🦅 Message from the Principal:

Dear Families,

Welcome to May! As the flowers begin to bloom, we are entering one of the most vibrant and busy times of our school year. Please mark your calendars for our Celebration of Learning Night on Wednesday, May 6, from 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM. This is a wonderful opportunity for you to visit the classrooms with your students and let them show off the hard work and projects they’ve been dedicated to recently. 

As we look toward the finish line, please be aware that spring testing will begin the week of May 11 and continue through May 29. We appreciate your support in ensuring students are well-rested, on-time, and ready to do their best. 

Additionally, our teachers are beginning the thoughtful process of building class lists for next year. Creating these groups is a complex "puzzle" where we balance academic needs, social dynamics, and learning styles to ensure every child has a productive environment. If you have specific requests for your child’s placement next year, please know that while we do our best to honor them, it is not always possible due to the many variables involved in creating a successful classroom community. 

We are also looking forward to a very special tradition on Wednesday, June 3, at 12:30 PM, as we welcome back our graduating seniors from Chelsea for a celebratory walk-through in their caps and gowns. It is a powerful moment for our younger students to see where their hard work is leading and for us to celebrate the success of our former students.

💻 Message from the Office:

Wishing everyone a wonderful week. If you need assistance or have questions, the office team is here for you. 

🍎 Message from the Nurse:

As the weather warms up, it also marks the return of our biggest seasonal concerns… TICKS.
With kids spending more time outside, it’s a good time for a quick reminder about tick safety.

A few simple ways to help protect your child:

Wear long sleeves and pants in grassy or wooded areas

Stick to trails and open spaces when possible

Use bug spray with adult help

Do a full-body tick check after being outside 

(Remember to check scalp, behind ears, and behind knees)

Shower after outdoor play when you can

If you find a tick, remove it promptly and keep an eye out for any rash or flu-like symptoms.

Outdoor play is so important, just a few quick habits can go a long way in keeping kids safe!

📱Digital Safety Tip:

📱 Tech Tip of the Month: The "Digital Spring Cleaning" 🧹

As the weather warms up and May schedules get packed with field days and graduations, it’s the perfect time for a Digital Spring Cleaning. Just like we tidy up our homes, refreshing our family’s digital habits ensures a safer, more focused transition into summer break.

1. Audit "Zombie" Apps

Kids often download games or apps that sit unused for months.

The Tip: Go through your child's device together. Delete apps they no longer use. This doesn't just save storage—it reduces the number of companies tracking your child's data and removes old accounts that might be vulnerable to hacks.

2. Check Permissions & Privacy

Apps update their terms frequently. Take five minutes to dive into the settings:

Location Services: Ensure apps (especially games and cameras) aren't tracking your child’s precise location unless absolutely necessary (like a map app).

Microphone/Camera: Revoke access for any app that doesn't need these features to function.

3. Establish the "Summer Charging Station"

With school routines winding down, "bedroom browsing" can easily creep in.

The Tip: Designate a central charging hub in a common area (like the kitchen or living room). Require all devices—tablets, phones, and laptops—to spend the night there starting at a set time (e.g., 8:00 PM). This protects sleep quality and prevents unsupervised late-night scrolling.

4. Review Parental Controls

If your child is moving up a grade level (especially those entering Middle School next year!), their digital needs are changing.

The Action: Adjust filters on apps like YouTube or TikTok to ensure they are age-appropriate for their upcoming grade level, rather than where they were last September.

Quick Win: Set a "Screen-Free Saturday" once this month to celebrate the spring weather. No pings, no posts—just play!

⭐ Message From Mrs. Campbell:

SEL Lessons with k-2 are wrapping up and we’re reviewing all the skills we’ve been learning about. Here are some key concepts that have been taught:

-Expected vs. Unexpected behaviors and how those affect others 

-Knowing how to read a situation and how to react

-Size of the problem and our reactions

-Whole body listening 

-Using our senses and smarts to figure out a problem

-Recognizing when we’re having an “Unthinkable” moment (Rock Brain/D.O.F.)

⚽  Sports Information:

PTA News:

Teacher Appreciation Week is here! Hosted by the PTA and made possible by your incredible generosity—thank you for helping us celebrate our amazing teachers in such a special way with gift cards, sweet treats & lunch!

We’re always looking for fresh, fun fundraising ideas and enthusiastic volunteers to help make our events unforgettable. Want to jump in? Email us at Chelseaelementary.pta@gmail.com or join us at our next meeting on Tuesday, May 5th at 5:30 PM in the library.

Let’s keep the momentum going—because when we come together, great things happen for our school! 

PreK - Mrs. Kalacinski and Ms. Otis: 

In PreK, we started unit 6. Things that Grow!  In this unit we  are learning how to plant seeds, take care of plants and have been having fun bringing spring colors into our classroom with our art work!  We continue to work on letter recognition, onset rhymes, phoneme segments and writing skills.  We have enjoyed playing on our new climber and in our new sand box on the playground.  We are looking forward to sharing some of our work with everyone next Wednesday, May 6th, from 4:00- 5:00 at the Celebration of Learning!  

Kindergarten - Mrs. Winters and Mrs. Brown:

In Kindergarten, we continue to work on long and short vowels, digraphs, and adding the suffix -s at the end of words to read words. In math, we are working on teen numbers 11-20 by writing them, counting collections with 11-20 objects in them, and talking about the tens place and ones place. We are working on marking each object we count and counting carefully so that we do not miss any objects. 

In our weather unit, we are learning about how to prepare for different types of weather, and we have been enjoying the change from winter to spring weather. We are working very hard on our oviparous animal projects and look forward to seeing everyone next Wednesday, May 6th, from 4:00-5:00 to show you everything we have learned about the animals we studied. 

Grade 1 - Ms. Grant and Ms. Hoague:

In first grade, we’ve been enjoying a morning recess to get out bodies ready to learn. We are having fun learning about vowel teams and how they work in words. In math, we are exploring numbers to 99 and place value. We are continuing to practice opinion writing and have been enjoying our bird research and are excited to share that with you at the Celebration of Learning on Wednesday, May 6th from 4:00-5:00. 

Grade 2 - Ms. Acosta and Mrs. Mullen:

In Mrs. Mullen’s class, we are halfway through unit 7 on adding and subtracting hundreds and thousands with base ten blocks. For the celebration of learning, students selected a pollinator and are making a research booklet, along with a pollinator mobile, and a poster on their insect pollinator. In whole group skills, we are on cycle 64 which is dge, ge and ei. In science we are doing pollination and plant experiments in April and May. 

Grade 3 - Mrs. Del Gallo and Mrs. Wight:

We have hopped right into our frog unit and students are loving it! Each student has picked their own frog to research and complete a project for. Come to the celebration of learning Wednesday, May 6th 4:00-5:00 to see these amazing projects! We also have tadpoles and frog eggs that we are raising in the classroom! The kids are just loving this unit! In math we have started our fractions unit. 

In German, third graders read a comic about animals, practice their names: Ente (duck), Eule (female owl), Käfer (beetle), Hirsch (deer), Pandabär (panda), Siebenschläfer (dorm mouse),  work on German crossword puzzles and review the days of the week while listening to the song. We will continue working on the animals and review the letters of the German alphabet, two at a time. Schönes Wochenende (Have a nice weekend)!

Grade 4 - Mrs. Cargill and Mrs. Rush

In French, Gr.4 students finish the unit on foods, will do a lot of reviews using games and digital dialects and will start a unit on holidays. We will gather information about where kids are spending their summer, practice the expressions: je vais au lac (I am going to the lake), je vais nager (I am going to swim) or how they picture their dream vacation.

Grade 5 - Mrs. Reith and Mrs. Williams

In French, Gr.5 students read a conversation between Olivier and his host parents, practice the expressions: je veux visiter …(I am going to visit …), je veux aller a … (I am going to …) and reply to the content questions in small groups. The fifth graders are busily putting the finishing touches on their writing pieces and presentations for next week’s Celebration of Learning. In addition to their creative work, they’ve been diving into the world of geometry, mastering several new mathematical skills.

📊 Math - Miss McCaslin:

Students are continuing to build strong math foundations and make meaningful connections across concepts:

6th Grade: Before break, students wrapped up their work on ratios and rates. We have now started exploring percents and how they connect to fractions and decimals. Students are learning that these are all different ways to represent the same number, helping them build flexibility and deeper understanding when solving problems.

7th Grade: We are diving deeper into our geometry unit, focusing on angles, types of angles, and angle relationships. To bring this learning to life, students will be creating an art project where they identify and label different angle types—combining creativity with mathematical understanding.

🔬Science - Mr. Bailey

We are studying climate

📈 Math - Mrs. Hall:

7th grade has moved on from surface area to volume. It’s a short unit so we should be done by the end of next week! 

8th graders have started their work with solving systems of equations. Graphing went well and we have started substitution, which usually takes a bit longer.

Algebra 1 students are in the middle of quadratic functions. This unit is a challenge so I expect much practice before the unit is done.

📖 English - Mr. Gammon:

 Middle School Language Arts students are preparing to take the Spring NWEA Testing. NWEA's assessments are called Measures of Academic Progress (MAP). When taking these computerized adaptive tests, the difficulty of each question is based on how well a student answers all the previous questions. In an optimal test, a student answers approximately half the items correctly and half incorrectly. This information helps us identify students’ strengths and weaknesses in reading, as well as language. It provides and assists us in developing classroom instructional goals. 7th graders are reading The Outsiders while refining their understanding of the Elements of Literature and learning how to write persuasive paragraphs. 8th-grade students have been building background knowledge on William Shakespeare through Edpuzzle and Shako(a game similar to BINGO) as they prepare to read the play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

📓  English - Ms. Haskell:

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a wonderful spring break. To kick off our final full month of the year, middle schoolers will begin a new bestseller, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, a story based on a true hero. This book follows William Kamkwamba, a young boy from a village in Malawi, Africa. Through grit and perseverance, William used scraps of metal to create an invention that would change the lives of his family and his entire community.

💻 Learning Commons - Mrs. Couture:

PreK-2nd have been working on STEAM activities - building with magna tiles and legos, using robot cars, and designing flowers with warm and cool colors, as well as weaving flowers! 

Before break, the 4th graders finished their inventors and scientist research and mini books! This week, they’re attending a virtual author visit with Dav Pelkey, creator of the Captain Underpants and Dog Man series. 

5th Grade practiced citations for their animal research before break, and they’re creating a community art piece in the style of Steve Jenkins - come check it out during our Celebration of Learning night on May 6th. 

Middle School Students finished their Maker Projects. Here are some of the amazing things that were created! 

📚 Library - Ms. Helen:

🎨Art - Mrs. Dunn:

8th graders are learning about the famous artists of the Renaissance.  They are working on portrait drawing in a realistic style using shading. They just finished up their unit on Medieval art where they made personal coats of arms.

Seventh graders are doing an architecture unit. They are currently learning how to draw a floor plan.  

Sixth graders are finishing up learning how to draw using two-point linear perspective. They will be doing a unique self-portrait drawing next. 

Fifth graders are making some fun clay fish! 

Fourth graders are beginning a unit on African art.

Third graders are learning about the Impressionist art of Claude Monet. ‘

Second graders are learning about the artist Wayne Thiebaud.

First graders are doing a sculpture unit.  They have made a bird mobile, a clay bird sculpture.

Kindergarteners are learning about insects and symmetry! 

🏃PE - Mr. LaRochelle

All 3rd through 8th grade students will begin spring fitness testing in May. The tests include push ups, sit ups, sit and reach, plank and the pacer test (endurance). This is a requirement for PE 3-8. These tests are done biannually, once in the fall and once in the spring. After this is done, we will begin doing some field day preparation!

6th graders have our annual track and field day taking place on May 19th! This will take place at Erskine Academy from 9:15-1:40.  The field events include: shot put, discus, turbo javelin, running long jump, and high jump. The running events include: the 100 meter, mile, hurdles, and relays. Permission slips will be handed out to all 6th graders. 

News from Gifted and Talented:

          This week in Gifted and Talented all of the students worked to make a mental plan from now until the end of the school year roughly about 5ish weeks for us because of all of the interruptions toward the end of the year. The importance of making this plan is so they can work through the process of creating and finishing their projects for Unit 2. The students have some solid plans of what they would like to do for their projects and most students are underway on their project’s pieces such as; research, reports, construction, games, stories, puzzles, and art pieces. I look forward to sharing pictures as students begin to produce their projects.

            Throughout the district, in GT art, we have students that are researching and creating art pieces inspired by artists such as; Andrew Wyeth, Winslow Homer, Edgar Degas, Alma Thomas, Andy Goldsworthy, Salvador Dali, and a few others. While some students are working in the area of art, other students that are in GT for ELA are tackling the idea of creating an entire setting, group of characters, and story line in a book or book series that they are working to write for multiple different ages. The GT students that are on a science path are working on an acids and bases research and experiment project, researching and creating a 3D model of marine life, and researching and creating a 3D model of the Brooklyn Bridge. Lastly, the students that are on a mathematics path are researching and building catapults, creating a variety of puzzles, games, and math curriculum books about different math topics such as decimals, the distributive property, negative numbers, rounding, multiplication and division, and what the letters e and i are doing in the math world.

From OT