Welcome Back

It was wonderful to have our students back for the first full week of classes since the holiday recess. We hope that everyone had a joyous end to 2019 and a great start to 2020. We had a great week. You can read all about it below.

Our first picture below is the Problem of the Day offered to our fifth graders this week. These types of problems promote dynamic, logical thinking and teach the value of persistence. As you know, we have discussed having a Growth Mindset with our students. Solving a problem like this involves both deep thought and stamina. See if you can solve it. The answer will be available next week.

Unification Meeting

Please join Dr. Paloucci, myself, and Mrs. Pleau to discuss a unification plan for Winsor and McCabe schools on Tuesday, January 14th at 6:30pm. The meeting is at our administration building, located at 49 Farnum Pike. Your feedback is essential to our coming together and we hope to see everyone there. Please respond to Lisa Petrone at lpetrone@smithfield-ps.org if you can attend.

Wellness Event

Family Wellness Celebration 1/29 from 5:30-7:30 at SHS. Food and games!

Lost and Found

Please encourage your child or children to search the lost and found for items that belong to them. The area is getting bigger and we are planning to donate unclaimed items to Big Sisters of RI. Please have students collect their items by the close of school Friday, January 17th.

Keeping Up With Kindergarten

Dear Families,

Happy New Year and Welcome back! We hope everyone had a great holiday break and feels refreshed and ready to attack the new year!

We began 2020 by setting goals during our Writer’s Workshop. Students had to think of a learning goal and a goal they want to reach outside of school! Many students decided they want to work hard on learning sight words, continuing to make new friends, and learn addition and subtraction.

Speaking of addition, we began our next unit in math which introduces addition! Students loved acting out story problems, using counters, and trying out our addition machine to help join two groups of numbers!

In Mrs. Lakeway’s Reader’s Workshop, we are spending a few more weeks on retelling. Students are identifying the characters, setting and what happens first, next, then and last in a story. We spent time reading Jan Brett’s, The Mitten and The Hat. They have become class favorites!

Ms. Staruch’s class has been taking a close look at the non-fiction book Farming: Then and Now. We have been comparing how farming is similar and different then (the past) and now (the present). We have also been writing our opinions about what we think of the book and also about what farm animals we like the best and why.

We have begun working with the computers during Reader’s Workshop as a reading station. Many students have brought in headphones or ear buds. Please continue to send these in! Students are having a great time listening to stories on the website called Epic!

This Week’s/Last Week’s Sight Words: Or, for, away, not

This Week’s/Last Week’s Fundation’s Letters:Capital H-X

Learning and Fun in Grade One!

2020 is off to a great start!!! The children are settling back into our classroom routines and enjoying being back at school.

In honor of the New Year, our students made home and school resolutions for 2020. Be sure to ask your child what their home and school resolutions are – many of you will be happily surprised.

In Fundations, we continue our chapter on glued sounds – ank, ink, onk, and unk. Trick words for the week were: put, two. Next week’s trick words are: too, very, also, some, come.

This past week we began our Nonfiction unit in both reading and writing. Students have been learning the various text features of a nonfiction book and comparing and contrasting them to a fictional book. We have been reading a variety of nonfiction books and students have been identifying the many features in informational texts. They are all so excited to be learning about different topics, then writing about them, and sharing them with their classmates.

In our math series, we began our chapter on place value. Students have been counting by tens, along with identifying numbers using tens and ones. This week, we began math facts fluency. There are 30 computations per sheet and all must be completed and correct in 3 minutes in order to move on to the next level. Continue to review these concepts along with math facts at home. Flashcards are a great way to practice fluency.

We began our new unit in Science, Air and Weather, by observing and demonstrating that air takes up space, can move things from place to place, and can be felt on your hand if you blow it through a straw. We are looking forward to making parachutes next week.

Homework News – Reading homework is being differentiated based on the student’s reading level.

Mrs. Keenan’s class is very proud and pleased to announce that 47 goodie bags were made and delivered to the residents of Hebert’s Nursing Home. Everyone had such fun filling the bags and writing letters that would hopefully put smiles on the faces of the seniors at Hebert’s. This project could only have been possible as a result of all your wonderful donations. We thank you, parents! Well done, 1K!!

We would like to thank all the parents for their support in all we do in first grade and wish all our first grade families a Happy and Healthy 2020!!!!

What's New in Grade Two

Our grade two team had a fantastic first full week in 2020!

In ELA, we learned about the "pesky" plural noun rules. We discussed when we need to add -s, -es, and when we need to drop the "y" and add -ies. After looking at several nouns that end with "y", we learned that words that end with a vowel before the "y" only need a -s. For example, turkey becomes turkeys. When we have nouns that have a consonant before the noun, we drop that "y" and add -ies. For example, tally becomes tallies.

We wrapped up the week by making plural noun memory games to play with partners. At first, this was a challenge, but we persevered!

Please ask your second grader to play their game with you over the weekend.

As mathematicians, we worked on adding three digit numbers. We discussed different strategies that we can use when "attacking" more challenging equations. Next week, we will be creating our own math memory games to play with our friends. It is very important that your second grader practice their addition and subtraction facts every day!

As always, thank you for all you do at home! Have a great weekend!

Thrills in Third

We had a great full week back after winter break! We hope you all enjoyed the time with your families. In science, we started our new unit on water and weather. We began with experimenting with different surfaces to determine what will happen when water is applied to them. In math, we continue to perfect our multiplication and division strategies. The children learned decomposing as a new strategy to solve multiplication equations. It was difficult, but they all persevered and did a great job! The children have enjoyed working on a research project during writing. They have been working hard to find out all the information they can about their chosen animal. Ask your child what their animal is and what they have learned. In reading, we learned how to mark nonfiction text and we have been practicing our test taking strategies while reading and discussing nonfiction text. Have a wonderful weekend!

Learning More in Grade 4

4th graders have been reading a lot of informational text! In reading this week, students learned how to preview and mark up a non-fiction piece. The articles we used came from our Scholastic News Magazine. The kids were able to access the article online and learn extra information about the topics. We will continue to practice these strategies next week.

We finished up chapter six in math this week. Students have been learning how to divide large numbers using area models and hundreds charts. We will continue to circle back to these concepts. Our next chapter is on fractions!

In social studies, students learned about the regions of the US. They understand what makes a region., and are beginning to get an idea of where they are. Ask them!

The Fabulous Five

In reading workshop, we have begun our Poetry Unit. In this unit, the students will learn different forms of poetry, how figurative language is used in poetry, and how readers of poetry consider multiple elements in a poem, including symbolism and the author’s intent to synthesize meaning. As students worked in their guided reading groups, they read and analyzed a collection of poems and were required to notice how the poem was organized and structured. Students also wrote in their journals and recorded if any poem had rhyme and rhythm, free verse, quatrains, and figurative language. Ask your child to share with you some of the poems we read in class and explain what the structure, sound, and meaning of the poem is.

We continue with our study of decimals to include division of decimal numbers. This week, the students compared the process of dividing decimals by whole numbers to dividing whole numbers, and identified where to place the decimal. They went on to explore how the decimal point moves when a number is divided by a power of ten. Practice with multiplying and dividing numbers by powers of ten helped the students understand the process of dividing two decimals (a decimal in both the dividend and the divisor). They came to understand that multiplying the divisor and the dividend by the same power of ten does not change the value of the quotient.

In writing workshop, we are concluding our biography unit. The students are finalizing their writing pieces and utilizing their editing and revising tools as well as their FCA(Focus Correction Area) chart. We are looking forward to learning all about the legendary and interesting people they researched as they present their biographies.

Winsor Music Makers

Winsor musicians are filling the halls with music! Kindergartners have just begun to learn about the shape a melody can make, and we are working on how music can move up and down. First graders will be busy adding a xylophone bordun to wintry songs, and we will soon begin to focus on rhythms such as quarter notes and eighth notes (Ta and Ti-Ti). Second graders are learning a traditional Russian dance, and are showing a lot of growth with the three pitches, mi, so, and la. Third graders have just started to practice one of our first songs on the recorder using B, A, and G. If you haven’t heard “Hot Cross Buns” yet, get ready! Our fourth graders are working hard earning Recorder Karate Belts, and we will soon be adding a low E and D to our note bank. Grade five band is beginning to practice some really exciting music for our Spring Concert, and they can’t wait to perform it for an audience! Stay tuned for the Spring Music Concert date, as it will feature every grade at Winsor!

I am also very excited to announce that all 4th and 5th graders are invited to audition for the Rhode Island Elementary All-State Chorus! A separate email containing all the details has been sent out, but if any 4th and 5th grade families have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me. In order to try out, students must sing “Are You Sleeping” and “My Country 'Tis of Thee”. If they did not receive the sheet music in music class, they can pick up a copy outside of my classroom door. Auditions will take place during school, on Thursday, January 16th at 2pm in the music room. The RI All-State Music Festival is an awesome opportunity for our students who love to sing, and I am so excited that many have already signed up to try out! Best of luck to all singers!

William Winsor Elementary School

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