BASKETBALL
Although it may seem early to start thinking about winter sports, the Calais Recreation Association is asking that if your child is interested in playing basketball to please submit the paperwork by the due date or earlier. Look for sign up form and date later this month. The reason for this is: for the 3/4 and 5/6 teams, if the numbers support it; we hope to have 2 teams, a boy’s team and a girl’s team at each level. Additionally we need the number of teams Calais will field, prior to the game scheduling meeting, so that all teams will get an equitable number of games.
A goal of the CRA is to improve skills, which is done both during practices and games, the smaller teams (while still having enough to field a team) the more playing/coaching time for each child. Additionally we will be looking for coaches for the following levels: (again assuming there are enough numbers) 5/6 girls and 3/4 boys. As in years past, 5/6 will have games/practices Mondays & Wednesdays, 3/4 will be Tuesdays & Thursdays. The season starts after Thanksgiving break and ends by February vacation. Feel free to contact me with any questions, or if you are interested in coaching. Buffy Root 456-1971 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Free and Reduced Meals Program
The income threshold for the Federal Free and Reduced meals program has been raised and many more families may qualify
now. Please consider applying for the Free and Reduced Meals Program even if you’ve never applied before. We would be glad to offer our assistance with the paperwork. It is important that applications be completed before November.
NECAP (New England Common Assessment Program)
Next week , October 6,7, and 8 the 3rd through 6th grades will begin their state tests in reading and math. Grade 5 students will also be taking a writing assessment. The writing assessment is being piloted again this year and will not be assessed. Data is being collected to create benchmarks for future graded assessments.
Third graders will test in the morning for two weeks. Fourth graders will follow a similar schedule and fifth and sixth graders will take two tests in the morning to complete their assessment the first week, with the exception of the 5th grade writing assessments the second week on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Testing will take place in the morning. We encourage your child to go to bed early and to remember to eat a breakfast so that rumbly tummies do not distract thinking.
Science NECAP scores have arrived and are being sent home with 5th graders today. We are very pleased with the overall scores this year. Congratulations go out to both teachers and learners.
5/6 News
“Greetings Parents! My trip to Oregon was great! I visited Crater Lake! Crater Lake used to be a volcano, but now it is filled with clear blue water! I boated out to the island and walked around…” This is the start to one of many postcards made by the 5/6 students during their “virtual” tour of the Unites States on Google Earth. Stop by our hallway to read more from their “travels.” The students have been learning the states and their capitals by region, along with the topography by making a salt dough map of the country. Each student will soon become an expert on one state, making a travel brochure for our Geography Fair. We’ll be exploring the foods, music, and other cultural contributions of each region! We have been merging both 5/6 classes during Social Studies and both the teachers and students are excited to have more time as a team.
Students in the 5/6 are immersed in the theme of friendships and bullying in both our Readers Workshop and in Guidance. Each student is reading a book of their choice that has a connection to bullying. Discussions revolve around the common themes that arise with most bullying situations. We are exploring questions of why bullies bully, who is targeted, and what role ‘bystanders’ play in the situation.
“What are we going to write about today?” the students are asking us with enthusiasm most afternoons. They are enjoying using their Writers’ Notebooks for daily creative writing. We’ve been taking both groups to the outdoor classroom and making observations of the natural world. The idea is to fill their notebooks with many “seeds” for future inspiration of writing pieces that will be brought to final, finished pieces to share with others during the year.
Both math classes are exploring the characteristics of numbers and having fun with multiples and factorization. Ms. Earle’s class is creating lots of multiplication story problems on topics that range from the number bananas in a shipment, to the numbers of baseballs ordered by the Yankees. Mr. Middelton’s class recently explored common multiples with a problem about the cicada cycles that happen every 13 and 17 years.
-Liza Earle
Dear Parents and Friends,
Welcome to the art program!
Vincent van Gogh, our famous artist from the Netherlands (1853-1890) started the upper grades on an exciting drawing technique: upside down drawings. This right-brain drawing activity is very helpful when challenged with a complicated image.
Fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students, they each received a line image from Vincent’s compositions. By copying lines, shapes, and patterns, the students did an amazing job in working their way up throughout the map. That’s what it feels like: a big map or puzzle that they begin to walk through with their pencil, from the bottom to the top. By turning the paper right-side-up, many children realized their strength in their drawings and they were very pleased. If there was enough time, the students colored the drawings according to their choices and decisions. This is an excellent exercise to apply at home from any type of image.
First, second and third graders worked on a drawing technique that is called: sketching. We visited the beautiful sun flowers behind the class rooms and made a sketch, using little hand motions that follow the curves of the objects. It feels like a major search with little feet for a very specific line. The good news is that there is no wrong or right line or drawing. And yes, each drawing turned out beautifully. These sketches are enlarged on a bigger paper and I introduced “overlapping” as a spatial concept; the children are creating individual sunflower compositions. Vincent van Gogh is again looking over our shoulders with his passion for art.
Kindergarten students began to form with ModelMagic from Crayola. They worked with small pieces of ModelMagic and practiced forming shapes and bringing them back to a solid ball. We tried our skills in pancakes, bowls, snakes, animals, and ended up with a little friend to keep. The second time we worked with the ModelMagic, the children made again a variety of shapes and finished with making pedals for their sunflowers to shine.
The students have had a great start and are off to an exciting year!
Mrs. Holmes-Heiss
Internet Online Access at CES
Computers are available in the school library to the community before school and during the day (when not in use by students.)
Health Office
It is that time of year when viruses begin to spread through the school. Many children have been experiencing headaches, nausea, vomiting, sore throats, cold symptoms and fevers. The best way to combat these symptoms are: lots of water, healthy food choices, rest and hand washing. It is a great idea to send your child to school with a labeled water bottle. Staying hydrated can alleviate sore throats and shorten the life of many viruses. If your child needs any type of non-prescription medication, please complete the attached non-prescription medication form and send it in along with your non-prescription medication. I do stock children’s Tylenol and Motrin. If you have consented to allow your child to have Tylenol or Motrin, my practice is to always contact a parent before giving these medications whenever possible. This will let you know what is happening at school and when the medication is administered. If your child has a fever of 100+ they will be sent home from school and should not return until they have been 24 hours without a fever or use of any medication to control a fever. This will help prevent the spread of viruses throughout the school. Informing your employer of the school’s illness policy ahead of time may alleviate any workplace stress when your child needs to go home sick.
I am in the nurse’s office 2 days a week, Thursday & Friday.
Please call me with any questions or concerns,
Tracy Taylor RN
School Nurse
454-7777 x 307
Got garlic?
The garden club is looking for garlic to plant in our garden in mid-October. The garlic, when it is harvested, will be used for school lunches and the extras will be donated to the local food bank. The garden club is a group of 5th and 6th grade students that meets Tuesday afternoons during ACT (Academic Choice Time). If you have any extra garlic from this year's harvest, and could donate some, please send it to Ms. Earle's classroom.
Thank you very much.
~Olivia, Jackson, Chloe, Maddie, Josh, Altan, Ellis, and Kelcey
Job Openings
Community Connections is looking for afternoon staff for K-2 and Homework Club. Also, there is a need for substitutes for ALL programs: Before Care, Pre-K After Care, K-2 and Homework Club. If you are interested, leave your resume at the school office with Christine Klaine or call 454-7777 Ext. 348 and leave a message.
Projected Enrollment
We begin to plan for next as early as October. If you are aware of students who may be coming to CES next year, please notify our office at: 454-7777.
Dates to Remember
Oct. 6 PTO Meeting 6:30-8PM
Oct. 6-16 NECAP Oct. 6,7,8 (13, grade 5 writing test-newly piloted this year-not scored)
Oct. 16 Bring a Neighbor to Lunch Day
Oct. 21 School Board Meeting- Carousel at U32
Oct. 19-23 National School Bus Safety Week
October Preschool News
Our first month of school was great! We have been learning about ourselves through body awareness activities using movement and sensory exploration activities such as play dough, finger painting and the bean table. Our morning meeting consist of games and songs to help us learn names of all the children and learn about our feelings through literature and role playing. We are amazed at how fast the children have learned the names of the other children.
During the month of October we will continue to explore emotions through literature. Some of the books we are using are: Sometimes I Feel Boombaloo by Rachel Vail, a book about feeling angry; Jamaica and Brianna by Juanita Havill, a book about friendship and jealousy; It’s Mine by Leo Lionni, a book about sharing; and Sometimes I Feel Like a Mouse by Jeanne Modesitt. We will use pictures of each family to learn more about our classmates and for counting, graphing, comparing and storytelling.
We will also be learning about fall, apples and pumpkins during October. We will go on a nature walk to find leaves and fall objects to use for sorting, classifying, sensory activities and to reinforce color words. We will use magnifying glasses to look at the leaf veins and pinecones. We will use apples to make prints, apple treats and use scales to compare weights of the apples. We will use pumpkins for estimating, measuring and exploring as well as carving faces. We will discuss the weather changes and how they affect animals. We will learn about animals that migrate or hibernate, and animals that are dormant or active.
Kindergarten News
Hello, my name is Callie Weller. I teach kindergarten here at CES. This year I have 17 fun-loving active students. We have spent the last month getting know one another and the classroom. The students have explored ways that they are alike and different. We read the book We Are All Alike…We Are All Different, by the Cheltenham Elementary School Kindergarteners. Then we completed a project that involved comparing ourselves to someone else in the classroom and figuring out how we are alike and different. We also made paper plate faces with skin tone colors. Students mixed different colors on their hand to match their skin tone. Then they used this color to paint a paper plate. We completed the plate by adding our unique eye and hair color along with a nose and mouth. Through this project we discovered that no one in our classroom is really “white” and that everyone’s skin color is a little different. Recently we started a unit on apples. Students are investigating and recording the seasons of an apple tree. This past week the children all brought in separate ingredients and we made an apple crisp… yum, yum! We then graphed our like/dislike for the crisp. We also made half eaten apples to hang from the ceiling. I have started a new fun and interactive program that helps students to learn about letters and letters sounds. We are also working on the formation of our letters and writing in journals. Kindergarten is a fun and busy place here at CES.
Guidance News
Guidance class for kids in the upper unit is off to an exciting start this year. We’ve begun class focused on promoting positive group dynamics thru the use of team building games and activities. These activities are wonderful for developing and practicing effective communication skills, conflict resolution, and group problem solving skills. And does it go without saying that learning through games is fun? ☺
With our group guidelines established we have moved on to the topic of bullying and harassment. Over the coming weeks we will explore the role that laws and our school policy play in identifying behaviors as joking, teasing, bullying or harassment.” Establishing this common language with students will allow for quickly identifying behaviors as potential teasing or bullying and even more importantly, developing the skills to deal with these problems effectively. In the coming weeks students will be working towards a greater goal of creating a video showcasing a poster presentation, interview techniques, and skits. The skits will involve a short example of bullying with several examples of ways to handle responses to bullying with skill. Cat Fair, School Counselor
Lunch Menu
5 Spaghetti with
Meat or Tomato Sauce§¨
Garlic Bread
Green Beans Pears
© Egg. Salad Sand. Milk
6 Cheeseburger
Veggieburger/Bun©
Hash Brown Potato
Carrots
Mandarin Oranges
Cheese Sand. Milk
7
Tomato Soup
Cheese Quesadilla
Salsa
Peas
Applesauce
© Tuna Sand. Milk
8
Fishsticks
Seasoned Noodles
Spinach
Cookie Bar-Fruit
© Ham and Chs Sand. Milk
9
Chicken Noodle Soup¨
Egg, Tuna, SB&Jelly
Confetti Rice
Veggie Sticks
© Fresh Fruit Milk
For Sixth Graders
Are your sixth graders looking for something fun to do over the October break? Here are two options from Community Connections:
Bike N’ Hike
Thursday, October 22
Meet @ U-32 Shapiro Building
~ Open to all U-32, MSMS and MHS students ~
Leaving U-32 at 9:00 am, returning at 3:30 pm
• Bikes available, or bring yours
• Helmets Required
Join us for a ride from U-32 to Morse Farm, some time on the Morse Farm mountain bike trails, a ride to Adamant Village and Coop, and some hiking on the East Montpelier Trails…of course, we then have to bike back to U-32!
Gourmet to Go
Friday, October 23, 9:00 am to 3:30 pm
U-32 living arts room, 208
~ Open to all U-32, MSMS and MHS students~
Participants will create a 4-course Italian meal to take home for family or friends. We will bake bread, dream up a wonderfully different salad, make a delicious pasta dish (meat and veggie option), and finish with a decadent chocolate cake dessert. We will also make our own pizza lunch.
Go to www.communityconnections.us for a sign-up form.
Health Office
