

The Pulse of the Pride

March 8, 2024
Lyme School Friends,
It has been a great two weeks since returning from break! There has been quite a bit of sickness spreading around and we are encouraging students and staff to wash their hands frequently. There are also updates in the nurse's section in regard to respiratory virus protocols.
Like usual, our classrooms are active and students are engaged in their learning. We have completed our NHSAS writing tests in grades 4-8 these past two weeks. Students have also been involved in the school-wide Artist in Residence (AIR) program sponsored by the PTO. A performance will take place on Monday, March 18th at 6PM at school.
Information about parent/teacher conferences is further along in the newsletter. We look forward to meeting with you to provide updates on your child's progress and to answer your questions.
Last night, the community supported the abatement project, the collective bargaining agreement, and next year's operating budget. This means the School Board and Administration will be working on planning for significant work in the K-3 wing of the building during the summer of 2025. There will be lots of information in the forthcoming months.
Please remember that there will be no school on March 12th for teacher in-service and town voting and March 22nd for parent/teacher conferences.
The next newsletter will hit your inbox on March 22nd and don't forget about Daylight Savings Time on March 10th
Regards,
John P. D'Entremont, Principal
News, Dates, Information, & Announcements
Important Dates
Dates:
March 10th - Daylight Savings Time/Spring Forward
March 12th - School Closed/Teacher In-Service
March 15th - Trimester Ends and Middle School Activity Night
March 18th - Artist in Residence Performance
March 20th - Second Trimester Report Cards
March 22nd - School Closed/Conferences
ALMA - Latest Updates
If you are having trouble, please reach out to Amanda Perry or John D'Entremont.
So far, you should have:
- Gotten yourself logged in.
- Received an emergency alert.
- Double checked your contact information.
- Completed ALMA Start Registration for this year.
- Been given instructions to opt in to the Directory. [To opt in to the directory, you can click on the link for “my info” or get there through your profile icon in the top-right corner. You can toggle your visibility in the directory.]
- Received preliminary information about the standards based report cards.
- Received a first trimester report card via email on December 4th.
Lyme School Apparel Store
The Lyme School Apparel Store has a variety of apparel and accessories all customizable with a variety of school logos. The Lyme School PTO earns 12% of all sales. Thank you for supporting our school and go Lions! #LYMESCHOOLROCKS
Solar Eclipse Glasses
This 2024 Solar Eclipse Webpage provides a list of resources, educational materials and events for teachers and parents regarding this rare and exciting learning opportunity on April 8. The New Hampshire Department of Education informed us that we will be receiving glasses for all students and staff by March 22nd. We will send a pair home with each student. Please know that Judy Russell has informed us that the library will also have some glasses if someone else in your household needs a pair!
Middle School Activity Night
Friday, March 15th is the next Middle School Activity Night. The dance theme is SEMI-FORMAL MASQUERADE (there will be some masks provided at the dance). Start time is 7PM.
Artist in Residence (AIR)
The AIR committee is proud to host Toby Summerfield this spring for a music residency! Toby will be working with the K-8 students to create an artistic piece including music, visual arts, and movement beginning Monday, February 26. The community will have the opportunity to watch the final masterpiece on Monday, March 18 at 6pm.
Good Luck, Mr. Harkins!
Last Friday, the school community said farewell to Senor Harkins. He taught Spanish at our school for 15 years. The Lyme School Community wishes Mr. Harkins well as the interim Principal of Lebanon Middle School. We are currently searching for a Spanish teacher for elementary Spanish and welcome applications for the remainder of this year or next year.
News from the Health Office
Kati Miller RN BSN: Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri
Matthew Greenway RN BSN: alternating Weds and coverage as needed
Celeste McCool RN BSN: alternating Weds and coverage as needed
As of March, 1 2024 The Center for Disease Control and Prevention updated guidance to provide "practical recommendations and information to help people lower risk from a range of common respiratory illnesses, including COVID-19, flu and RSV."
These recommendations are Core Prevention Strategies that we can all take to protect one another and help prevent the spread of respiratory viruses. These strategies focus on the following:
1. Staying home and away from others if you have respiratory virus symptoms including fever, chills, fatigue, cough, runny nose and headache.
2. Normal activities can be resumed if your symptoms are getting better for at least 24 hours AND you have not had a fever (or using fever-reducing medication) for at least 24 hours.
3. When symptoms have improved, taking added precautions (good hand hygiene, masking and testing if you will be around other people indoors) over the next 5 days can help reduce the risk of spreading the virus to others.
We follow these guidelines. Please review the following links from the CDC for more information and reach out to me with any questions/concerns.
Thank you for your efforts in keeping our Lyme School students, staff, and families healthy.
Counselor Stanton's Corner and Student Success
Hello Lyme Families!
Hope everyone is looking forward to some sunshine today after a rainy week! Speaking of sunshine…
I wanted to put in another plug for summer camp financial support. Please reach out if you have any questions or would like assistance. Pearl Dimick is a community fund that provides $200 camp grants per student with a $600 cap for families. If you are interested in accessing these, email me to get the process started. There are also scholarships available through specific camps that typically require a brief application. Here is a list of Upper Valley Camps that might be of interest and here is a list of camps based on category.
Also, conferences are coming up!
Please email me if you would like me to attend any of your students’ conferences along with the day and time that you are scheduled. I would be happy to attend if you feel that would be helpful. When things come up during conferences and I am not present, teachers are in touch to keep me in the loop and if I can be helpful. We are a great team here at Lyme School and grateful for family and staff collaboration!
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Stanton
Helping Children Calm Down by Ms. Connie
Some children have big feelings that are difficult to manage. When they are struggling to manage these big feelings they might have a tantrum, outburst, or meltdown. This is known as dysregulation. Some parents and children are reluctant to acknowledge negative emotions. “A lot of kids are growing up thinking anxiety, anger, sadness are bad emotions,” says Stephanie Samar, PsyD, a clinical psychologist at the Child Mind Institute. Being able to name and accept these emotions is “a foundation to problem-solving how to manage them.”Here are some calming strategies that children can learn to use when big feelings show up.
Model Managing Difficult Feelings: Using I statements to describe your feelings to your child and model the strategy you use to calm yourself. You can say I am feeling frustrated. When I am frustrated I can use deep breathing or counting up to 10 and back to 1 helps me feel better. Modeling the strategy will help your child develop their own tools and strategies.
Validate Your Child’s Feelings: You can help calm (deescalate) your child down by showing your child that you are interested in what is going on for them by listening and attempting to understand them. Letting your child know that big feelings are normal and you understand how hard big feelings can be might prevent the situation from getting bigger.
Ignoring Small Behaviors: Ignoring small behaviors often prevents them from turning into bigger behaviors. Noticing and praising your child when they use a strategy like taking a breath will empower your child to use the strategy again.
Give Warnings, Reminders, and Choices: Transitioning from one activity to another activity, especially when the activity less preferred can be challenging for some children. Unexpected behaviors can be avoided by giving a warning, reminder, and a choice. You can say in 10 minutes it will be time to eat dinner. Be thinking about who you are going to sit next to. Give a reminder at 5 minutes and say I wonder who you will sit next to. Providing your child with a warning in advance can help your child be ready for the next thing.
Give Choices: Providing your child a choice when asking them to do things they are not enthused about may increase the desire to complete the task. This may look like giving your child the choice between two acceptable tasks or the option of which task they are going to do first.
Neuroth's Library and Media News
March is Womens’ History Month. We have many titles to explore in our Lyme School Library Catalog collection). Students in grades K-3 read the book, Rock, Rosetta, Rock! Roll, Rosetta, Roll! and learned about Sister Rosetta Tharpe (informational video seen below), connecting both Black History Month and Womens’ History Month.
We will spend library time this month highlighting Women’s History Month and working on projects for integrated units. The Kindergarten students have been working on creating their first presentation of learning after exploring PebbleGo and Buncee - research and creation tools geared towards grades K-2. First and second graders have also explored these tools. The first grade will be using Buncee to record themselves sharing poems they have written based on research in their most recent EL unit in the classroom. Stay tuned for those final products in the next newsletter!
In fourth grade, students are using research tools and skills for two projects: animal research and a biography/memoir project. They will be drafting and recording podcasts for their animal research, which will be shared later as well.
In fifth grade, students are conducting a diversity audit on a portion of our school library collection. We are discussing representation and why it matters, while taking a close look at the authors and characters in a portion of the junior fiction section.
***Read now, vote in April!***
This information was shared again with students in grades 4-8 this week:
In April, students in grades 4-6 will vote for their favorite nominee for the Great Stone Face book award and students in grades 7-8 will vote for their favorite among the nominees for the Isinglass Teen Book Award. Many of these titles are available in print, ebook, or audiobook. Links take you to the catalog where you can place books on hold. There is still a month left to read some more titles before the vote!
Teaching and Learning by Mrs. Foxall
Parent - Teacher Conferences
Lower School Parent-Teacher Conferences
Lower School (K-5) teachers will reach out directly to families with information to sign-up for conferences.
Middle School (6-8) Parent-Teacher Conferences
This March, we plan to try out a new approach to parent-teacher conferences with our middle school. Parent-teacher conferences are not mandatory in any way. We do our best to create time slots for as many families as we can. If you have met with the team recently, it would be great to allow others that have not had the opportunity to meet with the team.
This time around, we will pilot Grade Level Team Parent Conferences, moving away from the traditional format of individual conferences with each subject area teacher. Our desire is to have these conferences in person. If this does not work for you, we are happy to accommodate you online. Middle school parents who would like a conference will sign up for just one conference time to meet with all of their child’s academic teachers (ELA, math, science, social studies, Spanish, and special education) in a time slot. A link to the sign-up platform will be sent to you in the beginning of March just like in the past. You will notice a variety of times of day including the most slots on 3/22 which is an in-service day marked for conferences. Due to the condensed nature of the schedule, being on time for your conference and keeping the team on time will be imperative. If you have two students in the middle school, you would just sign up for two time slots.
We believe this adjustment will offer several advantages for both parents and teachers. By participating in grade level team conferences, teachers can collaborate more effectively to discuss with parents the students' academic and social experiences. We think the team conference approach will provide a more holistic understanding of student strengths, areas for improvement, and overall well-being. Just as important is streamlining the scheduling process for both parents and teachers. Grade level team conferences will allow for more efficient use of everyone’s time.
We believe these team conferences can promote consistency in the information shared with parents, ensuring that everyone is on the same page regarding academic expectations, goals, and any necessary interventions. As this is a shift from our traditional parent-teacher conference format, we plan to solicit your feedback through a survey after the March team conferences. Your input will help us determine the best format for middle school conferences moving forward next school year. We thank you for your support in trying something new to see if it might be better fit for all.
The Specials Spotlight
Artist in Residence with TOBY by the Specials Team
These past two weeks, the specialists have been working with Toby Summerfield as our Artist in Residence. We began the residency in the Art Room, where Toby introduced the students to the ideas of Graphic Scores and representing notes visually. He shared examples of how artists represent music and we listened to how these scores were played, from John Cage to heavy metal guitarists. The kids went to work with some art materials, gathered back up on the carpet, and then…in a radical shift in thinking about how lines and colors and shapes function…Toby played their artwork. Toby worked throughout the week to shape this idea of building a common visual notation so that the students could collaborate with Toby, the composer and conductor of the music that we will all play together. We continued to explore this intersection of art and music using Chrome Music Lab during specials time (when not in AIR). Chrome Music Lab is a website that makes learning music through fun, hands-on experiments. In Art, they studied Kandinsky and how brush strokes can translate to music and in the DL this week kids have been using the Song Maker program to create an original catchy song. Songs were listened to during class and students voted for their favorite original song.
In the second week of AIR, Toby moved into the gymnasium to put their notes into action. With a larger space and different acoustics, students in each grade experimented with a variety of sounds, paces, levels, and alternations. The fifth graders have been able to utilize their instrumental skills, as Toby has included their collaborative efforts as a band to build upon different rhythms and beats.
AIR will be celebrated with a performance of the original score, created by Toby and the students. Please arrive by 5:30 so that students can get in place for a short performance at 6pm.
This program is made possible by the generous support of the Lyme PTO.
Thank you, Lyme PTO!
THANK YOU, TOBY!
We are grateful for your collaborative spirit, joyful community-building, and dedication to furthering the love of all things music.
8th Grade Health
For a majority of the trimester, 8th grade students have been learning about different substances. This course of study involved having students investigate a variety of substances, their classifications, whether they are used for medical purposes, recreational use, what addiction is, and resources for help when addiction occurs.
The culmination of their learning had students participating in small groups and researching a substance and then presenting to their classmates. The required content included defining their substance, the impact of use and misuse on the brain and the body, the affect addiction caused socially and emotionally, and where to seek help. Once again, their presentations were informative and impressive.
Madagascar - A Musical Adventure
The company cast list is live for our Middle School Musical! Special shout out to all those who auditioned to be a part of the Main Cast. We're looking forward to everyone on and off stage playing their part and helping to create an amazing show this May!
Madagascar Full Company Cast List
Show dates: Friday May 3rd and Saturday May 4th
Photos from Around the Lyme School Community
The next school board meeting will be Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 7PM
Community News
Upper Valley High School Trails Corps
The Upper Valley High School Trails Corps is happening this Summer for high school age students (14-18)! Participants will join the UVTA staff on local trails to learn about trail building, conservation and trail stewardship by working with professional trail builders.
If you're looking for an awesome, educational-outdoor opportunity for the Summer (that also looks great on a college application) this is the program for them!
Click HERE to learn more about the program and apply!
Visit uvtrails.org to learn more about the Upper Valley Trails Alliance.
New England School of the Arts
Registration for New England School of the Arts summer camp is open! They will be running 6 unique, 1 week performance focused camps for grades K-4 and 5-8 at their homebase in Lebanon, NH. Camp starts July 1st and runs through August 9th. Learn more here: https://www.nesarts.org/about-summer-camp
OUR VALUES
● Fairness ● Acceptance of Others ● Integrity ● Responsibility
● Perseverance ● Individuality ● Compassion ● Courage
John P. D'Entremont, Principal
Elise Foxall, Academic Director
Geoff Tomlinson, Student Services Director