The Principal's ROAR

Many apologies for not getting a newsletter out last week. I am still trying to figure out the rhythm of both my administrative job and my teaching job.

We are working on the rules at school, especially when they are different from rules in the past. One tricky rule for many of our students is the “no toys or special items” in school. This is a rule for several reasons, but one is they are a distraction, and we don’t need any extra distractions in our day. The second is that special items are lost, broken, forgotten on the playground, shared, borrowed, etc. We can’t manage personal belongings so we simply say keep them home.

On Monday, September 14, I held the first monthly “Together at the Table” in the gym. There was a small crowd and I fear my lack of getting a newsletter out didn’t help. I will be holding it again on October 19, from 6:30-7:30. The topic will once again be “How to get involved at FES.” I do not have childcare lined up at this point.

We had a wonderful turn out for our Open House on September 16. It was great to see so many families as they saw the early learning happening in the classrooms and getting information about our PTO and The Grapevine. Many of you also signed up for your conference time on November 3. More information will come home about that from each classroom.

We have begun our beginning of the year benchmark testing. This provides us with a baseline number for each student in many content areas. We use this information to guide our instruction and support. Next week, grades 1-4 will be taking the NWEA-MAPS testing in reading and math.

Our first OLL (Outside Lions Learning) was last week also. We enjoyed a beautiful late summer day as we explored pollinators, found our sit spots for writing, built nature mandalas, and created group mandalas on paper. Our next OLL day is October 14 from 9-12. If you would like to help us please call Nicole in the office (603-547-2976) or email me (lmann@conval.edu.)

Thank you all for showing us grace and flexibility as we navigate the beginning of our new year together as a new team.

FES is hosting the Community Supper on Thursday, October 1, 2026 from 5:30-6:30 at Town Hall. Set up is at 4:30, clean up is at 6:30. Please sign up for one of the available slots to make our Community Supper a success! We'd love to see many FES families at the event! If you can't attend you can still contribute by donating food.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0D4DACAF2AA6FDC25-65780885-fescommunity#/

September 14th-25th Fall Benchmark Testing

September 29th School Pictures 9:00am

October 1st Community Supper ~ FES will be hosting Community Supper at the Town Hall 5:30pm

October 6th PTO Meeting 5:15pm

October 8th Lion's Eye Screening 9:00am

October 14th OLL

October 16th FES PTO Fall Hike ~ Permission slips will be sent out soon

October 30th Halloween Parade & Pumpkin Carving

Kindergarten has had a great start to our school year! We have transitioned very well to the classroom routine. We have been working on getting to know each other, things that we like and don’t like, how to problem solve and when is a great time to ask for help. Kindergarteners have been curious about how things work and what we will be learning about each day. We have learned that there is a difference between toys and tools and that there is a time for both within our school day. We have introduced the job chart and how important it is for people to have a role in our community within the classroom. We have some amazing helpers in our classroom!

In Reading we have been focusing on parts of a sentence and tapping out each word. We have been learning a variety of nursery rhymes too! In math we have been working on how things work: what we notice (can see with our eyes) and things we wonder about (questions). What we have for math tools and how to use them (connecting cubes, pattern blocks, Geo blocks and two-colored counters). We recently started working on whether we have enough items, if not what we need to do and building equations from our questions and solutions. For science, we have explored what a scientist is, who invented school and the alphabet, and how paper & pencils are made. Once we learned what scientists do and how it affects us, we have started our first topic of Weather!

Mr. LeGraw will be joining us. Welcome!

Remember to bring your sneakers!!

Lauren Mann, Principal, Teacher

Grades 3 and 4

Email: Lmann@conval.edu

Phone: 603-547-2976

Website: https://fes.conval.edu

Francestown Elementary School

325 2ND NH Turnpike South

Francestown NH 03043