Cheetah Pride Press

Families,

What a week we’ve had!! The last several days were jam packed with special events. On Monday, we celebrated Magical Monday in the cafeteria; and then two of our students were honored at the CAS Elementary Arts Banquet that evening. On Wednesday, we participated in World Read Aloud Day school-wide, as well as Global School Play Day in Kindergarten. Additionally, this week marks the beginning of our Kindergarten registration window. Registration packets are available in the front foyer of our building, as well as at the East Hampton Public Library. If you have a student who is ready for Kindergarten, please pick up a registration packet and schedule an appointment for your learner’s screening session.

Please remember that next week is a four day week. School will be closed on Friday so that staff may engage in a full day of professional learning. Following that, we’ll be off for the February Recess and will return to school on Wednesday, February 18th.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Joey & Andrea

On Monday evening, two of our cheetahs were honored at the CAS Elementary Arts Recognition. They enjoyed a beautiful banquet at the Aqua Turf, magicians, caricature artists, and musical entertainment. It was a special evening for everyone involved! Way to go, Jackson and Reygan!

Monday was Magical Monday in the Memorial School Cafe. Kate Casseli, and the entire kitchen staff, did a wonderful job organizing and facilitating the event. Additionally, an exceptional team of volunteers came to help set up beforehand, and freshened up the cafe in between each lunch wave. Our cafeteria looked absolutely beautiful, complete with matching tablecloths and beautiful decorations. Many of our cheetahs wore dazzling ensembles and used their very best manners. It all made for a very pleasant and refined dining experience!

On Wednesday, the whole building recognized World Read Aloud Day (WRAD). WRAD is an annual event, held on the first Wednesday of February. It was founded by LitWorld in 2010 to promote literacy, diverse stories, and the power of reading aloud for development. WRAD connects communities globally by encouraging everyone, everywhere, to read to someone. In addition to classroom read-alouds throughout the day, Mrs. Bauer & Mrs. Montovani streamed a live read aloud into every classroom at the end of the day!

On Wednesday, the Kindergarten classes participated in Global School Play Day. Current research indicates that many of today's children do not grow up authentically playing, and that this can have a negative impact on them. Studies also confirm the importance of play in children’s physical and mental health. Play helps boost language development, problem solving, risk management and independent learning skills. On this special day of play, students were invited to bring in things from home to play with at school. Examples included: non-violent toys, Legos, blocks, cardboard boxes, dress-up clothes, puppets, stuffed animals, board games, puzzles, and sports equipment. Electronic devices were not permitted.

Smart Start’s Memorial Postal Service will open for business next week. Throughout the month of February, this school-wide postal service will be open to all students and staff. Students will be encouraged to write letters to anyone in our school community and put them in the Cheetah Pride mail. Our Smart Start postal workers will collect, sort and deliver the letters all over the building each day. In addition to spreading acts of kindness, students will be encouraged to practice their penmanship, and their letter writing skills.

A PAWsitive office referral is submitted when a staff member recognizes a student who is going above and beyond to exemplify one of our three school rules - taking care of others, taking care of self, & taking care of things.

Meet Hartlyn.

Her teacher is Mrs. Haydu.

She is special because she can roller skate.

Pizza is one of her favorite things.

She wanted to be on cheetah council to help.

She loves reading best at school.

Today was our first book swap and shop and bracelet sales for cheetah council. It was a huge success. We sold out of bracelets and we raised over $75.00 for cheetah council. We will have another bracelet sale and book swap/shop on February 20th. We thank you for your support!

Congratulations to Mrs. Kelly Snyder!! She was chosen as this weeks Order of the Cheetah because she always has a positive attitude and always finds creative solutions to help students. We love having her on our team!

2/9 100th Day of School

2/9 BOE Meeting at Town Hall @ 6:30

2/12 Spirit Day Wear Red, White, and Pink

2/13 Professional Learning Day for Staff/NO SCHOOL

2/16&2/17 Presidents Day Break NO SCHOOL

2/18-2/20 Kindness Week

2/27 Cheetah Pride Day

3/2 School Volunteer Appreciation Day

3/2 Scholastic Book Fair Begins

3/2 Read Across America Day

3/4&3/5 Early Release For Parent Teacher Conferences

3/6 Professional Learning Day for Memorial Staff

News from the ART ROOM!

We have had an exciting month, filled with lots of connections to the world around us. Winter allows for so much adventure, and endless beauty! Taking the time to recognize how winter connects to the art room, and inspires us to make art is worth it! Thankfully we have had so much snow in order to reflect and connect on all that we have seen and done in the snow this past month!

Prek students learned all about CIRCLES! We traced different objects that are circular, and cut them out. Cutting a circle can be tricky and we learned how to rotate the paper as we cut, in order to stay on the line. We then took our paper circles, and glued them together to create a SNOWMAN! Adding special art supplies made our snowmen look even fancier! We added hats, scarves, stick arms, eyes, mouths, and so much more. We finished our snowmen by adding little snow falling all around! We can’t wait to bring our snowmen home!

Kindergarten students have been learning about three dimensional works of art, called SCULPTURES. We are currently learning how to roll a ball with CLAY! We are learning the qualities of clay, and how it is a natural material from the earth that is excellent for shaping and forming into anything we could imagine! We are taking our clay balls and learning how to connect them, using scoring and slipping in order to make a permanent connection! We are very excited to finish our sculptures, and get to paint them once they dry and are fired! Clay is such an amazing and fun art material, and our hands are the BEST tool as we learn some gross motor movements in order to shape and form the clay.

1st Grade Students have been learning all about PAINTING! We are learning:

*Layering colors

*Brush strokes/ mark making

*Detail work

*Mixing the Primary colors (Red, Yellow, and Blue)

*Mixing Tints (adding white)

*Mixing Shades (adding black)

These paintings are creating the most beautiful “winter wonderlands” with either a sun set or a sun rise! To create the ground for our Winter wonderland Paintings, we created a horizon line, and learned that the sky is not just a rectangle up above us, but how it carries all the way down to the ground, the tops of the trees, and the roof tops of houses and buildings. We viewed paintings by impressionist painters, and even famous artist, Bob Ross, to see how the horizon can be bumpy or smooth, jagged as mountain tips, or slanted like a sledding hill.Thankfully, the weather brought us so much snow, so that we could officially observe how light reflects and affects the color of snow! Painters know that snow isn’t actually white, and to make it look more realistic, they create various tints of the colors in the sky, for reflective color. One way we learned to get white to achieve subtle color, is to paint over a layer of color, and allow them to show through the white paint. This is called layering paint, and made for the perfect reflective effect for our snow! We then learned how a detail brush can create fine details, and how it is to be cared for. Detail brushes are SMALL and can easily be damaged without using a gentle touch.

2nd Grade Students continue to explore the use of 3D forming techniques with paper. We have learned that we can fold, bend, twist, overlap, connect, create tabs, roll, cut flanges, and even crumple paper. Our Winter landscapes are coming to life and are nearly complete, simply adding the refined details and finishing touches with markers! We can’t wait to take them home over the next few weeks!

3rd Grade students have officially reached the half way point of the school year, and I have spent the last few art classes conferencing with individual students who need a little more support planning for their end of year goals. Most students have at least 3 works of art completed, and are right on target to reach their end of year goal of creating 6 works of art for the 3rd grade art show! Students continue to impress me with their problem solving skills, authentic ideas, and perseverance through challenges they face with art media and craftsmanship. This is going to be an incredible art show at the end of this school year; announcement of show dates coming soon!

Art Mystery Incentive! Some lucky and hard working 3rd graders were selected to come to art for an extra mystery incentive to make 3D snowflakes! It was a great time, and they came out beautifully!

Congratulations to the January Artists of the Month! These students worked so hard to do their best art works this month and showed cheetah pride during every art class!

Preschool: Cira Wilson/ Liam Bayer

Kindergarten: Melody Lindinger/ Cole Lessor

First Grade: Reese Landress/ Nicholas Molnar

Second Grade: Lyla Beausoleil/ Angel Valdez

Third Grade: Amber Valdez/ Alonzo Milardo

The 100th day of school is upon us and will be celebrated by Memorial Cheetahs on Monday February 9th! This day is an exciting milestone that allows students to reflect on being 100 days smarter!

In grades K & 1, students have spent part of their Number Corner block counting the days in school. This is essential in building counting skills, number sense and exploring larger numbers using place value. Students have been able to use various manipulatives and models such as number lines, ten frames, chain links and hundred charts to aide in counting by 10’s and 1’s.

In grades 2 & 3, students have been deepening their understanding of numbers within 100 in order to build operational fluency for addition and subtraction. Students have also been rounding, composing and decomposing numbers and exploring skip counting strategies to build foundational skills for multiplication and division.

Memorial Mathematicians can’t wait to share with their families how they are 100 days smarter! Below are a few activities and ideas that may be used to celebrate this special day.

When considering the number of absences your student has accrued, keep in mind that a student must be present for 195 minutes in order for the day to count! When bringing your student in late, or signing them out early if they have not been in school for a 195 minutes the day will be recorded as an absence.

Memorial School Attendance email:

memorial_attendance@easthamptonct.org * there is an _ between memorial and attendance!

Please Review This Important Information Below.

Students, parents, and community members have access to an anonymous tip line on the front page of the school district website to report self-concerns, mental health concerns of a friend, or concerns of violence. Simply click here or view on the website: https://www.easthamptonps.org/.

Email: jbauer@easthamptonct.org
Website: https://www.easthamptonps.org/o/memorial-school
Location: 20 Smith Street, East Hampton, CT, USA
Phone: 860-365-4020
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ehmemorialschool