DCS Ravens' Report

September

25th-First Community Lunch 12pm-bring your own lunch and join us. Kickball game to follow.

27th-DeMar Marathon and Kids Run

October

2nd-PTO meeting 3:15pm

8th-Picture Day

10th-Dublin Trail 5k and 1 mile Fun Run hosted by the DCS PTO at Dublin School

12th-Columbus Day-No School

15th-Harvest Potluck Supper and Open House 5:30pm-7pm

Hello DCS families and friends, what a wonderful week! DCS students have been working so hard on all the fall assessments. We had a special event on this week where former Arts Enrichment Coordinator Jeannie Connolly came to update our hall our with the students. These creations were based upon the DCS motto "DCS Cares" and utilized hearts as a focus of the pieces. They came out so beautifully and we look forward to showcasing them for you during our Open House. I included the words to our school song above for our new student's families to see it. I hope your weekend is lovely, Nicole

Newsletter Blurb

This September, our students will take part in important assessments that help us better understand their learning and ensure they receive the support they need.

Dyslexia Screenings (Grades K–3):
New Hampshire law (RSA 200:59) requires schools to screen all students in kindergarten through grade 3 for potential indicators of dyslexia and related disorders. These screenings are not diagnostic but help us identify students who may be at risk and allow us to intervene with systematic and structured literacy interventions. Between September 14th and 25th, K–3 students will participate in district-wide benchmarking assessments. These assessment measures look at foundational reading skills, including rapid automatic naming (how quickly students can name specific objects), word reading accuracy, and general reading comprehension. Families will receive results once testing is complete, including whether a secondary screener is recommended.

MAP Growth Assessments (Grades 1–4):
During the same testing window, students in grades 1–4 will also take the MAP® Growth™ assessments in reading and math. These adaptive tests adjust to each child’s responses, giving teachers valuable insight into what students already know and what they are ready to learn next. Following testing, families will receive a Family Report summarizing academic progress and growth. For more information, you can visit NWEA.org/familytoolkit.

Thank you for your continued partnership as we work together to support every child’s growth and success.

This week students continued to play cooperative games, focusing on teamwork, character, and building community. Some of the games were partner head-shoulders-knees-and toes, hula hut relays, plank leapfrog, save the planets, and perimeter pass. We also practiced kicking a stationary and rolling ball and learning the rules of kickball to get ready for the DCS community kickball game next week. Additionally, we talked about personal and shared space and the kindergarten listened to a book called Personal Space Camp. All classes discussed physical and health literacy...and why it's important to learn skills and gain confidence to try new activities and live a healthy lifestyle. Thank you for encouraging healthy choices,

The third and fourth graders have been busy establishing routines, building a team mindset, doing some collaborative learning and creating art through decorating our journals, our Apple Book reports and making an accordion book for our Dublin Study. We also had a great time supporting our PTO by helping to unload the mums.

Language Arts: 3rd grade is focused on classic stories and word work. 4th grade is focused on personal narratives and reading excerpts about famous people.

Math: The focus for 3rd grade is working with graphs and introducing multiplication and the focus for 4th grade is factors and multiples of numbers. 4th grade has been working on deepening their understanding of factors and multiples.

Science/Social Studies: We are Zones of Regulation and beginning our Dublin Study.

What a great beginning of the year in 1st and 2nd grades! We have read several community books like "Our Class is a Family," "Wemberley Worried," and "Miss Rhumphius." We've done projects to go along with each of these and have reminders all around us of our community and the importance of each student in this first and second grade class.

We spent a few days talking about September 11th. I don't go into a huge amount of detail about the day, but we certainly focus on the helpers. Some of my favorite books to read about 9/11 are "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers" to get an understanding of what the Twin Towers were. "Fireboat" talks about how a restored fireboat and the members who worked to restore it jumped into action and worked tirelessly for four days to put out the fires. Our favorite is "The Man in the Red Bandana." We talked a lot about Welles Crowther and all he did to get many people to safety. The students took this very seriously. We always use this occasion to thank our local first responders, which we did by making them a collaborative banner. I know the Fire Department hung it right up in their meeting room and greatly appreciated it!

The students have been LOVING our CKLA Knowledge Fairy Tale and Tall Tale unit. We just finished comparing and contrasting John Henry and Casey Jones using a Venn Diagram. In CKLA skills, I've been assessing to see what the students retained over the summer to figure out who needs what! I often tell students that everyone gets what they need at DCS, and this is very true. I'm definitely trying to meet ALL the needs of each student.

Finally, in math, both grades have been working on either friends of 10 (1st grade) or friends to 20 (2nd grade). We've also been working with data--graphing "our favorite ____," another way to get to know each other better!

Feel free to swing by our hallway/classroom and see all the artwork! We just finished our self-portrait banners with Ms. Jeannie, and they are amazing!

Kindergarteners have been exploring a variety of math tools, including connecting cubes, pattern blocks, two-color counters, and geoblocks. We are also practicing subitizing —recognizing small groups of objects quickly without counting each one.

In literacy, we are using nursery rhymes to strengthen comprehension skills and build vocabulary. We are also practicing listening for and counting musical sounds as a fun precursor to listening for and counting sounds in words.

Our handwriting work is all about building the foundation for letter formation. Students are practicing vertical, horizontal, circular, square, and diagonal lines—the basic strokes they will need to form letters correctly and confidently.

Many thanks to the Ingalls family for sharing a monarch caterpillar with us! Watching the metamorphosis never gets old! Kindergarteners are natural scientists and curious learners!

DCS website-is here

Plastic Recycling-the DCS community has recycled over 2000 pounds of plastic bags and in return were given a bench from the Trex decking company! Please keep your clean plastic shopping bags and pellet bags coming, we are working toward a second bench and beyond!

DCS also collects metal tabs to be donated toward support for people with prosthetics! Please bring your tabs to school!

If you are interested in ordering some DCS swag for your student(s), please use this link. We will be providing new students with a DCS T-in the near future. https://dublinravens.deco-apparel.com/

Email: npease@conval.edu
Website: dcs.conval.edu
Location: 1177 Main Street, Dublin, NH, USA
Phone: 603-563-8332