January All School Meeting

Approximately 400 students and 75 faculty members gather in the cafeteria for our All School Meetings.  It's a wonderful time for the whole school to come together as a community and celebrate our learning together.  The 5th graders facilitate the All School Meetings.  We begin the meeting with a greeting where everyone greets someone nearby.  We often get updates on Green Team initiatives or faculty announcements.  Then we have many groups share their learning.  For example, at our January meeting, the Kindergartners shared a snow song.

Gymnastics

During Physical Education, Health and Wellness class, all K-5 students have been participating in the gymnastics unit.  The gymnastics unit will run until December 12th.

Participation in gymnastics has many benefits.  Please check out this link:
http://bestgymnastics.net/the-benefits-of-gymnastics-for-kids/#.UoZm_Dv6otU

During this unit, students are learning about balance, strength, flexibility and control.  They have learned the basic body positions used in artistic gymnastics and are discovering how they can incorporate those positions in their patterns, routines and gymnastic “sentences.”

Students are learning to balance, roll, jump, leap, change levels, turn, hang, pull, push, and transfer body weight and so much more.

We are fortunate to have a wide variety of gymnastics equipment and are one of the few elementary schools that actually do gymnastics.

Students have access to:
 •2 sets of uneven bars
•parallel bars
•2 horizontal bars
•rings
•5 balance beams (2 high and 3 low)
•2 incline mats
•floor mats

Franklin School Council

At our PTO meeting in October, we elected the Franklin School Council members.  School Council is comprised of an equal number of faculty members and parents.  The following people are on the Franklin School Council:

Kallan Durken, parent

Joshua Gundersheimer, parent

Steven Kazmirski, parent

Alison Lobron, parent

Marysol Masse-Makimura, parent

Patti Bohling, school nurse              

Stephanie Lefever, teacher

Deanna Mustachio, teacher

Lindsay Scott, teacher  
Amy Kelly, principal   

Council members have the opportunity to serve in an advisory capacity to the principal.  The School Council has the following charge:

• Adopting educational goals for the school that are consistent with local educational policies and statewide student performance standards
• Identifying the educational needs of students attending the school
• Reviewing the annual school building budget
• Formulating a school improvement plan

This year, the School Council will focus on the issue of parent involvement.  Our first meeting will take place on November 20th from 3:30-5:00pm.  This is an open meeting and anyone is welcome to attend. We will meet in the conference room.  

           

Franklin School Parents Show Their Support During School Appreciation Day

On Saturday, several parents and high school students came to show their support for our school during School Appreciation Day.  You can imagine the delight when the staff arrived at school this morning to find it all fixed up. Thank you all for sprucing up Franklin for our students, staff and families!

Parents and high school students painted the interior of the courtyard.

Parents hung cork boards, whiteboards, etc.

    Parents made repairs and improvements

  Parents installed pencil sharpeners, files, mailboxes, etc.

Mauricio Zuniga brought his painting crew to paint the conference room and the teachers' room.  The rooms were transformed! Several parents worked on additional painting projects as well.

    Two parents redecorated the conference room and teachers' room.

Bob Zuckernick, Paul Rensing, Liz Marshall, Jon Mendicina and Joe Abruzese were the members of the committee that made this all happen.  Bill Pepicelli, our new custodian, helped out with some projects as well.

Some other projects included: shampooing rugs, trimming trees, building bookcases, raising the flags in the front hallway, leveling books, and much more.  Thanks to all who participated in School Appreciation Day!  We genuinely appreciate your support.  You make our school a better place for all.

Daily 5 and the Daily CAFÉ

Starting in Kindergarten, Daily 5 is the structure most classrooms are using for the literacy block. During this time, students are busy completing meaningful literacy tasks. The choices are:

Read to Self

Work on Writing

Word Work

Listen to Reading

Read to Someone

Right now, students and teachers are focusing on increasing reading and writing stamina, so students learn to read and write independently.  While the students are completing their literacy tasks, teachers are meeting with small groups and conferencing with individual students.  Daily 5 is how we schedule our language block. Daily CAFÉ is what students study during this time. CAFÉ is an acronym for the four major components of reading. They are:

C for Comprehension

A for Accuracy

F for Fluency

E for Expanding Vocabulary

The children learn reading strategies within each category. These strategies will become tools for the children to use to help themselves become better readers and writers. Teachers will keep you informed about new strategies introduced. Then, when you read with your child at home, you will be able to reinforce these concepts. If you have any questions regarding this approach and especially what you can do at home to support it, please ask at parent conferences. 

What do teachers do on Tuesday afternoons or early release days?

We all know that Franklin teachers work incredibly hard to meet the needs or our students every day. But what do they do when the students leave on Tuesdays or on Thursday early release days?  At Franklin, all of the teachers are members of "Professional Learning Communities" or PLCs.  Each PLC meets at least twice a week to seek better ways to achieve mutual goals and accomplish their fundamental purpose of learning for all.  All teams engage in an ongoing cycle of:
• Gathering evidence of student learning and current levels of performance
• Developing strategies and ideas to build on strengths and address weaknesses in that learning
• Implementing the strategies and ideas
• Analyzing the impact of the changes to discover what was effective and what was not
• Applying the new knowledge in the next cycle of continuous improvement

                                                           Our Kindergarten PLC...

Our third grade PLC working with Mike Smalley, our math coach and Terri Bancroft, our intervention specialist...

Our 5th grade PLC ....

For more information about PLCs, go to the following link:
http://www.allthingsplc.info/pdf/links/brochureText.pdf

Co-teaching

Co-teaching is a model that is becoming increasingly popular in education right now.  In every classroom in Franklin, there are at least 2 adults during Literacy and Math blocks.  All students benefit from a smaller teacher:student ratio and receive more individualized instruction. Here are Ms. Moriarty, Grade 2 teacher and Ms. O'Brien, Speech and Language Pathologist co-teaching a "Read to Someone" lesson.