Spring Street School

October 9th - No School- Columbus Day

October 12th - Curriculum Night ( see details below)

October 16th - Special Town Meeting Vote on Feasibility Study at 6:00 in the MSHS Aduitorium

October 16th - PreK Boosterthon Fun Run 10:00 & 1:00

October 17th - Kindergarten Boosterthon Fun Run 9:45-10:30

October 25th - Half Day - Dismissal at 11:30 - No PM Preschool

October 30th - School Committee Meeting at 6:00 in the MSHS Learning Commons

November 10th - No School - Veterans Day

Traffic and School Parking Lot

Reminder that all traffic should be entering the Spring Street Parking lot from Spring Street and exiting towards the High School towards Howard Street. Please DO NOT exit on to Spring Street. This will ensure all traffic flows in the same direction. Thank you!!

CURRICULUM NIGHT OCTOBER 12, 2023

What will my child be learning about this year? What does a typical day look like? These are some of the questions that will be answered at curriculum night. Parents and guardians (not students) are invited to attend this event. Important topics of curriculum and expectations for the year will be addressed. The schedule for the evening is as follows:

6:00-6:30 Pre-K

6:30-7:00 Kindergarten

• Please enter through the Spring Street School Entrance and head directly to your child's classroom.

SCHOOL COUNCIL

Please consider being part of the continuous effort to improve our school. Community input is needed in determining the direction of education for our young people. We are in need of parent volunteers for our Spring Street School Council this year. If you have a child at the school and would like to serve as a representative on the council, please contact us. Meetings generally last an hour or less and take place after school. It is a good way to be involved in the improvement of our school. Our first meeting will be October 18 @ 3 pm.

WB Elementary School Project - Important Information

We would like to provide information related to the Elementary School Building Project in West Bridgewater. This information was shared previously with all WB families through our Aspen email system and with all WB staff. It has also been posted on the website and social media.

Our 3 elementary schools are old with buildings that were built in 1956, 1958, and 1968. We are looking at a variety of options for consolidation projects. We are also experiencing overcrowding concerns at all 3 elementary schools and with the projected enrollment numbers by the MSBA this will only get worse in the future.

On Monday, September 18th there was a Feasibility Study and Schematic Design information night for the community to learn more about the project. If you were not able to attend the meeting here is the link https://youtu.be/NeT4u6p-SE0

If you would like more information we highly encourage you to visit the website dedicated to the project. Here you will find links to the SBC members, minutes of meetings, the presentation at the information night, and other important documents. https://sites.google.com/.../wb-elementary-building.../home

Mr. Gary Keith (Chair of the SBC) and Superintendent Mark Bodwell made a presentation to the Finance Committee at their October 5th meeting. The Finance Committee asked great questions and voted unanimously in support. The Board of Selectman has also voted unanimously in favor.

On Monday, October 16th at 6 pm there will be a Special Town Meeting at the Middle/Senior High School in the auditorium. At this meeting, there will be a vote to appropriate funding for a Feasibility Study and Schematic Design.

We encourage anyone with any questions to please reach out to Mr. Bodwell at mbodwell@wbridgewater.com. We want to make sure all questions are answered as we go through this process.

Thank you to everyone who continues to send in updated physical forms and immunization records. Letters regarding missing health documents will go out this month. Please reach out to Nurse Mando if you have questions on these to ensure that your child’s health file is complete.

As the weather gets cooler and fluctuates, please remember to have the children layer up for outdoor play as necessary. Coughing and runny noses are pretty standard at this time of year, but please make sure to keep your children home if they are unwell and need rest to fully recover. Let’s all do our part to encourage proper and frequent hand washing, coughing away from others and into the elbows, and using tissues to prevent spreading classroom germs as much as possible! Wishing everyone a happy and healthy fall season!

As always, please feel free to reach Nurse Mando if you have any questions or concerns: smando@wbridgewater.com or 508-894-1232 ext. 2122.

Heggerty:

Phonological awareness is a strong predictor of reading success. It is especially important at the earliest stages of reading development and is a foundation for reading. Knowing this, our PreK4 and kindergarten classrooms are engaging in Heggerty Phonological Awareness lessons each day. Phonological awareness allows children to recognize and work with the sounds of language. These activities are sometimes called ear exercises because the focus is on hearing the parts or sounds in words. Your child will not be seeing these words in print during the phonological awareness lessons.

Fundations:

We have adopted a new foundational skills program last year that I am over the moon about. K-3 classrooms will be using a program called Fundations. Fundations provides a systematic and explicit approach to reading and spelling in a mindful way that is effective with all children. The program follows a very specific sequence of progressing skills. It also has particular approaches for teaching concepts in relation to sound patterns, phonics, high-frequency word studies, syllable types, and reading fluency so that our children learn to read and spell accurately. Classroom newsletters will be sent home at the start of each unit on how to support your developing reader at home.

Wit & Wisdom:

We have also adopted another language arts program called Wit & Wisdom to strengthen students’ vocabulary and comprehension when reading and writing. Wit & Wisdom will help students build knowledge of key topics in history, science, and literature through the study of excellent texts. By reading and responding to stories and nonfiction texts, kindergarten students will build knowledge on the following themes: The Five Senses, Once Upon a Farm, America: Then and Now, and The Continents.

Reading Support at Home

• Proper articulation of phonemes is essential for students to successfully decode, read, and spell words.
• Explicitly teach/model what your lips, tongue, teeth and mouth are doing, where they are placed, and what they feel like when making the letter sounds. Use mirrors!
• Put hand in front of mouth to feel air with /f/, and on throat to feel vibration of /v/.
• Get your imaginary scissors ready and “clip” away the /uh/ for every letter (e.g. /b/, not /buh/).
• Test yourself! Can you say the 44 sounds (phonemes) of our English language correctly? Can you model the sounds for our wildcat readers? Check out this 5-minute video on our 44 phonemes!

Inclusion Matters is a group of West Bridgewater families whose children have IEPs and 504s. We offer webinars and events to support families with special needs. If you'd like to learn more, please email us at InclusionMattersMA@gmail.com to join our private email list.

See our upcoming events on our Facebook page at @InclusionMattersMA and our website at www.InclusionMattersMA.com

Greetings from Spring Street’s Wildcat Café! We are very excited to see so many students participating in our breakfast and lunch program! Miss January, Miss Becky and Miss Karen love seeing the children enjoying the meals they prepare.

Just a reminder that both breakfast and lunch are free this school year! Menus and online meal order forms can be found here. Kindergarten students will select their lunch choice in the classroom each morning.

If your student is bringing in a lunch box from home and would like to purchase a milk to enjoy with their meal, fat-free chocolate and 1% white milk are available to purchase for $.60. Money to purchase milk can be added to a student’s account two ways:

· Cash or a check. Please put money in an envelope, labeled with the amount or the child’s name. Your student can give it to the teacher in the morning.

· Electronic payments using MySchoolBucks. You will need your student’s 10-digit student ID. Even if you don’t add money using MySchoolBucks, it allows you to monitor cafeteria transactions until they graduate!

We are looking for friendly individuals to work as substitute cafeteria staff. Interested? Please contact me at agrinder@wbridgewater.com or at (508)894-1220.

Thank you,

Ann Marie Grinder, Food Service Director

Monthly lunch menu

Recognizing National School Lunch Week, October 10-13.

Learning is tough work—and kids need fuel if they’re going to learn! That’s why a healthy midday meal is crucial to the growing children who go to school. Since 1962, when President John F. Kennedy created National School Lunch Week (NSLW), this annual observance has promoted the importance of a healthy school lunch in a child’s life and the impact it has both in and out of the classroom. Today, the National School Lunch Program serves nearly 30 million children every school day. Not only does it reduce childhood hunger, but it also supports American agriculture. We hope your students chooses to participate!

Farm to School! We are partnering this year with C.N. Smith Farm, Langwater Farm, and Vineyard Farm to provide fresh and local fruits and vegetables for our school meals and at test testing events in the cafeteria. The list includes local corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, melons, potatoes, Japanese sweet potatoes, red and yellow beets, lettuce, broccoli, and of course several varieties of apples!

On Saturday, October 28th, the NHS will be sponsoring their TRUNK OR TREAT for children. It will take place in the MSHS school parking lot from 3-5 pm. A donation of $5 per child is appreciated. All proceeds will go to the NHS scholarships. If families would like to donate bags of candy it would be greatly appreciated and can be dropped off at the MSHS main office.

BOX TOPS FOR EDUCATION - Please scan your shopping receipts! Every little bit helps our school! The program transitioned to a new digital format. You can now scan your shopping receipts from any store (like Market Basket, Trucchi’s, Target, Walmart, CVS, etc.) to earn money for our school. Download the app today or send your receipts to school. We are happy to scan them for you!

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our first meeting of the year!

We really enjoyed seeing some new faces!

Our next meeting is Wednesday, November 1st at 7:00 in the RLM Cafe.

Boosterthon Fun Run Times

October 16th - PreK Boosterthon Fun Run 10:00 & 1:00

October 17th - Kindergarten Boosterthon Fun Run 9:45-10:30

If you are looking to volunteer please sign up here: https://volunteersignup.org/PBTXT

Stay connected on facebook @WBridgewaterPTO

Keitha Goulet

Principal

Email: kgoulet@wbridgewater.com
Website: https://www.wbridgewaterschools.org/o/spring-street
Location: 2 Spring St, West Bridgewater, MA, USA
Phone: 508-894-1233
Facebook: facebook.com/SpringStreetSchool
Twitter: @SpringStreet_WB