January 17th-Martin Luther King Jr. Day-No School

Happy New Year DCS!

I hope everyone had a wonderful break! It has been a little tricky getting back into school routines with the snow days, but staff and students are working hard at getting back into the pattern of our school days.

I am excited that we have some new snow as DCS has an amazing sledding hill, and I am looking froward to the upcoming storm! At the end of the month teachers will be guiding students through the winter benchmark assessments. Grades 1-4 will be taking the MAP and AIMSweb assessments. Grade K will be assessed through AIMSweb and other classroom tests. It will be exciting to see the progress our students have made.

We are thrilled to welcome new families and their children to our school! It has been no surprise to anyone to see how welcoming our students have been. The truly understand and model the motto "DCS Cares!"

Have a wonderful weekend, stay warm! Nicole

A friendly reminder that if your child has symptoms that are potentially COVID related, they need to have a ConVal district or medical facility COVID test prior to returning to school. Home COVID tests are not accepted by the district at this time.

Symptoms may include:

• Fever or chills
• Cough
• Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
• Fatigue
• Muscle or body aches
• Headache
• New loss of taste or smell
• Sore throat
• Congestion or runny nose
• Nausea or vomiting
• Diarrhea

Please contact me if you have any questions. My email is mturgeon@conval.edu.

~Mitzi Turgeon, RN

This week in Kindergarten has been all about The Mitten story. For three days in a row I read a different version of this old Ukrainian folktale. We compared and contrasted the animals in each tale, and how these animals moved. We learned that though these stories are fiction, the authors certainly knew about the animals that they chose, because they moved like the real animals would move. We even lumbered like a bear and hopped like a snowshoe hare. Each child is now creating their own mittens, coloring the characters from Jan Brett’s adaptation of the story, and practicing retelling this old story themselves. Give us another week, and your child will be retelling their version with props!

First graders have been practicing reading and writing blends- two letters that work together to make a sound - /gr/ for example. We've also been doing a ton of work determining the main idea of a story and the details that support it. In math, making a ten is the strategy we've learned to make math equations easier to solve. We can change 9+8 to 10+ 7! In social studies we learned about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his idea that love can drive out hate. We finished the week with a special Jeannie Connolly mural project that shows animals over and under the snow and how they adapt to the winter. Many thanks to our awesome PTO for the funds for this incredible learning & art opportunity!

In second grade this week, we spent a lot of time reading and learning about Martin Luther King, Jr. We also got a chance to write about our dreams just like MLK. They were so sweet! Some wanted to see the world be kinder, some wanted to see Covid go away, some wanted to make sure all kids have friends, and some wanted all kids to be able to go to a school like DCS! We've also been working really hard to learn double digit addition and subtraction with renaming. To make things a bit fun, we completed a scavenger hunt in the classroom and gym, solving different math problems on our clipboards. Another highlight in second grade is that we have a new student! They are a wonderful addition to DCS!

Math – 3rd Grade is learning strategies to solve their 9x tables and other large numbers. 4th Grade continues to work with long division.

Science/Social Studies – We are looking at the New Hampshire ecosystems and will look at animal adaptations, habitats and other traits through our study of New Hampshire mammals.

ELA – Each group has started new chapter books. Through these texts we will continue to explore main idea and details as well summarizing, cause and effect and author’s point of view.

Please be sure your child has an extra set of clothes at school. All kinds of accidents can and do happen and we do not have many spare clothes for students.

Also, even though we have had one of the warmest early winters on record, please make sure your child has all the cold weather gear they need. If you have a need for any gear, please reach out and let us know.

https://dcs.convalsd.net/

For those that do not know, the DCS mascot is a Raven. If you are interested we have a gear store through which you can pourchase raven gear!

http://dublinravens.deco-apparel.com/

One of the aspects of a new school year that can be challenging is the bus routes. It takes time for new drivers and students to get used to the timing of the pick ups and drop offs. Each day has gone a bit more smoothly.

Please help us by updating any changes in drop off or pick up through Pick Up Patrol.

Thank you!

With great help from the PTO a few years ago, we have a bottle filler at DCS! We do not have extra water bottle for students though, so please be sure to send your child in with a labeled water bottle. Thank you! Currently, the water fountain is not in use for students so a water bottle is needed.