What's Bruin at Pierce School?

Library Media

Next week Mrs. Donovan will be back.

We have an amazing opportunity coming your way! If you’ve ever wondered how to best support your child’s learning at home, Mrs. Pope is here to help. On November 10, you can schedule a time before or after your parent-teacher conference to meet with her. She’ll share easy, practical strategies you can use to make learning fun and effective at home.

We can’t wait to hear from you! She can be reached at apope@conval.edu

News from Ms. Besson

During our literacy centers we have been working on our initial sounds and our final sounds! With our knowledge of letter sounds we are starting to read the CVC words that we build/write!

News from Ms. Powell

In Mrs. Powell’s class we had some fun on Halloween and worked on sequencing the story Room On The Broom by making fun crowns. We all enjoyed sharing treats during our Spooky Snacks and Crafts time! This week for math, we started working with word problems. With a partner, we used cubes and whiteboards to help us solve them and create equations.

13 Moons on Turtle's Back

Ms. Sutton’s class was very busy this week! We spent more time getting to know our turtles and integrated the theme throughout each subject area. We listened to the story Thirteen Moons On Turtle’s Back and learned about how the Indigenous people used the 13 scoots on a turtle’s shell to monitor the moons of the year. Each moon had a story with a lesson. Students also wrote poems about turtles, wrote summaries about the 13 moons and went on a scavenger hunt to find textured nature items for their “textured tortoises”. This week we were also busy learning about area by using shapes and played an alligator spelling game! Much fun and learning was had by all!

4th Grade Happenings

This week in 4th grade we continued our work with fractions.

The concepts we explored were equivalent fractions with both improper and

proper fractions using number lines and area models, aka, tape diagrams.

Visualizing equivalent fractions can make it easier to understand how two

fractions can be equivalent.

Our trip to Great Bay has been rescheduled to Friday the 14th.

In preparation, we learned Great Bay is a unique water body called an estuaries how critical their

health is to many plant and animal species.

In writing, we had another segment of "Writers on Stage" and 4th graders

shared their creative writing real estate ad for a "Haunted House for Sale." What great writers

in class!

We ended the week with a visit from Mrs. Sysyn who helped us sew pouches,

similar to pouches used by Native Americans. It was a challenging project but the

fourth graders did great and now they have a pouch to put all their wampum in.

The Ladybug Awards are Back!

In the Pierce Library this week, we've been focusing on the story choices for this year’s Ladybug Picture Book Awards, a program of the NH State Library. When we’ve read them all, Pierce students will use a special picture ballot to help choose the statewide winning book!

We've responded to many of the books using writing and drawing, with speech bubbles and sentence starters. Pierce students have produced so many creative, interesting, and kind ideas! Their work will be going up on the hallway bulletin board for everyone to enjoy.

Some classes have also practiced organizing fiction and non-fiction titles with a partner activity based on a library skills game called Shelver.

Enjoy some cozy reading time over the long weekend!

What's on the Horizon?

Do not forget to mark your calendars for our Craft Fair coming up on November 15th, here at our school. The fair will start at 10am, we will have many amazing vendors and tons of raffle prizes. Do not miss out on visiting Santa who will be bringing joy to our event.

The PTO is working to provide a water cooler for the staff; we love our staff and appreciate them immensely. The water cooler would provide hot and cold water year round! Thank you Pierce staff for all you do!!! Our school environment it the product of hard working staff!

Book Bags and the Chapter Book Challenge!

Kids are working very hard in reading groups and getting very familiar with our routines and expectations! It is so great to see this growth.

Some students in the early grades are taking home Book Bags with borrowed books to read at home to you. Thanks for your help listening to them read and helping them develop their reading skills. Bags will go home on Mondays and can be returned on Fridays and the process will repeat each week.

Older students are still participating in The Chapter Book Challenge! Students in Third and Fourth Grade are encouraged to develop that nightly reading habit. Students can see Mrs. Pope if they need help finding a Just Right Chapter Book!

Also, be on the lookout for "Brag Sheets" from our work in center groups, Students have been working hard, earning stickers and completing reading activities. Activities may include reading word lists, reading short stories and practicing writing and applying their knowledge of the English Language through dictation practice. Every once in a while, they will take home their work to share with you at home. Hopefully they will Brag about what they have learned and share it with you!

And finally, a permission form for our vocabulary project will be coming home soon!

Thanks for all your support.

Mrs. Pope

A Great Start!

Hello and welcome to Pierce Elementary School. My name is Sarah Kotwicki, and I am the school counselor at Pierce, Francestown, and Temple Elementary Schools. I am at Pierce three days a week: Monday, Thursday, and Friday. This year I will be supporting the Second Step curriculum with the classroom teachers. Second Step is a social emotional curriculum that focuses on understanding and recognizing emotions in yourself and in others. We will work on developing strategies to respond in healthy and productive ways. The Second Step program helps our students develop skills for getting along with their peers and finding success in school. In addition to these lessons, I will be meeting individually and in small groups with students throughout the year. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out to me any time. I look forward to getting to know your children and you!