From The Garden

Hey Fam!

I hope you all remembered to SPRING your clocks ahead this weekend. I'm always so torn on this time of year. I'm beyond excited for longer days, more daylight, and warmer weather in the coming weeks. But then there's that lost hour....I really miss that hour and I think I don't even recover until we put them back again in the fall! Extra caffeine in the mornings for sure!

The Garden had an exciting week with Read Across America festivities. The whole school got together Thursday afternoon and everyone read for 15 minutes together. We had a handful of special guest readers with some fantastic stories including some Memorial staff!! We are beyond grateful for when you grown ups are able to shuffle life and join us for a story or two. So much fun with books and reading this week. We had rap stars, fun reading projects, new big words, and a whole lot of characters - the exhaustion is REAL this week ha!

This coming week is going to be a week. We have regularly scheduled school days Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday is Early Release with a SPIRIT DAY (wear all that tie-dye kids!!). Please remember that Memorial School's Spirit Days are always optional. Thursday and Friday are No School days for the tiny learners. Teachers, on the other hand, will be hard at work. Thursday is actually one of the greatest days ever - it's called Records Day. I will have seven hours to do whatever I need to tend to as an educator. As a human being, there's never enough time to do all the things. As a teacher, I swear, there's even less time for the things. So here in the GNG we are fortunate enough to have a day to clean, file, create...whatever our brains and space require. Friday is an inservice day with our sisters down at the Russell School.

As the weather gets warmer, that not-so-fluffy-anymore stuff is going to be disappearing (WOO!) Winter gear is still necessary at this point because the playground is still pretty covered. Once the white is gone, boots will absolutely be needed because after winter comes MUD SEASON, and I have a funny feeling, the mud is going to be muckalicious this year. Even more important....INSIDE SHOES (please no slippers)!!! Our classroom does not need all the mud and ew. Thank you in advance for working with your kiddo to ensure they have all the essential items for their day.

Parent Teacher Conference Sign Up can be found a bit further down in this news blast. Many of you have already signed up - thank you for your diligence with this! Looking forward to seeing you all in a couple of weeks. If you find days and times that just won't work, please reach out. Together we'll make it happen to best suit everyone's needs.

Take Care & Be Well!

Warmly,

Abby

MONDAY - Evelyn

TUESDAY - Finn

WEDNESDAY - EARLY RELEASE

THURSDAY - NO SCHOOL (for the kiddos)

FRIDAY -NO SCHOOL (for the kiddos)

Friendly Reminders About Snack:

*We have 13 Gnomies in our classroom this year. Please send in enough snack for everyone.

*Memorial School is a peanut-safe environment. In order to keep all kiddos safe, we kindly ask that you refrain from sending in peanuts, peanut butter, or anything containing these ingredients (thank you in advance!)

*I also kindly ask that regular snack days are of the healthier types. Cookies, store bought cupcakes, and other more sugary items are better for birthday snack days.

*Please no homemade items - even for birthday snack days. I know, party pooper.

*Unsure about something? Reach out! Let me help! No question is too silly when it comes to the safety of all our peeps.

Some Popular Snack Ideas:

• Goldfish
• Pretzels
• Fruit, Veggies & Dip
• Pirate Booty
• Applesauce or Gogurt
• Gummies
• Cheez-Its
• Popcorn
• Cheese Sticks

Mar 11th

• Early Release - Dismissal at 1:20pm
• SPIRIT DAY - Tie Dye Day - Wear all the tie dye! Groovy baby!

Mar 12th - NO SCHOOL - Teacher Work Day

Mar 13th - NO SCHOOL - Teacher Inservice Day

Weeks of Mar 16th & 23rd - Kindergarten Color Weeks (see below)

Mar 17th - SPIRIT DAY - Wear Green🍀

Mar 19th - District Wide Science Fair 5pm @GNGHS

Week of March 23rd - Parent Teacher Conference Week (sign up below)

Mar 26th - Book Orders Due

Coming up in April, 4/8 to be exact, the kindergarten classes will be heading to the Children's Museum for a field trip!! I am looking for 5 volunteers who would like to join us! You'll be responsible for a group of 2-3 kiddos as you get to roam and explore all that the museum has to offer. We will spend the morning there and then head back to Memorial to have lunch and finish out our day. Permission slips will be coming soon but I wanted to get a jump start on volunteers. If you're interested let me know!! We also have another field trip coming up at the end of May as well.

The District-Wide Science Fair will be on Thursday, March 19th, from 5:00 - 6:30 pm at Gray-New Gloucester High School!

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Important details:

• Any MSAD 15 student can enter the Fair.
• Student projects can be experiments or research-based and can be on any science-related topic.
• All students will receive feedback from the judges.
• Any student who enters the Fair will be entered in a raffle to win science-themed prizes! Participants will also get a certificate and a medal!
• Registration for the Fair is open (link below)!
• We will also have exciting events for Fair spectators, including the Book Fair, and all are invited to visit the Fair.
• This year, there will be nature-themed games and activities for participants and visitors to enjoy!

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Here's the link to sign up:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc6tVU8-2ROETrTg24bosvxlOfppaMv69T5VWjEHiabilRbAQ/viewform

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Feel free to contact Mrs. Hennessey if you have any questions.

Get ready for a STEAM-powered adventure that inspires reading and hands-on learning in science, technology, art, math, and more. The Scholastic Discovery Fair is coming to the Science Fair!

Start exploring together: https://www.scholastic.com/bf/memorialelementaryschool34

Ready to discover the characters and stories your kids love? With expertly curated selections, plus the chance for your teacher to earn rewards for the classroom with every order, Scholastic Book Clubs is here for you all year long to boost your kid's reading fandom and maybe even create moments of quality time you can share together!

Place an order of $25 or more and you can pick a FREE $5 book (use code READS at checkout) to add to your reader's TBR pile!

Family Order Due Date: 03/26/2026

Our class Code is: WTRBG

Invite relatives and friends to help your child discover the pure joy of reading when you share our Class Page link. Every order benefits

This week was a great opportunity to continue our practice of rhyming and segmenting/blending/reading CVC words! We practiced changing the first sound in a word to create different words (deleting and adding sounds is a great way to practice/strengthen phonemic awareness).

Fox in Socks is one of my most favorite read alouds ever you guys AND I get to teach tiny humans about alliteration!!! Mind blown right!? Alliteration is the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words. Peter and his pickled peppers or the woodchuck chucking wood are also great examples of alliteration, or tongue twisters.

During our story kiddos were noticing how twisted my tongue was getting! Later in the day, I was having a hard time getting my words out, and one Gnomie piped up and said "it's because you read that book earlier today." 🤣 It most certainly was! I've linked Fox in Socks below, however, it's a way better version than my reading, so enjoy!

Again, I cannot thank you all enough for making/taking the time to join us throughout this week for some really great stories. While I always enjoy being the one to read, watching the kiddos light up and get so into each and every story was a treat as I don't usually get to observe them that much during read alouds. Parents, keep reading!! You're doing a fabulous job xx

Thursday afternoon the whole school dropped everything and grabbed some books to read. Mrs. Hennessey came over the speaker to begin and end the fun and she even read with us! Kiddos spent about 15 minutes engaged in their book boxes. I was super impressed with their focus and attention despite being in a brand new environment with so many others around!

We ended our week by dressing up as our favorite book characters. Our spirit days are always optional and never required or expected. You guys knocked it out of the park this year. I was giddy with the creativity and excitement around books.

Those who were characters and those who were in their Friday best all participated in conversations about our favorite books and why we enjoy them so. We had a whole school parade Friday afternoon where we were able to see all sorts of book characters! The tiny humans enjoyed themselves thoroughly during this event.

I threw some W sight words at the Gnomies this week (along with a couple of randoms)! We took time mapping, reading and singing about these words (along with last weeks words too). I can't teach the word want without singing the song, "I want candy" and it fits so perfectly with our picture card 🤣

We also had a lot of fun with reviewing WHO singing "who let the dogs out?!" & "WHO stole the cookie from the cookie jar?!

This way of practicing sight words is the final tip the teacher shares in the video, and it's honestly one of the most important (in my humble opinion). When we are able to utilize words such as "and", "the", and "play" in our conversations, in our writing, and our reading we own these words. So when you're reading books together and you find a sight word in the story, have your kiddo try to come up with a sentence using that sight word. Tip: it's ok if at first, kiddos copy what the story says or what you say for a sentence. The more we practice, the more we'll be able to produce our own sentences.

Comprehension is an important skill for successful reading.

For the next couple of years, your kiddos will be working on learning to reading, but at the mid elementary level (3rd/4th/5th - ish), kiddos are reading to learn. Understanding what is being read, as it's being read, so that a proper retell can be done at the end of the reading is vital for the reading to learn success.

Things you can do at home to help your child with this: talk about the stories you're reading at home. Name characters. Talk about the setting. Tell the order of events across your fingers (sequencing may need some practice). To help kiddos make the connection of sequential events, before you even read a story, take a picture walk. Have your child talk about what's happening in the story based upon what he/she sees in the pictures. Then read. During retells without the support of the text, remind your kiddo to talk about the details they saw in the pictures. Talk about favorite parts of stories and why (why is so important). Talk about connections we can make with our stories: "it made me think of...." We can make connections story to story, story to ourselves, or story to real world.

Have fun with it!!

We're beginning to really focus on this at school as it's necessary for the end of the year goals, so please don't feel like you need to drill at home. Make it fun. Who can remember more?! Mom? Dad? Sibling? Tiny Learner? <muahaha>

The RaZKids app has a great comprehension portion to it. After kiddos listen to and read stories, there are sets of questions that accompany each book! These are all questions about what was read! Hello Comprehension!! And it's fun! If you would like a copy of your kiddo's login information at home, let me know!

The Garden has been hard at work for the last month. Laying the foundation for addition and subtraction, combinations of numbers, making observations, continuing our number work, coins and their value, counting by 5s (not a K expectation, but some nice little bonus work!), finding, creating & extending patterns....whew!

March brings about an entirely new Number Corner! Cal (our calendar) is dropping new patterns: we have found two patterns for sure by sneaking ahead to the weekend days. We have observed the background color of each day represents an ABAB pattern. We have noticed each day of the month matches the number of ladybugs shown (ie on the first day of March, there was 1 ladybug shown). Our big essential question with our calendar work is "how many more to the next 10?" If you remember (and it's ok if you don't!) this question has been with us since early fall in our counting of the school days (Larry the Links). We are using this question right now, however, to build addition equations (eeeeek!!), or a number sentence. When we read books, we are reading words in sentences. Well, during math, we read sentences containing numbers!

We are still carrying on with our days of school: we add a dot to our ten frame (Teddy), we add a link to our chain (Larry), and we write the number (we're in the hundreds now AND we're figuring out the pattern so we can successfully write these wicked big numbers!!)

Our Calendar Collector (Carl) looks a bit different this month as he has transformed into a Weather Observation Center. We have learned about the month of March coming in like a lion and leaving like a lamb (I pray for this to happen sooner than the end of the month ha!). We had a conversation about why these animals and how these animals could be used to describe different types of weather. Each day we look out our windows and talk with our neighbors about what kind of weather we think is happening, we share our ideas, and then we chart. We then turn each day into an equation by taking the number of lambs and adding them to the number of lions to see how many animals all together. We also are using this information to graph our weather!