Dear Parents,
Well it is hard to believe that yet another school year has come to an end. Your children have grown in so many ways! We did many activities to bring the school together as a learning community. The “Caring Calendars” provided a nice way for our students to practice their six pillars of character education. They were highlighted during morning announcements and every child had a calendar for each month. Once again, every classroom was paired up with a younger or older grade level classroom as part of our “Building Buddy” program. All classrooms did a variety of activities with their “Building Buddies”. This created a deeper sense of community and created cross-grade level relationships throughout the school. Our monthly book picks and our community service projects were very successful. The School Walk for Diabetes, Jump Rope for Heart, and Pennies for Peace stand out among the school-wide community service projects we did this year.
There are many highlights we will remember this year. Our Poetry Night was a special event. This evening activity was so much fun, and it was great to see families get together and enjoy writing and reading poetry. The Author Circle was a big hit again! Each year students become more and more excited about writing! This is thrilling for us to see. Once again many students came in to read to me and Mr. “B”. We are astounded by the wonderful readers we have. Most importantly, we see that our students are developing a joy of reading and writing! The Mexican Fiesta was a delight J. Our Fourth and Fifth Graders should be very proud of the many performances they gave us this year. The band, orchestra, chorus, and music clubs were outstanding. The fourth graders really took on my challenge of taking a musical instrument! The orchestra and band were huge! We hope our current third graders are up to the challenge! Kindergarteners made great strides academically and socially. We can’t wait to watch their play at the end of the year! The first grade Hats Off to the USA show was remarkable, and who could forget China Day and Ghana Day in third grade? The Evening with the Arts was a fantastic display of talent. Special thanks to Jerilyn Labas for her leadership and coordination of this special evening. What a wonderful year it has been.
This year we made great strides in our academic instruction. Lucy Calkins, an expert in the field, produced a teaching kit that all of our teachers used for the second year this year to enhance their writing instruction. We had several workshops where we talked about best practices in teaching writing and we will continue these professional conversations next year. Teacher looked at writing samples and analyzed them for strengths and weaknesses. Each grade level submitted focus areas for next year and as a school we will be continuing to work on our writing achievement. We also had a brand new spelling program in grades three, four, and five this year. Teachers had training and also had the opportunity to speak with other teachers district-wide to share ideas in the implementation of this program. Our Math and Science curricula were enhanced by Mrs. Donohue’s teaching and the Science Fair was amazing this year!
I am very proud to have continued our relationship with our sister school in China. Mr. Marvin was able to visit this year and we made several key exchanges. We exchanged “beanie baby” projects and art projects. Just recently we received letters and they are currently be translated by the Glastonbury High School Madarin students. What a wonderful activity for them! Zhoudian Elementary School located in the Shandong Province of China is very excited to continue our relationship next year. We hope to be able to continue our exchanges!
Congratulations also go to Stefanie Kocian and Donald Cabral for receiving the PTO’s scholarship award given to two deserving graduating seniors. We wish these fine students well on their next adventure of schooling.
A special thank you to the PTO Steering committee and the hundreds of parent volunteers who spent time organizing many special events that supported our school and provided our students with enriching activities. Our teachers were also provided many resources for their students due to the generosity of our PTO.
Each year around this time we have staffing news. Mary Hoyer is retiring this year. Mary has taught in Glastonbury since 1988 and she has taught in several of our schools. I have had the honor of working with Mary for six years and I have come to know her as a wonderful teacher and an advocate for children. She is a warm and knowledgable teacher and we will miss her dearly. We also wish Claire Wainscott well as she moves onto a new adventure in her life. She and her husband are moving out to California! We will miss her! Please welcome Brian Hassan to our third grade team. Brian currently is teaching fourth grade in West Hartford where he is described as being a hardworking, kind, nurturing, and reflective teacher. Prior to that he taught 4th grade in Colorado for five years. He has used the Every Day Math program for five years and has a strong background with Reading and Language Arts. In addition, Mr. Hassan also has a background in counseling and a Masters Degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Colorado. He is an alumni of GHS and very excited to begin teaching in Glastonbury. I know you will find him to be a unique and wonderful addition to our school. Please welcome Dawn Steigelfest to our third grade team! Dawn is not a stranger to third grade as she was a long term sub already at this grade level. She is looking forward to the change from second to third, please congratulate her when you see her. Welcome Kelly Celio to grade four. Kelly is returning off of child rearing leave. She worked at Hopewell School for nine years and she is looking forward to now working with us at Hebron Avenue. Kelly will fit right into our Hebron Avenue family!In June we look forward to the Kindergarten Play, our Author Teas, the Fifth Grade Picnic, and our end of the year slide show. Don’t forget, the public library has a wonderful reading program that your family can participate in. A representative from the library will be visiting all of our classes in June to get everyone excited about summer reading. Our state expects CMT results sometime over the summer to be mailed to parents of students in third, fourth, and fifth grade. Keep reading for the Governor’s Summer Reading Challenge! Class assignments should be out in the first half of July for grades one through five. Kindergarten lists will be out a bit later.
Nice weather and the beginning of summer prompt us to understand the power of discovering meaningful and healthy activities. Research shows that children who spend too much time with video games and television lose out on critical social interactions, language development, physical fitness, and character development that are fostered through meaningful activity. With the issue of childhood obesity in the media, we have an obligation to promote our health and wellness of our youth by having our children engage in physical activity. These meaningful activities include any type of playing outdoors, sports, drawing, science experiments, reading, journal writing, etc. Discover nature, explore a pond, or keep a sketch book. So, unplug your electronics, and see what fun can happen. Have a restful and healthy summer spending quality time with family and friends.
As always, I am so proud of our school community. I am blessed with wonderful families, precious students, and a top notch faculty. The amount of student learning and achievement in one year is incredible. We truly are a family and a fantastic school. What a super school year! I eagerly await the excitement of school year 2008-2009 as we look to continually provide the best education possible to all students. Our next school year is our 50th birthday year! Hebron Avenue School turns 50 next year! We will have a wonderful celebratory year planned!
Come say hello over the summer and stop in for a free Popsicle! There will be someone in the office each day
As a safety reminder, please be sure to update emergency information with us when it may change.
As always, I hope this information is helpful to your family. Please call if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Linda Provost
