March 10, 2023
MKG Messenger ~ Eagle Strong!!
The Principal's Office
It was a great week of learning at MKG!!! This week I was able to observe students learning about the Statue of Liberty, counting coins, telling time, and the continent of Asia. I also observed a lesson on how to learn from our mistakes. All of these lessons were engaging and the students and teachers were having fun while learning!!
Reminder: Friday, March 17, 2023 is an Early Release Day
2023 MCAS Testing Schedule:
English Language Arts Grades 3 - 5
Session 1: April 6
Session 2: April 12
Math Grades 3 - 5
Session 1: May 3
Session 2: May 11
Science Grade 5
Session 1: May 16
Session 2: May 18
MARCH Family Resource Information:
IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR INCLEMENT WEATHER: Please clink on the link below for important information regarding the procedures for the delay or cancellation of school.
Staff Spotlight: Miss Gillis: Collegiality, commitment, and a positive attitude are some things that first come to mind when thinking about Ms. Gillis. She is always willing to open her door and share fantastic ideas. Ms. Gillis understands that everyone performs better when we all work together as a team. She is selfless and takes initiative to always impact students and colleagues in positive ways. We are lucky to have Ms.Gillis as part of our MKG family.
** Thank you to DownTown Nutrition for being our sponsor.
Assistant Principal
It has been a great week of teaching and learning at MKG! Students were engaged and participating in terrific assignments around the school. I was able to visit some classrooms and participate in a wonderful discussion about the Sonoran Desert with Mrs. Phillip’s students. In Mrs. Burrow’s room the students were working at learning stations in a variety of activities. Finally, Mrs. Silva and her class were investigating and explaining fractions. It was a great job by all.
A reminder that the clocks are changed this weekend. We Spring ahead as we look forward to warmer temps and more daylight.
Have a great weekend!
Nursing
Healthy Reminders for Illness and School Attendance, from Middleboro Public School Nursing:
As much of the area is experiencing an increase in seasonal illness, Middleborough Public Schools in partnership with our State and Local Public Health Departments would like to share the following healthy reminders: Please:
Practice frequent hand hygiene with soap and water or hand sanitizer.
Cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue, or if a tissue is not available, cover sneezes with an elbow
Open a window, even a few inches to help circulate fresh air when this is an option.
Clean high touch surfaces in your home frequently .
Please keep your child home from school if he/she has:
A temperature of 100.1 F or higher during the previous 24 hours: Students are to be fever free without use of medication for 24 hours before returning to school
Vomiting or diarrhea. Students are to have no vomiting and no diarrhea for 24 hours before returning to school.
Signs or symptoms of flu/Influenza include body aches, chills, headache, fatigue
If your student is ill, please keep your student home from school and please avoid social gatherings. This will help with recovery and reduce the chances of spreading illness to others.
Please contact your pediatrician or healthcare provider if your child needs medical care.
Please notify your School Nurse if your child tests positive for Covid-19 or Influenza. This will help us assess and possibly detect illnesses in others sooner
Please notify your school with any changes in any of your emergency contact phone numbers and/or emails so that we may reach you promptly if your student is ill and needs to be dismissed from school to recover at home. We share your commitment to reducing any chances that children with contagious illness may be exposing others to illness at school.
Thank you.
Resources:
Link to Mass DPH Letter on Staying Healthy this season, from November 1, 2022:
Letter on Staying Healthy This Season from DPH and the Massachusetts Chapter of the AAP (Also Available in Spanish)
MPS District Website, Health services page includes a general list of when to keep your student home: https://www.middleboro.k12.ma.us/Page/5726
Grade 1
We had another fun week of learning, exploring, and playing in first grade! Every morning we have calendar time in first grade. We talk about today’s date, the days of the week, what month it is, what season it is, what the weather is like outside, how many days we have been in school and lots more! We can’t believe we have been in first grade for 115 days! Calendar time is an important part of first grade and the kids really enjoy it!
In reading we continue to work on non-fiction and American symbols! In this unit students are learning that non-fiction texts teach the reader true information about a topic. Students are taking notes to help them remember the new information they have learned. Be sure to ask your first grader which American symbol they studied this week and what facts they have learned!
In math we continue to work on adding tens and ones! We have been focusing on problem solving. When problem solving, we have been writing equations, asking ourselves can we make a ten, should we count by tens or ones, and what strategy works best to solve this problem. The strategies we have been working on are mental math, using the 120 chart, open number line, drawings, and base ten blocks. As students solve problems in different ways they develop flexibility in their problem solving skills. Ask your student what their preferred strategy is!
Just a reminder that next Friday, March 17, 2023 is an early release day. Also, don’t forget to Spring forward this weekend!! Have a great weekend!
Grade 2
Grade Two students have been busy learning about the seven continents during our “Trip Around the World”. We learned about landforms, maps, legends, and diagrams while reading informational books.
The students were assigned an ancestry/country at-home project. Please return the slip letting us know what country you plan on studying, as soon as possible. The project due date is Friday,
March 17, 2023. Have fun working together on this poster project!
In Math, we are working on Adding and Subtracting Within 1,000 Using Models and Strategies.
In Science, we are learning about Earth Science–erosion, weathering, and the work of water.
In ELA, we just started a new unit on Fantasy--stories that could never happen in real life.
Please continue to READ every night for 15 minutes and practice your math facts for fluency!
Together we can make a difference! Thank you for your support!
Grade 3
Our third grade historians are eager to begin learning about the American Revolution. This week, classes are wrapping up their study of the Puritans. In the next few weeks, our exploration of life in the American colonies and Pre-Revolutionary War Boston will begin!
Students will learn to locate the 13 colonies on a map. In addition, they will discover answers to the following questions:
-What is a colony?
-What was life like in the colonies and in Boston before the American Revolutionary War began?
-Why do people rebel or fight for independence?
-How do you support an opinion?
Our third grade historians will learn about important events including The Navigation Act, The Stamp Act, The Sugar Act, The Tea Act, and The Quartering Act.
The following are important vocabulary words you may also want to review with your child: colony, congress, loyalist, patriot, protest, tax, wharf, and revolution.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Grade 4
By fourth grade, students are moving their focus from learning to read and write to learning how to effectively communicate as a writer. Their ideas and sentence structure become more complex as they expand their voice in writing; hopefully realizing that they can sway others with their words.
A really great way to help promote your child’s writing and voice is to have a journal with them. Many times it also works better to do this incognito… Buy a special journal and special pen that you know your child will like. Write a message to them and leave it tucked under their pillow. Make sure your message has a question your child can answer so they have a specific reason to write back. This is a great way to create ongoing communication between you and your child. A bonus… many times you’ll get information in writing you might not get in a face-to-face conversation. :-)
Spring is around the corner, but we urge you to remind your student that the weather is variable. Dressing in layers, and continuing to wear a winter jacket, are encouraged. Also, don’t forget to Spring Ahead Saturday night. We may lose an hour of sleep but will be grateful when it’s still light at 7pm next week!!
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
~ Benjamin Franklin
Grade 5
Fifth grade has been hard at work discovering new things about ecosystems. This week, we had a visit from Park Ranger Mikayla of Acadia National Park in Maine. She taught us about all different species of owls. We learned that owls have unique adaptations - like how their eyes are quite large but they need to move their heads around to have peripheral vision.
Following the virtual field trip on Tuesday, classes dissected owl pellets or the regurgitation of owls. We were able to see the secondary consumers that the owl has preyed upon. Ask your fifth grader what they discovered as they explored their owl pellet in class this week!
We are all getting excited to see Mr. O'Brien's American Revolution Plays at the Colonial Theatre. Check out the progress on their set pieces in the pictures below!
Art News
Happy Friday MKG families! We’ve been having so much fun here in the art room over the last couple of months!
Since the last art newsletter, two more grade levels have had artwork displayed and students chosen as artists of the month. For the month of February, 4th grade artwork was showcased and the students chosen were Sophia Clark, Jack Berard, Damien Adams, Emma Prisco, Cameron Muirhead, Scott Bascom, Ariyah Middleton, Mackenzie O’Conell and Nyelah Yang. March’s 3rd grade artists of the month are Joad Brogna, Xavier Ingram, Natalie Orlando, Chloe Weatherbee, Molly Sherren, Violet Hokanson, Luca Terrasi, Madelynn Kemp, Henry Lambert, and Arthur Silva. Congratulations to all of these artists - keep up the great work!
In first grade, students have been learning some traditions of the Chinese lunar new year and drawing emperor penguins in a cold and snowy landscape. Last month, students created an origami dragon to celebrate the new year. After listening to the story “The Dragon Painter'', we made folds with red paper to create these dragons and then made them come to life with art stixs and tissue paper. The kids loved learning origami and decorating their dragons. Right now we are working on a penguin landscape. We have talked about things you would see in a landscape and that there are many different types.
MKG second graders just finished a lesson inspired by artist Ted Harrison. Ted Harrison is known for his bright and colorful landscapes of the Yukon. Students painted a landscape similar to Ted Harrisons and added a Polar Bear with lots of fur texture. These came out really cute and students loved painting with bright colors to create their landscapes. We are currently learning about positive and negative space in art. Students traced their hand two times and filled in one hand or the positive space with patterns and colors and then filled in the negative space on the opposite side with patterns and colors.