Dear Parents,

          Thank you for all of your help and for continuing to read  and retell stories at home.  It is SO important to keep up those literacy links.  Just a reminder, that rereading those familiar books helps to build fluency.  Also, remind children of ALL the strategies that they can use when coming to an unfamiliar word! 

            All students with the exception of K-2 will be testing the weeks of March 5th through the 23rd.  We will be stressing the importance of respecting the other students by being especially quiet in the halls.  Any reminders from home will be greatly appreciated.    

 We have a very exciting month of activities coming up. The themes we will be working on this month are fairy tales and maple sugaring. The fairy tales that we will be focusing on will be The Three Little Pigs, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Little Red Riding hood and Jack and the Beanstalk.  The students will hear different variations of these stories and will be doing lots of retellings.   

  At this point of the year, our children are finding it easier to read and write. We will continue to work hard at developing writing skills.  Please try writing a sentence with your child each night.  Be sure it starts with a capital and ends with punctuation. If your child already does this independently, please begin writing stories that have a beginning, a middle and an end to them.

           In math, we will continue to review these skills; counting up and back by 1's from any number to 100, counting by 2's to 100, place value for tens and ones, money values and combinations (you can have your child make change for amounts up to $1.00) and +1,+0, doubles and sums to 10 addition facts.  We will begin to study measurement in inches and centimeters, 3D shapes, polygons and their characteristics and symmetry. We will sort objects by their attributes and continue learning about addition and subtraction, place value, and measurement. We will continue our practice with  telling time on the half hour and quarter hour.  As always, we work on problem solving.  Please help your child with these concepts by letting them use money to purchase things, discussing concepts and talking in measurement terms.

            Report cards will be going home on  March 23rd.

            Early Release Wednesday is March 14th.

            Please return the attached book order by Friday, March 16th.

Reminder: Harris Farm field trip is scheduled for Tuesday, March 13th, .   You are welcome to follow the bus too Harris Farm if you haven't been contacted to join us. We have limited space on the bus but welcome you on this  trip.

We will be having our parent/teacher conferences beginning March 26th during each special daily as well as after school from 3:00 - 5:00 except for Wednesday which will run until 6:00.  Please call the office to schedule this conference time after March 12th.  It would be best if you call between 9:00 and 12:00 as this is a less busy time in the office. 

Thank you.

Kathy Cmaylo

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I give my child ____________________________________________, permission to go to Harris Farm to study how Maine trees produce maple syrup.   This is a part of our year long study of our local environment and the Maine forest.  Tuesday, March 14th we will leave Consolidated at 8:30, so please pack your child a hearty lunch which we will be eating before we go. 

The cost of this trip is $3.50.

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