We have two summer learning opportunities for our elementary students for 2023!

It is time to register your child for Summer Learning. Please use the following link to sign your child(dren) up by April 7th. An early registration will ensure that we have the staff and resources to host a robust summer learning program.

Explore and Expand Summer Learning Program is for rising 1st through 4th graders! This four-week long program is designed to support student learning by bolstering school-year skills and helping to fight summer learning loss. Students will receive 1.5 hours of academic support from ConVal Certified Teachers and Tutors. An additional hour of the program is reserved for enrichment exploration, including drumming and cartooning residencies.

Additional Details

• July 5 through July 27

• 3 Mornings a Week (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday)

• 9:00 am - 12 pm

• Location: Peterborough Elementary and Antrim Elementary

• Transportation will be provided

• Class Size for Explore and Expand: 15 students to 1 teacher

• Classes/Groups will be mixed grades

Middle School Summer Academy is offered to rising 5th and 6th graders! This four-week long program is designed to introduce students to middle and high school learning opportunities while bolstering school-year skills and helping to fight summer learning loss. Students in the Middle School Summer Academy have the opportunity to participate in a Residency, similar to Explore and Expand or participate in the high school Theater program.

Additional Details

• July 5 through July 27

• 4 Mornings a Week (Monday through Thursday)

• 9:00 am - 12:15pm (12:15 allows students to participate in the Theater program)

• Location: ConVal High School

• Transportation will be provided

• Class Size : 15 students to 1 Teacher

Similar to last year, all summer programming is free including transportation and lunch. Please note that we are working to increase the number of buses so that there are additional common pick-up and drop-off locations for students. We will work closely with town summer Recreation Programs to coordinate so that children may participate in both rec. programming as well as ConVal summer learning.

Please reach out with any questions!

Best,

Amy Janoch

Director of Learning Recovery

ajanoch@conval.edu

Dear GES Families and Friends,

Where did April go? It seems like just yesterday we were digging out from 3+ feet of snow and here we are at the end of April! I hope you all enjoy the upcoming April break and that Mother Nature gets her act together and sends us some warm, sunny days next week! Staff and students enjoyed another wonderful STEM Day with Jeremy Griffus today. Today's theme was all about rockets! Students built and launched paper rockets and water rockets! We were thankful for the warm and sunny weather this afternoon! Thank you to the GES PTO for supporting this event again. The students and staff love it when Jeremy comes to visit! The activities we do with him are natural extensions and enrichments to our science curriculum and we are lucky to be able to take advantage of the programming!

May will be here before we know it, bringing the Spring Benchmark period for all K-4 students. Our Kindergarten students will take the NWEA-MAP assessments in reading and math for the first time at the end of the month. 1st-4th graders will also take the reading and math assessments. Our 3rd and 4th graders will be taking the NH-SAS assessments in reading, writing and math as well. If you have any questions about these assessments please don't hesitate to reach out to your child's teacher or me.

I have some bittersweet news to share with you. This will be my last year as the principal at GES. I have accepted a position as a Math Coordinator in Hanover, NH for next year. Being able to spend my days supporting teachers in improving math instruction for all and helping children foster a growth mindset around learning math is something I've been working towards and the opportunity to do that job full time was one I just could not pass up. I hope you all know how much I have loved being the principal here and what a difficult decision it was for me to leave this amazing community. I truly believe that GES is the absolute best elementary school in our district. Our staff are such dedicated and talented educators and I have been honored to work with them and all of you. I am confident that everyone here will welcome our new principal with open arms and GES will continue to be an awesome place to grow and learn together! Thank you for all your support over the last nine years. I will truly miss everyone! In the mean time, we still have the rest of this year together and I look forward to all the events coming up!

I've included important dates through the end of the year below. We will be adding events in the coming weeks, so be sure to check the newsletter and website each week so you don't miss anything!

UPCOMING IMPORTANT DATES-PLEASE CHECK AND ADD TO YOUR CALENDAR!

4/21/22: Flower order forms are going home TODAY! Check your child's backpack tonight so it doesn't get lost! This is a fabulous PTO fundraiser that we do every spring. The flowers are gorgeous and make Mother's Day shopping a breeze! Order forms must be returned by Friday, May 5th! Flowers will be delivered to GES and ready for pick up on Friday, May 12th.

4/24-4/28/23: APRIL VACATION-NO SCHOOL!

5/1-5/5/23: Special of the Week: PE/Health with Mrs. Parker. Don't forget your sneakers!

5/5/23: PTO Flower Order Forms Due Today!!!

5/8-5/12/23: Special of the Week: Library with Mrs. Aborn

5/10/23: Grade 4 heads to Keene for the Drinking Water Festival & Science Fair. Students will depart from GES at 7:30am and return by 3:00pm.

5/12/23: PTO Flower Orders delivered today!

5/15-5/19/23: Special of the Week: PE/Health with Mrs. Parker. Don't forget your sneakers!

5/22-5/25/23: Special of the Week: Music with Mrs. Neillsen

5/24/23: SPRING CONCERT PERFORMANCE at 6:00PM! Mark your calendars now! Come and enjoy a musical performance by our K-4 students!

5/26/23: NO SCHOOL-Teacher PD Day

5/29/23: NO SCHOOL-Memorial Day

5/30-6/2/23: Special of the Week: PE/Health with Mrs. Parker

6/5-6/9/23: Special of the Week: Art with Mr. Shapiro

6/6/23: Grade 4 Field Trip to Boston Museum of Science! We will depart from GES at 8:00am and return by 4:00pm!

6/12-6/16/23: Special of the Week: PE/Health with Mrs. Parker

6/14/23: 4TH GRADE CELEBRATION AND PLAY PERFORMANCE AT 6:00PM. Details coming soon!

6/15/23: GES Field Day! Details coming soon!

6/16/23: LAST DAY OF SCHOOL! This is a half day and dismissal will be at noon!

Pre-School One: The past few weeks, we have been learning about insects and spiders. We had fun going to the library and Mrs. Aborn read The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle. We did a spider project and picked out books.

We have also started our bird study. Each day is a new bird of the day. The birds we study are all native to NH. We study and compare bird nests. So far, we have learned the names and habits of 13 birds. Lots more to come.

We have been enjoying seeing the first signs of spring and had a fun scavenger hunt booking for spring signs. This was at the end of our 5 senses unit, which taught us a lot about how our 5 senses make us aware of the world around us.

The afternoon students continue to work with letter sounds to spell words and to write letters, now practicing their names in lowercase letters. We recently used our handbells to “read “ music , sequenced story pictures and played cooperative games. We are always challenging our brains with learning new skills.

-Trish

Pre-School Two: In the last few weeks we have talked about Easter and made fun art activities like eggs and bunnies. We learned about insects and spiders with Ms. Jaimie from the Harris Center. We walked around our school to look at all the branches that have buds on them and talked about flowers and listened to birds, tree frogs, and wood frogs. We each made a rainbow windsock that we brought outside and watched them move in the wind. Preschoolers also talked about what would happen with white flowers put in food coloring water. We learned that the darker colors green, blue and purple changed the flowers’ color the most.

We also went to the library and made spring trees with Ms Sandy and she read, The Tiny Little Seed by Eric Carle. We had the chance to join the entire school and talk about the March Madness book vote and listen to Norman Didn’t Do it! (Yes, He Did) by Ryan T. Higgins.

This week we had Spirit week in our class. We had a crazy hair day, sports day, silly sock day, superheroes day and pajama day. We even got to make cookies and ate them for our snack. The afternoon students have just finished learning the end of the alphabet. We have been working on writing numbers and adding small numbers. They are doing great! Have a great vacation!

-Ms. Colleen

• Math: We have been working hard on learning those teen numbers. We work really hard for the students to understand that a teen number is 10 ones and more ones. So they learn counting the say ten way and the regular way. This helps to understand early place value understanding.

• Literacy: In literacy this week, we practiced reading and spelling words that end with -ff, -ll, -ss, -zz, -ck! We’ve learned lots of new heart words like your, want, go, no, so, goes, and says. We are putting all of our new word reading skills to use reading each day with a partner and Mrs. Barnes to build fluency. We are reading whole paragraphs and stories all by ourselves!

• Science & Social Studies: Science has been all about how we can help the Earth. This is a great segway into talking about plants when we come back from vacation.

• Read Aloud: The Earth and I, Why should I recycle?, What does it mean to go Green?, The Earth Book. We have been reading The Chocolate Touch as our chapter book and the kids are loving it.

• SEL: We are practicing kindness in and out of the classroom. As we all get spring fever we have also been talking about how to be our best learner in the classroom.

• Math: We have been learning all about measurement for the last 2 weeks. We talked about longer than and shorter than, measuring in centimeters and non-standard units like paper clips and toothpicks. We also looked at bar graphs and how to interpret data.

• Literacy: In literacy, we began learning syllable division rules for common patterns in multisyllable words. We use some animal names to help us remember those patterns. We learned how to break apart and decode wombat words (vc/cv), lobster words (vc,ccv), and tiger words (v/cv). We learned some fun songs to help us remember the steps for breaking a word into syllables. Ask us to sing them! Our favorite part of this unit was FINALLY getting to learn about wombat poop! Ask us why! In writing, we practiced writing sentences that use language from the prompt and give an opinion and reasons to support our opinion this week.

• Science: In science, we finished our unit on patterns of the sun and the moon this week. We loved learning about the sun, the moon, and space. On Thursday we had our first Cornucopia lesson and we LOVED the garden! We can’t wait to try our very own homegrown peas in two weeks.

• SEL: We talked about kindness and practiced kind behaviors towards friends.

• Read Alouds: This week we read three books by Stacy McAnulty called Sun!, Moon!, and Earth! We finished Charlotte’s Web and we are excited to watch the movie on Friday.

• Math: In math this week we spent time learning about fractions being equal parts of a whole as well as parts of a set. We have also been looking at data on different graphs and responding to questions about the data.

• Literacy: We have been listening to, reading, and writing poetry this week. We learned that poetry is performed and uses repetition and onomatopoeia. We also learned that poetry can break all the rules of writing that we’ve learned! Capital letters and punctuation are not required in poetry. We also practiced reading and spelling words with the /ou/ and /ow/ pattern like cloudless or plowed.

• Science & Social Studies: we finished up our states of matter unit by folding fortune tellers and quizzing each other. We also talked about forces in motion with Jeremy. We got to experiment with engineering paper rockets today!

• SEL: teamwork, taking responsibility for our actions, giving a best effort, perseverance

• Read Aloud: Mingo the Flamingo, poems by Jack Prelutsky, Shel Silverstein, and Michael Rosen

• Math: In math this week we focused on Topic E, where we identified equivalent fractions using fraction strips, number bonds, and the number line as models. We learned that equivalent fractions are different ways to represent the same number, the same point on the number line. We will start our final fraction topic after break - ordering fractions!

• Literacy: In literacy this week we explored the different types of figurative language and learned that good writers use figurative language to paint a clear picture for their readers. We had a lot of fun writing our own examples of figurative language like similes.

• Science & Social Studies: We are wrapping up another unit in science! In this unit, we developed an understanding of how animals and their environments change through time. We watched videos of different animals that live in groups to simulate observing them in their natural habitats in order to construct an explanation of how living in groups helps these animals survive. We also explored how physical traits can be influenced by the environment by analyzing how a NASA astronaut’s traits changed during his “year in space.”

• Read Aloud: I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic

• Math: In recent weeks we have talked about geometric shapes, how to recognize the differing attributes of a shape. We used protractors to measure angles and identify angles names. We are deep into our unit on decomposing fractions. Students are explaining what they notice when talking about different sized fractional unit and how we can show the sum of fractional units using number sentences. Students are also demonstrating what they know about equivalent fractions.

• Literacy: Students are reading I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic in small groups. We are discussing the characters, the story elements, important details, cause & effect along with understanding what it may have been like to be a passenger on the ship. Students have started a research project on a passenger that was on the Titanic the fateful night that it sank. They will continue these projects when they return from April break. Students continue to work on suffix spelling rules, for example when to drop the e from the end of a word, for adding the suffix, and how recognizing syllables can help to remember these rules.

• Social Studies: We have finished up with symbols of NH. Students used different art mediums to produce beautiful examples of most recognized symbols of NH. We also completed our Maps. All of which will be coming home in a book students made back in the fall with Jeannie Connolly, our resident visiting artist.

• SEL: With the transition to middle school approaching we as a class have been talking about transitioning and how that makes us feel. We have talked about how it is okay to feel happy, sad, nervous or worried. We have talked about positive self talk in order to prepare for those times when we feel uneasy.

• Read Aloud: We are reading Hoot, by Carl Hiaasen.

https://sites.google.com/conval.edu/lofstedt/home

• Kindergarten: In this week’s lesson, your child learned that kindness is a way to show people that they care and that doing kind acts can make both the giver and the receiver feel good. They shared personal examples and discussed how they felt when they gave or received kind acts. Help your child think of a kind act they can do for someone and support them in carrying it out. With your child, discuss how they think the receiver of the kind act felt. Ask your child how they felt doing a kind act for someone.

• 1st grade: In this week’s lesson, your child learned and practiced two types of kind acts: offering to help someone and inviting someone to join. Help your child think of a kind act they can do for someone involving offering to help or inviting them to join. Support your child in carrying out the kind act.

• 2nd grade: In this week’s lesson, your child practiced having empathy to come up with kind acts they could do for others in different situations. Ask your child how having empathy can help them know how to be kind.

• 3rd grade: In this week’s lesson, your child learned that people like to be shown kindness in different ways. Ask your child what helps them feel better when they feel sad. What helps when they feel embarrassed or angry? Tell them what helps you feel better when you feel those same emotions.

• 4th grade:. In this week’s lesson, your child practiced asking questions to better understand someone’s point of view when it’s harder to empathize. Discuss with your child the benefits of learning more about the different points of view of people in your family. If there’s a point of view they don’t understand, think of questions together that they can ask to learn more about it.

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.