Specialists News
Content
Literacy news from Mrs. Nochnuk
October is going to be an exciting month for us. To showcase
Fire Prevention Month the Lowell Fire Department will visit with a
presentation Practice Sire safety. The Hook and Ladder and Rescue vehicles will
also stop by. A Career Day will take place presented by Middlesex Community College.
It will be in the form of a game show favorite entitled Jeopardy. Then to round
out the month and to celebrate Dental Health month we will have a visit
from a dentist. After each presentations a goodie bag filled with toothbrushes,
toothpaste, floss and plastic cups for rinsing will be distributed. The
library will be an exciting place to be in October. Children can take out books
each week to learn more about these important themes. Warmest regards.
Art news from Mrs. Dixon
I am excited to welcome students in grades kindergarten through
fourth back into the art room. We will be working on the elements line
and texture over the next few months as well as seasonal projects. I love
to see your child's imagination and creativity come to life in class.
Please be on the lookout for student work displayed throughout the
school!
Music news from Mrs. Squeglia.…
Music classes are off to a great start. Students at every grade
level are engaged in singing, playing instruments, movement and
improvisation. For a special treat, be sure to invite your
child to sing a song for you or to share an activity from music class.
The M & M Chorus rehearses during enrichment classes on
Friday mornings. 3rd and 4th grade students who love to sing and dance can
choose to be part of this fabulous performing group. We are now in our
10th season! Currently, we are working on our first concert scheduled for late
January at The Lowell High School auditorium entitled "Music Lasts a
Lifetime. " Past and future performances may be viewed on
Lowell cable television LCT 22.
Recorder karate is offered each
morning during breakfast from 9:10 to 9:25 outside the music room.
Individual students play to demonstrate mastery of a certain concept
or skill and can earn color coded "belts" to tie on their
recorder. This program is geared toward third and fourth graders,
however, younger students can learn to play with the help of an adult or
older sibling. Recorder packages that include the recorder, book and CD
may be purchased for $5 (Yamaha colors) or $6.50 (Black Angel) in the music
room.
Physical Education news from Mr. Drouin
The
physical education classes are off to a fantastic start to the school
year. The kindergarten and grade 1
classes are focusing on movement activities in personal and general space. They are also having discussions around the
importance of healthy lifestyles. Grades
2, 3 and 4 have been working on fine motor skills and basic soccer skills. They are also discussing the importance of
healthy lifestyles and the muscular and skeletal systems.
Preschool News
We’ve had a successful start to our
school year. The children have been
learning their classmates and teachers names. The children have learned the
letters B, P and T and their sounds.
They have been practicing taking turns during activities and
conversations and rules related to school.
We are teaching the children to use scissors and how to hold a crayon,
pencil or marker correctly. We have been
learning about the 5 senses and the names of body parts. We have enjoyed
getting to know the children.
Kindergarten
Hello
Families!
Over
the course of the last two months the children have adjusted very well to our
very busy school day. The students are
happily learning all their letters, letter sounds, and even sight words.
It is amazing to see how much they love reading their own little books.
Thanks to all the parents who are helping the children practice at home. It really makes a difference. Don’t forget to use our city library it is an
amazing resource. The children are
becoming quite the “mathematicians”. We have been counting the number of
days we have been in school, working each week on a number of the week, and
playing many math games. The
children are really enjoying learning with our Scholastic Let’s Find Out
readers. Make sure you check out the
online activities that go along with the books when they are sent home. We are monitoring and learning about the
weather and we are exploring and learning about our schoolyard trees. The chilly air is here, so make sure your
child has warm clothes for our outdoor recess. We are outside daily
unless it is raining. Thanks for all your support; we have had a fabulous
Kindergarten start!
The
Kindergarten Team
First Grade
It’s hard to
believe that we are already well into First Grade. We have already seen a lot of growth in these
kiddos, and we can’t wait to see where First Grade brings them!
In reading, students are working on decoding
words with short and long vowels along with developing comprehension skills
involving characters, setting, main idea, details and retelling. Our children
are encouraged to read the pictures, read the words, and retell the story,
thinking about the story elements. It’s
important to have conversations about the stories they’re reading to reinforce
comprehension.
In writing,
we are working on a unit involving Small Moments where children write about
themselves and experiences they have had.
They continue to practice good penmanship while also working on using
capitals, punctuation and spaces between words.
In math, the
students are working hard on counting and number sense. Your children really
are mathematicians! They are solving story problems with both change and result
unknown! This is a lot of work, but we are having a lot of fun solving these
problems with pictures, numbers, equations and labels. If you ever have any
questions about this “new math” we are implementing this year, please feel free
to contact us.
We continue
to encourage students to complete and return their homework in a neat and
timely manner. We also want to remind you that students should be reading for
at least 15 minutes each night and should return the books along with the
completed signed reading log every Friday. A sight word list will be sent
home. Please practice all these words
and make sure your child can read them quickly. Thank you for your support!
The First Grade Team
Second
Grade
Happy Fall McAuliffe Families!
We are back into the swing of things here at school.
September was a month of transition. Our biggest transition was from Summer to
Fall! We're getting better and better at our daily routines and life in 2nd
grade. We have a great group of students who are eager to learn from us this
year!
In ELA we are working on setting up our reading block for
the year. We focus on modeling and what reading should look like in 2nd grade
through reading groups, independent reading and Interactive Read Aloud. In
Writing we are working on writing some awesome small moments in our lives. Ask
your child what they have written about! We are hearing some great stories from
them! They are excited about writing and sharing! In math we
finished up our first unit on addition and subtraction within 100, story
problems, and using the MOST EFFICIENT strategy for our problem solving. We are
on a new unit of measurement. In science we are excited about learning
about Solids, Liquids and Gases. Ask your child what they have learned so far
in Science. It's going to be an exciting month!
We had our 2nd annual trip to LEGOLAND Boston! We took part in a
workshop, in all free play activities, rides and a 4D movie! It was a very fun
experience for our kiddos.
We thank you for coming to our Open House! We can't wait to meet
all of you at parent conferences in November. Stay tuned for details. As
always, thank you for your continued support. Parents & Teachers working
together is exactly what your child needs to be successful. Homework every
night includes reading for 20 minutes! Study those math facts too! Meet you all
soon!
The 2nd Grade Team
Third
Grade
Third Grade is off to a great start this year! We have been
setting dispositions in our classroom for all parts of our day including
morning meeting, writing, math, reading, lunch, recess, and specials. We have
also been modeling the importance of thoughtful homework. Each night third
graders are expected to read, write a summary, and complete a math sheet.
In writing, we have been composing personal
narratives. Students have been inspired by people, places, and special things
that mean the most to them. In reading, we are just beginning guided reading
groups. This is a great opportunity for students to practice their reading
stamina, fluency, and comprehension. Reading each night is so important in
building your child's "reading muscles". Please encourage your child's
reading curiosity and fan the flame of reading for fun.
Lastly, multiplication and division have
been the main concepts in math that we have targeted. We are also focusing on
learning our fact families for 2, 3, & 4 with automaticity. Automaticity
means your child can recall a fact within three seconds. Please practice your
child's multiplication and division facts each night. Finally, we will begin
Weather and Climate in science and we look forward to conducting experiments
and reading scientific literature. This year will be full of academic learning
and persevering and we are fortunate to have the great classes that we do!
Fourth
Grade
Happy Fall
McAuliffe School Families,
The
McAuliffe School 4th graders are back in the swing of things and are
hard at work each day. Our Literacy focus for the first few weeks of school was
on establishing rules and routines for Reader’s Workshop. Throughout the fall,
our students will explore fiction at a deeper level, reading closely to infer
and grow ideas about theme. Students will learn how character’s thoughts,
words and actions help readers to understand the story better and infer theme.
Students will also learn to explore life lessons the characters in books
experience and ponder the application of these lessons in their own
lives. Please ask your child what they are working on as a reader in
class. Students should be reading a minimum of 30 minutes each evening as part
of their homework. Reading Logs should be signed Monday through Thursday.
During
Writer’s Workshop, Students have been busy drafting personal narrative pieces
based on small moments. Students studied qualities of good personal narrative
writing in mentor texts and applied these qualities to their own pieces. Through
revision, strong leads, memorable endings, exact details, sensory images and
figurative language have been worked into students’ narratives to paint
pictures for their audience in words. Students will continue to focus on
good qualities of writing throughout our current Realistic Fiction Writing
Unit.
In Math,
we just finished our place value unit. Throughout this unit, students built
upon an existing understanding of problem structures and estimation as they
solved a variety of story problems. Our new math unit will focus on
understanding aspects of the metric system and how to convert between units of
measure. Please encourage you child to study multiplication facts each
evening. As always, we thank you for your support. Any questions,
feel free to email us.
All the
best,
The 4th
Grade Team
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