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John
D. Perkins Sr. School News Our
school year had a very smooth opening and we are off to a great start.
Mrs. Perry from Marlow will be our new speech and language teacher and
we have a new Occupational Therapist, Mrs. Anderson. The classroom
teachers have returned and are anticipating a great year. Mrs. Giles
teaches kindergarten and first grade, Mrs Snair teaches grade 2, Mrs.
Gagnon teaches grades 3 & 4, Miss McSpiritt teaches grades 5 &
6, Mrs. Langlois teaches Special Education. We have a new music teacher,
Mrs. Hed who is looking for any instruments that anybody would be
willing to donate to the school. Just call the school at 446-3307 and we
can arrange to pick up. We
have had two fire drills this year and Chief Foote observed one of the
drills and he was impressed with how quickly and orderly our students
exited the building. State law requires that we conduct at least 10
drills each school year including evacuations, lock downs and reverse
evacuations. Our
school hosted a principal's meeting of SAU personnel including the two
co superintendents, Supt. Gurney and Supt. Woolridge, Mr. Ruehr, our
business manager, Mrs. Reeves, the special Education director, area
principals, a State Fire Inspector and other Keene staff members. It was
nice to have the visitors tour our school and see our facility in
operation. Target
donates 1% of the purchase if a Target Check Card or Target Visa Card is
used, and Hannafords helps schools from September 6 to December 6 by
having participating products that earn school dollars that are
deposited into the collection towers at a local Hannafords. Price
Chopper grants points from sales toward educational materials such as,
reading and math manipulatives. All sales have to be designated to John
D. Perkins School in order for our school to receive credit. We use the
money for students' field day, graduation and field trips. Recently,
a new set of swings has been installed and many repairs to the play
structure have been completed. Thanks to the highway crew who brought
new sand for the playground equipment, and leveled piles of loam for the
new grass areas. The weather station donated by the Stearns family is in
place and with some technical assistance the weather will be available
at any computer in school. Our school is very lucky to have the support
of the community. We sincerely thank you for your support! 5th
and 6th Grade: It's
hard to believe we are almost done with our first month of school! The
5th and 6th graders and I have been getting to know each other and are
really starting to "click" as a group. We have been working on
classroom environment and really setting up the way we would like to see
our classroom run. So far, everything has been going really well! The
5th and 6th graders have been working really hard on their schoolwork,
too. They are all proving to me and their schoolmates that they deserve
to be the oldest students at J.D. Perkins. I would also like to give a
special thanks to Kroka Expeditions for taking our class canoeing this
month. I can't wait to see everyone working together as a team and
supporting each other on this trip! Grade
2 In
grade two students have been very busy learning all about weather. We
know meanings of words such as: front, meteorologist, forecast, frost,
and hail. We have made homemade wind vanes to check air direction and
have been hoping for a windy day to try them out! We will also be making
anemometers to estimate wind speed. Students have loved the weather
books we have read. One that students really liked is What Will the
Weather Be? By Lynda DeWitt. Our next weather focus will be on the water
cycle. After the water cycle we will study clouds. We will spend time
outside observing and identifying different types of clouds. Students
have completed a reading strategies workshop where they learned about
different reading strategies and how to use them to help them read. We
reviewed predicting and decoding words, and learned about evaluating and
questioning what we read, as well as summarizing main ideas of stories.
Students are working on a silly stories theme currently. They read a
very funny story called Dragon Gets by Dave Pilkey. This story is about
a dragon that goes shopping, and then eats all of the food in his
"balanced" diet (students found pork rinds belonging in the
meat group and cheese curls in the dairy group quite hilarious) and
cannot fit into his car to drive home! Of course, we discussed the
proper food groups and a true balanced diet. In
math, students have been reviewing addition and subtraction. They have
also been completing daily "mad minute" math pages where they
try to complete a math page as quickly as they can. They then try to
beat their last score each time they complete a page. It's a fun way to
brush up on math facts! All
in all, we have begun a great year in the second grade full of learning,
team work, respect, fun and friends. As our homemade puzzle reads:
Separate we are unique, together we are a perfect fit! Kelly A. Snair Kindergarten
and Grade 1 We
are off to great start this year. Our room has changed to full day
kindergarten and first grade combination class and the kids are excited
to be back to school. As we settle into new routines and get to know new
friends, we are beginning a unit on the weather. Students have observed
the clouds above our school and are asking some great questions. Anyone
know how we can feel a cloud? (Actually, we have some experiments for
that!) Our school's new weather station will be an interesting
technology connection. We are learning new things every day and we are
so lucky to be part of a small, caring, and curious class. It's going to
be a great year! ART: This
summer, I was fortunate to go to France to visit some of my relatives.
My parents and siblings live there. We had a successful family reunion.
I went to Paris, and to the top of the Eiffel tower, paid a visit to
Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum, one of the greatest Museums in the
world. Seeing all his beautiful art was very refreshing. Students in
Marlow have a great spirit and are eager to learn. This year, we are
reviewing all age-appropriate techniques, media and processes for them
to create great pieces of art! The younger grades are drawing a lot,
learning how to sketch and improve their observational drawing skills. We
have been looking at trunks and bark, branches, foliage and leaves and
trying to translate them into lines and shapes. This should help them
with their science projects as well. We
are also making sure we are safe and showing respect to our materials,
so the 3/4 graders are making safety tool posters. The posters show a
good sense of humor. You'll have to come and see them. 5/6 graders are
doing a unit on portrait. After having drawn their self-portrait, they
made portraits of each other; they are now painting dots like
pointillist French artist Georges Seurat, on their profiles. Our Program
will cover American artists like Grant Wood, Grandma Moses, and Georgia
0' Keeffe, Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, and Colonial Times artists like
Sargent, NH artists like Maxwell Parish, and Native American art. From
January to June, we will be studying Antiquity: Cave Art, some Egyptian
art, Greek and Roman art. We
want to thank Jen Walsh for donating glue and especially clay. Thanks to
him, we are able to do pottery and ceramics at John Perkins. Have a
great fall and enjoy the colors! Marylise Reilly, Art Tteacher Watch our sign for the date of OPEN HOUSE! |