read. Our takeaways were many, but mainly it is a good reminder to not be swayed by flashy programs and to stay true to what we know about teaching reading and what researchers have confirmed.

We have results from our Number Sense Screening we did in the fall and K-4 teachers will be doing another round of this assessment in the next few weeks. This assessment involves some work with numbers (reading numbers, operations with numbers, and mental math) and an individual interview with the teacher. During the interview, the teacher listens carefully to learn more about how students make sense of mathematics. Number sense is critical for a student’s long term success in mathematics. People with a strong number sense can make reasonable estimates, solve problems in different ways, and use relationships among numbers to work with creativity and precision. Our teachers will be looking at the data to find areas where they need to adjust lessons and provide more instruction or intervention.

“USNS Family Letters.” Forefront Education, 9 Sept. 2021, https://forefront.education/usns-family-letters/.

Grade 1 Dragon Puppets

We read the story The Paper Dragon, and learned through beautiful papercut illustrations that the strongest thing in the world is Love. This is one of those lessons that at some point the students just take over creative control and then there are literally dragons flying all around the Art Room. This brings all of us alot of Joy.

Middle School Elective:

Set Design for James and the Giant Peach

Roald Dahl is pretty wild, and designing the set has some huge creative challenges. Set crew meets daily during this elective session. They need to quickly learn the play, be able to imagine the set pieces, and understand scene transitions. (Go, Team! I am so appreciative of this hard-working group of students)

Ceramics (from Session 3)

The anthropomorphic clay sculptures are out of the kiln and starting to head home. I could not resist a quick group photo! This was the last clay project, and the students really explored sculpture in a pretty sophisticated way. I was impressed with their use of reference photos and commitment to the process.

Grade 4 Arctic Landscapes

Beautiful!

(inspired by Canadian artist Ted Harrison)

Ukulele: Shout out to our Ukulele students as they completed their Session III elective by presenting demo lessons to faculty and staff around the school!

Second Grade: Congratulations to the second grade class for their presentation of Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokoviev. They worked incredibly hard and gave a lovely performance. Special thank you to the Lyme Community and Dartmouth College musicians who elevated our performance by playing live!

Problem-solving can involve a variety of tools and techniques. Recently, students in the Open Studio elective have been showcasing their skills by building some really impressive creations. Pictured below: Forest built a DC motor-power cyclone vacuum cleaner that effectively sucks up dust and debris. A group of 7th grade programmers coded an interactive multiplayer game in Scratch. Forest shows off his illuminated spinning flywheel that spins about a million or so RPMs. Matt and Jay worked together building and programming a conveyor belt using the LEGO robotics kits to continually feed marbles into a marble run. Karissa and Ryleigh work on building an imaginary world in a model treehouse.

The innovation and creativity these kids are displaying right now is outstanding!

Students have been enjoying their time in team sport play. The most recent PE elective.

Although this elective is intended to be non competitive, that does not take away from the intense level of play that students exhibit. They work hard, play hard, experience a variety of sport activities, and stay active during these winter months.

This elective continues to be very popular and I feel fortunate that our middle school students value their time being part of a team and getting a lot of physical activity.

SAVE THE DATE!! This year, the middle school will be presenting Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach JR. For now, please put March 17th and 18th (Friday and Saturday) into your calendars for show dates!

Lyme School PTO Meeting Link:

Google Meet joining info
Video call link: https://meet.google.com/hqd-ixad-cri
Or dial: ‪(US) +1 407-545-7995‬ PIN: ‪522 319 072‬#

The next Board meeting at the Lyme School is on Thursday, February 9th at 7PM.

Calling all Violins - and Families!

You are invited to:

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9 at 6:00 p.m.

Lyme School Gym

- a music party to celebrate the creator of the Suzuki method which we use to learn violin.

- Large groups (1st-year class of 15)

- Small groups (Advanced players)

- Solos and duets

- Folk songs, classical pieces, and fiddle tunes

This is a rare chance to get together and play for you, the families of these wonderful and accomplished players. It is not a long concert - I mean, party....but we think you'll enjoy the music.

Refreshments afterwards? Of course!

ALL Together has Elementary and Middle/High School Parent Handbooks available free of charge.

These handbooks are a practical guide for parents, guardians, and others who interact with youth and addresses today's toughest issues.

The Elementary edition: "Raising kids isn’t easy, start the journey off on the right foot. Cell phones, social media, anxiety and even issues with alcohol and drugs are starting earlier than ever. Learn how to set boundaries and keep your child safe."

The Middle/High School edition: "This edition of our Parent Handbook addresses some of the toughest issues affecting today’s parents and their teens. This resource will raise awareness immediately and educate readers on the latest trends, misconceptions and warning signs associated with each issue. This handbook is being used to help prevent issues such as addiction, violence and suicide across the United States."

Please fill out this form if you are interested in a FREE handbook.

OUR VALUES

● Fairness ● Acceptance of Others ● Integrity ● Responsibility

● Perseverance ● Individuality ● Compassion ● Courage

John P. D'Entremont, Principal

Elise Foxall, Academic Director

Geoff Tomlinson, Student Services Director