From the Principal’s Desk - Fall River Public Schools€™ Corner Helping your child be successful in math Help your child use math every day Encourage your child to solve problems

From the Principal’s Desk Dear Tansey Families,

First of all, we want to begin with a huge thank you to the entire community for coming together at our annual Fall Dance. It was an awesome, fun night filled with the magic of autumn and childhood fun. It was especially nice to bring the Fall Dance back to our own campus. Thank you again for all your support in continuing this tradition. And of course, thank you to Tansey the Tiger for the great dancing!

As this fall season is upon us, academics at Tansey are in full swing. Our classrooms are filled with the joyful noise of learning and discovery. We visit classes every day to see your children engaged in active learning as readers, engineers, writers, mathematicians, athletes, scientists, historians, and musicians. Spending time with your kids is the best part of our work. Follow us on Twitter @frps_tansey to get a small glimpse of what we see. Because of your support, our students are poised and ready to learn. Their potential is limitless!

Fall is our absolute favorite season with our families. We delight in the rituals of autumn: hiking through the crisp foliage, apple picking at our favorite orchards, and baking delicious treats with our kids. Some of our happiest moments as families are spent in our kitchens. Our children love helping, and the memories we create are priceless. Here are two of our favorite fall recipes to bake with our kids. Try them out in your kitchens. Remember to keep the joy of the journey close to your heart.

All our best, Chris Audette (@mr_audette) & Erin Kazen (@KazenErin)

Fall Dance Fun

Science Notebooks in Grade 2

Team Yellow Explores the Water Cycle

A Note from Nurse Pam...November reminders: ● Vision and hearing screenings have been completed on all grade levels. If you received

a referral notice, please follow up with your PCP promptly as specialty referrals for detailed vision or hearing exams often involve a substantial wait time for next available appointments. The sooner these potential obstacles to learning are resolved, the better chance your child will have to maximize their learning potential. Please be sure to return the follow up forms to my office after evaluation.

● Heights and weights and BMI screenings are complete on all children in grades one and four as regulated by the state. If you are concerned about your child’s BMI please contact me directly as notices are no longer sent home regarding height, weight and BMI. I am happy to discuss diet, nutrition and exercise suggestions for your child.

● Postural screenings for fifth grade students will take place soon. ● Flu season is upon us and it is highly recommended that all school age

children receive influenza vaccines to help reduce the likelihood your child will contract the flu this season. It is not true that flu vaccines will “give you the flu”. Although the vaccine does not protect you 100% against the flu, it does provide resistance and will often lessen symptoms and duration of illness.

● School attendance is being closely monitored. It is important for your child to be in school unless they are legitimately ill. Doctor notes will excuse an absence but it is still considered an absence and those numbers can quickly add up. All attempts should be made for students to begin the school day on time and stay until dismissal to maximize time on learning. Absences, arriving tardy, and early dismissals, are all tracked as part of our attendance guideline initiative. If your child is absent for 5 consecutive days a doctor’s note will be required to return to school.

● When scheduling routine appointments at the dentist, eye doctor, orthodontist, or regular PCP, please try to do so after school hours. If unable to schedule during after school hours, then it is preferred to schedule appointments early in the morning for a tardy arrival, or early dismissal if needed for an afternoon appointment. Both of these alternatives will result in missing only a portion of the school day. In cooperation with the FRPS many health care professionals are now timing doctor’s notes with an appointment exit time. If well health visits are concluded before 11AM then it is expected your child will attend school for the balance of the day. Yet another option to consider with mid day appointments is to bring your child at the beginning of the day, dismiss for the visit, and then return to complete the school day. Doctor’s notes stating “advice given or child not seen” will no longer be honored as excused absences.

● Please join us in a collaborative effort to have your child in school every day so they have the opportunity to be successful in their learning!

● Unfortunately the HealthFirst Dental clinic had to be cancelled in October due to low response. Keep alert for a new date for this convenient opportunity in the winter. They have a wonderful dentist who examines your child’s teeth, an awesome hygienist who is super with kids and does the cleanings, fluoride treatments and sealants if indicated. Even if you have a private dentist as long as it has been six months since the last visit, your child may be eligible for this service.

Social Emotional Learning This month’s Character Trait is responsibility. Staff will be looking for students who are making good choices, helping others and working hard on their academic work. Our Youth Leaders Program during recess and lunch has begun! We will be nominating new students (2 per a grade) every month. Our youth leaders are posted on the bulletin board near the main office! We would like to thank the Katie Brown Educational Program for coming into our 5th grade classrooms this past week!

Enjoying Physical Education with Mr. Wordell

Speedometry

Exploring potential and kinetic energy with ramps and Hot Wheels cars in Grades 3 and 4

Collecting for the food pantry - A good deed becomes a Math lesson in Grade 1 as we form groups of 10

Mr. Scott provides the muscles!

Coaches’ Corner

Coaches’ Corner Helping your child be successful in math

Help your child use math every day

Encourage your child to solve problems involving math outside of school.

Familiarize yourself with learning standards

It’s important to know what math skills your child should learn in his current grade. You can access the learning standards for your child’s

grade on the DESE website or ask your child’s teacher to send a copy home.

Supporting your child with math homework

You can help your child with math homework by making sure he/she shows all his/her work when solving problems and checks for correct

calculations and answers. It’s a good idea to limit distractions and set aside the same time every day for homework.

Play math games at home

There are many games your child can play that involve math; such as chess, dominoes, cribbage, checkers, Yahtzee and backgammon.

Your child’s skills and confidence in working with mathematical concepts will improve with daily practice, support and encouragement.

Grade 3 Math collaboration

It’s All Happening at the Tansey School

Kindergarten Our Tansey Cubs are full of excitement each week to learn something new. Very soon, we will have completed unit 1 in Reading Street. At the end of this unit, students will demonstrate their knowledge by taking unit 1 benchmark. Then we will be starting unit 2. In unit 2, kindergarteners will be introduced to new high frequency words: have, is, like, my, we, for, and he. They will also learn new letter sounds, from our Lively Letters: Tt, Aa, Ss, Pp, and Cc. Our kindergarten mathematicians are building early numeracy skills through math centers. Students are playing games that foster numeral identification, counting collections, forward and backward number word sequence and counting, matching numerals to quantities, sequencing and writing numerals. These skills can be reinforced at home by encouraging your child to play on Dreambox. Please continue to support your child at home in building early numeracy skills using the math calendar.

Grade One Our first graders have been working hard! We are concluding our first of five units in reading. Students will be demonstrating their knowledge when they take the unit 1 benchmark test later this week. Please keep an eye out for a study guide to help you review these skills with your child. It is always very helpful to use the past homework packets and reading tests as a study guide as well. Soon we will be adding a fluency passage. We would like the students to practice reading nightly. Please time your child for one minute to see how many words he or she reads correctly. Be sure to write the number of words read as well as sign your name. This repetitive reading is crucial to improvement in fluency. The children have been exploring doubles and they have been learning how using doubles is another great strategy they can use to solve other math equations. Please continue to have your child play the math games or go on Dreambox daily to enhance early numeracy skills.

Grade 2 In math during the month of November we will begin our unit on addition, subtraction and measurement. This unit, titled Measuring for the Art Show , has our young mathematicians engaged in a real-world context where they are asked to prepare measurements of various sized papers. Our rockin’ scientists are finishing up exploring magnets. Want to see what's happening in our class? Follow us on Twitter @Mrs_LFurtado. Also, I would like to extend my thanks to the families that have sent in supplies (tissues and clorox wipes) and volunteered their time to help out with our classroom!! In ELA, we have taken our first Reading Benchmark Assessment and we are waiting for the results. The students did their best during this testing procedure. We are focusing on the Writing Process using graphic organizers to help us write our paragraphs. In Social Studies, we will be learning about the Pilgrims and Native Americans of Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Grade 3 During the month of November our grade 3 math masterminds will be adding and subtracting within a thousand and they will begin the Big Dinner Unit. The Big Dinner unit will be an introduction to Multiplication. Our scientists will be wrapping up our Simple Machine unit and we will begin to investigate Animal Adaptations! Our reading focus will be about the Elements of Fiction. We will learn about characters, the setting and plot in a fictional story. Third grade will continue to work on personal narrative writing. We will be revising stories we’ve already written to learn how to make them better. Our social studies focus will be on the Wampanoag people and their way of life before the Pilgrims arrived.

Grade 4 This month our fourth graders will continue reading Because of Winn-Dixie . We will also be moving into Unit 2 of Reading Street. In Writing, we will taking a break from narratives and moving into opinion writing. We will continue our journey through the United States by studying the Southeast in Social Studies.

During the month of November, we will continue out work on factors and

Grade 5 In the month of November our 5th graders will be continuing with our class novel, Hatchet , and moving on to Unit 2 in Reading Street. This unit includes stories that discuss making smart choices such as being honest and helping others. In social studies, we will be moving on to European explorers. Your child will be completing a research project about an explorer during their technology time as well! This month we will work on multiplication and division of whole numbers before easing on in to fractions. Remember, the more readily your child studies their multiplication and division

multiples and will also begin Teacher’s Lounge. Teacher’s Lounge will focus on multiplication and division. In science, students will be wrapping up their Natural Disaster Slide Shows to present to their classmates. We will also begin our unit on Energy.

facts, the easier fractions will be for them. In Science we will begin working in the area of physical sciences. Your child will be learning how matter interacts with each other.

Team Yellow Team Yellow has completed our unit on Florida. In this unit, we read an excerpt from Because of Winn-Dixie, studied explorer Juan Ponce De Leon, and learned about the water cycle and hurricanes. We have now begun reading and learning about pioneer/writer Laura Ingalls Wilder, and are reading an excerpt from one of her books. While learning about Laura, we will also be studying states in the western United States and explorers Lewis and Clark.

In Math, we have learned to add and subtract up to four digit numbers, with regrouping, using the traditional algorithm. We are just beginning to explore factors, prime, composite, and square numbers, and area. Keep an eye out for our beautiful factor rainbows!

Technology From now until Thanksgiving, students in Grades 3 - 5 will be focusing on Student Google Apps. We will be creating slideshows, writing documents, researching, inserting images, formatting, and revising our work. While I focus on the “how to” in the beginning, I collaborate with the other teachers for the “what” of our projects. Grade 4 students have already created a brochure on landforms and are creating slideshows about natural disasters. Grade 3 students are creating slideshows about simple machines and 5th graders are researching examples of green engineering. This collaboration connects our technology classes to other subjects and provides the students with real world reasons for our work. Students in Kindergarten through Grade 2 have reviewed or learned how to navigate to both DreamBox and HeadSprout as well as login to them. Families should have received a letter highlighting the features of each site along with a password for HeadSprout. All students should be using DreamBox and HeadSprout at least 30 minutes a week. Our school code for iPad is 7yrf/jamestes and our DreamBox internet address is https://play.dreambox.com/login/7yrf/jamestes. There are links for the programs on the Tansey web page at

fallriverschools.org/tansey.cfm. Please contact me if you have any questions. [email protected] Follow me on Twitter @AngelaStankiew1.

Fine Arts Greetings music lovers, This month in music we will be working on elements of music in grades 3-5. Our students are beginning to compose original melodic ideas on manuscript and I play student compositions on the guitar…...We have come a long way,keep up the good work. Students in k-2,will learn how to write beat groupings in simple meter which will be performed on percussion instruments and will give our young musicians a clear understanding of the PULSE that can be felt in music we love. At the end of the month we will also begin practicing for the WINTER CONCERT.

Physical Education October was action packed in Physical Education. The weather outside has been beautiful, and we are taking full advantage of it by having our classes outside almost everyday. Grades 3-5 have been working on their football skills. K-2 have been doing a little bit of football, and some other games associated with hand-eye coordination. Looking into November we will be working on soccer skills.

I want to remind everybody about the importance of wearing sneakers for physical education class. Ballet flats or a shoe with a heel both don’t offer enough support for your student to safely participate in most Physical Education activities. Please be sure your student either wears sneakers to school on days they have P.E, or packs sneakers in their bag they can change into. Thanks for your help! Follow me on twitter @mr_wordell

Fourth Grade Mathematicians