FES Points of P.R.I.D.E.
October 17th, 2025
Reminders for Families
Dear FES Families,
It is becoming that time of year again! We are beginning to feel the effects of the changing seasons with colder weather moving in. With that, it will be important for all students to come to school prepared for the colder temperatures. Students should come to school with warmer clothing such as jackets and thicker sweatshirts daily. We may not be far from gloves and mittens if hands get cold at recess. Unless it is raining (or even more extreme weather) students will be outside for physical exercise and socializing. It will be important that they are prepared for the fluctuating temperatures with the right clothing.
Another important note is to help your child prepare and pack nutritious snacks for school. We do have extra snacks available for students that may forget one and this is thanks to our Friends at the Hungry Snack Healthy Kids Program in their ninth year of sponsorship! If you aren't yet aware, below is description of who they are and all they do for us and students in our neighboring towns:
The Hungry Snack Healthy Kids Program is a collaboration of the Peterborough Food Pantry and All Saints Episcopal Church in Peterborough. The program began under the Peterborough Food Pantry umbrella of services as an identified need in the schools some many years ago when it was discovered school staff members were supplying, out of their personal funds, snacks and food for needy students. This was before End 68 Hours of Hunger began. The program dovetails the End 68 Hours of Hunger effort by providing in-school support and End 68 Hours of Hunger providing for the weekend home needs. They are now providing 11 of our ConVal schools with healthy snacks!
Thank you for all you do to provide our students with nutritious snacks that support their brains and bodies toward better learning days!
Ending a Chapter and Beginning the Next in our K-1 Classroom
It is with heartfelt warmth and gratitude that we will be saying goodbye very soon to our long-term substitute, Mrs. Kristen Ramey in our Grade K-1 Class. She has been a wonderful teacher, providing a loving and secure learning environment to our students as we started our year off with many new faces. With that, we knew that she was only able to substitute for a short time and we are appreciative of her role in this lead position. Every student received individual attention, care and support under her guidance at FES.
With that said, we would like to welcome Melissa Flanagan, our new (and permanent) K-1 teacher! We are very excited to have her experience and warmth for children in these early years joining our FES Teaching Team. She is an expert in her field, with 25 years of teaching experience and 18 of those years in kindergarten and special education. She has a wealth of knowledge that stretches over many grade levels. With a Master's degree in Elementary Education, we are very lucky to have her expertise coming to FES and we are very excited to have her start this Monday, October 20th! Mrs. Ramey will continue for a few days next week, providing the opportunity for Ms. Flanagan to get to know your child, the class as a whole and begin forming those crucial and important relationships that we know make great learning experiences for children. Welcome, Ms. Flanagan!
Enjoying Recess with a Smile!
K-1 Class Creates Wild Animal Surveys
Flexible Fun!
Our K-1 Class this Week...
In science this week, Ms. Ramey's students learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin and created an art project that showed different parts of the fruit. Next week, they are excited to compare and contrast apples and pumpkins!
First Grade has completed the first unit of Illustrative Math, our new math curriculum and will take the first unit assessment next week. This will allow us to target support and address specific needs of our students for small math group instruction. Kindergarteners are continuing to talk about more, less and same and we have played some fun games including Bingo.
In Literacy, Kindergarteners learned the letter n, and are reviewing all the letters and sounds we have learned so far. First graders reviewed short vowels (which can be very tricky) and continue to practice working on their reading fluency.
Costumes in Nature
Students in the Grade 1-2 science class learned about the reasons for camouflage in nature this week!
In the Next Generation Science Standards, students focus on core ideas and key topics that include life cycles, matter and weather which are grounded in hands-on inquiry and observation. Students started with the question, "Do animals need to dress up in costumes like people do?" We had fun in our partner discussions, talking about what a costume's purpose was, how we feel in a costume and why we decide to dress up. Students related this idea to observations about animals that use camouflage and how it could be called a "costume" nature creates. After our discussion, we watched a video about different animals in the ocean and on land that use camouflage to protect themselves from predators and other reasons why they can use it to their advantage.
Grade 3-4 Challenging Themselves
This week Ms. Parisi's class learned about finding equivalent fractions and creating arrays. We continued learning about learning challenges and finding the main idea of informational texts. In science we learned about how eyes work, reflexes, and we starting learning about vertebrates and invertebrates! They chose a class prize of extra recess on Friday.
