Our spring parent conferences will be held this month. A parent-teacher conference is a great opportunity to hear the academic progress and growth of students based on classroom observations, assignments, and assessments. These are meant to keep parents informed with the most present level of performance and to work with families on a plan for the remainder of the school year to ensure students’ success in the classroom, behaviorally and academically. This is a sharing of information and we welcome parents to offer input so that we can best meet the needs of their child. Notices for conferences were sent home with students on February 28th. We are asking that they be returned by March 7th so that we can honor parents’ preferred meeting times. Conferences will be held in-person, via zoom or by phone, which parents should also indicate their preference.

As parents, we all want to protect our children from harm, including unkind behavior from others. But how do we know if a situation is bullying or just kids being mean? Understanding the difference is important in helping our children respond effectively.

Meanness vs. Bullying

Being Mean happens when a child is unkind or rude, like saying something hurtful in the heat of the moment. It’s usually not repeated, and while it still needs to be addressed, it’s often a matter of teaching kindness and empathy.

Bullying is when one child repeatedly hurts, threatens, or excludes another child on purpose. It involves an imbalance of power, where one child has more social, physical, or emotional power over the other.

What Can Parents Do?

Talk to Your Child – Ask them to describe what happened and how they feel.

Look for Patterns – If the behavior is ongoing and intentional, it may be bullying.

Encourage Problem-Solving – If it’s a single mean moment, help your child practice ways to respond confidently.

Report Bullying – If it’s bullying, work with teachers and school staff to ensure the behavior stops.

Model Kindness – Teach children to treat others with respect and stand up for those who are being mistreated.

By understanding the difference, we can guide our children in handling conflicts while fostering a culture of kindness at school and beyond! If you have concerns about bullying, please reach out to your child’s teacher, school counselor for support.

Lice Prevention Tips
Lice love to spread in close quarters! To help prevent them:
1.) Avoid sharing hats, brushes, and headphones.
2.) Tie long hair back in a ponytail or braid.
3.) Check your child’s scalp regularly, especially after sleepovers.

Cough Drops & Permission Notes
If your child needs cough drops at school, please send a signed note giving permission for them to have cough drops in the nurse’s office. This helps us ensure all students are safely cared for!

Free Dental Clinic – April 11, 2025
The Tooth Protectors Dental Clinic is coming to our school! This free service offers dental exams, cleanings, and fluoride treatments. Sign-up forms will be sent home soon—don’t miss this great opportunity!

Stay healthy and let’s keep our school smiling!

Kindergarten Registration

Parents who will be registering a child for Pre-K for the 2025/2026 school year, need to contact Gilbert School at 626-2491. To enroll in Pre-K, your child must live in Augusta and have turned four years old by 10/15/25.

For parents who will be registering a kindergarten student for the 2025/2026 school year, please call Lincoln School at 626-2483 To enroll in Kindergarten at Lincoln, your child must live in the Lincoln Attendance district and have turned five years old by 10/15/25. Ms. Cheever or Mrs. Freeman, our school secretaries, will take your name and contact information down to send out registration information in early spring.

It feels like we just flipped the calendar and here we are flipping it again. Spring is just around the corner and lots of spring books will be popping up in our displays.

Watch for Book Fair flyers coming home with your child.

https://www.scholastic.com/bf/lincolnelementaryschool23

Feel free to browse online and shop from 3/24 – 4/6/25 in house.

***********

Online shopping is open from Mar 25th- April 7th

Our online Book fair can be viewed and purchases made at:

https://www.scholastic.com/bf/lincolnelementaryschool23

We will be having a book fair for our students from 3/24 – 3/28 and we also have shopping online. You can put money on the e-wallet starting 3/3 until 3/28 for your child to make purchases here at school or send in cash or card with them as we do not accept checks.

Reminder that sales tax @5.5% needs to be added to cash payments.

E-wallet will automatically add the tax.

All online orders ship home and book-only orders over $25.00 ship free. Every purchase benefits our school and helps develop a love of reading.

OurMSBA Challenge continues with students in 5th & 6th grades. They are still busy challenging to read more than Mrs. Gauthier from the 40 books on the on the MSBA list

for the 2024-2025 selections. See the books your child is reading

@http://msba.umeedu.maine.edu/

Our goal of the library is to inspire curiosity and encourage students to read a wide variety of books. Through displays and library lessons, students can interact with many new story ideas and types of genres.

K- 4 will be wrapping up reading the Chickadee Nominees for 2024-2025 in the next couple weeks and will vote before April 1 on the book they liked the best. If you would like to see the titles and activities that go along with each book you may want to visit https://sites.google.com/site/thechickadeeaward/home

 Another fabulous site Augusta Schools sponsor for your child’s reading enjoyment is our Capstone Interactive site. We have 169 titles, at many different reading levels. Many of the students have already been accessing it in their library site and in the classroom. This is free to our Augusta School students and families.  You can directly access the books here.

Reminder to K & 1st grade parent’s; your students' books are signed out for 1 week. Many times when books are not returned weekly the tears flow as they cannot check out another until the book checked out is returned. Please help by placing the books in the provided bag to be returned in their backpack on or before their Library Day. 

Happy Reading

Mrs. Pridham