The LMS Express

Hello all,

We've had an action-packed first couple of weeks at LMS! Teachers and students are right back in the swing of things-connecting with each other, learning new material, and broadening horizons of many different varieties.

We had a great turnout for our Parent/Guardian Orientation Night on Thursday - thank you to everyone that came out for that event. We value the partnership we share with our families, and we appreciated the opportunity to show off a bit of what we do everyday.

Please remember that next Tuesday, September 9th is Picture Day at LMS - we look forward to seeing all the smiles!

Thanks for having a look at this edition of the LMS Express.

Be Well,

Tom

Tuesday, September 9th - LMS Picture Day

Tuesday, September 9th - Instrument Petting Zoo @ LMS Gym, 5:00 p.m.

Wednesday, 9/10-Friday, 9/12 - NWEA Testing

Wednesday, September 10th - School Board Meeting, 6:30 @ LMS

Friday, September 26th - LMS Unity Day

Saturday, September 27th - 5th & 6th Grade Activity Night @ CCBA, 6:00-8:00 p.m.

Wednesday, 10/15-Friday, 10/17 - LMS Book Fair

Thursday, October 16th - LMS Open House

Saturday, December 6th - 7th & 8th Grade Activity Night @CCBA, 6:00-8:00 p.m

We gathered as a whole-school community on the first day of school. It is very powerful to have our students and staff in one place all at the same time. We are LMS, and we are proud!

We are still waiting on registration information for a number of returning students. If you haven't done so already, please click on this link https://sau88-lms.getalma.com to register your student for the 2025-2026 Returning Students school year. Each student must be registered each year. If you're not sure if you've completed the registration process for this year or not, please contact Nikki Small (nsmall@sau88.net). Thank you for your attention to this.

Alma is only accessible through the internet, it does not have an app. However, by following these steps make it easier to access Alma through a handheld device:

1. Go to sau88-lms.getalma.com.

2. Click on the "share" icon at the bottom of the screen.

3. Scroll down and click on "Add to Home Screen".

4. The icon below should now be visible from your home screen (you may need to swipe left to find it). Tapping on this icon will bring you directly to the LMS Alma site.

We hope this helps! Please reach out if you're not able to access Alma.

On Friday, September 26th, all staff and students will participate in our annual Unity Day. This is an action-packed event, filled with team-building activities coordinated by LMS teachers and staff. Each team - Pine, Spruce, Willow & Elm - will be at their own location for the majority of the day. The Pine Team stays at school, the Spruce Team heads to Civic Memorial Park, the Willow Team will be at the Hartland Dam, and the Elm Team will be at Camp Coniston. This is a fantastic LMS tradition that brings our teams closer as a group, and we look forward to it every year!

We are excited to welcome a new group of educators to LMS this year! Below is a little bit of information on each of them.

Ms. Buckman (until December when she'll be known as Mrs. Plummer :) is teaching 7th & 8th grade Social Studies. She previously taught at the Plainfield School and the Lancaster School. Phoebe enjoys Concerts, adventures with nieces and nephews, reading, nad playing games (board, lawn, cards). Her favorite show is Gilmore Girls, and her favorite board game is Ticket to Ride. Phoebe is excited to be returning to LMS to teach after being a student here! Welcome back, Phoebe!

Dr. Danielle Colburn is one of our new paraeducators, and she's been in the education field for 7 years, (including at LMS as a sub). Danielle likes to read philosophy, write, and play pokemon. Her favorite movies are the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and she values social/emotional skills just as much as academic skills for any learning environment. Welcome (back) to LMS, Danielle!

Ms. Gonyea is also one of our new paraeducators. As a recent college graduate, this is her first year in the education field. "Ms. G." loves spending time with her dog and watching college sports. She loves any book by Taylor Jenkins Reid, and she loves every Boston sports team, besides the Patriots ("Go Steelers!") Sydney is also the field hockey coach at Lebanon High School. Go Raiders! And welcome to LMS, Sydney!

Eli Larkin is our (full-time, in-building, woohoo!) Speech-Language Pathologist. He's been an SLP since 2023 and this will be his 2nd year in education. In his free time, Eli enjoys reading, writing, music, and most nerdy things. Eli has been a Cincinnati Bengals fan for my whole life, and he's also a huge Star Wars fan. Eli is eager to begin this school year at LMS. Helping students reach their full potential is his greatest motivation. Welcome to LMS, Eli!

Ms. Palys is our new Special Educator, working primarily with 5th grade students. She has taught in Virginia, New York, Maryland, and at LHS & HSS right here in Lebanon! Gina lids to read, listen to music, go to concerts, play sports, and play video games. She loves the book "The Hive" by Barry Lyga and Morgan Baden. She has many favorite movies, but Mega Mind is in the top 5. Her favorite sports team is the Yankees and her favorite celebrity is Caitlin Clark. I am excited to join the LMS community and look forward to learning alongside all of us! Welcome to LMS, Gina!

Ms. Richter will be our new 7th & 8th Grade School Counselor. Merry has worked for the last 2 years at the Windsor School. In her free time, Merry likes to read books, play card games, work on puzzles, and hang out with her wife and son outdoors. Merry feels that it would be important to share that she's a pretty big Eagles fan but that she's not going to let that get in the way of helping all of her students - even those who identify as Cowboys or Giants fans. :) Welcome to LMS, Merry!

Ms. Saine will be one of our new 5th grade teachers, team-teaching with Sarah Lemelin. Mandy has been teaching for 26 years, the last 13 of which were at Hanover Street School here in Lebanon. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with family (dogs too) & friends, arts & crafts, and enjoying the outdoors. Her favorite book is The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy. Welcome to LMS, Mandy!

Ms. Deb will be one of our new paraeducators, and she's been in education for 5 years. In her free time, Ms. Deb enjoys walking with her dog, Maverick. She's a fan of Michigan college football, and she's looking forward to meeting everyone at LMS. Welcome to LMS, Deb!

Ms. Stevens is one of our new paraeducators, and she's worked for many years in education and the mental health field, including work at Green Mountain Children's Center, the Mascoma School District, and West Central Behavioral Health. Lori likes to spend time with her family and pets - they like to hike and spend time at Lake Willoughby. She also enjoys gardening, crafting, and the sound of children's laughter. Lori doesn't often have time to sit down, but when she does, she enjoys watching The Big Bang Theory, and Family Feud. She could also watch Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightly 100 times! Lori also enjoys a good joke, laughing, and being scared! Welcome to LMS, Lori!

Ms. Stout will be teaching 7th & 8th grade Language Arts. She taught at the Plainfield School for the past 2 years, and at Hanover Street School for 21 years before that. In her free time, Annemarie likes to ski, hike, kayak, read, travel, and spend time with family & friends. She is excited to be back in the Lebanon School District and work with many familiar and new friends and families! Welcome to LMS, Annemarie!

Willow Team enjoying some of the remaining nice weather!

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In Profe MacFadden's Spanish class, students have been working on "Back to School Stations". Through a variety of activities, they learned about each other, discussed being a good classmate, individual learning styles, what proficiency means, and the role respect plays in the classroom. They generated brain break ideas and created organizational systems to start the year off right. With this feedback, we will create class norms based on their input and discuss the data and trends that we see in our classroom community with comprehensible Spanish.

For many years, grades 7 and 8 students in Lebanon have participated in a community service program, Senior Serving, at the Upper Valley Senior Citizen Center. Teams Willow and Elm will continue this tradition of community service this year. The program involves assisting with the noon meal and has been well received by the patrons, the staff, and the students who have participated. The students' help is needed, but there are also friendships to be made that diminish age barriers and other lessons to be learned.

Senior Center Letter

Students kicked off the first unit by investigating what happens when you put bath bombs in water and making homemade bath bombs to determine which substances might produce gas bubbles.

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Students on the Pine Team have been introduced to Breakout EDU kit-based games. The first challenge was a teamwork challenge called Zombie Outbreak: Save the City! Students work together to solve a series of puzzles that lead them to unlock each of the locks to get into the box. Clues can be for word locks, shape locks, directional locks or numeric locks. Students enjoyed this new type of challenge and will participate in others throughout the year.

Mrs. Duford and Mrs. Proper’s 5th graders put their engineering skills to the test! Using only spaghetti, marshmallows, and some tape students tried to build the tallest free standing tower!

My name is Christian Terry, and I am the band director here at LMS! I am very excited to begin band lessons with you all very soon. For those interested in starting a band instrument we have a parent info night/instrument petting zoo for Tuesday, September 9th starting at 5:00 PM in the LMS Gym. Once there we will discuss what the band program is, how to start an instrument, and give an overview of the year. Afterwards, students will be able to try a few instruments that they may be considering playing. This is a great opportunity to find out if trumpet or oboe is the best fit for your child! We offer flute, oboe, clarinet, alto saxophone, trumpet, french horn, trombone, euphonium, and percussion. Please click this link for more information about this night and to learn more about the program.

The LMS Podcast is back for season two! We had a very successful year last year with our school podcast. We will start the LMS Podcast with a student interest session on Thursday, September 25th, from 2:35 to 3:45. Students will have the opportunity to be a part of the podcast, learn about basic mic features, how to mix/master a basic podcast, and much more in this club. Please click here for a permission slip, or students can can see Mr Terry for a permission slip as well. This is a year-long co-curricular that meets in the LMS band room, 117.

To listen to last year's LMS Podcast episodes, please click here.

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Painting “impressions” like Monet is 5/6 Modern Art Elective. Did you know that there are two Monet paintings on display at the Hood Museum in Hanover? For more information, click here.

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Welcome, new and returning LMS families! Mark your calendars for our upcoming events. We'll also need volunteers - please sign up at the links below!

• 5th/6th Grade Activity Night at the CCBA, September 27, 6:00-8:00 PM

5th and 6th graders, come for an evening of swimming, ping pong, gym sports, crafts, pizza, and more! Details about how to get tickets will be in the next newsletter. Click here to volunteer!

• Scholastic Book Fair, October 15-17

Join us in the LMS library for a middle school-focused book fair. The fair will be open during Open House on the 16th!

• Lebanon Craft Fair, November 8-9

With over 50 local artists and their handmade crafts and food, this fair is guaranteed to be a blast! (Psst, we're still accepting applications for Young Entrepreneur Row!) Proceeds support Lebanon's three PTOs. Click here to volunteer and get free entry.

• 7th/8th Grade Activity Night at the CCBA, December 6, 6:00-8:00 PM

7th and 8th graders, join us for an evening of swimming, ping pong, gym sports, crafts, pizza, and more! More details coming later this fall.

We look forward to seeing you all soon!

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The NH Secretary of State's office is running a contest to design a new "I Voted" sticker for the entire state. The contest is run through the Secretary of State's office, and it's open to any 4th or 5th grader. The deadline is October 14. For more information on this exciting opportunity, please click here.

The "M" in LMS PRIDE is for Motivation.

"We try our best to accomplish our goals and encourage others to do the same."

You can see the full LMS Mission Statement by clicking here.

You can click here for past issues of the LMS Express.