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1
Important reminders for a healthy
and happy child:
December is upon us and the
cold weather is coming.
Please remember to dress your
children in layers as this is
most comfortable. I appreci
ate all of the families compli
ance so far with coming in NO
EARLIER than 8:40. This is
an important safety is
sue. There is no supervision
and class begins at 8:50. Your
child will not be late if they
arrive here at 8:45.
Daily attendance is very
important. If your child will
not be in school for any
reason, a call from you would
certainly be appreciated. Your
time to ensure good
communication is much
appreciated. Absences for
illness, injury, death in the
family, religious observations,
courts appearance and school
sponsored activity is
excused. All other absences
for family vacations are
deemed unexcused.
Reading daily is so
valuable. Please set aside 20
minutes per day to share
reading with your
child. Reading books,
magazines or made up stories
or lists is helpful in the
development of lan
guages. Your part in this
cannot be done without your
help.
Eating a healthy breakfast
every day is important. Many
children are coming to school
without breakfast or
snack. Please help your child
by helping them stay healthy
with healthy food.
Our lunch program will no
longer allow excessive charg
ing of lunches. We will allow
a student only a sandwich
and a milk if payment is not
made in a timely way.
Consider using our online
payment option with MEAL
PAY +. If you have questions,
please contact Mrs. Colleen
Overton our food service man
ager.
My best to you for a healthy and
happy holiday season.
Dr. Franzone
rincipal’s News
Dr. Monica Franzone, Principal Christina Post, Assistant Principal
December 2011
Mary Morrisson Directory
Dr. Franzone Principal
Mrs. Post – Assistant Principal
Mrs. Breau – School Secretary
Mrs. Croxton, R.N. - School Nurse
Mrs. Chmielewski—Preschool
Mrs. Robert—Preschool
Mrs. Baude– Preschool/Kindergarten
Mrs. Spees – Kindergarten
Mrs. Wold – Kindergarten
Mrs. Pope– Grade 1
Mrs. Potts– Grade 1
Dr. Richards – Grade 1
Mrs. Casadei – Grade 2
Mr. Serven – Grade 2
Mrs. Schneider- Grade 2
Mrs. Coogan- Grade 3
Mrs. Roy- Grade 3
Mrs. Effman– Grade 4
Mrs. Murphy– Grade 4
Ms. Donnel – Grade 5
Mrs. Yamiolkowski– Grade 5
Mrs. Hille– Art
Mrs. Monacho – Art
Mrs. Esposito - Health
Mrs.. Olsen - Music
Mr. Hunter - Music
Mr. Chiapetta—Music
Mrs. Hoinsky– Sp. Ed/Resource
Mr. Holmes - Sp. Ed/Resource
Mr. Ribchinsky - Sp. Ed/Resource
Mrs. Chiasson- Reading
Mrs. Tompkins- Reading
Mrs. Beaugrand – Reading
Mrs. Brown- Remedial/Math
Mrs. Sheehan- Librarian
Ms. Ferrari– Phys. Ed.
Mr. Carter– Phys. Ed.
Mrs. Conrad – School Psychologist
Mrs. Elderkin - Speech Therapy
Mr. O’Connell—Custodian
Mary Morrisson Newsletter
A Great Place to Learn!
2
We are currently working in unit 2 of
our language arts program (LEAD 21). The fo-
cus is on “The world around me”. During this
unit, we are learning about the
five senses. We are focusing on de-
veloping many of the comprehen-
sion skills we introduced in unit 1,
such as making predictions, com-
paring and contrasting, identify-
ing important information in a
story, using context and picture
clues to find the meaning of un-
known words, and identifying text
structures/patterns. Reading
groups have started and we are
meeting with students on a daily
basis. The children are being in-
troduced to a new fiction and nonfiction text
each week. Your child is receiving individual-
ized instruction at his/her instructional level in
order to target specific skills and areas of con-
cern. We will also be adding more writing to
our drawings and stories as the students be-
come more proficient in letter identi-
fication and sound association, name
writing, building fine motor skills
needed to write properly, and proper
pencil grip. We continue to introduce
new letters each week in the Funda-
tions program as well.
In unit 2 of the math program, we are
focusing on identifying and ordering
numbers 1-10, writing numerals 1-10,
making sets of 1-10, identifying and
continuing patterns, and identifying
and forming 2D shapes. Specifically,
we are reinforcing the 5-group concept in num-
bers greater than 5.
Kindergarten News – Mrs. Baude, Mrs. Spees and Mrs. Wold
Great Place to Learn Mary Morrisson Newsletter
Preschool – Mrs. Chmielewski, Mrs. Robert
uring the month of December, the preschoolers will be reading different versions of the Gin-
gerbread Man. They will make text to text and text to self connections. We will compare and
contrast the differences and similarities in the stories. We will also be discussing stranger dan-
ger as there is a sneaky fox in our story.
December is a month full of holidays and we will learn a little about each one. If any families
have any special traditions that they would like to share with us please let us know.
Before we leave on our holiday break, it has been a tradition at Mary Morrisson School that
the preschoolers and kindergarten students get together for a sing- a- long to celebrate the
many traditions and celebrations at this time. The sing- a- long is scheduled for Tuesday De-
cember 20, 2011. We are sure you will be hearing your children singing at home in preparations
for this special day. We will let you know what time your child will be singing. After the sing a
long, all parents will be invited back to their child’s room for a holiday get together.
3
In math, children are working on addition
and subtraction within a story problem. We
are continuing to review coin value.
We are looking forward to our field trip to
the Nutcracker at the Garde Art Center on
Friday, December 9th. We will be learning
about the Nutcracker story and whaling in
the 1800’s during an assembly hosted by
the Eastern Connecticut Ballet.
plain their thinking. In Science, students had
so much fun experimenting with solids and liq-
uids. We learned so much! In our new Funda-
tions unit, students are learning to spell words
with suffixes. Please remember to practice the
Fundation trick words at home with your
child. Thank you in advance! Just for your in-
formation, the Fundation materials can al-
ways be found on the classroom webpage.
Children are working on writing skills in-
cluding elaboration and details. We are
stressing fluency with our sight/trick
words. Please practice these high frequen-
cy words with your child’s homework. In
addition to sight words to practice, home-
work will include books to share together
and a practice skill sheet. .
As part of our literacy lessons we are also
working on reading comprehension and
discussion skills. We are reading stories on
communities and neighborhoods.
Grade Two News – Mrs. Casadei, Mr. Serven, Mrs. Schneider
Grade One News – Mrs. Pope, Mrs. Potts, Dr. Richards
schedule that Mr. Hunter has pro-
vided. The days change from week
to week so following the schedule
will ensure that your child brings
his or her instrument on the cor-
rect days.
We ask parents to continue to
check your child’s home/school
folder daily, monitor your child’s
homework activities and sign
homework.
Students in the third grade are
continuing lessons from the se-
cond unit in our reading pro-
gram, Science at Play. Students
are receiving instruction on iden-
tifying text structures in nonfic-
tion material, such as description
and problem/solution. The third
graders are introduced to these
lessons through modeled instruc-
tion from teachers. They then
receive guided practice as they
read nonfiction text and work on
activities to reinforce text struc-
ture skills.
Students have completed the
first geometry unit in math. The
classes are moving into a new
unit with focus on solving word
problems. Additionally, students
are receiving instruction and
practice on additional math skills
to prepare them for the Connecti-
cut Mastery Test. Such skills in-
clude discrete math, extending
number patterns, and ordering
numbers. Students are using the
Fastt Math computer program to
increase their fluency with basic
math facts.
We ask that parents of strings
students be sure to check the
Grade Three News – Mrs. Coogan, Mrs. Roy
A Great Place to Learn Mary Morrisson Newsletter
2nd graders collectively earned over 1700 Box
Tops for our school in just 5 weeks! Thank you
for helping us reach our goal. We are begin-
ning a new unit in our reading program. The
theme is: Science and Technology in Our Com-
munity. We also began a new unit in math.
Students are learning to solve a variety of sto-
ry problems, to show their work through proof
drawings and to use math vocabulary to ex-
4
We have completed our Science unit on Magnetism and Electricity. Representative form
CL&P did a presentation on electrical safety for the classes.
We had our introduction to Mystic Aquarium. Teachers from the Aquarium visited fourth
grade to prepare us for field trip. They presented a formal lesson and then the children had
creatures of the sea to touch and examine.
In math we are beginning the study of quadrilaterals, (finding area and perimeter), lines,
rays and line segments.
We will continue our study of areas of the U.S. Study of
colonies which has fit in nicely with Thanksgiving material.
We are working on the suspense, mystery portion of narra-
tive triangle
Writing: The students have been evalu-
ating their writing to develop goals for
improvement for their future writing
pieces. There is a special focus on details
and elaboration and the use of transi-
tions in their writing. This will be a con-
tinual process assessed frequently
through writing prompts.
Reading: As always, we continue to do
shared reading in small groups and guid-
ed reading at instructional levels. Re-
cently, all students were reassessed to
determine their current independent and
instructional level of reading using
LEAD21. This afforded us the infor-
mation to regroup where needed in order
to target students’ individual needs as
indicated by their evaluation.
Happy Holidays,
Mrs. Yamiolkowski & Ms. Donnel
We hope that you enjoyed your Thanks-
giving Break. We are looking forward to
our early December field trip to Lyman
Allyn Museum with our Circle Of
Friends buddies. We are eager with an-
ticipation for our students’ opportunity
to demonstrate what they have learned
in Strings, Band, and Chorus. Be sure to
look for future information about this
assembly, you won’t want to miss it!
Math: We have been routinely using
the computer lab to practice our math
facts with the FASTT MATH program.
We encourage our students to continue
practicing/strengthening their addition/
subtraction facts in order to move on to
the multiplication and division facts re-
quired for fifth grade math. In Math Ex-
pressions, we are finishing up Unit 2 on
Area & Perimeter and beginning Unit 3
Place value (extending from billions to
billionths), whole and decimal computa-
tion, analyzing data and graphs, and re-
al-world problem solving.
Grade Five News – Mrs. Donnel, Mrs, Yamilkowski
Great Place to Learn Mary Morrisson Newsletter
Grade Four News - Mrs. Effman, Mrs. Murphy
5
Great Place to Learn Mary Morrisson Newsletter
Check out MM’s website! The website is
pretty user friendly and is updated to give our students and families lots of links to
on-line sites for kids!
Bookmark this address! ht tp: //www.groton.k12.c t .us
Then Se lect a School
Mary Morr isson
Student Resources
Fourth graders have completed their fitness tests. They did a great job! Thank you to all stu-
dents!!
All students have completed some dance routines to music. They have been listening to fitness
music and following the steps. Older students are learning to keep up with the music/beat and
younger students are learning the counts. These songs also help students with vocabulary as
they learn words such as: right, left, up, down and new fitness terms including lunge, stomp,
jog, slide, etc. We had a lot of fun!
All students now are working on interdisciplinary activities. We are combining classroom topics
into our PE lessons. We are doing fitness relays combining spelling and math. Students are al-
so working together in groups/teams to complete the relay. They must answer math questions
correctly and read words to complete the race. Kindergarten students are also doing these re-
lays with number and letter recognition.
6
The Reading Place – Mrs. Chaisson, Mrs. Thompkins
A Great Place to Learn Mary Morrisson Newsletter
Looking for the Good During the holidays, we can all get caught up in the errands
we need to run and the list of things we need to do. Some-
times, it helps to stop and think for a moment about all the
things we have to be grateful for. A local artist, Anne Kubitsky is putting together a
worthwhile activity called “Look for the Good Project”. She is asking for people to tell
her what they are grateful for on a postcard. The postcards that are received will be
posted and displayed as part of an art show at the Customs House Maritime Gallery in
New London. For more information you can go the website: lookforthegoodproject.org
I am looking for the good here at MM. I know that I am grateful for such a wonderful
learning community. I am grateful for children who come to school and want to learn. I
am so thankful for the parents who work hard to support their beginning learners. And
I’m always grateful for chocolate! I want to hear what the students at MM are grateful
for. Blank index cards and directions explaining the project have been distributed to all
students. Students who would like to participate can bring me their postcard by Dec.
8th. Feel free to encourage your chid’s creativity- they can use words, pictures, or draw-
ings to express themselves. I will forward the entries to Ms. Kubitsky. Looking forward
to building an attitude of gratitude!
Fundations Parent Workshop Dec. 16th from 9-9:30
Please join us for a brief informational meeting to learn more about the Phonics pro-
gram Fundations that grades K-2 are using here at MM. This workshop will explain the
philosophy behind this program and provide parents/guardians with practical ways to
help reinforce the skills that children are learning. Any questions please forward them
to [email protected]. Hope to see you then!
7
A Time for Giving
The holiday season is a busy and special time of
year. It is a time to be enjoyed with friends and
family. It is also a time for giving. Teaching chil-
dren the personal value of sharing with others is
an important life lesson. Encourage your child to
give something to another person. It might be a
homemade card or an offer to help a neighbor. It
might be asking someone new over to play. It
might be sending a drawing to a relative. It
might be sharing a game or a toy or even a smile
with a sibling. As a family it is important to re-
member that kindness toward others is a gift that
keeps on giving.
Counseling Corner – Dr. Conrad
Great Place to Learn Mary Morrisson Newsletter
Library News – Mrs. Sheehan
First grade students will be reading Caldecott books. A children’s picture book
with outstanding illustrations is selected yearly to receive the golden Caldecott Medal.
The honor books, or runners up, receive a silver medal. Some of our favorites: Officer
Buckle and Gloria, Lon Po Po, and The Lion and the Mouse.
This holiday season consider giving your child a book that you can read or discuss
together. Here are a few new publications:
Cabin Fever by Jeff Kinney - for the Wimpy Kid fans
If You Give a Dog a Donut by Laura Numeroff - Dog now joins Mouse, Moose, and Pig
Llama Llama Holiday Drama by Anna Dewdney – What is the real gift of Christmas?
The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg – A new “classic” and a Caldecott
The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan - for the Percy Jackson fans
Wonder Struck by Brian Selznick - the author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret
A Great Place to Learn
8
A Great Place to Learn Mary Morrisson Newsletter
Veteran’s Day Fun!
9
Mary Morrisson Newsletter Great Place to Learn A Great Place to Learn
Happy Birthday
Mary Morrisson
10
Vocal Music News:
Our chorus winter concert is only one week
away. On Tuesday, December 6, 2011 the Mary
Morrison chorus will be
performing. The orchestra
and some band members
will also be performing that
evening. The concert be-
gins at 6:30 pm. You don’t
want to miss this wonderful
event. It will be vide-
otaped for Channel 19.
All music students are
working on music stand-
ards in their clas-
ses. Third grade students
have begun their study of
the recorder. Fourth grade students are study-
ing instruments of the orchestra and fifth grade
students are studying composers. All other
classes are working on the first standard
which is singing songs. Second graders have
learned about time signatures and how to
follow music in a music
book. Pre K and
K students are singing,
dancing, moving, and play-
ing instruments. First
grade students are also
singing and they are learn-
ing simple rhythms.
Everyone is working very
hard in vocal music this
term.
Vocal Music News – Mrs. Olsen
A Great Place to Learn Mary Morrisson Newsletter
11
PTO Updates
Mary Morrisson Newsletter Great Place to Learn A Great Place to Learn
Our children in band,
strings, and chorus will
be putting on a Winter
Concert on December 6
at 6:30 pm. Come listen
to all their hard work
and some wonderful
entertainment!
Holiday Spirit Grams are coming!
You will be receiving your spirit
gram forms to fill out soon. The
children will be receiving a fun
little prize and a candy cane
along with your message. Holi-
day Grams will be $1.00 each and
will be handed out just before
the holiday break.
Family Movie Night
Our latest family night is coming up on December 16. We will be having a Pizza & Movie night. You can be a part of this fun family night by voting for the movie you would like to watch that night. The choices are Cars 2, the Smurfs, or Despicable Me. You can vote by bringing in your loose change (we take paper money too) and putting it in the buck-
et of the movie of your choice. The movie we watch on the 16th will be the one that collects the most money. Voting begins on December 2, 2011 and will end on December 14th. The buckets will be in the office. So, start bringing in your votes
and make sure your favorite movie wins!!
12
Art to Remember and Otis Spunk-
meyer orders will be in soon.
Watch for flyers to come home
about pick-up dates and times.
This will be especially important for
the Otis Spunkmeyer orders be-
cause they will be bring a refriger-
ated truck for only a few hours one
day to pass out the frozen cookie
dough. Thank you to our Mary
Morrisson family for all the hard
work you did on these two fundrais-
ers. You helped earn almost three
thousand dollars for our school
events!! Great work!
Groton Parent Council will be meeting at Mary Morrisson on December 13 from 5:30- 6:30
pm. The Groton Parent Council is a coming together of repre-
sentatives from all the PTO’s and the School Board of the Groton school district. Please come out and show the rest of the district
how we support our school!
Box Tops
Mrs. Richard’s class was our October winner. They celebrated all their box tops with a popcorn party!
Our second grade classes challenged themselves to
collect 1500 box tops during the month of November and we want to say Congratulations, You did it!! Good Job to Mrs. Casadei, Mrs. Schneider,
and Mr. Serven’s classes
13
Happy Holidays!! The PTO would like to wish our
Mary Morrisson family warmest thoughts and best wishes for a wonderful holiday and a very
Happy New Year.
14
15
MARY MORRISSON ELEMENTARY
VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES/INTEREST
Please fill out completely and check all volunteer opportunities that apply.
Tell us about yourself:
Name:
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Phone - day: ______________________________Phone - Evening: ___________________________________
Email:__________________________________________________________________________________________
I check my mail ____daily ____weekly ____do not check regularly)
Would you be willing to volunteer for a teacher other than your child's? _____ yes _____ no
Do you have talents you could share with the school (ie. scrapbooking, playing an instrument):
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Children's Names: Grade: Teacher:
______________________ ___________ ____________________
_______________________ ___________ ____________________
School Activities:
О Sign lettering (add messages to the sign by the street) О Events calendar
О Birthday bulletin board О Birthday buttons
О Library Helpers О Fall Festival
О Field Day О School Improvement Team
Parent/Teacher Organization (PTO) Committees:
О Family Fun Night Activities
О Fundraising
О Fall Fundraiser О Spirit Grams О Spring Fundraiser О Dinner Nights О
Basket Bash
О Yearbook
О Boxtops for Education
О Scholastic Book Fair
О Teacher Appreciation Week
Can we call/email you to help with other activities if the need arises? _____ yes _____
no
All volunteers must attend a one-time Volunteer Orientation.
_____ I have already attended Orientation. _____ I need to attend Orientation.
Questions or Comments? Contact your Volunteer Coordinator:
Deanna Dunn by phone (860-449-1168) or via email ([email protected])