GES Grey Wolf Gazette
October 21, 2022
End 68 Hours of Hunger Program Information
Happy October!
Dear Greenfield Families and Friends,
The weeks are flying by! I can't believe we are finishing our 8th week of school already! We've settled into fall and have established routines and expectations in all our classes. We enjoyed our first week of Art with Mr. Shapiro last week and will have our last week of Music with Ms. K the week of Halloween. Our new Music teacher, Mrs. Neilssen will join us after the Thanksgiving break. We are so thankful for Ms. K and we appreciate her help so much!
The weather is looking lovely for this weekend and there are some fun family events planned in Greenfield! I hope you can get out and enjoy the Oak Park Pumpkin Fest and Trunk or Treating on Saturday!
Classes have been hard at work designing and decorating their pumpkins for the Pizza Pumpkin Palooza next week! Stay tuned for an early newsletter next week to preview all the pumpkins that will be raffled during the event! Preschool classes also decorated pumpkins and those pumpkins will be raffled off in each class during the day next Friday. Please note that Preschool families are welcome to join us for the evening event, however the Math activities will be geared towards K-4 students. Family pizza orders were due TODAY-please email or call Mrs. Paul no later than 10:00am on Monday if you forgot to order your pizza! We have to get the order to Domino's on Monday!
Our fourth graders are working on the script for our first episode of the Grey Wolf Gabbers Podcast! We chose our hosts and broadcasters today. Our goal is to send the podcast out to families early next week! Stay tuned for news about Pizza Pumpkin Palooza and a Halloween themed read aloud!
Please refer to the ConVal School Nurse Newsletter for information regarding COVID-19 exposures, school attendance after an exposure or testing for your child. You can find the newsletter here: https://www.smore.com/18ae4. Mrs. Slocomb is available during school hours to answer any questions you may have after reading the guidance.
UPCOMING IMPORTANT DATES-PLEASE CHECK AND ADD TO YOUR CALENDAR!
10/24-10/28/22: Special: Health/PE with Mrs. Parker-don't forget your sneakers!
10/28/22: PIZZA PUMPKIN PALOOZA IS BACK! We are excited to welcome families back for our first all school event of the year! Please join us for a night of family Math games from 5:00-6:00 followed by a pizza dinner and decorated pumpkin raffle from 6:00-7:00pm!
10/31/22: Annual Halloween Costume Parade to the Meeting House. We will get into our costumes at 2:15 and start walking up to the Meeting House at 2:30. Please send your child's costume to school in a clearly labeled bag. We ask that you do not send in makeup or accessories! Families are welcome to enjoy the parade along the route or join us for the walk!
10/31-11/4/22: Special: Music with guest teacher Mrs. K!
11/2/22: GES PTO Meeting at 5:30 in the Library. **Childcare will be available for those who need it!*
11/7-11/11/22: Special: Library with Mrs. Aborn
11/8/22: NO SCHOOL! Parent-Teacher Conferences will be held today. Teachers will be sending home information about signing up for conference soon.
11/11/22: NO SCHOOL! Veteran's Day
11/14-11/18/22: Special: Library with Mrs. Aborn
11/21-11/22/22: Special: Health/PE with Mrs. Parker. Don't forget your sneakers!
11/22/22: STEAM DAY! Mr. Jeremy Griffus joins us again for a day of experimenting and fun! Ms. Jeannie Connolly will also be here to help students create lanterns they can bring to the Peterborough Lantern Walk in December! We will need volunteers to help with set up, supervision and support during activities and clean up! If you're interested in volunteering please email Karen Paul at kpaul@conval.edu.
11/23-11/25/22: NO SCHOOL! Thanksgiving Break
11/28-12/2/22: Special: Health/PE with Mrs. Parker. Don't forget your sneakers!
12/5-12/9/22: Special: Art with Mr. Shapiro
12/7/22: GES PTO Meeting at 5:30 in the Library. **Childcare will be available for those who need it!*
12/12-12/16/22: Special: Library with Mrs. Aborn
12/19-12/23/22: Special: Health/PE with Mrs. Parker. Don't forget your sneakers!
12/22/22: Solstice Day!
12/26/22-1/2/23: Holiday Break!
GES Nurse's News
If you haven't done so already, please click the following link for the October Nurse Newsletter. Here you will find tips and reminders for sending Halloween treats into school.
https://www.smore.com/bn39h-conval-nurse-newsletter
It is very important to be aware of what food allergies are present in your child's class. If you do choose to send in treats for your student to share with the class, please ensure items are store-bought and individually wrapped, and take time to make sure to avoid any allergens that are present in the classroom. If you have any questions about Halloween celebrations in your child's class and/or food allergies, please reach out to the classroom teacher or myself.
Alaina Slocomb
Fall Fun in First Friends Preschool!
Hello First Friends Families!
We enjoyed a visit with Harris Center educator Jaime today! She taught us all about BATS! We learned about how bats use echo-location and are nocturnal mammals that hunt for food at night! We practiced flying like bats!
We wish to inform you of a change in staff in the preschool classrooms. Moving forward, Tracy will be the paraeducator with Colleen’s class, First Friends 2. Savannah, (who prefers to be referred to as Miss Lee), will be the paraeducator in Trish’s class, First Friends 1. Judy will continue to support students in Trish’s class. Your children are familiar with all of us, as we have shared many learning opportunities together and we also share recess time.
With the addition of the second classroom, it can get confusing at dismissal time. We want to make sure each student goes home with the proper person and says goodbye. Wednesdays, half days, are especially crowded when everyone goes home at the same time. The numbers in each room will also increase as the year goes on, so please note:
Trish’s class meets at the lamp post for arrival and dismissal. We ask that you or whoever is picking up your child come over to the lamp post and we will release your child to you there. The students are aware of this and are doing a great job. They know to wait until you come to them.
Colleen’s class meets at the flagpole for arrival and dismissal and this is helpful for families to differentiate the groups. This is also helpful if Trish or Colleen want to touch base with a parent about something, then they will be easier to locate in the group.
For safety reasons as well, if your child runs to you on the apron, please remind them that they need to go to the meeting spot until you come over. Thank you.
Trish and Colleen
Tracy, Judy and Savannah
Library with Mrs. Aborn
Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs. Aborn
What's Up in Mrs. Hodgen's Kindergarten Class?
During Literacy we practiced grouping pictures and words by their beginning sound and matching them to the correct letters. On Friday, we played a game where we had to match pictures to all of the letters of the alphabet. It was tough but we worked together and finished it as a team! We spent time in LetterLand learning about the letter Mm with Munching Mike.
Read Aloud books this week included Fly Guy Presents Firefighters, The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin, The First Dog, and There’s a Wocket in My Pocket. We also began reading a new chapter book, Ramona the Pest.
Social Studies work this week was all about community helpers. We made a "Can, Have, Are" chart for 3 different community helpers. We talked about how community helpers can help us in our lives.
We talked about being flexible and using a roadmap of our day, to see when there might be changes coming and how sometimes that might feel harder but it is ok and what strategies can help us.
We enjoyed our walking field trip to the library. Thank you to the 2 family members that came to walk with us.
Have a fabulous weekend.
Mrs. Hodgen
First Grade Fun with Mrs. Barnes
We worked with related fact ladders for addition and began to review subtraction, breaking a total number into parts during Math this week. We also began using a number path to count on or count back, to help us solve addition and subtraction problems. This was a tool that many of the students enjoyed learning how to use and many found success using it to help them solve problems.
We worked hard during Literacy! We read words, sentences, phrases, and a short story with short vowels words that reviewed the digraphs ck, ch, and sh. We also wrote words and sentences that reviewed these sounds. These digraph sounds are tricky for reading and spelling and we will review them again next week before moving on to beginning blends. We spent some time reviewing correct letter formation and finished up a writing project from last week too! We identified the characters, settings, and important events in the stories we read this week. We compared and contrasted story elements using the Creepy books about Jasper Rabbit.
We readThe Gingerbread Man Loose on the Fire Truck, Stop, Drop, and Roll, Creepy Carrots, Creepy Pair of Underwear, and Creepy Crayon. We are in the last chapter of The Mouse and the Motorcycle! The boy, Keith, is feeling all better after Ralph found him some medicine. Matt, the bellhop, found the motorcycle in the laundry too!
Science & Social Studies: We finished our study of fire safety for fire prevention week and community helpers.
Our SEL focus had us talking in more detail about the size of a problem and the difference between small problems that can be solved with peers and bigger problems that need adult support to solve.
If you have any questions, please reach out at abarnes@conval.edu.
Have a lovely weekend!
Mrs. Barnes
Mrs. Goodspeed's Second Grade is Seriously Super!
We finally finished our measurement unit and jumped right into our place value unit in Math. We have been practicing counting up and down by tens off the decade (count by tens starting at 6. Count back by tens from 124). Today we practiced a strategy for adding on. We put 124 in our heads and used place value blocks to count up to 220. Some of us started by adding 6 ones to make a friendly decade while others started by adding tens until they reached 214, and then added ones. I’m looking forward to exploring place value more!
This week in Literacy we talked more about character traits and story elements. We read two stories about the same characters and noticed character traits that were repeated in each story. We worked on long A and long I with the silent e spelling pattern this week.
This week we had our final Cornucopia lesson and it was really great to have so many families join us. Thank you for coming! We also started to learn about the planets. We will dive in deeper next week!
We are working hard on being a problem solver and identifying the size of the problem to decide whether or not we need an adult's help.
Read Alouds this week included Strega Nona, Strega Nona’s Magic Lessons, The Planets, and Charlotte’s Web.
If you have any questions please reach out at egoodspeed@conval.edu.
Have a super weekend!
Mrs. Goodspeed
Overheard in Third with Ms. Heard!
This week in Math we made our number lines with 100 beads. Our bead strings helped us see how we can use an open number line add and subtract. Next week we are going to learn 2 other strategies to add, partial sums and the standard algorithm.
In writing this week we learned sentence stems to use in an opinion paragraph. Students started to write a paragraph about supporting winter as the best season. In literacy we started reading about the different bones in the human body. We are practicing finding details that support a given main idea.
In Science we learned about 4 different types of clouds and how they can help us predict what weather might be coming our way. We also used cotton balls and shaving cream puffy paint to make examples of our 4 cloud types. Today we made “stained glass” rain drops! They are beautiful!
This week we started talking about growth mindset as part of our SEL work. We discussed how boring easy games are and how challenges help our brains grow.
We are enjoying reading The Witches together!
Feel free to reach out with any questions at rheard@conval.edu.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Ms. Heard
What's Cookin' in Mrs. Cook's Fourth Grade?
We have finished our second section, chap. 6-10, in Because of Winn-Dixie. We worked on exploring the dictionary to find vocabulary words from our book. We also summarized this section by breaking apart the facts of the chapters. Students did a really great job demonstrating what it means to summarize, and what is important to know and what is not. In writing this week, we have been working on Opinion writing, and what it means to have an opinion. Students are working to expand their vocabulary in their writing, and demonstrate opinions as a group and in their personal writing.
We took a walk to the Greenfield Town Library, where we learned a little bit about what is available to students who live here in Greenfield. All families are eligible for a free library card, you just need to stop by the library to sign up!
During Social Studies we started to learn about the state of New Hampshire, and the 7 regions of the state that are popular for tourism. We looked at popular natural and historical landmarks such as the Old Man of the Mountain, the Flume Gorge, Strawberry Banke and Mount Monadnock. We also started looking at the counties of NH, which are different from the regions. We are diving deep into the populations of NH counties and how they compare.
Our SEL focus for the week had 4th graders talking about what it means to work as a team as we started our pumpkin decorations. Students all have great ideas and learning to work together and listen to each other's ideas can be challenging, but it's important to give each other respect.
We ended our week reading Halloween and Fall themed books to our first grade Reading Buddies on Friday afternoon outside in the warm sun! We had a SPOOK-tacular time together!
If you have any questions, please reach out at mcook@conval.edu.
Have a stupendous weekend!
Mrs. Cook
Classroom Counseling with Mrs. Lofstedt
For more information about my counseling program, please visit my website at https://sites.google.com/conval.edu/lofstedt/home
1st Grade and 3rd Grade: We began our bullying prevention curriculum this week with a lesson about how to recognize bullying. Students learned the definition of bullying, the types of bullying, and reviewed a variety of scenarios to determine if they were examples of bullying.
4th Grade: We continued our unit about feelings with a discussion about having more than one feeling at a time and how confusing it can be when those feelings are opposites. We listened to the book “I’m Happy-Sad Today” and students practiced identifying multiple feelings that would be possible as the result of a single situation.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to me via email at vlofstedt@conval.edu.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs. Lofstedt
Local Events and Activities
News from the Souhegan Valley Boys and Girls Club!
We regret to inform families that the SVBGC Before and After School program is not available at this time. The club is actively seeking staff for all their locations, including Greenfield and Antrim, but like many other employers in the region they have been unable to fill these positions. If you are interested in the program, you can place your child on a waitlist. If enough students enroll AND the club can secure staffing, the program may be able to reopen at the Greenfield location. Registration information can be found on the Club’s website www.svbgc.org If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact Catherine Kendall at ckendall@svgbc.org.
2022-2023 Calendar
Resources
Where to find ConVal District and GES News!
GES has a facebook page! You can find the link here:
https://www.facebook.com/Greenfield-Elementary-School-532738607668635
The ConVal School District has news blog to serve as a hub for the latest updates, information and news about the district’s schools, students, faculty, events and accomplishments.
The blog, ConValNews.com is integrated into the schools and District’s Facebook and Twitter accounts and will automatically broadcast news blog content onto these platforms, connecting directly with the district community.
With a clean, user-friendly and mobile responsive layout, the news blog allows for easy navigation throughout. It can be accessed on computers, cell phones and tablets. Community members can subscribe and be notified by email when new posts are published.
Parents/guardians, students, staff, and community members should still utilize the district’s main website, Convalsd.net, to access the District-wide calendar of events, contact information, school committee meeting notices and minutes, important documents and notices and to view general information about the district and its schools.
Connect with us!
Email: croy@conval.edu
Website: https://ges.convalsd.net/
Location: 860 Forest Road, Greenfield, NH 03047, USA
Phone: 603-547-3334
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Greenfield-Elementary-School-532738607668635
Twitter: @ges_royc