Support Our Book Fair!

It's NOT too late to participate in the Francis Wyman SPRING BOOK FAIR!

Our book fair will continue On-Line through Saturday, March 26th

If you purchase ANYTHING from Barnes & Noble on-line please enter the Bookfair ID 10447910 at the check out.

Please help support the Francis Wyman School by visiting :

BN.COM/bookfairs

and enter our Bookfair ID - 10447910.

Thank you for your generosity and your continued support!!

Read Across America Day

On Wednesday, March 2, the students and staff at Francis Wyman School joined with schools across the nation to celebrate Read Across America Day. Throughout the day classes did fun activities related to a wide variety of much loved Dr. Seuss stories. Students even had green eggs and ham for lunch! During the day, classes had guest readers visit and share a book or two. The kids, faculty and visitors enjoyed the time while celebrating and promoting reading. Francis Wyman would like to thank the many visitors including: Town Administrator, Mr. Mercier, Police Chief Kent, Superintendent Conti, State Senator Kenneth Donnelly, and Selectman Dan DiTucci and the various teachers and parents who shared their time with the students. We would also like to thank the PTO who provided coffee and snacks for the readers.

Beauty and the Beast

Burlington High School presents Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” on March 25, 26 and April 1 at 7:30, April 2 at 2:00 and 7:30pm, and April 3 at 2:00pm. Filled with all the enchantment, wonder and surprise that has made it an international sensation, the production will take place in the Fogelberg Performing Arts Center of Burlington High School, a handicapped accessible venue. Tickets are $10 for students and senior citizens; $15 for adults. Tickets are available at http://www.burlingtontickets.org/ . For further information, call 781-A-FUN-TIC.

"Race to Nowhere" Coming to Burlington.

The Burlington School District along with the Wilmington School District will be hosting the screening of "Race to Nowhere" on Thursday, April 28th at 7:00 p.m. in the Burlington High School Auditorium. This highly acclaimed film about education  promises to be thought provoking. Information about the film "Race to Nowhere" can be found on the following website:  http://www.racetonowhere.com/epostcard/4465 
Tickets for event will be $5.00 and can be reserved at http://rtnburlingotnhs.eventbrite.com/

MCAS ar FWS

Massachusetts is in the process of adjusting their State education standards to the new National standards. This will require only a few minor changes, because Massachusetts Frameworks were used as the model for the National standards. The National standards are much more refined for each grade level and are easy to read. If you are interested, they can be found on the internet. Grades 3-5 will be taking the Reading part of the testing at the end of March. This will be done over two days for each grade. We schedule from 8:30 – 10:00 for classes to be testing. At that time, if students are not finished, they are moved to another classroom and have as much time as they need to finish. On March 22, Grade 4 will be doing one extra day, during which they write a Long Composition Essay. These are scheduled in the morning with a fifteen minute break. Most students are done by lunch at 12:00, but, as is the case with all testing, the ones who need more time can have it. In May, Grades 3-5 will be taking the Math portion of the MCAS, which is also a two day event. Grade 5 will take two additional days to take the Science and Technology sessions.



Here at FW we implement some simple ideas, which are based on research, to help your children do their best. Research shows that students who have food in the morning do better on tests. Our PTO provides a snack of cheese or pretzel goldfish to be eaten in the morning. Teachers open their shades to provide sunlight, which is shown to activate the brain, and many teachers do “Brain Gym” activities, which also activates the brain. If you are interested in knowing more about “Brain Gym”, I suggest that you Google it. It is a very interesting and simple concept.



Parents can do several simple things at home to help their child prepare for testing. However, we do ask that you refrain from giving your child test passages from the DOE website, as several of these are used in the classrooms. If your child is given an MCAS passage for homework, encourage them to read it slowly and carefully and to look back in the passage for the answers. Many times the question will tell them the specific paragraph or section that the answer can be found in. This can really narrow down the information that they need to search through. Many children don’t want to take the time to do this, and it is a very simple way to help them. Also, when your child is writing a paragraph answer, that we call an “open response” answer, encourage them to find three or more areas in the text that support their answer. They actually get more points for using words from the text in their written response. Other than homework, parents can make sure that their child is rested, in comfortable clothes, and fed a good breakfast in the morning. Finally, the simplest way to help your child is to require them to read in their free time. In my house the rule was no computers or video games until you had read for at least thirty minutes. This rule must become a year long habit. Our children go to practice for sports or music. Reading is also a skill that needs to be practiced in order to improve.

Guest post by Donna Murphy, Reading Specialist