Fiske Monthly News
April 2017
Welcome!
News from The Principal
You may not have heard, however, Lexington Public Schools is in the process of migrating to Gmail as its primary source of E-mail communications. This upcoming change will take place on July 1st.
Some staff may be "early launchers" starting to use the new system early, on May 1st.
You'll be happy to know that our new E-mail addresses will be much shorter, with the user name followed by @lexingtonma.org
If staff members are adopting early, you will know from their new E-mail address showing in the E-mails you get from them. Only use the new address for those staff that are early launchers, and then on July 1st, everyone will begin using the new addresses.
We're excited to be using an integrated system that will work with many other collaboration tools that are offered through Google and G-Suite!
Tree Removal
You may notice that the back of the school looks a bit "emptier". This is due to the removal of the two very large white pine trees that were near the back of the gym and the small parking lot.
I've been watching the two trees over time and noticed that one of them continued to die and have many branches falling, which posed potential safety issues for both students and staff.
After being inspected by a local tree service and the LPS facilities department it was determined that the trees would need to be removed and they took them down over the April break when students were not at school.
Modular Update
Workers have been very busy with the two modular units that arrived back in February. We're hoping that by the end of April, a first coat of pavement will be put down and much of the exterior and interior will be completed. Our expected date for completion is May 15th with some ground work being completed shortly after that! Keep watch for upcoming pictures of the project!
Over the past several years, I have tried several forums for providing information for the greater school community on a variety of topics. My goal has been to be proactive in sharing information about our work at Fiske so that the school community is informed and also so that there is not potentially misinformation that is shared either. It is also a great way to share information to larger groups as opposed to one on one meetings, which I am never opposed to, but may not always be the most efficient in regards to time.
This year, I will be holding "Fiske Focus" meetings once per month from 8:45am to 9:45am. In the past, day meetings were better attended than night, and therefore, I've only scheduled meetings for days during the current school year.
Dates and Topics for Parent Fiske Focus Sessions:
May 19, 2017 8:45-9:45 TBD
June 9, 2017 8:45-9:45 TBD
Each meeting will have a topic or focus that will be shared ahead of time, and time will be devoted to share information about that topic and then a time will be available for questions, comments, or other items that attendees may have questions about.
News from the Assistant Principal
Parental Tips to Help Prepare Your Child for Important Tests
All parents want to see their child(ren) perform well in school. Parents play an important part in helping their children give their best performance on a test. As you know the MCAS Tests are upon us. The dates of each test and the grade level participating can be found on the Fiske School Website. The ideas presented below may serve as a guideline for parents when helping their child(ren) prepare for important tests.
The night before:
Help your children get to bed on time. Research shows that being well rested
helps students to perform better.
Help children resolve immediate arguments before going to bed.
Keep your routine as normal as possible. Upsetting natural routines may
make children feel insecure.
You can mention the test to show you’re interested, but don’t dwell on it.
Plan ahead to avoid conflicts on the morning of the test.
The morning of the test:
Get up early to avoid rushing. Be sure to have your child at school on time – 8:30.
Have your child eat a good breakfast but not a heavy one. Research shows that students do better if they have breakfast before they take tests.
Have your child dress in something comfortable.
Be positive about the test. Acknowledge that tests can be hard and that they’re designed so that no one will know all of the answers. Explain that doing your best is what counts. The important thing is to make your child comfortable and confident about the test.
After the test:
Talk to your child about his or her feelings about the test, making sure you acknowledge the effort such a task requires.
Discuss what was easy and what was hard; discuss what your child learned from the test.
Discuss what changes your child would make if he or she were to retake the test.
Explain that performance on a test is not a condition for you to love your child. You love your child just for the person he or she is.
The administration and staff of Fiske School are very proud of the hard work and dedication that each and every member of our student body puts into his/her schoolwork and testing each and everyday. We have no doubt that each student will do his or her very best. We thank you in advance for all of your help in preparing your child(ren) to be as successful as possible.
Sincerely,
Mr. Baker
Kindergarten News
Life Cycles
The kindergarten classrooms were surely the most exciting places to be in Fiske School during the month of April! Each classroom hatched and cared for baby chicks. The science unit began upon the arrival of 12 chick eggs per classroom. The children learned that we used the incubators to do the hens’ job: to keep the eggs warm (100º F) for 21 days. Every day we read books and discussed the development of the chicks. We counted down the days with a paper chain, and examined a poster that illustrated what the chicks should look like each day during their development.
We “candled” the eggs as the chicks were developing inside the eggs. This means that we put a flashlight up against the egg in a dark room (the bathroom!) to see the shadows inside the egg. We were able to see the chick’s shadow, the chick’s movement, the air space inside the egg, and veins! It was amazing.
Finally, after 20 and 21 days inside the incubators, some of our baby chicks hatched! The children could see how wet and exhausted the chicks were after all of their hard work!
The children helped care for the chicks by providing grain and water, keeping the lamp on for heat, and giving them plenty of love and affection! After spending a few days with the children, they were ready to go back to Drumlin Farm.
Throughout the unit, the children wrote and drew illustrations of what they were observing and learning in their chick journals. This journal is sure to be a keepsake of a wonderful kindergarten memory!
Next month, we anticipate the visit of an educator from Drumlin Farm. They bring oviparous animals and a variety of eggs for the children to observe and learn about. The children enjoy learning about habitats and about how we can help preserve endangered animals.
Thank you to the PTO for funding Drumlin Farm’s visit!
Grade One News
The first graders have been working really hard on their opinion/persuasive pieces. They are learning how to be really convincing by using sparkly words, having lots of reasons and examples, and to include recommendations. The children have created letters and advertisements to showcase their convincing opinions. After opinion writing, the first graders are starting our Realistic Fiction unit! This unit will explore writing fiction stories that could actually happen in real life.
During reading, the children have been diving deeper into nonfiction texts. Some of the skills they have been working on are fluency, using strategies to solve difficult words, and checking for understanding by retelling what they learned. They have also been busy reading and sharing their nonfiction books with their partners.
Marvelous Math:
The first graders have been working on a creative problem called the Double Decker Bus. The double decker bus has two decks with 10 seats on them and the children explore with the different possible arrangements of the passengers. For example, if there are 7 passengers on the bus, there could be 5 passengers on the top and 2 on the bottom, or there could be 1 on the top and 6 on the bottom. This helps students with decomposition of numbers and their different combinations. Knowing the combinations of numbers helps build fact fluency.
Social Studies:
The first graders are busy practicing for the American Symbols performance! They are learning the songs and practicing their lines. We love American symbols! Ask your child what their favorite symbol is! It might be the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell, the White House, the American Flag, or the Bald Eagle. There are so many amazing American symbols to choose from! We hope to see you at our performance on Thursday, May 25th at 9AM.
Grade Two News
April Showers bring Bright Learners…. Especially in 2nd Grade!
Spring is bringing with it a deluge of learning opportunities for eager learners in the form of exciting units of study. From arrays, multiplication and graphing data to partner series book club reading and writing gripping fiction stories. We will be keeping ourselves very busy over the next few weeks.
In our next MATH UNIT will discover the relationship between repeated addition and multiplication. We will also touch upon using the concept of halves to show division. Collection of data to be represented in bar and pictographs is another skill we will be working on as well.
WRITING GRIPPING FICTIONAL NARRATIVES is one of the children’s favorite types of writing, as well as mine. They will be creating fiction stories where their imagination can take flight. We will spend the month of April learning how to write this style while staying focused on the structure of the story itself.
As book club members, READING SERIES BOOKS, students will learn that series books have predictable characters and patterns. They will notice how books within a series can be compared and contrasted many ways. Students will also see how authors use craft moves to convey special meaning.
Towards the end of the month we will begin our final SCIENCE UNIT: Nature’s Partners. Here students will learn that the Earth supports a wide diversity of life, and that all living things depend on their surroundings and other living things to get food, air, space, water, and shelter in order to grow and reproduce. They will also get to see how Interactions between plants and animals change during their life cycles.
Please continue to read at home with your students and/or make your students are reading at least 15 minutes every day. Continue asking questions about their current book or passage i.e.
What is the setting of this story?
Why do you think the author wrote this book?
To persuade, inform or entertain the reader.
What is the main idea?
What are the details?
Along with curriculum units, 2nd grade is continuing to learn routines that will help us as we move through the grades and become independent learners. Morning and afternoon expectations help us remember things we need to do each day and prepare us for our lessons or to go home for our afternoon activities.
One final thought on these rainy days of spring please remind your children of dressing for the weather and checking that they have all the clothing and shoes they came to school with. Feel free to come in with them to check our lost and found.
Grade Three News
Math
The third grade is currently focusing on Place Value and Operations. This unit teaches and reinforces concepts essential for multistep and multi-digit problem solving. We expect that the children will use all four operations (+, -, x, /) to solve problems accurately. We will be rounding numbers to the nearest 10 or 100 in order to estimate answers to math problems Our students have been practicing the following step-by-step process for solving multi-step word problems:
1) Read the problem.
2) Retell the word problem in your own words.
3) Underline the question you need to answer.
4) Circle the unit that needs to be included in your answer.
5) Write a number sentence that matches the number story. Draw an empty box for the unknown.
6) Solve the problem. Fill in the empty box with the missing value.
7) Answer the question with the correct unit labeled.
8) Reread the question to be sure you answered the right question, and check that the answer makes sense.
With practice, we hope the students will internalize these steps and use them with automaticity with every word problem!
Our next unit is Geometry. The children will be exploring and discovering important attributes that define various geometric shapes. They will review and learn essential vocabulary such as: angle, vertex, side, quadrilateral, quadrangle, regular polygon, parallel, parallelogram, perpendicular, square angle, right angle, face, base, area, perimeter.
Writer’s Workshop- Literary Essays
The focus of this unit is for the students to be able to write an essay that gives an opinion about a piece of literature and be able to back up that opinion with reasons and evidence from the text. This challenging unit lays the foundation for students to be able to defend claims in writing by using examples from texts and real life experiences. Much of this unit will focus on teacher led read alouds which cause children to think critically about texts. We will focus on sections of texts that cause strong personal feelings and choices that characters make.
The next writing unit is “Fairy Tales” where we will adapt and write our own fairy tales. The children can’t wait for this unit!
Readers’ Workshop
“Research Clubs” is the focus of our current unit. During this unit students have the opportunity to research, in a small group, different animals. Animals might include spiders, sharks, penguins, frogs, snakes or wolves. We will focus on activating background knowledge and integrating what we think we know about our animal with the new information we collect. With our partners, we will synthesize information from multiple resources to find the main ideas and details to support our main ideas. We will have to reason and think critically when we find contradictory information. We will work on summarizing our information in order to present our research to our peers.
Children are very excited to work in their animal groups!
MCAS Reminder
On Tuesday April 25, Wednesday April 26 and Friday April 28 the 3rd graders will be taking the English Language Arts sections of the MCAS test. On Tuesday May 9 and Wednesday May 10 3rd graders will take the Mathematics portions of the MCAS test. You can help by encouraging your child to do his/her best work and not to worry about the test.
Thank you for your support!
Grade Four News
Like flowers in spring, our fourth graders continue to develop and grow. We look forward to meeting with you during our upcoming spring conferences to discuss your child’s growth and progress thus far in the school year.
April not only brings spring showers, but MCAS as well. Our fourth graders will soon be taking their English Language Arts MCAS 2.0 computer-based testing. Throughout the school year we focus on how reading is thinking, and our goal is to help our students think deeply about text. During Reader’s Workshop, students have developed reading strategies such as visualizing, making connections, making inferences, and predicting. To help prepare our students for testing, the students analyzed exemplars, and practiced various test-taking skills to enhance their performance. Our final round of MCAS will focus on mathematics and is scheduled for early May.
Our fourth grade mathematicians have been engaged in a Context for Learning unit on fractions involving real-life scenarios. Working collaboratively, students have been investigating fractions and are exploring the concepts of landmark unit fractions or common fractions, ordering and comparing fractions, forming equivalent fractions, and adding, subtracting, and multiplying fractions. Ask your child to share what he/she learned during our Field Trips and Fundraisers unit! In addition, things have been shaping up nicely in fourth grade as we’ve been learning about symmetry, 2-dimensional shapes and their properties, and how to draw, measure, and identify angles.
We also recently enjoyed a special presentation from our friends at the Museum of Science. Our fourth graders reinforced their understanding of behavioral and physical adaptations by observing animals and their adaptations first hand. As more and more animals emerge from their winter torpor and hibernation, keep an eye out for all of the amazing adaptations around us!
Grade Five News
Reading - Allison (Editor- Albert) Mrs. Belletti’s class
As well as reading independently, we have recently finished our book groups and have began to start preparing for our Fiction Book Ads. We can take notes on our Book Ad book during independent reading, or read any book of our choice. Our class library offers a huge selection of many genres, and books. We’ve been doing a lot of reading and researching for our latest argumentative writing piece too!
Writing- Kira (Editor- Indra)Mrs. Belletti’s class
During this unit, we are learning about opinion writing. Each student got the chance to express their opinion on one out of four topics. You could choose, Should animals be kept in zoos as a topic, Are extreme sports worth the risk, Should people be more focused on underwater exploration or outer space exploration, or should we ban bottled water and plastic bags as a topic. If you choose Should animals be kept in zoos- for example- everyone who also chose that topic, is a group. After research about the cause we start to develop an outline. An outline is a plan to help you when you start your draft. And then after that, kids express their feelings and ideas of the argument, and write about it.
Argumentative Reading/Writing - Chad, Samuel, Tasneem, & Abigail (Ms. Gavrin’s class)
YES! NO! YES! NO! MAYBE SO? Arguments are everywhere in the fifth grade classrooms during reading and writing! Each student has chosen one of the following topics:
-space exploration VS ocean exploration: which is more important?
-plastic bags: friend ... or foe?
-Extreme sports: safe ... or sorry?
-zoos: are good ... or not?
We have watched videos, read articles, and discussed with our peers all to decide which side we were going to argue for. After all the research, we put together all our knowledge to write an article on what we believed, and then debated with our fellow classmates. “We are all very proud of our hard work!” says Abigail.
Math- Juliana (Editor-Eve) Mrs. Belletti’s Class
In math we have just started learning about exponents. We just finished learning about whole number exponents, and we are going to learn the negative ones. So far, they seem fun and easy! (Especially with the calculator)
The units that we already finished are Variables, Equivalent Fractions, Area and Perimeter which we just finished, Geometry, Multiplication and Division of Fractions and Whole Numbers.
Science - Hannah K. & Charlotte, Mrs. McMahon’s room
For the past few weeks in science, we’ve been studying our ecocolumns. Inside the ecocolumns, we have an aquarium on the bottom and a terrarium on the top. All of the students in our classroom have been recording data in their science binders. The class has put in lots of different organisms such as, fish, elodea, duckweed, algae, snails, water, gravel, sow bugs, soil, grasshoppers, mustard seeds, and gravel. Later on, the groups put pollutants into the ecocolumns. Some groups put in vinegar to represent acid rain and what harm it does to nature. In addition, another group put in salt to represent the salt that workers put on the road for ice. Lastly, another group put in fertilizer. The ecocolumns represent the earth, and how the environment is affected by these pollutants. The ecocolumns helped us understand how the world works.
Specialist News
Counseling News
Girls and Their Frenemies
By Linda Stade
In schools we talk constantly about protecting girls from harm. We teach them about paedophiles, on-line grooming, sexting, and the harm caused by drug and alcohol use. In reality, the more likely destructive influence on an adolescent girl’s day to day life is the damage they do to one another in their friendship groups…Relational aggression.
Relational aggression is the psychologist’s name for what the rest of us call ‘mean girls’ behaviour, or straight up ‘bitchiness’. It is a pattern of behaviour typically played out by school age girls, but it is not exclusive to them. In fact, where do they learn it if not from their adult role models? Adults are just more subtle about it.
Chances are, you’ve experienced relational aggression. You know it when it happens to you. It’s an emotional slap in the face and you often feel a sense of shame and confusion. What distinguishes relational aggression from just being mean, is that it focuses on damaging a person’s sense of social place. I see it as using relationships as weapons.
Relational aggression may include:
Exclusion
Gossip
The silent treatment
Belittling (Often hidden behind the expression ‘just joking’)
Conditional friendship
The first four are self-explanatory, but ‘conditional friendship’ is more difficult. The child knows there are unspoken rules about behaviour and ‘going along’ with the group. It is why many lovely girls behave very poorly. Inclusion is incredibly important to their developing psyche and they will do anything to remain within the inner circle.
Relational aggression is about power and exclusion and it can be very destructive. It has nothing to do with friendship, yet many people see it as a normal aspect of young girls’ relationships. It has become normalised and it shouldn’t be. The terminology around it is often softened. It is referred to in schools as ‘friendship issues’, and in society we say things like, “That’s just girls”.
Why does it happen?
Part of being an adolescent is finding your place in social networks. Your peers become incredibly important and there is less focus on parents and significant adults. As a result, impressing and belonging become very important. Traditionally boys have achieved this pecking order with physical strength and humour. Girls use their communication and interpersonal skills.
Girls learn from a very young age that when you create exclusion you create inclusion. And if you can knock someone else off balance emotionally, it defines you as balanced. It is an interesting, if not disturbing, phenomena to watch in a school yard. From the cliques of socially elite ‘it’ girls to the mixed mob of outsiders, there is a power dynamic constantly at play. None of this has anything to do with friendship. Hence the creation of the term ‘frenemies’.
Another feature of this form of aggression is that most kids get a turn. You can be in the inner circle one day and then for no apparent reason, on the outer the next. Groups also work in formation with one another. If a child has been frozen out of one social group, they are unlikely to be accepted by another. It’s like watching a sick game of pinball with a confused hurt child being bounced from one group to another, deflected at every turn until it is their turn to be re-embraced by the ‘friendship group’.
Santa Maria College psychologist, Jane Carmignani, says that kids often know that what is happening is wrong, but they don’t have the language and confidence to stop it, even when they are the one being the mean girl. She says that in her office, girls will tell her about their mean behaviour and show remorse for it. So why do they keep going? The need to be mean comes from a place of fear, fear of not belonging or not being good enough.
This is not to say that girls don’t have genuine friendships, they do. Some kids are lucky enough and emotionally literate enough to enjoy relationships with genuine understanding, and empathy. They support one another and spend time sharing common interests. In my experience these kids are usually involved in a lot of sport, have varied interests and are exposed to a lot of different people of varying ages. The focus is on participating and being involved. However, even these kids come face to face with relational aggression from time to time.
How is it managed?
Relational aggression is incredibly difficult to manage in a school. It is hard to see, it’s covert, often innocuous looking, and kids will deny it. It is very frustrating when a girl is being charming to you and you know that she is deeply upsetting another child.
Sometimes she will lie to your face so often that she starts to believe the lie herself. A simple example is a girl posting an embarrassing photo of a ‘friend’ on Instagram or Snapchat. When confronted about it she will say, “But I thought she looked pretty”. Where do you go with that?
Making girls feel personally responsible is about the most effective technique that is used in schools. If the girls can sit with a psychologist or suitably equipped adult, as a group, and discuss what is happening and how it is making each person feel there is a chance that it can be resolved. If not the cycle just keeps on going.
How can parents help?
It isn’t all hopeless. This is learned behaviour and learned behaviour can often be unlearned. But there are commitments that need to be made by parents. We need to:
Make friendship cool. Modelling by adults is the most powerful way of doing that. Talk about the great qualities of your friends to your kids. Too often we niggle at our friends’ weaknesses instead of verbally celebrating their greatness.
Explicitly teach kindness, compassion and empathy. We know kids have the capacity for these qualities. They are often evident at home or with people of different ages, but they are not being engaged in their relationships with peers.
Explicitly teach emotional intelligence. Help kids recognise who is loyal and who is safe. Talk to them about relational aggression. They should be able to recognise it and name it.
Teach kids to be:Upstanders –These are people who stand up for victims. It’s been proven that if you can stand up to a bully for 8 seconds, they are likely to back down. Some kids are stronger than others. We need to make it cool to be strong and able to defend others.
Distracters – It is important that kids be able to recognise when a mean moment is coming and distract participants away from it. It’s a skill that adults eventually learn themselves, but if kids are given instruction on how to do this it can be learnt more quickly.
Supporters – Kids can be encouraged to do something as small as make eye contact with a victim while aggression is happening. That shows the victim that the behaviour is seen and acknowledged. It makes the victim seen and acknowledged. They aren’t alone.
Carefully manage on-line activity. A lot of relational aggression happens out of school hours, in cyberspace. Kids need a break from their friendship groups.
Create opportunities for children to meet lots of new people outside of school and get to know them well. I love sport for this reason and many more. Team mates are people you have to understand and communicate with. Assumptions about people get tested.
Please…. Never say, “That’s just girls”, or “boys will be boys” for that matter. We can be better than that. Or at least we can try.
Art News
Mrs. O’Leary, Ms. O’Connor and Miss Walker
Here are just some highlights of the projects we have been working on during art now and through April vacation:
Grade K – We created Kufi African Crowns last week, using line, texture and symbol drawing. We formed, coiled and painted our clay pots. We will create our versions of “peeps” in an environment. We will soon be starting “My Art Book”. The activities in this book are a review of all things we’ve learned this year.
Grade 1 – We sculpted owls from clay using slab, texture slip and score. We are designing Karp kites inspired by Asia. Soon we will create spring flowers. Then on to a group project - Funny things are everywhere emphasizing line, texture, details, cooperation and imagination.
Grade 2 – We will be looking at the work of Georgia O’Keeffe and creating a “bugs eye” view of a close up flower. We will create the ultimate dream house, inspired by the Taj Mahal.
Grade 3 – Our Mardi Gras masks are complete. We just sculpted cupcakes from clay, using the coiling and pinching techniques. We will then move on to a 3D self-portrait, of what we want to be when we grow up.
Grade 4 – We will soon design a planet/zodiac symbol project, inspired by the artist Paul Klee. We just completed our Mexican clay food. We will then work on another Mexican inspired piece, similar to the work we did with visiting artist, Giles LaRoche.
Grade 5 – Students have looked at the work of African American Artist, Romare Bearden and Faith Ringgold. Both are masters of collage and the use of pattern. Students are designing a story quilt square done in collage. They must have themselves in the square’s foreground. We will also be working on how to draw three dimensionally using shadow. Soon we will look at the work of Artists and interpret their work through our own.
Ask your child what they do in art each week because many times our projects are carried over to the next week or two.
This year’s Art Show will be held @ Central Office, TBD. Look for an invitation and email shortly. Even if your child does not have a piece in the show, it is a great opportunity to see all the artwork created system-wide, K-12.
Attention knitters and anyone with left over yarn: We could use your unwanted yarn for weaving projects. We are also in need of recycled materials: clear egg cartons, yogurt containers, plastic take out containers, magazines, old calendars, gift wrap, paper towel tubes, ribbon, tissues, wipes and hand soap.
ELL News
Our students did a wonderful job writing about courage and their work can be seen published on the wall on the first floor in the second grade pod. We are proud of how they shared their examples of courage in pictures and in writing! This month in our kindergarten classes we are studying farm animals to get ready for the chicks to hatch. We are singing songs about animals and reading lots of books about animals as we focus on our sight words. In our first grade classes, we are studying about living and nonliving things. We are reading stories, singing songs, and writing about how we know when something is alive. In our second grade classes students are reading about how they can “lend a hand” to others in school and at home. Students are learning through stories like “The Lion and the Mouse” about character traits. Students are discussing and writing about their responsibilities. In the third grade classes, students are learning about states of matter and acquiring lots of new scientific vocabulary terms. In the fourth grade class, students are finishing writing their essays about courage and working on math vocabulary journals.
In all of our ELL classes, we are teaching students that they can learn from one another through academic conversations. Ask your child about how they have an academic conversation with their peers!
PE News
Greetings from the gym,
Grades K-2 have been giving awesome effort in their fitness development portion of class! I have seen lots of rosy cheeks exiting P.E. class. They have also been busy playing fun games such as Sticky Pinnie, Rollee Pollee and Pinball. Grades 3-5 have been hard at work during their FITNESSgram unit. I applaud their best effort and I have been amazed at the results. Spring is just around the corner, so start thinking about your favorite outdoor activities and keep being physically active!!!
Music News
News from the Music Room
Performance dates are set for the 2016/2017 school year:
Fifth Grade Chorus/Band/Strings:
Wednesday, June 7, at 9 am and 7 pm in the Fiske Gym
Third Grade Recorder "Informance": Thursday, June 1, at 11:30 am in the Fiske Gym
Fourth Grade "Informance": Thursday, May 18, at 11:30 am in the Fiske Gym.
Here are some of the things you might see and hear if you looked into the music room this month:
Kindergarden: Family Folk Songs, Doggy Doggy (in the chair), and Bow Wow Wow.
First Grade: Willum and His Seven Sons, Go All Around the Village, and Bunnies!
Second Grade: Learning about accents, and the Funniest Joke in the World.
Third Grade: Recorder concert June 1st!
Fourth Grade: Our concert is May 18th!
Fifth Grade: Kazoo madness and creating movement sentences.
Thanks from Mr. Hart and Mrs. Larson
Library News
Kindergarten: We completed our study of author and illustrator Jan Brett with a visit to her amazing website: www.janbrett.com. This month we are reading variations of the folktale Little Red Hen, including Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza and Little Red Hen and the Passover Matzah.
First Grade: With so many wiggly teeth, we have been enjoying tooth traditions in different cultures with I Lost My Tooth in Africa and Tooth Mouse. Students have been asking their parents and other adults what they did when they lost their own baby teeth and we’ve had some very interesting discussions!
Second and Third Grades: Did you know your child has access to many online encyclopedias through the Databases link on the Library home page? If you are interested in home access, have your child ask for the At Home Passwords handout, available in the Fiske Library. There is a world of knowledge right at your fingertips at http://lps.lexingtonma.org/domain/910 and click on Databases on the left of the page.
Fourth Grade: We are embarking on a study of tall tales, a uniquely American form of folk tale, to coincide with the fourth grade social studies unit, Regions of the United States. We have read many tall tales re-told and illustrated by Steven Kellogg, including Johnny Appleseed, Mike Fink, and Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett.
Fifth Grade: For the last several weeks, fifth graders have been learning to evaluate websites using the C.A.R.T method that they will use in middle school. We have been critically reviewing websites to determine if they are Current, Accessible, Relevant, and Trustworthy. To get more information about this unit, check out the LibGuide the students used: http://lps-lexingtonma.libguides.com/websiteevalresources .
Math News
Each month I share a few resources for you to use at home with your child.
Math Fun with Shapes: What do you notice? What do you wonder? What if the shape is worth $100, how much is each piece worth?
Have a discussion with your child about your noticings and wonderings. What math could you explore with this image? Or check out more images to prompt discussions at http://www.101qs.com/3585-right-triangles--trapezoids
Here’s a great video about 4 Important Messages around Learning and Doing Mathematics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxrPy1fjVU4&feature=youtu.be
We want to encourage the creativity, the flexibility, and the fun in math! We encourage you to play games with your child to encourage problem solving and puzzling! Our goal is to grow curious, thoughtful, reflective, creative, flexible thinkers!
Literacy News
April is Poetry Month!
Click on the titles below and enjoy reading poetry with your child.
Please join the Fiske School for Literacy and Poetry Night
April 6, 2017 from 6:30pm-8:00pm.
Each child will go home with a new book!!!!
Hope to see you all there!
Be Glad Your Nose Is on Your Face by Jack Prelutsky
Be glad your nose is on your face,
not pasted on some other place,...
Bleezer’s Ice Cream by Jack Prelutsky
I am Ebenezer Bleezer,
I run BLEEZER’S ICE CREAM STORE,...
White sheep, white sheep,
On a blue hill,...
Dream Variations by Langston Hughes
To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,...
Eletelephony by Laura Elizabeth Richards
Once there was an elephant,
Who tried to use the telephant—…
maggie and milly and molly and may by E. E. Cummings
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)...
Health Office News
SPRING is here!
After a long cold winter, we have to deal with allergy season. Trees and flowers are blooming and pollen is wafting through the air. Sneezing, stuffy noses or itching, burning eyes make it difficult to concentrate on learning and there is little a nurse can do to alleviate the symptoms other than cool compresses to eyes and reassurance.
If your child has symptoms of allergic reaction that you treat with any medication, either prescription or over the counter medicine, it might be helpful if the medication is available during school hours. This will require both a doctor’s order and a signed parental permission. This is true for eye drops, nasal sprays and any other allergy medicines.
Please keep your child home if your child has had any of the following:
*Fever of 100F (37.8C) in the past 24 hours
*A fever accompanied by any one of the following: cough, runny nose or sore throat
*Your child has needed Tylenol or Ibuprofen to control fever for the past 24 hours *Strep throat , if awaiting culture results of less than 24 hours of antibiotic treatment
*Vomiting or diarrhea in the past 24 hours
*An undiagnosed rash accompanied by an elevated temperature
Tips for managing a sick child at home
* please keep your child home until no fever (off Tylenol/Ibuprofen) for 24 hours *Use a thermometer to accurately measure body temperature, (not the back of your hand)
*Children do not usually wake with a headache, if your child wakes with a headache, a fever may be present, please check temperature
*Avoid sending your child to school after administering a dose of Tylenol or Ibuprofen
“to get through the day”. Children are poor learners when they are ill
Please contact me with any questions. Thank you. Enjoy the nice weather!
Claire O’Connell RN
781-541-5007
Fiske Elementary School
Email: tmartellone@sch.ci.lexington.ma.us
Website: http://lps.lexingtonma.org/Domain/12
Location: 55 Adams Street, Lexington, MA, United States
Phone: (781) 541-5001
Twitter: @fiskeschool