Elm Hill School Newsletter
February 2026
Brrr-ing on the February News!
Can we all just take a moment to give a virtual high-five to our amazing students (and teachers!) for surviving what feels like the longest stretch of indoor recess in history? While the freezing temperatures have kept us huddled inside, the energy at school is anything but cold. Our Reading Challenge is absolutely heating up—the progress we’re seeing is incredible! Please keep those reading logs coming in; it’s so inspiring to see our young readers diving into new worlds while the real world stays stuck in the "deep freeze."
Mark Your Calendars: Events & Updates
As we look toward March, we have a whirlwind of activity to keep on your radar. Between important civic duties and family fun, here is the "need to know" list:
February Break - School is closed starting Monday, February 23rd and reopens on Wednesday, March 4th.
Parent-Teacher Conferences: Join us on March 26th & 27th to chat about your student's growth.
Town Meeting Day: Don't forget to head to the polls and vote on March 3rd!
Spirit Week: Get those outfits ready! We'll be celebrating the week of March 9th.
Family Game Night: Join us March 12th from 5:30 – 7:00 PM. > Pro Tip for Game Night: Parking at Elm Hill is very limited. To make things easy, we are providing shuttle bus transportation from Riverside Middle School. Park there, hop on the bus, and let us handle the commute!
Best,
Miss Rachel
February 23 - 27 - Winter Break
March 2 - 3 - No School, Town Meeting
March 9 - Pajama Day
March 10 - Crazy Hair Day
March 11 - Class Color Day (see flyer below)
March 12 - Mismatch Day
March 13 - Dress to Impress
March 18 - PTA Meeting @ Union Street School
March 19 - Game Night
March 20 - Field Trip to SHS to Watch Treasure Island
March 31 - K Bowling Trip
April 1 - First Grade Bowling Trip
Happy February PreK families,
We have learned so much over the school year already and we are over half way
through! We have built recycled robots, celebrated the 100th day of school, and we
have had so much fun each day with lots of hands-on activities and experiences with
more to come! We have begun tracking 5,000 pages friends’ have been reading at
home for me to get pied in the face; so turn in those reading logs as you fill them up!
These next few weeks we will be learning about dinosaurs, maple sugaring, space, and
weather! March is National Reading Month! To celebrate; the whole month of March our
class will be hosting one mystery reader to the class each day! Families are more than
welcome to sign up to come read to the class through the entire month of March! Please
feel free to email or message me on dojo to sign up for a day (The time is set for
8:30 am each day).
Miss Heather and the Pre K 1 team!
Over the past several weeks, first graders in Miss Cora’s class have been learning all about opinion writing. An opinion is what you think or how you feel about something. People can have different opinions.
We read the book I Wanna Iguanna by Karen Kaufman Orloff. This book told through letters where a boy named Alex writes letters telling his mom why he thinks she should let him adopt a neighbor's pet iguana. In class, we wrote our own letters to a grown up telling them what pet we would love to adopt and why.
Students loved sharing their opinions and reasons to support why they should be allowed to adopt their dream pets.
“Dear Mom–
I want a pet shark. One reason is because it can hunt fish. Another reason is it can protect us. That is why I want a pet shark.
Love, James”
“Dear Mommy,--
I want a pet bunny. One reason why is they’re cute. Another reason why is they are fluffy. That is why I want a pet bunny.
Love, Naomi”
Mrs. Tennis First Graders
Mrs. Tennis' first graders have been working very hard on their skills! We are beginning to read decodable texts, write longer sentences and add and subtract larger numbers! We are also excited to be honoring the Olympics with our very own Potato Olympics! We each chose a country and have our "taterlete" warming up for their events. We will participate in bowling, basketball, long distance rolling, breakdancing and bobsled! We are looking forward to a VINS trip before break as well! The class was also challenged to make their own snow friends after we read several snowman stories and we received a lovely blanket of snow! I think we are ready for the upcoming break to rest and reset so that March can be just as much fun!
Kindergarten News
This month our class has been focused on kindness! We were given kindness calendars from Mrs. Tennis' a first grade teacher. We have been trying our best to prioritize helping others, using kind words, and spreading happiness around the school. We are elated to have earned a kindness award from Mrs. Tennis as well and have some of our students posted on a hallway bulletin board. I am so proud of this crew!
We also performed The Itsy Bitsy Spider this month at All School Meeting, which was scary and exciting all wrapped into one!
Lastly, we have been working on our informational writing in the classroom. We have been talking about colder places like Antarctica and The Arctic and what animals, plants, and landscapes belong there and writing about it along the way.
Happy February, Elm Hill Community!
This month, speech students decorated hearts and shared what they love about Elm Hill School ♡
You can talk with your students about what they love to do at school and at home. What they love to do at school might give you some ideas for what you can do at home over the February break. If your child says they love art, maybe you can do arts and crafts together. If your child says they love recess or gym, make sure they have an opportunity for physical activity while on the break from school (the playground at Elm Hill is open to families during the break).
The speech department has been noticing that many Elm Hill students are having difficulty with using pronouns in sentences. Students will use “her” instead of “she” (“her like it” instead of “she likes it”) and “us” instead of “we” (“us went to recess” instead of “we went to recess”). If you notice your child using sentences like this, here are some ideas for addressing it at home:
Read together! Read books to your child or have them read to you. Talk about the pictures and the story using pronouns in sentences: “She found the kitten.” “He was being silly!”
Talk about your plan for the day in the morning and/or what you did that day at night: “We are going to the library today.” “We saw grandma today.”
If your child says a sentence with an incorrect pronoun, you can just say it the correct way, but you don’t need to make them say it again (that can cause frustration). Example: child says “him is happy,” you can say “yes, he is happy.”
Check out this Schoolhouse Rock song about pronouns: https://youtu.be/Eu1ciVFbecw
We hope everyone has a good February vacation! We are looking forward to hearing about what our students did over the break when we are all back together on March 4. We are also hoping to see lots of families at our Elm Hill School game night on March 12!
Take care,
Elm Hill Speech Team
~Markee Lawrence, MA CCC-SLP
~Kris Pennell, SLPA
~Sanna Schmitt, SLPA
Our K–1 students can enjoy stories in a whole new way with Playaways and Wonderbooks! These read-along options help young learners build listening skills, grow their vocabulary, and develop a love of reading.
Playaways are easy-to-use audiobooks that come ready to play—just plug in headphones and listen. They are perfect for car rides, quiet time, or relaxing at home.
Wonderbooks combine a print book with a built-in audiobook. Students can follow along with the words as they listen, helping them recognize sounds, learn new words, and gain confidence as readers.
A letter was recently sent home with more information about these materials. If you prefer that your child not check out audiobooks, please return the opt-out form at your earliest convenience. Otherwise, students will be able to enjoy these engaging resources from the library.
For questions, please contact Ms. Lora via email at lcokolat@ssdvt.org.
We encourage families to check them out and enjoy stories together—listening to books is a wonderful way to support early literacy and make reading fun!
