Thursday, April 5th at 6:30 pm 3rd Grade Student Council presents Movie Night featuring "Gnomeo & Juliet" *Bring blankets to sit on and a drink *Popcorn will be served. Friday, April 13th In honor of the Red Sox Home Opener we will be celebrating with Sports Day at FC!! *Wear your favorite team jersey or t-shirt!

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The Advanced Band earned a GOLD MEDAL at the 35th annual Massachusetts Choral and Conductor’s Association (MICCA) Concert Festival on Saturday, March 31st. Over 160 bands and orchestras as well as 60 choruses from across the state participated in this festival. Groups that achieved a score in the highest rating bracket received a Gold Medal; groups in the second bracket received a Silver Medal; groups in the third bracket received a Bronze Medal; groups in the fourth bracket received a Medal...

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Spring cleaning? Got Books? Please use the Got Books? donation bin located behind the school. This eco-friendly fundraiser keeps books out of the trash while helping raise funds for our entire school community by supporting the school library. Got Books? accepts: hardcovers, paperbacks, CDs, DVDs, audio books, records and textbooks. They do not accept VHS tapes, magazines, newspapers, and encyclopedias. Thank you for your support.

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Congratulations to the 97 Freeman Centennial students in grades 4-6 who read 532 books this school year for the Massachusetts Children's Book Award (MCBA) program administered by Mrs. Lavallee in the school library. The activity is voluntary and above and beyond classroom reading assignments. Student voters are welcome to come to an MCBA Breakfast before school to celebrate on Thursday, April 12, at 8:15. The MCBA winner for our school is: Cracker: The Best Dog in Vietnam by Cynthia Kadohata,...

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Grade 3 - Friday, May 4                    Grade 4 - Thursday, April 26                    Grade 5 - Tuesday, April 24 Parents Are Invited ~ Mark Your Calendars Specific grade level times to follow!

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In 2000 the U.S. National Reading Panel released a document entitled “Teaching Children to Read.” The blue-ribbon panel of experts identified several areas of learning that were critical to developing good reading skills. One of these areas that had previously been put on the back burner was fluency, reading with expression and facility, not necessarily being a fast reader, but reading “like talking.” It was found that students who lacked fluency lost comprehension, often...

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In my role as assistant principal, what has surprised me the most?  It is the amount of children who are repeatedly tardy   Obviously, there are times when a child has to be late.  We all know that doctors and and dentists do not have evening appointments.  These are excusable.  But, everyday there are are many children who are late by 5 to 20 minutes.  Routine tardiness is not acceptable.  A child who is late by 5 minutes misses the morning work and probably...

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Math fluency is being able to answer addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts automatically.  Research finds that without math fluency, higher order mathematical skills - those that need the application of basic math facts, will be impaired. In fact, the abilty to retrieve math facts automatically has been shown to be a strong predictor of performance on math tests (such as the MCAS). "If a student constantly has to compute the answers to basic facts, less of that student’s...

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The following came from  The Marshall Memo (3/19/12 #428) a synopsis of educational information.  I thought it may be of interest to parents. Mathematical Reflections on “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally”             In the article in Teaching Children Mathematics, third-grade teacher and Eastern Illinois University professor Kyungsoon Jeon reports that when most teachers are asked about order of operations, they immediately...

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Bullying is not something to be taken lightly, and we take it very seriously at the Freeman Centennial School.  We have a bullying prevention program complete with lessons on bullying and cyberbullying.  Through these lessons we teach children the difference between bad behavior and bullying.  Sometimes, it is hard for a child to know the difference.  There is a lot of bad behavior, but, thankfully, a very small amount of bullying.  Bullying is not just repeated bad behavior....

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Dear Parents/Guardians and Students, I hope everyone had a fabulous February break! It’s hard to believe that spring is just around the corner and we are finally getting some snow. March is a very busy month. We kicked off the month with Grade 5 students portraying a person from America’s past. Students are nominated for the “American History Hall of Fame” and must convince the spectator as to why he or she deserves to be a member of the Hall of Fame. Their costumes were...

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Tuesday, March 6, 2012, 1:00 – 3:30 p.m. and Thursday, March 8, 2012, 5:30 – 8:00 p.m. Parent-teacher conferences are opportunities for parents to find out how their child has progressed half way through the school year, specifically, how your child is doing academically, socially, and emotionally. It is important to remember that it is a TEAM effort to educate the whole child. The home-school connection is an essential part of the TEAM. We thank you in advance for being part of...

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The spring Scholastic Book Fair will be held in the school library March 5-9. All classes will attend the book fair during their scheduled library time. The Book Fair will also be open during conference times for families. Please stop by and support this great fundraiser; all proceeds directly benefit our school. The students look forward to the book fair with great anticipation, a wonderful show of support for reading in Norfolk. J A special thank you to the TPA and the parent volunteers who...

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On Thursday, March 1, 2012 Freeman-Centennial students and staff kicked off our community service learning project to help children in need. At a recent school assembly we discussed how and why we were participating in such a worthy cause. Students were excited and eager to begin saving one penny at a time. Stay tuned for classroom and school updates! Please assign some chores for your children to do around the house to earn money! Last year our students raised an incredible $8,123 for Children’s...

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The hallways of the Freeman-Centennial School are lined with art work! Come find your child’s creation. Every student has one piece of art work displayed for the Art Show. The art work will start to come down after the March 8th parent teacher conferences. During the month of March, the 3rd grade art students will be constructing a 3-D animal from tubes, masking tape and paper mache to help support many students’ animal research projects. The fourth grade students will use paint and...

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During the month of March, physical education classes will be tested on flexibility, one of the components of health related fitness. We will also be playing cooperative games, such as The Progressive Game and Mission Impossible. Towards the end of the month, we will work on our bumping and setting skills as we begin our volleyball unit.  The additional sixth grade class will continue to work on team building activities.

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The 112 students in our Beginning Band gave two outstanding performances on Thursday, February 2, at 1:45 for students and staff and at 7:00 pm for friends and families. Our beginners are hard at work building upon their skills as young musicians. As we begin to prepare for our spring performance, the students will be learning to play within a greater range on their instrument, play in a variety of key signatures, and develop the ability to play within a wider range of dynamics. We are very proud...

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Students will be learning about famous classical and jazz composers of the past as well as styles of music of various time periods and cultures this month.  Grade 3 students will be learning about the famous composer Ludwig van Beethoven. They will be learning to play one of his famous compositions on the recorder!  Grade 4 students will be learning about harmony as an important element in music.  Students will learn about chords and how they are formed.  Each student will...

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In May 1997, a small taskforce at the National Education Association (NEA) came up with a big idea to celebrate reading (Read Across America). The purpose of this day is to motivate and create life long learners and readers. At the Freeman-Centennial School we are committed to celebrating “Read Across America” to promote a love of reading every day! The theme is green for a very special 2012 Read Across America celebration. The campaign is showcasing the Lorax book as well as...

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You're never too old, too wacky, too wild, To pick up a book and read with a child. You're never too busy, too cool, or too hot, To pick up a book and share what you've got.   As you know, schools across the United States celebrate Read Across America on March 2, the birthday of Dr. Seuss. The poem above tells the story of what the National Education Association is advocating by its sponsorship of this day of reading, namely that reading with a child or sharing your own reading is...

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