Happy Summer!

It is officially here!  Can you believe it?? I am passing along a lot of information today, sorry if you are reading this via phone!

Report Cards went home yesterday for Kindergarten and today for Grades 1 and 2. With your report card, you will find a business card sized magnet with a few important “Save the Date” items.  For example, our Back to School Celebration will be held on Monday, August 25 from 1:30-3:30.  This event is a great opportunity to meet your teacher and find out what friends are in your class. We are excited to have “All Hands Drumming” from 1:30-2:15 and “Toe Jam Puppet Band” from 2:30-3:30 booked for this event!  We will also have many resources available for families, you will find our kitchen, the bus company, scouts, karate etc. and of course PTA!

One consideration for summer time fun is the FREE EWG Summer Track Program. Please visit the District website Announcements page for details. This program is available for children 14 and younger. You can also paste this link into your browser:  http://bit.ly/1nk8s6U I plan to go with my daughter it would be great to see you there!

Also, please visit the District website's Community Announcements page for information regarding the "Skills and Drills Youth Basketball Clinic - for Girls ages 7 - 12

As a reminder, our school supports the local food banks, if you are in need of assistance this summer you may contact: Christine Heart Skaggs if you are an Exeter resident  at 294-3176 or Marge Gartleman if you live in West Greenwich at 397-4234. Additionally, you can reach Mrs. Larkin RN if you have any questions at 295-8802.

We are so thankful to those of you who volunteered this year, we could not have done everything that we did without all of you! You have “earned your wings!”

Wawaloam will be a busy place this summer, we are adding new technology and we are so excited about upgrading our mini computer lab!

I did find a pretty cool website called “Wonderopolis”. If you are interested in a summer online learning site, check this out: http://camp.wonderopolis.org/  I have not explored yet but it looks like it will be worth the while.

Congratulations to Jared Sweet and Cameron Lindberg! They were our year end  Grades 1 and 2 PBIS bike raffle winners today!! They were SO excited . Mrs Briggs even got in on the action!! Check out the photos!

Also Congratulations to our Kindergarten Friends for doing such a fantastic job at their celebration today!!

Best wishes to all Grade 2 students at Metcalf next year! Again, we will miss you.

Hope to see all of our Fall  2014 Grade 1 and 2 students at our back to school celebration on August 25 at 1:30!!!

I will check email all summer for any questions you may have. Thank you for everything!

Bee Safe, Bee Happy, Bee Kind!

Melissa Marino

Good Morning~

I hope you all survived the incredible amount of rain we experienced this morning! It looked like someone was pouring buckets outside of the front door when the students were coming in! I suppose it is better now than while all of the baseball, soccer and outdoor events are scheduled!

We had a pretty exciting week here, our two Librarian's, Diane Silva from The Exeter Library and Shannon Darowski from the Louttit Library in West Greenwich. We have been working together behind the scenes to kick-off a very different approach to motivate students to participate in summer reading and visit the library. Recently, we sent home a bookmark with all of the students. It looks like this:

The bookmark has a suggested reading list on the back which was created by Diane Silva this spring. She based the list on books that students enjoy and those that are accessible in the library. There is a question on the bookmark, "How many times will you visit the library this summer?" At the bottom, there are 6 bees. Each time you visit, the librarians will punch your bookmark with a special hole punch. If you visit the library (either one) 3 times, you will receive a certificate and a special pencil that says, "Summer Reading Success". If you visit the library 6 times this summer, we think that is a BIG DEAL!!!  Your child will receive another certificate AND a coupon to celebrate all of this reading with a Free Kids' Meal at Dan's Place! We are very excited about connecting our school, our library and our community this summer! We are very thankful that Dan was excited about being part of our Summer Reading Incentive this year! 

The librarians also wanted to reinforce how easy it is to get a library card, the whole process is super quick and if your child does not have their own library card, now is a great time to get one! Be sure to check out the websites at both libraries to learn about summer events and happenings. They will also be emailing me updates that I will continue to pass along throughout the summer.

Additionally, we sent home an opportunity to earn a FREE book this summer! Barnes and Noble asks students to write the name of 8 books you have read and who you would recommend them to and return the form to them for a Free Book! This is a super simple way to keep your children motivated to read this summer.

According to Johns Hopkins Center for Summer Learning: “A conservative estimate of lost instructional time is approximately two months or roughly 22 percent of the school year.... It's common for teachers to spend at least a month re-teaching material that students have forgotten over the summer. That month of re-teaching eliminates a month that could have been spent on teaching new information and skills.”

It was wonderful to see how many children knew the local librarians already, we are so lucky they could carve out time this week to visit ALL students Kindergarten through Grade 2! 

Also, the reading teachers at Metcalf asked me to include the following information for Grade 2 students: Current grade 2 students should bring evidence of their summer reading to their grade 3 teacher at the start of the school year in August in order to be recognized for their reading.  Evidence could include a copy of the Barnes and Noble form, the child's punch card, or the certificate they earned.  Metcalf also has a "Summer Reading Challenge" that entering third graders may choose to complete.  Please see the Metcalf School website for details.

Hope you all have a great weekend- Happy Father's Day to all of the dads out there! 

Respectfully, 

Melissa Marino

End of the Week Updates for Wawaloam School

……and the countdown begins, 10 More days of this school year!  Some of our Grade 2 friends are off to the RISD museum today, the weather is perfect for their adventure. 

Next week we will be having a special visit from the local Exeter and West Greenwich librarians. We will be working together to share our plans for recognizing student reading efforts this summer. We have come up with new ideas to encourage trips to the library! We are fortunate to have made some great community connections for this summer! I will tell you all about it next week!

I had the joy of attending the final PTA meeting for this year last night where we bid farewell to some friends who are moving on and welcomed in the newly appointed board members.

It will be a pleasure to have Jenn Spira in the role of President, Tom Cale as our Vice President, Maeyee Barrette as our Treasurer, and Jeanne McCaffery and Kelly Fichter will stay on as our Corresponding Secretary and Recording Secretary respectively.

This week, during our Grade 1 and Grade 2 meeting we discussed WORLD OCEANS DAY which is officially on June 8. There are great resources out there. Here is the website that I used to share the information with the students:   http://worldoceansday.org/  

I connected this to the fact that we live in the Ocean State and we shared stories about all of the treasures we have collected from the sea. Some students were exited to learn about my sea glass collection!

How exciting it is to see all of the Grade 2 Animal Projects coming in!! They are awesome! Do you know I actually received an edible EAGLE today! Who knew you could make such a thing! Yum!!

                                                             

Have a super weekend!

Melissa