The Wellfleet Elementary News

On Wednesday, we celebrated! We celebrated through the sharing of written expression. To memorialize the 100th day of school and the Valentine's Day holiday students received 1 of 100 carnations and read aloud their own personal writing. In kindergarten the focus was on "What is love?" There responses trumped any Hallmark card, "Love is hugging mama when she comes home" or "Love is playing with my sister Jocelyn." The creativity continued throughout the grade levels and student voice created both tears of laughter and tears of remembrance but it was all in the name of love. On that note, I wish all families a lovely, refreshing break and look forward to seeing all 91 of our students together after the break.

WES had the pleasure of welcoming Cassandra Jones to our all school meeting last week. She performed for us on the Gu Zheng and talked about the Chinese New Year and culture. Then Cassandra stayed after school to attend our Culture Club students. They had a Chinese New Year celebration! They made a Chinese 3-D dragon on sticks, learned how to write Chinese characters with ink on rice, paper and water on slant tablet with Mrs. Francis’s daughter Naomi (a Mandarin student at NRHS). They had steamed dumplings and Chinese tea and received red envelopes from Cassandra Jones- a Chinese new year tradition.

Recently I shared that students completed the Winter benchmark for iReady as well as DIBELS. We used this information as well as teacher input to develop focus areas for each student for the Teamworks block. Teamworks is a time set aside to provide additional instruction in writing, mathematics, and reading. The intention of this time is give students an extra boost if they are struggling, and/or to provide enrichment. These groups are reviewed and remain fluid throughout the school year. With this design, your child may end up working with someone new that they had not worked with before. The teachers during this time have focus areas and include: Mrs. Ariana Bradford; math interventionist; Mrs. Kathleen Kocaba, reading interventionist; Mrs. Colette Demeusy, writing interventionist as well as the grade level teacher. If you have questions about your child's intervention focus please feel free to reach out to your child's classroom teacher.

Tomorrow, Grade 4 will be wearing pajamas and bringing a stuffy to celebrate this special day. Students will be making dog treats in the morning to kick off the day during Teamworks. In ELA , Mrs. Connolly's class will go over the "Winn Dixie" packet that they have been working on all week, play a jeopardy game to review comprehension, characters, vocabulary, and sequence of events. Then they will snuggle up and watch the movie version. Finally students will compare and contrast the book to the film using a Venn diagram with an opinion piece to top it off. What a way to head into the February break!

Each year the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education assesses the students across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The purpose of the MCAS is to provide information on areas of strength and areas of challenge related to mathematics, English Language Arts, and Science. We encourage all students in grades 3-5 to participate.

The MCAS schedule for our WES students is provided below. Testing will be scheduled on Tuesdays and Wednesdays with makeup testing on Thursdays. All testing will begin promptly at 8:00am on the testing date. As the dates grow closer additional information on how to best prepare will be shared.

• MCAS Testing English Language Arts for grades 3-5: April 9, 10th with a makeup on April 11th.
• MCAS Testing Mathematics for grades 3-5: May 21st and 22nd with a makeup on May 23rd.
• MCAS Testing Science for grade 5 only: May 14th and 15th with a makeup on May 16th.

Please checkout the most recent edition of the The Students News.

January and February Student News

If you are interested in attending a PTO meeting they are scheduled for 3/12, 5/14, and 6/11. They will be directly after school at 2:00pm in the staff lounge. Please RSVP

Fifth graders wrapped up their 2 month study of the epic mystery novel, “Greenglass House”. The lucky six students pictured took home library copies of some of the other novels in this engaging and challenging series to read over the February break!

Finally, the fifth graders shared some of the amazing Valentine Odes that they wrote today with the entire fourth grade class, who then wrote their own special poems. All writing will be on display in classrooms next week for Valentine’s Day!

Ms. Ellie Moody, director of the NEED Academy will be visiting Wellfleet Elementary School on Friday, February 16th from 1:00-2:00pm in Mr. Pursel's room to explain the magical, magnificent week long sleepover trip to the Truro revamped Coast Guard Station. It is guaranteed to provide enough information, and knowledge about the week that will alleviate any and all anxious thoughts. Parents and Guardians are encouraged to attend.

Do you live in Wellfleet and have a child who will be five years old on or before August 31,

2024? If you have not already been contacted by the school, it is very important to please call

Laura Hansen, Administrative Assistant to the Principal, at Wellfleet Elementary School 508-

349-3101 x102 or email her at HansenL@nausetschools.org to learn more on how to register

your incoming Kindergartner!

Wellfleet Rec 3v3 Billingsgate Tournament

Feb Vacation Youth Open Gym

Wellfleet Rec Feb Vacation Family Pickleball

Lower Cape Hot Shot Contest

WES February Calendar

WHAT For Kids Theatre Classes

Harwich Jr Theatre Performance

GROW at Castle Hill

GROW at Castle Hill Feb Vacation

Calling All ASEP Instructors!

ASEP Instructor Application

WES February Lunch

WES Breakfast February

Flu-A guide for parents

Harvest of the Month - Winter Squash

The PTO is looking for highly motivated, slightly pushy, and demanding people to help set up the raffle for the Spaghetti Dinner set for early May. We are seeking four individuals. Interested folks should either email Tia Scalcione, at tiascalc@hotmail.com or email Mr. O'Shea at osheaa@nausetschools.org.

WES School Health Services-Resource page: Contact Mrs. Cope-Crosen for more information at copec@nausetschools.org

Checkout Student and Family Resources through Mrs. Kristen Francis.

The Lawrence Fund was established in March of 2023 by Ariana Bradford (Staff Member at WES) and Joan Zukas (School Committee member and grandmother to two students at WES). The Fund was established to honor Lawrence Zukas, father to Ariana and husband to Joan. Its’ purpose is to financially support students and their families who may be in need of funds for camps, sports equipment, shoes, coats, boots, musical instruments, school supplies including technology support, etc. Request can be made to Mrs. Ariana Bradford, Mr. Adam O’Shea, Mrs. Claudia Cope or your child’s teacher. No proof of need is asked, The Lawrence Fund is just happy to help. Any additional questions can be answered by Joan Zukas at jzukas123@comcast.net or by phone at (413) 374-7436.

This is just a reminder that we will have a boatload of events coming up and your child's presence is essential to their school success. We will do our best to have events scheduled in a way that does not interfere with your travel plans, however please keep in mind that the priority is to create as much time on learning as possible. We would hate for your child to miss out on any of our upcoming events. Events like:

• 100th Day of School Celebration; February 14th
• Grade 5 NEED Academy Information to Parents; February 16th
• Grade 3,4, and 5 visit meet up with Provincetown and Truro Schools at WETfest; March 1st
• Grade 5 week long trip to the NEED Academy March 4-8th
• Parent/Teacher Conferences; March 21st
• Parent Tech Safety Presentation; April 3rd
• Incoming Kindergarten Parent Orientation; April 4th
• Art Night and Spring Concert; April 11th
• Spring Musical The Jungle Book; April 25 & April 26th

Calling all parents and grandparents! If you are interested in joining your child for lunch in the cafeteria, then please reach out to us. We love our cozy, welcoming dining and don't mind company.

Throughout the school year you may want to reach out to your child's teacher, or reach out to me.

All Nauset staff follow the email formatting below:

• the staff person's last name
• then the initial of their first name
• ending with @nausetschools.org

For example my email is osheaa@nausetschools.org

Now there is an exception to the rule: Ms. Claudia Cope-Crosen, our school nurse, is simply copec@nausetschools.org