Middlebrook Lion's Link
Linking Our School To Our Community January 7, 2022
WEEKLY NEWS
Delayed Opening Hours:
1 ½ hour Delay – 10: 05 AM – 3:20 PM
2 hour Delay – 10:35 AM – 3:20 PM
2 ½ hour Delay – 11:05 AM – 3:20 PM
Early Dismissal Hours:
8:35 AM – 1:00 PM
I hope that you had a wonderful holiday break spent with family and friends while setting new goals and resolutions. May the celebrations of the New Year fill into your life the happiness and smiles on your children. Wishing you success, joys and peace in this upcoming year.
"Happy New Year 2022.”
“Celebrate what you want to see more of.”-Tom Peters
Upcoming Events:
January 10th
PTA Meeting 7:00pm school cafeteria
January 11th
BOE meeting 7:00pm
January 13th
BOE Meeting 7:00pm
January 18th - January 21st
Student Council Winter Drive - collecting socks, hats and mittens for the Bridgeport Rescue Mission
January 27th
School Store - Day change to Thursday!
District Health Update
The district is making the following changes based on new guidance from the Connecticut Department of Health:
- We are shifting our time toward “identification, early isolation, and clinical management of students and staff with active symptoms” and no longer conducting contact tracing investigations in our schools.
- If your child was a close contact of someone with COVID outside of school, please follow the quarantine timelines and procedures at https://www.trumbullps.org/Attachments/covid/2021/ContactTracing12-31-21.pdf
- We will continue to update our COVID dashboard each day so our community is well informed. In addition, each building principal will send a communication on any school day that they become aware of a positive case that resulted in a school based exposure. The letter will indicate the number of positive cases of students by grade level and will include any adult positive cases.
- As it relates to student and staff quarantine length, we will follow the guidelines provided in the DPH Letter. In general, quarantine lengths are being reduced to five (5) days for individuals who test positive for COVID, as long as the individual has been fever free for at least 24 hours and other symptoms are significantly improved.
- If a child is sent home from school due to symptoms consistent with COVID, then we will assume the child has COVID and follow the quarantine timeline at https://www.trumbullps.org/Attachments/covid/2021/ContactTracing12-31-21.pdf unless the school nurse receives a negative test result (PCR, antigen, home test) for the child. Again, we appreciate that the DPH is allowing PK-12 schools to utilize the new CDC guidance regarding lengths of quarantine. It will be important that we all monitor our symptoms and avoid work and school if we are sick. If your child is home isolating due to a positive test for COVID we will mark the absence as “Quarantine Excused” and we will continue to follow our established “Learning in Quarantine” process that we have been following all year long.
All students, staff and visitors are required to wear a mask. Also, we will continue to practice hand washing, the use of hand sanitizer and the importance of social distancing when feasible.
Dr. Semmel's Letter dated 1/6/2022
News from the Kindergarten Team
In Kindergarten, we are working on our superpower reading strategies. At home, the children should be pointing to the words while they are reading, looking at the pictures for context clues, and saying the beginning sound when they are stuck on a word.
In writing, we are completing our narrative unit. When writing words we don’t know how to spell, we write down each sound that we hear. Our pictures and words tell a story to our reader!
In science, we are working with our school librarian, Mrs. Balzano, on our push, pull, go unit of study to learn about force and motion. This week we built spin tops!
Currently in social studies, we continue to review and discuss family traditions.
Finally, in math we are using ourselves and our number cards to build number lines! We practice counting forward and backward using our number lines
Science with Mrs. Collins and Mrs. Balzano
Science with Mrs. Collins and Mrs. Balzano
Math time with Mrs. Thomas
News from the 3rd Grade Team
Grade 3 students kicked off the New Year discussing resolutions, and goals they want to achieve for 2022. Students thought of school, home, and personal goals to work towards for this year. Trying to stick to our goals and follow through takes hard work and dedication! Grade 3 students are up for the challenge.
Prior to leaving for winter break, we began discussing opinion writing. We wrote paragraphs about things we were thankful for, our favorite seasons, and our favorite holidays. Students learned how to write a lead, a strong topic sentence, two reasons why they felt strongly about their opinion with evidence, and ended with a closing sentence. Students are currently working on writing opinion essays for Trimester 2!
Our reading unit focused on mysteries and the elements of a mystery book. We read mysteries aloud and independently. The entire third grade solved the “Mystery in the Library” at the start of the unit. We have some amazing detectives roaming the halls of C-Wing!
Ms. Schaefer's 4th Graders!
Students in Ms. Schaefer’s fourth grade class learned about SMART goals (specific, measure able, attainable, relevant, time-based), and worked with partners to create their own SMART goal for the new year. Partners will help keep each other accountable for these goals as the month progresses.
We thank you for your continued support for our work at Middlebrook School! As always, if you have any questions, concerns, or good news to share, please feel free to email me at dponte@trumbullps.org or contact me at school at 203-452-4411.
Warmly,
~Debbie Ponte
Volunteer Forms
Parents,
We welcome limited volunteering this school year, but you must complete the Volunteer Form, link below. Please make sure every blank is filled in, use N/A where necessary.
https://www.trumbullps.org/Attachments/boe/volunteerforms201920.pdf
Middlebrook School
Email: dponte@trumbullps.org
Website: middlebrookelementary.com
Location: 220 Middlebrooks Avenue, Trumbull, CT, USA
Phone: 203-452-4411