March 10, 2018

It's hard to believe the date is already March 10th!  This weekend we will spring forward marking the beginning of Daylight Savings and the optimism that spring is soon approaching.   In the mean time, we are enjoying some fresh snow and mild winter temperatures, which provided us with the perfect conditions to enjoy some winter carnival activities on Friday afternoon!  Students worked collaboratively to build some snow sculptures and forts and then we played games in the snow such as relay races, parachute and balls, obstacle courses and Mitten Mitten in the Snow.

During our short week we learned how to write the letters R and Q and practiced blending and segmenting words. During writers workshop we learned how to write and ending to our informational writing and finished writing our animal reports.  Your child will be sharing these with you during your student led conference on March 22nd.

In math we continued working on composing and decomposing numbers 6-8 using cube sticks and number bonds to model and represent the hidden partners in these numbers.

On Wednesday, just after lunch, there was an incident in the community causing the police to ask us to secure our building.  This simply means no one enters the building and no one leaves the building, classrooms cover windows and lock doors, however we are able to continue with regular classroom activities and routines.  This prompted a conversation in our classroom about why we had to do this.  We talked about there being a potential danger outside the school and the school is a safe building, so we are staying inside the building until we know it is safe outside.   I'm telling you this because these conversations may have continued at home.   I also want you to know that on March 21st the faculty and staff at MES will be training with the Morristown Police to learn more about and practice our new emergency response procedures (already in place at PA and PAML) known as ALICE.  Following this training we will be working with students to prepare them for this new way to respond to potential threats in our school.  This may prompt concerns and conversations.  I encourage you to have open conversations with your child about the school being a safe place and our job is to keep them safe while they are at school.  Just like we practice for procedures of fires by practicing fire drills, we need to practice for other situations so we know what to do during other threatening situations. Please let me know if you have any questions about this.

Please call the office (888-3101) to schedule a time to come to your Student Led Conference on March 22nd. (Students must attend with you)

Reminders: 

• We will have a early dismissal on Wednesday, March 21st. Students a will be dismissed at noon.
• No School Thursday, March 22nd for Student Led Conferences
• No School Friday, March 23rd (all LSSU professional development)

• ECO: Friday, March 30th from 11:30 - 2:30.   I'm looking for a couple of parent volunteers and firewood.  Please let me know if you would like to join us or if you can donate wood.  We will be working on concepts of Force and Motion.