Renovations Update

FEBRUARY Alstead Primary School

NEWS LETTER

A Message from Mr. Young The students recently completed MAPS testing. It was great to see so many students excited about their improvements. The new web based MAPS eliminated all of the frustration associated with the computers freezing and students having to start the test from the beginning.

The new web based MAPS test also allows students to experience questions from the common core (Continue p.2)

February 5th • AAA Site-Based

Meeting Vilas School 6pm

February 7th

• PTO Meeting APS 3:15 pm

• Deliberative Session High School at 6:30pm

February 14 • Valentine Parties

(Afternoon) February 18th-22nd

• February Break The Vilas Renovation Committee has been hard at work planning the next phase of the renovation project. The first step was the removal of trees from the Vilas hill. Since then, a land survey has been completed.

The committee has been assessing, gathering ideas, and developing preliminary master plans for the school renovations and site development (Continue p. 3).

Calendar

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The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real

world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need

for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.

www.corestandards.org

Sample Common Core Math Question Grade 4

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The above draft is one proposed site plan for the future development of the Vilas / Alstead Primary Schools grounds. As the plan indicates, the biggest changes come to traffic flow / parking and the addition of a new gym to the right of Vilas School.

The next step in this process is a vote by the public to approve a detailed architectural drawing. The vote would allow money to be taken out of the Vilas capital reserve fund to finance the next step.

A big thanks goes to all the work the renovation committee has completed behind the scene to arrive at this

point.

Draft Site Plan GYM

New traffic flow allows the buses to go behind Vilas and provide a pull off for APS, in addition there would be much more parking spaces for events

APS School

Vilas School

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Now enrolling students for the 2013 / 2014 school year on a first-come, first-served basis…

Alstead Primary School’s Public

Pre-Kindergarten

Transportation Provided!

Children turning AGE 4 by September 30th, 2013 are eligible to register for Pre-Kindergarten

Pre-Kindergarten is provided free of cost to children in Acworth, Alstead

and Langdon!

Call 835-2482 to register

Pre-K has spent the month of January studying clothes. We have investigated what clothes are made of, how clothes are made, how to take care of our clothes, and features of clothing. In addition, we read many books about clothes. We even designed our own t-shirts. In literacy we have been working hard to learn all of our letters and letter sounds. We have been practicing writing letters and words in our journals, too. In math we have been practicing counting groups of objects. We have also been learning to create patterns. We discovered that many of our clothes have patterns on them!

Smith’s Happenings

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Chaffee’s Kindergarten Adventures!

February will bring us many adventures! We continue to work in our reading, writing and math groups. We are learning to count to 100 by 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s! Our sight words are helping us read everything in sight! On February 8th, we will be celebrating the 100th day of kindergarten! Our day will be filled with lots of counting crafts and activities. February 14th will be our Valentine’s Day Party. The children will have fun writing cards for each other. They are becoming very good writers! We just started a unit about sea creatures. Our favorite creature is the sea horse! Did you know that seahorses change color according to what they are near? Be on the lookout for more interesting seahorse facts at our display outside the classroom.

Neilsen’s Kindergarten Corner Happy February! Mrs. Neilsen's class is having fun learning all about coins! In Math we are practicing our numbers up to 40! We are even learning how to add small numbers together! Patterning, counting on, building towers of ten, and counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s, are also mixed into our daily routines. In Reading we have really started to master our letter sounds, and we have been practicing sounding out and blending words. We are

continuing to learn how to write our letters correctly. In addition, we are practicing clapping out syllables, memorizing sight words, and learning proper sentence structure!

We have just begun studying creatures that live in the Ocean. How exciting!

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Hanatow’s Artic Chill It’s been cold outside, but not as cold as the Antarctic. The First Graders are still on their journey. They continue to collect information about penguins and make comparisons between them. The skills and concepts involved are computation, measuring, recording information, sorting, map work, reading, and making graphs. This unit will end with creating and solving penguin story problems. It has been an amazing trip! The students are learning about animal and plant communities in reading. The

skills that they have been working on are long vowels, contractions, syllables, nouns, and inflected endings. In writing, they’ve learned how to write letters, and are currently working on descriptive paragraphs. Mama Echo continues to entice the First Graders with phonetic skills. She is helping them learn about blends, which are 2 or more consonants together, each making its own sound. To “mark up” blends you underline each sound with a separate line. I am truly impressed with the progress the First Graders have made phonetically.

Do you have cabin fever? Don’t worry Spring is only 71/2 weeks away!!

2nd Grade continues to work hard as a group! In Bridges we are exploring shapes, symmetry, area, and numbers. We are also working on automaticity with our addition and subtraction facts through 20. In Fundations we continue

to work with many different syllable types. We are in Unit 3 in Reading Streets. This weeks question is, In What Creative Ways do we Communicate? In writing we will be talking about and writing letters! We are also getting excited for day 100!

Mc Guirk’s Crew

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Harmon’s Tech Crew Dear APS Families, As we move through the rest of third grade, we will be completing our reading street weekly assessments online! This allows students to use the computer lab once a week, practicing online tests, and become more independent using computers. All of the students are really enjoying this, and they are able to get feedback right away. I am hopeful that this will make taking the MAPS and the new Common Core assessment easier on all the students in the years to come!

Fourth grade has been hard at work as usual! We have had many exciting events happening in our room lately. In Reading, the class has been investigating myths and how these stories explain various events in nature. The students have loved learning about Greek mythology. Ask them about the story of Hades, Demeter, and Persephone that explains the reason for the seasons! Everyone enjoyed our

weekly story, How Night Came from the Sea. After learning about this myth of how night was created, we read about the actual scientific reasons for day and night in our small reading groups. In Math, the students have been exploring various strategies to solve multi-digit multiplication problems. We have studied four different techniques: Traditional Algorithm, Lattice Method, Box and Cluster, and Partial Products. The class has also been dedicated researchers in writing. Each student has been gathering research on a country he or she would like to visit and will be creating a travel brochure for this

country! The 4th graders continue to show they are dedicated to their schoolwork and that it is possible to have fun while learning!

Ketchum’s Travels

The positive changes at Alstead Primary School continue to show in the school wide MAPS scores. The new reading program has really benefited grades 2-4, raising the bar to a much higher

level. Kindergarten and grade 1 continue to modify the program to best meet the needs of the students.

In addition, the graphs below show that the students average growth in MAPS are growing above the projective average growth.

MAPS SCORES

Math Reading

Fall 44 60

Winter 61.5 69

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

MAPS - School Wide Benchmark

Kindergarten

Grade 1 Grade 2 grade 3 Grade 4

Actual Math Average Growth

14 21 10 10 8

Projected Math Average Growth

7 10 8 7 5

0 5

10 15 20 25

Math - Student Average Growth

Kindergarten

Grade 1 Grade 2 grade 3 Grade 4

Actual Reading Average Growth

10.5 11 9 11 7

Projected Reading Average Growth

7 10 8 5 5

0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Reading - Student Average Growth