ELMORE School News

Dear Elmore School Families,

Phew! We made it through another busy week! The mornings have been so dark lately! We fall back to standard time this weekend. With that comes darker afternoons, but I looking forward to the brighter mornings to start our days. The weather had certainly taken a turn as we are officially in "stick season".

Please send kids with coats, hats and gloves. As you know the wind coming off the lake can get pretty cold on frosty mornings.

This week we began our next writing unit with a focus on Opinion writing. Students learned the purpose of option writing is to share your feelings about a topic with a targeted audience often with a goal of persuading your audience.

Phonics lessons this week focused on beginning consonant blends, closed syllables, and r-controlled syllables.

I have been working through F&P reading assessments with students as well. With the mrking period coming to a close in a couple of weeks, I will be Progress Monitoring students over with Dibbles over the next couple of weeks as well.

During math first graders began their second section in Unit two. They are representing and solving story problems with missing addends. 2nd graders completed their first section in Unit 2 and took a section checkpoint (quiz), and third graders completed a Unit and took their end of unit assessment on Friday.

We began the week completing a science lesson about the role animals play in seed dispersal. Seeds may travel on an animals fur, animals may eat seeds and deposit them later, or animals may bury seeds and forget about them.

Thursday we had fun dressing up for Halloween (a day early). Students each painted a pumpkin and prepared pumpkins for being carved (Mrs. Bellavance I did the carving). In the afternoon we watched a short Halloween video, and enjoyed "dirt" cake and Lemonade.

Friday morning began with a little extra Halloween excitement just as we were beginning our day. During our Morning Meeting, the alarm system began beeping. We called the security company and head of facilities, Brian Rafferty, who promptly came out to check on it. While working on the alarm system the fire alarm went off which prompted us to evacuate the building (even though there was no danger). While standing out in the rain awaiting the green light to return to the classroom, we were invited to the Elmore Store to get our of the rain. Mrs. Bellavance fetched some school work from the classroom and students completed their spelling at the Store! We were given the green light to return to the school once everything had been checked and the alarm was replaced. At no time were the students in any danger, but it was good for us to test our flexibility! Thank you to the Elmore Store for providing a dry place for us to wait and for treating us to some delicious warm cider!

During (indoor) ECO on Friday, we continued our focus on trees as students explored field guilds to learn about the types of information field guides share and how they are organized. Our goal is to make a set of field guide "cards" about trees found around our Outdoor ECO Classroom area. During "forest Choice we made a delicious pumpkin soup with roasted pumpkins. Some students helped to made the soup and blend it into a smooth creamy texture. Students enjoyed it with roasted pumpkin seeds as a special "appetizer" before lunch on Friday.

We will have Spaghetti and meatballs for family Hot Lunch on Monday. Please email me if you child will be getting Monday hot lunch, so I can let Ashely Eident know how many students to plan on. Thank you!

Please email me your school lunch orders by Sunday afternoon.

School Hot Lunch will be available next week on Tuesday and Thursday. Sandwiches and Salads can be ordered Tuesday - Friday. Please use the Green button below to email me you school lunch orders by Sunday at 6pm.

You can subscribe to this Newsletter at the bottom of the page!

With Gratitude,

Diane Nicholls

Announcements:

Library is Monday! Please send books.

School Banking - Tuesday

PE is Thursday - send sneakers!

ECO - Friday, November 7 @ 9:00 - 12:00 (Elmore State Park)

Nov. 11, 2025 - No school (Veterans Day)

Nov. 24 - 28, 2025 - No School (Thanksgiving Break)

Thursday Dec. 4th - Early release - 12:00

Friday, Dec. 5th - No School (Family Conferences)