Hello, Howard!

The April PRIDE theme of the month is PERSEVERANCE, and it couldn't come at a better time! The kids are tired after a long winter, cranky, ready to grow and change but they've got 2.5 months left in their current grade. It's tempting to give in to Spring Fever, but we must persevere! This is a great time to talk to kids about resilience. Yes, things may be difficult....no, they may not want to do them...but they are tough and can do hard things! Perseverance means asking questions, taking academic risks, making mistakes and learning from them.

Congratulations to The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman! The War that Saved My Life and The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise also had strong followings. Students and families had a great time playing BINGO for book prizes this past Wednesday. I can't wait to do it again! In the meantime, I'll start recording myself reading Hank Hooperman. Keep the reading momentum going by visiting the library or bookstore to get copies of these great books.

Please review the schedule below and re-schedule any doctor or dentist appointments that may keep a child from attending school on the day of a test.

April 8th and 10th - 5th grade ELA

May 6th and 8th - 5th grade Math

May 12th & 13th - 6th grade Math

May 14th and 15th - 4th grade Math

Cell phones, smart watches, and Bluetooth earbuds are never allowed in the classroom. They are always supposed to be stored in a student's locker. This is more important that ever during MCAS. The MCAS cell phone policy is shared with you below. If a student is found to be in possession of their cell phone AT ANY TIME during testing, whether they are actively testing or not, I have to call the state to report the discrepancy.

Please leave all cell phones, smart watches, and earbuds at home on MCAS testing days.

Yearbooks are on sale! Yearbooks can be purchased at the website https://ybpay.com - The code to use is 2461425. The cost of the yearbook is $20. The deadline to purchase yearbooks is 4/21/25.

6th grade Make-Up MCAS testing - April 7, 8, 10, 11

5th grade ELA MCAS - Tuesday and Thursday, April 8 & 10

6th grade Outdoor Classroom - April 14 - 17

4th and 5th grade Make up MCAS - April 14 - 17

Good Friday, No School - April 18th

Spring Vacation - April 21 -25

Spring Picture Day - April 28th

Principal's Coffee Hour - April 29th, 9am - 10am

Spring pictures are the Monday after April Vacation. Mark your calendars now!

There are 2 picture day order codes for picture day on Monday, April 28. You can order online at mylifetouch.com using the Picture Day ID's below.

1. Student picture: Picture Day ID: EVT9RXCMP

2. Class picture: Picture Day ID: EVTTHZN4P

Spring is in full swing and outdoor play can sometimes get messy, so please send in extra clothes in backpacks just in case it’s needed! If you have any new or gently used clothes (youth sizes 8-16), coats, or shoes/boots - we would love to have extra available in case someone needs a change!

For our 6th graders, Outdoor Classroom is just around the corner! Please read through the packets carefully and be sure to COMPLETE ALL FORMS, even if your child doesn’t take any scheduled medications. Please reach out to me with any of the health related concerns.

We want to keep everyone healthy while at school so please keep them home if they are not feeling well. Please refer to our Sick Child Guidelines and school health policies at https://www.wbridgewaterschools.org/page/health-services and reach out to me directly with any concerns. If your child is absent due to illness, it is recommended that they visit the doctor in order to document these as excused absences.

One final note, teachers always love donations of tissues and Clorox wipes to help keep the spread of illness to a minimum in the classrooms.

As always, please feel free to reach Nurse Mando if you have any questions or concerns: smando@wbridgewater.com or 508-894-1250 ext 3115. Thank you!

Click here for the lunch menu for April.

Click here for the breakfast/snack menu for April.

In ELA, we will be wrapping up Module 2 of Wit & Wisdom by completing Hatchet and finishing writing our own narrative survival stories. Towards the end of the month, we will be starting our next module called The Redcoats are Coming! which focuses on opinion writing.

During the month of April we will be learning the remaining math skills which focus on geometry, line plots, measurements and patterns. In addition, students will continue to review all skills learned throughout the year in preparation for Math MCAS in May.

Grade 4 students will learn about early European explorers as part of our social studies curriculum. Students will work with partners or small groups and become experts on a specific explorer, create a Google Slides presentation and then share their knowledge with the class.

April focuses on the theme of perseverance. This is the perfect month for students to show their perseverance as we begin MCAS and push through to work hard in the final months of 4th grade.

To culminate our Extreme Settings unit in ELA, we will be going on a field trip to a local movie theater to watch the movie version of Hatchet. Our Movie Field Trip is on Thursday, April 17th. The permission slip and payment are due by Friday, April 11th.

In ELA, the students are enjoying Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth. Based on what they have learned about wordplay from him, they will write their own story.

In Math, students will focus on conversions in both customary and metric units.

In Social Studies, students are continuing to build upon their knowledge of the U.S. Constitution and the three branches of government.

In Science, students are learning about gravity and the movement of the sun.

Students are honing in on their expectations and skills to persevere in 5th grade, which is April's pride theme.

On May 15th, the fifth-grade will be visiting the Boston Museum of Science. Please return the field trip form with the payment at the same time to your classroom teacher. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the field trip or payment, please reach out to your child's classroom teacher.

Students are finishing their Element Project and presenting by the end of the week! Then we are moving on to our mini math unit- calculating surface area of pyramids and prisms. After April vacation, we will be reviewing for math MCAS!

Students recently spent two days taking the ELA MCAS. Everyone put forth a great effort. In class, we are looking at different translations of The Odyssey. Students will compare the experience of reading and listening to different translations of this text. Students are also creating background for their own monomyth. When they return from Outdoor Classroom they will present their hero archetype. This will lead to writing their own monomyth as their End of Module task.

Mrs. Doherty and her husband welcomed baby Jaxson on Friday, March 21st. Baby and mom are doing well! Mrs. Lindquist has been gracious to step in until Mrs. Doherty can return. She's currently assigning work from the 6th grade Math Curriculum, and we are working on getting some more interactive and engaging lessons on the docket! ASPEN was updated with current information today.

Students have begun their unit on Matter! Students are learning the differences between elements, compounds and mixtures. Students will also be able to recognize physical and chemical properties as well as physical and chemical changes! We are investigating separating mixtures with a salt water lab.

We are wrapping up our Sub Saharan Africa Unit with a test this week and a post card project next week. We will move on to Meso & South America and the Caribbean Unit when we return from Nature's Classroom and Spring Break.

This month's Pride theme is perseverance. Students will write about a challenge they have persevered through. Alternatively, they can write about a famous person they admire who has persevered through a challenge. They will write about the challenge and how the person persevered. Furthermore, our trip to Outdoor Classroom will contain many fun challenges that will also teach about perseverance.

Students are excited for their trip to Outdoor Classroom! Reminders will be sent out next week with final reminders for the trip!

The 6th grade dance was a blast! Students had fun and got to enjoy dancing, pizza, and a movie! Thank you to all the chaperones who helped make the dance possible. Thank you to the Lions Club for providing water for the dance, and thank you to the PTO for providing the DJ!

Smoothie blending was a SUCCESS!! We had a blast whipping up different blends to benefit our mood and health. Many of us tasted ingredients we’d never dare to try before—who knew kale could be so sneaky in a tropical blend? Aiming for a rainbow of fruits and vegetables is key; it's a party for your taste buds and your health!

A huge thank you to all the parents who volunteered! The Smoothie Shop pop-up couldn't have happened without all our chefs!

As we blend our way into the next phase of our health curriculum, we’ll look into the relationships we have with ourselves and each other. Through Everfi, an engaging online education platform, students will explore real-life scenarios and discover the social impact they can make. Understanding our connections can be just as rewarding as discovering the perfect smoothie recipe!

This month, our STEM students are tackling exciting hands-on challenges!

🔹 4th Grade: Stranded on a deserted island (hypothetically, of course!), students must work in teams to engineer a way to escape. Using the engineering design process, they will brainstorm, plan, build, and test creative solutions to survive and make their way to safety.

🔹 5th Grade: Innovation is in the air! Students are exploring the world of technology, studying past inventions and breakthroughs before designing and prototyping their own unique creations. Who knows? We might have a future inventor in our midst!

🔹 6th Grade: It’s time to solve a crime! Our young forensic scientists are analyzing fingerprints, DNA, and other evidence to crack the case and identify the suspect. Using real-world forensic techniques, they’ll put their detective skills to the test in this thrilling final investigation.

ML students in 4th grade are developing skills in describing using adjectives, and verbal phrases as they write increasingly complex sentences.

ML students in 5th grade have been learning about Idiomatic expressions in order to become stronger writers, and increase comprehension. They have also been engaging in multisyllabic word work containing "tion" words.

The Unified Basketball team had a busy month, playing four regular season basketball games, a scrimmage against each other, and playing in a pep rally match against the teachers during the National Banner Ceremony where the Unified Sports program was included in being recognized for providing inclusive programs for students. The students on the team have created a great sense of community and belonging amongst each other this season, demonstrating great leadership and teamwork both on and off the court. They ended their season on Tuesday by hosting a jamboree with students from Dartmouth and Westport and then celebrated an awesome season with a pizza party banquet!

Student Council just finished sponsoring our second dance of the year - the 6th grade dance. This was a great success and everyone involved had a great time. Student council is looking forward to sponsoring a few more theme days and a school wide fundraiser.

Club meeting dates for the rest of the year: 4/8; 4/29; 5/13; 5/20; 5/27 (Last club meeting & Little Leo's party until 4PM)

The School Committee is recognizing the Little Leo's Club for the Award they won from the Massachusetts Lions Eye Research Fund. Our club raised the most money for Eye Research last year.

We are finishing up our Kindness Rock project on April 8th. We will distribute them around the grounds April 28th. We will be having WB clean up day (we will need chaperones) & a spring version of Senior Center Game Day- Dates will be announced in the next newsletter.

This is Logan Paulding and Henry Flynn and we interviewed Mrs. Doherty. Mrs. Doherty’s full name is Kylee Doherty, she graduated from the University of New Hampshire. Mrs. Doherty’s favorite subject in school was math, of course. Mrs. Doherty is looking forward to having her first baby this year. Mrs. Doherty has a husband, James, a dog, Cooper, and is expecting a baby shortly. When Mrs. Doherty was a child she wanted to be a math teacher. Looks like her dreams came true. Mrs. Doherty’s claim to fame is skiing and her favorite TV show is Gilmore Girls. Mrs. Doherty’s hobby is running, and spending time with family and friends. Mrs. Doherty is an amazing math teacher that we will miss while she is taking care of her new born baby, Jaxson.

Thirteen-year-old Ingrid’s been living a double life. At school, she’s her popular friend Rachel’s charity case. Online, she crushes it in her favorite MMORPG, geeks out in her favorite fantasy fandom, and runs a popular social media account. If only real life were that easy.

But when Ingrid finally stands up to Rachel, it suddenly feels like she has no life at all.

Until she gets a super-sweet wrong-number text from a mystery boy at her school. Spending time together gaming as “Stitches” and “Traveler” makes her feel like she’s really connecting with someone. But when she begins to suspect that Traveler may be a popular classmate who is WAY above her in the cool-kid food chain—and whose original text was actually intended for Rachel—she faces a difficult choice. Can they be friends IRL? She wants to open up, but getting close to people has hurt her before. Is making real friends only fantasy after all?

Please use this link for the Grant of Gratitude! https://bit.ly/GrantofGratitude

Click here to register!