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WOODSTOCK SCHOOL OFFICE

Dear Woodstock Families,

Happy Fall to everyone! Our school

year is off to a great start. Our students

have been doing a nice job settling in to

their new classrooms. It has been great to

see our fifth graders taking on school jobs

so responsibly and learning to be role

models for the rest of the school.

We had a nice Open House! It was great

to see so many families come to this event.

In October we have quite a few events that

we hope to see you

at as well.

Coming up first

will be our annual

Walk to School

event. This will

be on Wednesday, October 2nd. Students

will be dropped off at the Rt. 232 end of

Rumford Avenue. We will then all walk

back to school. At 1:00 on October 10th we

will have Grandparent’s and Special

Friend’s Day. Grandparents and Special

Friends are invited to come into the

classrooms to do activities with students,

have refreshments and have a photo taken in

the library.

We also have a couple of PTA events

that are happening this month. On

Saturday, October 19th

we will hold our annual

Craft Fair and Silent

Auction from 9 to 3.

There will be many

crafts for sale, including our student’s

crafts. And, on Halloween we will have our

annual Halloween party in the gym

beginning at

12:45. We hope

that you will be

able to come to

these fun events!

This Monday

(September 30th) we will have our first

lockdown drill of the year. Students will be

told about this beforehand and lockdown

procedures will be reviewed. Throughout

the year we practice different types of safety

drills. In this newsletter you will find an

informational sheet about our safety

protocols. Please review this and let me

know if you have any questions about any

of our procedures.

There are many after school activities

happening this month as well. The Girls on

the Run program is up and

going strong. We also have

soccer happening at every

level. Thank you to our parent

volunteers Stephanie Inman,

Destiny Hughes, Erika

Fujimaki, and Greg Luetje for

coaching. If anyone is

interested in volunteering to coach a sport

or in the classroom, please let us know!

Thank you for a great first month of

school and we hope to see you at our

upcoming events!

Sincerely,

Jessica L. Wilkey Teaching Principal

KINDERGARTEN – Mrs. Megan Howe

In Kindergarten we are off to a great

start! We are learning our routines and

expectations of the school and classroom.

WOODSTOCK NEWSLETTER

Date: September 27, 2019

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We have spent so much time getting to

know each other and our school. We have

been learning how to work hard and how to

work together in our community, both class

and school wide.

During Phonics we have jumped into

learning our letters. We are learning a

Letter a day. We are working hard

this year to learn uppercase,

lowercase, the letter’s name and sound

all at once. We have a class mascot,

Mabel who is the elephant who helps

us learn about Phonics. We have been

learning our letters by seeing what our

friends’ names start with and ALL ABOUT

ME - a unit sharing about themselves. We

have learned M, S, L, T, A, J and E. We are

beginning to put these letters together to

create words. We have had a blast

practicing all the hands on ways to learn our

letters - playdoh, shaving cream, Mat Man

and wooden pieces, plastic sticks, stamps

and ink, and so much more. We have also

begun learning some sight words, such as

we and in. We have been learning that our

sight words are all around us.

During our Literacy Block we work on a

lot of different skills. We

have begun the year

learning about different

folk tales such as Peter

Rabbit and Little Red

Riding Hood. These

stories help us learn some

social skills as well as

practice phonetic learning such as our letter

knowledge application, rhymes that go

along with the stories and comprehension

skills. We also have begun learning the

routines and expectations of Reader’s

Workshop and Daily Five. We have been

enjoying Reading to Someone, Reading to

Self, and Word Work. We have been

learning routines to use our IPADS.

We have begun learning how to read and

what strategies we can use. We have

learned that our index finger is our magic

pointer finger which helps us read one to

one correspondence. We have learned to

look at the pictures and to look at the

beginning letter of every word to figure out

what it says.

Our writing is also part of our ALL

ABOUT ME unit. We

have begun practicing

telling oral stories. We are

learning how to get our

mouths ready to tell stories

before our hands can help

us. We have written about

our families, our favorite

food, animal, and our home. We will

continue to add details to our drawings and

start to use letters to represent our words.

We have created a chart to help us

remember how to color and what is

expected of us when we color - colors make

sense, we color in the lines and we fill the

space with details. We are focusing on

telling real stories, which we call narratives.

Narratives always have a beginning, middle,

and end so that a reader can enjoy the story

we have written and it will make sense. We

are having a wonderful start creating both

stories together and stories independently.

Fall is here! The leaves are changing

color and we are getting so many

opportunities to learn about life cycles

happening all around us! This month we

began learning about

Apples. We have a lot of

questions about how they

grow. We are looking

forward to our apple

picking field trip next

month. We also will be

learning about Pumpkins.

In Math, we have been working hard

learning to count. We have been having so

much fun with numbers. We will be able to

count to 100 by the end of the year. We

have learned how to form the numbers 1-5.

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We will continue on 6-10. We have also

learned two new games; Count and Sit &

Gotcha. Ask a Kindergartener how to play.

We have learned some great rhymes about

writing our numbers! It has been so much

fun!

During our Social/Emotional Learning

Time, we have begun learning about the

Zones of Regulation by reading

some books about feelings. We

have also practiced making sure

our face matches our inside

feelings because that is one way

for someone to know how we

are feeling. We also practiced a

yoga program called Peace Out

that helps us refocus and calm our mind.

We will begin our social skills program next

week called PEACEFIRST. As part of our

Scholastic program we worked on Can I

Play? and Friends Share. We are learning

about classroom expectations and rules.

Can’t wait to share with you what

exciting things are going on in Kindergarten

during October!

GRADE ONE - Mrs. Wentworth

First graders have had a great start to the

year. We’ve been working on routines,

expectations, and developing classroom

rules in order to help us learn, work, and

play safely together. I am very pleased with

what we have accomplished in a relatively

short period of time. This is a great group

of kiddos and I’m looking forward to a

super year.

We had another great turnout for Open

House. For those of you that guessed the

number of apples in our

applesauce, there were

19. There were a

number of guesses that

were only off by one or

two, on either side of 19.

So well done, everyone!

Many parents and family members voted on

our favorite dessert graph and the winner

was Apple Crisp. I hope you had fun

learning about our room with the scavenger

hunt. It was nice to meet all of you and

reconnect with familiar families and friends.

In Math, we have been working on

calendar skills and skip counting by 5’s and

10’s with a game called Popcorn. First

graders have also been writing numbers to

100 and identifying different kinds of

patterns. We learned a new game a couple

weeks ago called “What’s My Number”

where students had to use their knowledge

of greater and less in order to guess the

number. They caught

on quickly and had

fun playing the game.

In the coming weeks,

we will work on

number recognition

beyond 20, subitizing,

number comparison in terms of greater than,

less than, and equality, addition, and place

value.

During our literacy block, we have spent

time sharing what kind of books we like to

read, browsing through our classroom

library, singing/reading poems, and talking

about different purposes for reading.

Students have been introduced to the

procedures and routines of our Reading

Workshop. Mini lessons included “What

we need to become good

readers,” “Practice choosing a

productive space to read,”

“Different ways to read,”

“Building Stamina,” and

“Choosing Just Right Books.”

This class has already built their

stamina time up to 8 minutes -

very impressive! During their

independent reading time, I have also had a

chance to conference with many of the

students. We talked about what they are

doing well and what they might try to do

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even better. As the month comes to a close,

I am in the process of administering DRA’s

to determine levels and skills for each

child. Once this has been completed, I will

be sending books home every night with

your child. The goal is to have

them spend 10-15 minutes each

night reading to an adult.

Studies show this is the most

important thing we can do to

help our children learn how to

read.

We kicked off our writing program with

the morning message. At this point, the

main focus has been on the mechanics of

writing - capitalization, punctuation,

spacing, and writing complete sentences.

We have also spent some time

brainstorming future topics for narrative

writing. As we begin to work on narrative

writing, the children will practice telling

stories orally and learn more about the

elements of this genre.

In Social Studies, we began with a unit

on Citizenship. We have focused on the

characteristics of a good citizen and read

our Scholastic

News and

some poems

on the same

topic. In the

coming

weeks, we will

read and learn more about respect, courage,

responsibility, compassion, and honesty.

From that we will develop a web of good

citizen traits. The children will draw

pictures and write about different ways they

can be good citizens. We are using the

traits to create our Classroom Constitution.

In Science, some students brought in

stuff from nature the first few weeks of

school. We have had fun looking at

leaves, apples, berries, butterflies, and a

snake ski. We are looking forward to going

outside to explore the nature

trail and perhaps see some wildlife. Finally,

we have done some apple activities such as

predicting how many seeds are in an apple

and observing what happens to apples in

lemon juice compared to plain apples left in

the air.

As you can see, we are off and running.

Be sure to check out the calendar for

upcoming events - as always, October is a

busy month. I hope you get to enjoy some

of the activities with us. Have a great

weekend everyone.

GRADE TWO – Mrs. Keough

The second graders have been busy

solidifying routines and

expectations! In September we

were fortunate to visit the

Oxford County Fair to focus on

animal habitats in Maine

including farms, fields and

forests, rivers and ponds, and soil. The

warm temperatures (near 80s) didn’t stop

the children from clambering around the

Fair to see and learn about the various farm

animals (Alpaca and Emu’s were the

favorites), the Blacksmith Shop, and the

Museum. The Museum exhibited how life

was like many years ago and the kids were

intrigued by pumping water to wash dishes

and how to keep vegetables, meats, and

dairy cold in the “ice box.” One of the

exhibits gave us information about bees and

how important they are to human survival

as they pollinate many of the

fruits and vegetables we eat

in addition to their creating

delicious honey. A favorite

exhibit was the mineral

building where the kids searched for

minerals in a sluice. It was a great day and

for those of us who traveled back to school

on the bus, we were thankful to our bus

driver, Michelle, for the delicious ice cream

treat on our way home!

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In addition to getting our beginning of

the year assessments near completion, we

are delving into our second grade

curriculum including reading and decoding

strategies to help us understand what we

read, Spelling patterns (ai, ay, and ea) to

help us read and write, Math strategies

(counting on, doubles and near

doubles, make a 10) and

addition/subtraction Math fact

practice to help us become more

flexible in understanding number

sense, and writing sentences on a

topic that include interesting details.

GRADE THREE – Mrs. Zybas

3rd graders are doing an excellent job

learning about and using their growth

mindset skills. They are learning the

importance of always trying to do your best,

even when you are already good. We call

this bubble gum brain because we can

expand, bend, and stretch our brains. We

are learning how to use our bubble gum

brains to improve our reading, writing, and

math skills. It is great to hear students use

the powerful word, yet. As in, “I am not

good at ______, yet.” If a student doesn’t

add the word yet, his

or her classmates will

add it for him or her.

September seems

to have been a month

for testing. With

testing behind us, students are ready to start

their reading groups. All groups will have

vocabulary words to learn, as well as

learning and using reading strategies. I will

not assign specific homework for

vocabulary as students will come home with

the words they need to learn on Monday

and it is up to them to practice these words.

Students will have specific reading

homework, in the form of reading packets

that they will need to work on throughout

the week. Don’t worry, we have done

several of these and they will know exactly

what to do.

I have come to expect a high turnout at

our open house and once

again, I was not

disappointed. Parents

truly are partners in

learning at this school,

and it is an incredible thing in which to

participate. I do enjoy listening to parents

reminisce about their school experiences at

Woodstock; I heard so many parents

express how happy they were that their

children are able to come to our school. I

am looking forward to meeting with parents

during our parent teacher conferences.

Please be looking for a sign-up sheet to be

headed home in October.

Finally, I must confess that I am not a

craft-capable person “yet”. I want to be, but

it is not natural to me. With this

confession, I am requesting the

aid of any and all creative and

craft-capable parents to please

help my class with a craft or two

for the craft fair. I will purchase

all of the supplies if you come up with an

idea or two. This class loves crafts so

helping them will be a cinch; helping their

teacher might be a different story!

GRADE FOUR – Miss Stambolis

Welcome back, WES families, to

another school year!

I would like to start with a big “shout

out” to the 4th graders for hosting an

enthusiastic Friday Meeting! Everyone did

a wonderful job helping make the props and

working together.

As we continue to settle into our routines

and expectations for our class, we will start

exploring the 4th grade curriculum with

smaller group instruction and more hands

on learning opportunities. Reading groups

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have started and will continue to focus on

oral fluency, vocabulary, and

comprehension of fiction and informational

texts. The books selected are Holes by

Louis Sachar, Lost on a Mountain in Maine

by Donn Fendler, Stone Fox by

John Gardiner, and Sarah Plain

and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan.

Our focus in math at the

moment is place value. We have

been reviewing the basics over the

last two weeks so that we can

improve our number sense and

apply this concept to addition,

subtraction, multiplication, and

rounding whole numbers.

In language arts and writing, students

have been concentrating in the first two

traits of writing, brain storming ideas and

organization. Students will begin creating

their first narratives in the upcoming weeks

and we will be using Mrs. Frisby and the

Rats of Nimh by Robert C. O’Brien to learn

how to engage readers with rich details.

Lastly, students have started to learn

about the events that

occurred in Colonial

America that lead up

to the Revolutionary

War in Social Studies.

We will cover the

Constitution, Preamble, and the Bill of

Rights over the next few weeks. Around

the same time, students will finish their

study on plant and animal structures in

science. The Rock cycle will be our next

unit!

GRADE FIVE - Mrs. Prentice

Welcome back! We are off to a great

start in fifth grade. Fifth graders have

finished their NWEA testing and have

jumped right into learning.

Students have been learning about

Earth’s Water and how the biosphere,

geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere

interact. Fifth graders completed several

investigations about how much water is

available for human use

and where this water is

located in the world.

During our trip to the

Bryant Pond 4-H

Learning Center, students participated in

several hands-on activities about

macroinvertebrates, the water quality, and

the interaction of Earth’s spheres.

In reading and writing, students have

been focusing on text features that authors

use to improve our comprehension of non-

fiction. Reading groups are currently

reading Where is the Great Barrier Reef and

Where are the Galapagos Islands? Students

will practice making quotes accurately from

a text when explaining what the text says

explicitly and drawing inferences from the

text. They will also determine two or more

main ideas of a text and explain how they

are supported by key details; summarize the

text.

In math, we have focused on place value

through the hundred billion and have begun

to include decimals

through the

thousandths. Students

worked on writing

numbers in standard,

expanded, and word form. They reviewed

comparing, ordering, and rounding whole

numbers and then decimals. The fifth grade

standard for math facts requires that

students recall 100 basic facts (addition,

subtraction, multiplication, and division)

within five minutes.

In social studies, students focused on

learning the continents and

oceans of the world. They made

paper mache globes and added

the continents and labeled the

oceans. Fifth graders learned how

to use lines of longitude and

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latitude to locate an exact position on a

map. They also completed an online

treasure hunt using the latitude and

longitude coordinates.

Please be sure to read the fifth-grade

weekly newsletter to stay up-to-date on the

upcoming events for our Boston Trip

fundraising.

WOODSTOCK PTA – Mrs. Jeselskis

The PTA is already busy planning fall

events! October 19th is the

annual Craft Fair and we

are busy gathering

donations and hunting

down some amazing

vendors! If you or someone you know

would like to donate something to our raffle

or would like to have a table at the Craft

Fair as a vendor, please make sure to stop

by the office! As always, we will be having

a bake sale if you are baking-inclined and

would like to donate some goodies.

Additionally, we could always use

volunteers to help at the bake sale table, or

even in the kitchen prepping and serving

food! There are lots of options to get

involved in this wonderful event. If nothing

else, please make sure you stop by on the

19th between 9 and 3 to check out all the

local vendors and purchase your kiddos’

craft!

For the fall fundraiser this year we are

happy to offer Woodstock Wolves

gear designed by our very own

Destiny Hughes! Make sure to

“Like” her page on Facebook:

Destinedtobecrunchy (all one

word), to see some of her amazing

work. More details on the

fundraiser will be coming in the

next few weeks, so be on the lookout for

that!

We had a great time collecting Box Tops

for Education last year and will be

continuing that as a year-round fundraiser,

so make sure you are still collecting! In the

very near future the WPTA will have an

online account so you will be able

to scan your receipts and virtually

collect the Box Tops for our

school. It is a great, easy

fundraiser and we hope to

continue the momentum this year!

Another year-round fundraiser

that you can participate in, is bottles! We

are always on the lookout for volunteers to

pick up bottles from the transfer station on

Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday and take

them to the Crazy Sister’s Redemption in

Bryant Pond. This is one of our largest

ongoing fundraisers and we need plenty of

volunteers to make it work! A huge

THANK YOU to all of the volunteers that

regularly participate in this—We literally

could not do it without you! If you are

interested in helping, please be sure to stop

by the office or let any PTA officer know

and we will be happy to share

exact dates needed!

We have a lot of exciting

events coming up

(Grandparents and Special

Friends’ Day is in October, too!)

and we are extremely excited

for another amazing year! As a reminder,

our PTA meetings are held on the first

Thursday of the month (with the exception

of October, which is the second Thursday)

at 6pm. Childcare is provided! Hope to see

you there!

MAHOOSUC KIDS – Mrs. Andrea

Howe

Happy Fall from MKA! It has been fun

getting to know the new students and

catching up with the students that attended

last year, we have done some fun activities

during the month of September including

making bouncy balls, pumpkin playdough,

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baked applesauce, painting with a variety of

tools (plastic wrap, Q-tips and cotton balls)

and so much more.

During the week of October

21st, there are a few activities

that I would like you to be aware

of. On October 23rd, we will

have a guest here to teach kids

how to sew a felt pumpkin and

on October 25th we will have our annual

“Lights On Afterschool” celebration. Both

activities will require parental permission

and forms will go out to families soon.

Also starting soon will be Homework

Club. Homework Club is an opportunity

for kids to have a quiet time and place to

work on homework, projects, ask questions

of a teacher if they aren’t understanding or

read a book.

If you have any questions about MKA,

feel free to call 665-2228 extension 113.

ART - Mrs. Oliver-Broderick

Students are off to a great start in art!

We having been working hard on showing

our understanding of

the color theory.

Kindergarten has

just started a piece

inspired by the artist

Wassily Kandinsky.

This piece is exploring both color and

shape.

1st grade has just started a collage

project inspired by Paul Klee. Students

created their own painted paper full of color

and texture. We have been cutting the

paper up and arranging it to create an

abstract cityscape. I am excited to see them

finished.

2nd graders have been working hard on

beautiful warm and cool color paintings.

We will be starting a symmetry painting

very soon. We also started the year with a

wonderful collaborative project that shows

our love for WES.

3rd graders are just starting a self-

portrait which will include lots of color, line

and pattern.

4th graders are beginning a painting

about movement. I am excited to see how

these turn out.

5th graders are gearing up for their field

trip by critiquing

famous artworks. We

are all looking forward

to visiting the Portland

Museum of Art in a

few weeks.

I am excited to see

and be a part of all the exciting things

happening in the art room. It's going to be a

wonderful year of creativity and

exploration.

BAND - Mr. Alberi

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MUSIC – Ms. Birkhold

We're off to a great start in music this

year! Kindergarteners are just beginning to

explore some of the fundamentals of rhythm

and singing through a variety of musical

games, stories, and songs. 1st graders are

also staying busy by moving their bodies

rhythmically and expressively to many

different kinds of music. Students are

learning a mix of old classics like "One,

Two, Buckle my Shoe" as well as more

modern songs.

2nd graders are really

expanding on the rhythmic

work we did last year, and

strengthening their music

reading skills. We've also

started a fun folk dance that

the kids have been loving!

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3rd graders had a blast on their first day

of recorder. They are definitely excited

about learning this new instrument, and

earning belts in "Recorder Karate."

4th and 5th graders have been working

very hard on the recorder in the first few

weeks of school. They've

been motivated to continue to

earn belts in "Recorder

Karate" as they advance

toward earning their black

belt. We've been taking

advantage of the beautiful

weather, and having our

recorder classes outside.

I'm looking forward to a great year, and

excited to see what the students will

accomplish!

PHYSICAL ED. – Ms. Jordan

Welcome Back WES Families! I hope

you all had a fabulous summer and are

looking forward to the fall season. We are

already off to a great start in PE this year

with bundles of energy and lots of

enthusiasm. Kindergarteners and First

Graders have been playing games that

require listening with spatial and body

awareness while working on basic

locomotor movement skills. They have

been engaging in activities such as Duck

Duck Goose, Follow the Leader, Red Light

Green Light, The Reaction Game, In the

Jungle, and Soccer.

Second and Third

Graders have been

playing games that

require movement

skills, teamwork, and

communication.

Team Memory, Ants

on a Log, Pass it On, Capture the Flag, and

Soccer are just a few examples from the

past few weeks. Fourth and Fifth Graders

have been playing games that require

communication, focus and teamwork as

well as physical agility. Ultimate Capture

the Flag, Ants on a Log, Pass it

On, Soccer, and the Water

Princess challenge are a few

more examples since the start of

the year. I will continue to

incorporate both traditional sport

activities and non-traditional

sport activities that will

challenge students and help them develop

new skills throughout the year.

In addition to our “High Five” guidelines

we will be focusing on the categories of

Caring, Fairness, Respect, Responsibility,

Trustworthiness, and Citizenship

throughout the

year. Each

class can earn

up to 20 points

every week by

wearing

sneakers to PE

(10 points) and

by following

the “High 5” guidelines (10 points). At the

end of each trimester the class with the most

points will earn a reward. The scores are

kept on a bulletin board in the hallway by

the gym, so be sure to check it out when

you are in the building! Just a quick

reminder that I take classes outside as much

as possible this time of year. As you know,

that can be tricky with the weather. I have

recommended that students remember to

bring a water bottle, to dress in layers, and

to throw an extra pair of socks and/or shoes

in their bag for after PE (just in case the

grass is wet from the overnight dew). I’ll

thank you in advance for your help with

this! If you have any questions or concerns,

please do not hesitate to contact me. I am

really looking forward to spending time

with each and every student at WES, it’s

going to be a great year!