Submitted by Kim Fuller, Principal of Meroby Elementary in RSU 10.

For the past three years, Meroby’s kindergarten students have been involved in an outdoor education program that promotes academic learning, social skills, problem solving skills and independence. The teachers; Maggie Corlett, Kristen Giberson, Heidi Ferguson and Jessica McMichael have done research, taken courses, and developed a curriculum to support our students. Each Wednesday, the students go into the woods to participate in a host of learning activities from searching for animal tracks, working on math skills using natural materials to working with their friends to build a shelter. Our guidance counselor joins the group for lessons on friendship, emotions and how to work together. These are just a few examples of the rich learning experiences our kindergarteners have each Wednesday.

The community has supported our program in a variety of ways; students from Region 9 worked to clear trails and make outdoor classrooms, the snowmobile club maintains trails to make access easier for our students, community members have donated warm clothing and boots, Sunday River Adaptive Ski Program has donated a sled so all students can participate in our program.

This year, not only kindergarteners are using the outdoor classrooms. First and second graders are going into the woods once a week to participate in science lessons based on the Common Core Standards. This opportunity for real hands on experiences with the curriculum is making learning fun and meaningful. We are proud of this program and will only add more rich learning experiences for our students in the future.

Submitted by Ryan Wilkins, Principal of Hartford-Sumner Elementary School in RSU 10.

Jolly Phonics is a phonics program that teaches children the alphabetic code of English. It is a full year program for those in Kindergarten, and is being implemented at Hartford-Sumner Elementary School. In the first nine weeks or so of school, the students are taught the forty-two letter sounds and motions and how to blend the sounds in order to read words. Students also learn the forty-two Jolly Jingles songs and learn about Tricky Words. Then the students are taught the letter names. Lastly, the students are taught how to read books by themselves. Jolly Phonics is mainly for 3-8 year olds, but may be used to effectively teach reading to any age person.

There are five main skills taught in Jolly Phonics. They are:

1. Learning the Letter Sounds
2. Learning Letter Formation
3. Blending and Segmenting
4. Identifying Sounds in Words
5. Tricky Words

The main forty-two sounds of English are taught in an unusual pace and order. One sound is taught each day, with a short story, a song, and a hand motion. Letter names are not emphasized, but rather the sound the letter makes becomes the focus.

As the sounds are introduced, the children are shown exactly how to form each letter correctly. By practicing in the air, tracing and feeling the letters in the Finger Phonics Board Books and by writing it, most children begin forming their letters correctly after the first twelve weeks or so. The correct tripod pencil grip is also taught, and practice is given tracing over dotted letters.

Blending is seeing a word and simply putting the sounds together, one by one, in order to read a word as you would do for c-a-t. Segmenting is hearing a word and learning how to remember how to spell each sound so you can write the word, sound by sound.

It is essential that children can hear the individual sounds in words, especially for writing. Initially, the children are asked to listen carefully and say if they can hear a given sound in words. Then they are trained to hear if the sound comes in the beginning, middle or end of the word. As soon as the children can hear the sounds in three letter words, they can start their dictation work found in The Phonics Handbook.

After their first month at school, when the majority of the children know about eighteen letter sounds and have been blending and segmenting regular words as a group activity, they can begin to learn the Tricky Words. Tricky Words are words that cannot always be worked out by blending – sight words they have to memorize, such as: said, who, was, my.

By the end of the kindergarten year in the Jolly Phonics program, each child should be able to read and write the 42 letter sounds, form the letters correctly holding their pencil in the tripod grip, blend decodable words fluently, like “flag” or “mushroom”, segment and write regular words like “bed” or “campground”, and read and write independently and with confidence.

Submitted by Lisa Savage, Reading Interventionist for Garret Schenck Elementary School.

Garret Schenck School serves healthy choices to preK-5 students in Anson every day. At every grade level our Positive Action program helps students learn that making positive choices feels better, and that positive choices include caring for our bodies through nutrition and hygiene.

Supporting nutrition learning, our 5-2-1-0 participation brings raw fruits and vegetables right into the classroom. Older grades receive a visit from a nutrition educator who conducts food prep classes where everyone gets to eat what they just learned how to make. Younger grades learn about a food before daring to try a bite of something new. The motto, “Don’t yuck my yum!” helps create a positive atmosphere for guided nutritional risk taking.

Our school’s community garden brings together students, teachers, school board members and neighbors to grow produce and nurture a love of gardening. Some of the goodies make their way to classrooms at snack time while others are used for our annual harvest dinner, which is held on open house night. Students at each grade level help prepare a harvest meal that is shared by their families.

Cooking club for grades 2-5 also benefits from the bounty of the harvest. In this after school activity teams work to prepare popular dishes like lasagne, shepherd’s pie and tossed salad using tomatoes and basil from the garden in season. Students learn teamwork, measurement, and math through cooking, eating and cleaning up.

We are proud of the healthy positive choices we are making at Garret Schenck!

The New England League of Middle Schools (NELMS) announced at its 38th Annual Conference (held March 21-22, 2019) that Kathy Bertini, a teacher at Madison Junior High School in Madison, Maine was awarded a NELMS 2019 Master in Middle Award. Jeff Rodman, Executive Director of NELMS, state “Paying attention to the learning needs of young adolescents and recognizing their unique developmental stage can make a significant difference in the lives of 10-14-year olds.” He added “recognizing those experienced in middle level educators is a major part of the work of the Recognition’s Committee who often have a very difficult task choosing winners.”

Kathy Bertini is the project director for the cooperative FEDES grant awarded by the Maine Department of Education in 2017, for a project called Kennebec Valley STEAM Outreach. Among the FEDES STEAM Outreach Project goals is the development of an upper elementary/middle level STEAM curriculum including a curriculum pilot in the three project partner districts, RSU 74, RSU 59, and RSU 83/MSAD 13. The STEAM curriculum is based on the engineering design process and incorporates trends in the work force and builds skills in areas of the State’s workforce where shortages are projected. The STEAM project also employs University of Maine engineering undergraduates to aid classroom teachers with curriculum implementation. The UMO undergrads also consult with the curriculum writer, Kathy Bertini, providing specific guidance on the engineering elements of each build, they act as mentors, and help with staff professional development. The KVSOP curriculum includes lessons/builds for grades 3-8 including a scope and sequence, alignment to NGSS content, Maine Learning Results and Engineering Design standards. Embedded in each build/lesson is a digital reference that reinforces the science content appropriate for the grade level.  Each build is connected to a real-life science career to support the connection with real world science application and a referenced to a habit of work element to encourage design change and performance expectations.