Thank you

• Maribeth, Lisa and Sophia for packing backpacks for the Backpack Program.

Outside Wear

Cold winter weather is upon us. Please remember to send your child(ren) to school with hats, gloves, mittens and winter weather apparel for outside classes and recess.

Reflective Wear

If your child or children are walking after school, since it gets dark so early, be sure to wear reflective gear so traffic can see you.

Curriculum Updates

Performing Arts

PK/K – The past few weeks in music class we have been continuing our work on our sign language. We are learning the sign language to the song “You’re A Grand Old Flag!” We have been talking about what veterans day is and we will be creating some pictures to thank veterans for all that they have done for us! We have also been dancing to some fun Action songs! Including our favorite song “Herman the Worm!” We also have been reading lots of books! This week we read the book My Family Plays Music.

1/2 – First and second graders have been learning the sign language for the song “You’re A Grand Old Flag!”  We are looking forward to honoring some of our local veterans in an upcoming celebration. We will be creating pictures and/or thank you cards for Veterans to thank them for all they have done for us. We learned about what Veterans Day is and why we celebrate it. We have also been dancing to lots of fun action songs. We have been reading lots of books! This week we read My Family Plays Music.

3/4 – Third and Fourth graders have been learning the sign language for the song “God Bless America” We learned about what a Veteran is and What Veterans Day is and why we celebrate it.  We are looking forward to honoring some of our local veterans in an upcoming celebration. We will be creating pictures and/or thank you cards for Veterans to thank them for all they have done for us. We have also been dancing to lots of fun action songs. We started learning about the composer George Frideric Handel and just finished reading the book, Hallelujah Handel.

5/6 – Fifth and Sixth graders have been learning the sign language for the song “America the Beautiful” We learned about Veterans and Veterans Day and why we celebrate it. We are looking forward to honoring some of our local veterans in an upcoming celebration. We will be writing thank-you notes for the veterans for everything that they have done for us! We started learning about the composer George Frideric Handel and watched a video to show us a brief overview of his life. We have just started reading Hallelujah Handel together as a class.

7/8 – Seventh and Eighth graders have been learning the sign language for the song “America the Beautiful” We learned about Veterans and Veterans Day and why we celebrate it. We are looking forward to the chance to interview some of our local veterans and honor them in an upcoming celebration! We will be writing thank-you notes for the veterans for everything that they have done for us! We started learning about the composer George Frideric Handel and watched a video to show us a brief overview of his life. We have just started reading Hallelujah Handel together as a class.

3/4- ArtLast week students made Jack-O-Lanterns for Halloween.  This coming week the kiddos will begin the bookmark to accompany ELA and SS topics. I spoke of this project several weeks ago (prematurely).  It will include maps, information, illustrations, and cultural patterns & symbols.

5/6 Art-This past week students studied the proportions of the human skull from a frontal view and drew it with a white china marker to accentuate the places that would receive the light from above while fading into the nothingness of the black paper.  This coming week we will do relief carvings into rubber to make stamps.  The PTF plans to borrow these and use them on envelopes going out to the community.

7/8 Art-This past week students studied the proportions of the human skull from a frontal view and from a side view.  They then drew the skulls with a white china marker to accentuate the places that would receive the light from above while fading into the nothingness of the black paper.  This coming week we will do relief carvings into rubber to make stamps.  The PTF plans to borrow these and use them on envelopes going out to the community.

A Peek of our Halloween Parade and Costumes

More Curriculum Updates

Puffin, Pre-K and K

Students continue to work on giving word messages, trying to do things independently, and letting teachers know when they need help. In addition to the regular school routines that our youngest learners begin to master, there are additional skills to tackle this year like getting your mask on correctly, giving physical space or ‘ bubble space’, opening pre-packaged foods, and securing personal belongings into plastic bins to name a few. Prior to parent teacher conferences, I was reflecting on how amazingly resilient and adaptable my students have been. Conferences on Friday were a wonderful opportunity to be able to share and hear from parents how the start of the year has felt for students and families. Five Little Pumpkins served as our anchor text for literacy, math, and science this past week; we loved making puppets to re-enact and reinforce the concept of First = the pumpkin on the number 1 in line is First, Second = number 2, etc.; Mr. Kennerk and the students used clay and patience to wait for the clay to dry before painting five little pumpkins, so the students could re-enact the poem with clay pumpkins!

1st and 2nd Grade

This week in Math the Second Grade continued to work on measurement. They have been using Zearn and have enjoyed exploring their Math boxes. In literacy, the second graders have been working on skills that go with their reading level directly. In math, first graders continued to work on finding the missing number in a word problem and using the counting on a strategy to find the missing number. They also worked on the sight words here, and can. In literacy, they worked on words that started with d, f, c, and h. In math, kindergartners played a dice game with goldfish to work on number recognition and they worked on writing and making the numbers 6-10. They also worked on number sentences. On Thursday K-2 did Halloween addition color by number.

3-8 ELA

3/4 ELA -This week students participated in an end of Unit assessment.  They have been working on identifying attributes of a story:  Main character(s), setting, problem (conflict), and solution.  Your students are making so much progress!  For the most part, they are responding to questions with complete sentences, which include part of the question.  For example, if the question is: “According to the story …”; students are responding with sentences like: “According to the story …”  Then they are citing the evidence from the story that supports their claim.  This is so much growth from the beginning of the year, where they would respond with an answer like: “She talked too much.”  You can be so proud of your students!

5/6 ELA – This past week students started a three-part assessment demonstrating their ability to read an unfamiliar text and analyze that text based on the narrator and how the point of view affected the descriptions of what happened.  They will finish up that assessment this week.

7/8 ELA – This past week students began the second portion of their first unit of study.  This second part looks at poetic tools and how both poets and writers use these tools.  They include similes, metaphors, alliteration, allusion, etc.  Please ask your child about these, and have them share them with you.  They have the material in Google Classroom as a resource for this portion of the study of The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.  They should be able to explain at least 4 of these tools to you in a way you can understand it.

As always, each of the classes splits up for a portion of ELA class.  Those that stay with me work on specific decoding and encoding skills to allow them to become fluent readers of academic text at the 6-8 grade level.  Those that either Ms. Martin or Ms. Blake take work on other reading activities that expand their level of expertise.  We work hard to make sure each child is receiving exposure to both grade-level work and work that stretches them in other ways.

3-8 Super Studies-The class was very excited to brainstorm ideas to move forward with a Maine bicentennial celebration that had to put on hold last spring! Last year’s 3/4 class won a $500 grant from the state to throw a birthday party, and this year’s class has some great ideas for how to safely modify those plans. We also started planning a project that the students will be working on next week about different aspects of Wabanaki’s life and history.

5/6 Super Studies-Last week, students learned about the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia. They compared Hammurabi’s Code to modern laws and enforcement, made a map, and read ancient Mesopotamian ghost stories for Halloween.

7/8 Super Studies-Last week, the students have been researching and preparing to present a Virtual Wax Museum about the presidents. Next week they will start producing video presentations about their presidents that will be available to view and share online. They are also eager to see how Election Day goes! They will be outside the town office in the morning, encouraging Brooklin residents to vote.

3/4 Math – It was so nice to “meet” many of you at parent-teacher conferences.   This past week the third graders worked on understanding the relationship between multiplication and division and breaking down multiplication problems to solve them using the distributive property.  Students should be working on their multiplication facts up to fours.  One fun way to do this is to get a set of dice.  Decide if you are going to work on your twos, threes or fours.  Have your child roll the dice and add the two dice together, then multiply the total by the number you are working on.  For example, if you are working on the twos, and your child rolls a three and a four, they would add those together to get 7 and then multiply it by two to get 14.  I know it seems simple, but kids will see it as a game and be more willing to practice.

The fourth graders continue to work on multi-step problems using tape diagrams.  They are learning how to estimate and assess if their answers are reasonable.  Fourth graders would also benefit from the multiplication practice I described above.

5/6 math – It was so nice to “meet” many of you at parent-teacher conferences.  This past week the fifth graders continued to work with division with decimals.  We worked with decimals with remainders and understanding remainders in the smallest unit.  We also worked with word problems and decimals.

The sixth graders continue to work with ratios and rates.  We worked with finding rates from ratios and finding ratios from rates.  We also worked with finding rates by dividing two quantities.

The seventh graders worked with unit rates as scale factors and computing actual lengths from scale drawings.

7/8 math –  It was nice to “meet” many of you at the parent-teacher conferences.  This past week the 7th graders continued their work with ratios.  They worked with finding equivalent ratios given the total quantity, solving multi-step ratio problems, and finding proportional relationships with fractions.    Some of the eighth graders started a new unit on the concept of congruence.  They worked with translations and reflections.  The other group of eighth-graders worked with scientific notation and magnitude.

Another Peek of Our Halloween Parade and Costumes

PTF News:

• Thank you to Tanya Prime for setting up the clothing drop boxes at school and at The General Store. Thank you to Maribeth Carson for delivering backpacks to remote learning students and for shopping and packing for our backpack program! 
• The next PTF meeting is outdoors, November 17th @ 3:15.
• Warm Clothing Drive has started! https://fb.me/e/1E1I2osef Brooklin PTF is looking for clean, gently used, snow pants, jackets, warm socks, hats, mittens, and boots for all sizes. Please put your items in a clean bag and set them in one of our drop boxes. November 1-November 6. DROPBOX WILL BE AT THE BROOKLIN SCHOOL AND THE BROOKLIN GENERAL STORE. We will get everything extra clean, organized, and set-up outdoors to go through. Friday, November 13th, and Saturday, November 14. Children will have to be even more prepared to be outdoors this winter and we want them to be toasty warm!
• Brooklin School PTF is having a fundraiser and we need your help! https://givebutter.com/brooklin If you know someone that is interested in donating to our great organization please send them the link. Thank you!

November

11/6                 9:00 AM                                 Picture Day

12:00                                       Dismissal

11/10               6:00pm                                    School Board Meeting

11/11                           Holiday—No School

11/13               12:00                                       Dismissal

11/20               12:00                                       Dismissal

11/25-11/27                 Holiday—No School

 

December

12/4                 12:00                                       Dismissal

12/8                 6:00pm                                    School Board Meeting

12/11               12:00                                       Dismissal

12/18               12:00                                       Dismissal

12/23-1/3                     Holiday—No School