News and Information

• WELCOME BACK MEET & GREET!   MONDAY, AUGUST 29 ~ 10:30-11:30am
  Come anytime during the hour to visit your child’s classroom, meet their Classroom Teacher, and Specials Teachers. The Main Parking Lot and the Parking Spaces in the Parent Drop-Off/Pick Lane will be available.

• FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL for Grades 1 to 5 ~ TUESDAY, AUGUST 30
   

• FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL for Kindergarten and Preschool/PreK ~ TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6
   

• Kindergarten Screening ~August 30, 31, Sept. 1 ~ Meet and Greet for Kindergarten will be on September 2. More information will be forth coming.
   

• Reminder about Class Placements ~ Letters from your child’s assigned teacher will be mailed to you a week before school starts.

 We look forward to seeing you in August to start another amazing year at Thames River Magnet School!

Last Update for the 2021-22 School Year

June 17, 2022  

​Dear Families and Friends of TRMS,

This school year was incredible! Starting a school from scratch was not an easy feat, but we all worked as a school community and made it a success! Thank you so much for your help and support this year towards making it successful! I am so proud of our students and the growth they have demonstrated.

Being able to come back into the building for Parent Conferences, Spring Concerts, Kindergarten Celebrations, and having volunteers at events and in classrooms, was so outstanding and rewarding. Celebrations will continue on Monday with the 5^th Grade DARE Graduation and 5^th Grade Promotion. Our Grade 5 students helped in so many ways this year to develop our magnet year, beautify our school, start our recycling, and they served as wonderful leaders. Congratulations 5^th graders. We will miss you!

Thank you to all of our volunteers who helped this year at TRMS. A big thank you to Wendy Manemeit for baking the cupcakes that the 5^th Graders will enjoy at the Grade 5 Celebration on Monday.

Much more enrichment was happening throughout this week. All classes enjoyed hands-on lessons with Denison Pequot Nature Center who taught outside lessons that directly connected to Outside In, the book that we chose for our One Book One School. Other enriching activities connected to the book for our students were having the opportunity to try kale during lunch, harvesting radishes from our TR gardens, creating beautiful watercolor paintings, and hiking the TR trails with their magnifying glasses. In addition, all families received a copy of Pocket Genius to Bugs to add to their at home libraries.

Additionally, this week we had Librarians from Bill Memorial Library and Groton Public Library here to share what is happening for Summer Reading at each library. Luckily, we also had a special guest visit with them, Clancy the dog.  Clancy came on our whole school assembly and visited during Media classes. We hope to have Clancy back many more times next year. We also celebrated reading this week by having a special Nutmeg Lunch for students that read all of the 2021-22 Nutmeg books. A super accomplishment! 

Congratulations to Anshika Nigam, a Grade 2 student at TRMS, for winning a silver award for her painting in the Connecticut Writing Project for her amazing painting of Snowy Barn Day!

Report Cards will be coming home Tuesday in backpacks. In the Report Card envelope, you will find a Summer Reading letter from me, Summer Reading Log, and a Save the Date flyer for our Back to School Meet and Greet on August 29.  Additionally, each student will be receiving a book to jumpstart their Summer Reading.

I wish you a nice weekend and a wonderfully, safe, very well-deserved Summer Break! I am looking forward to next year to continue growing our magnet, enriching our students, and working in partnership!

 Jamie Giordano

REMNDERS for LAST TWO DAYS of SCHOOL
JUNE 20 and JUNE 21

 

      ~Monday 6/20 and Tuesday 6/21 are Early Dismissals.  Dismissal begins at 12:00pm.

      ~Lunch will not be served at school. Students have the option to take a bagged lunch home. It will be a ham or turkey and cheese sandwich, a fruit, and snack.  Teachers will take the lunch count both days.

     ~Please plan to pick-up Medicine from Nurse Brittany by Tuesday, June 21.

     ~Please remind your child to check Lost and Found as the items will be removed after the last day of school.

     ~Report Cards will be coming home in backpacks on Tuesday, June 21 along with a Summer Reading letter, Summer Reading log, a Summer Reading book, and a Trail Passport.

     ~If you child, is not able to come the last day of school, you can view the Report Card on the Parent Powerschool Portal.  You can also plan to pick it up on Monday, June 27 or any Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday starting August 2.  [Please note that the Office will not be open on June 23, 24, or 25.]

     ~If you do know that you are planning to move over the summer, please give the school a call with the information. Thank you!

 

TRMS Mission Statement: 
We at Thames River Magnet School:
Believe in ourselves, Engage and explore, Learn from each other, 
Open our minds and hearts, Never give up, and Grow together!

 

Ms. Brittany would like to remind families that if you have any medication at school that it must be picked up before the end of the day Tuesday June 21st!  It can not be sent home with your child.  (Just a reminder that Tuesday will be a half-day!).  

Update 6/10/22

Dear Families and Friends of TRMS,

     This was one of our best weeks yet! We had so many events and enrichment opportunities for our students! It started with the sensational Spring Concert on Monday. Under the direction of Mr. Ferraro for Chorus, Mr. Kasle for Orchestra, and Mr. Schneider for Band, our students’ musical talents shined. Many of the students were first year students to instruments but you would never have known it!

 

     We then celebrated World Ocean Day on Wednesday. Our AmeriCorps members, Ms. Olivia and Ms. Caroline, taught students how to kayak paddle, while Ms. Emma was inside a life-sized blowup whale sharing facts about a whale. Teachers did many other ocean filled activities from beautiful water colors to science experiments. Here is a link to a more information about World Ocean Day- https://www.kids-world-travel-guide.com/ocean-facts-for-kids.html

 

     We had our reveal today for the One Book One School. All week I have been coming on Morning Announcements to review vocabulary for the One Book One School book. I then revealed the book Outside In by Deborah Underwood; Illustrated by Cindy Derby. All classes read the book either in their classroom or along the Story Walk signs around the school grounds. The Story Walk will be there all next week. Denison Pequot Nature Center will be coming to our school to provide activities outside in the field or on our TR trails. We also will give every student a magnifying glass to do a nature scavenger hunt and a set of water colors to illustrate pictures of what they see outside to mirror the beautifully painted water color picture from the book. At the end of the week a copy of Pocket Genius to Bugs will come home to each family to add to your at home library.

 Our pavilion construction has started out in the garden bed area! It is exciting to see it finally happening, so that we can start the rain barrel water system to help our garden beds. Ms. Emma has been taking students out to the garden beds to start watering the garden, learning about the soil/ garden insects, and of course tasting some of the things that are growing.

 More exciting news from our K classrooms this week as students watched many chicks hatch in their incubators. Each classroom has baby chicks to watch grow!  

Our PTO held their last meet this week. A huge thank you to the PTO as they have supported us in so many ways such as Field Day T-Shirts, a Grade 5 Field Trip, helping with funding for Denison Pequot Nature Center and helping with delicious treats for our Grade 5 Celebration. They have also approved other activities that we have planned for September. Next year’s PTO Board will be: Wendy Manemeit-President; Ned Sawyer – Vice President; Patrick Florio – Treasurer; Amber Bosché – Secretary. Please note that all are always welcomed at PTO meetings. Additionally, you can easily help earn funds for our PTO if you shop Amazon Smile. See the information about it below

·       The AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price from your eligible smile.amazon.com purchases. Tens of millions of products are eligible for donations. You will see eligible products marked “Eligible for AmazonSmile donation” on their product detail pages at smile.amazon.com or with AmazonSmile ON in the Amazon Shopping app. Recurring Subscribe & Save purchases, and subscription renewals are not currently eligible to generate donations.

·       Remember, only purchases made at smile.amazon.com (not www.amazon.com) or with AmazonSmile turned ON in the Amazon Shopping app on your mobile phone will generate AmazonSmile donations.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend! We are excited for another great next week next week as it will be filled with super One Book activities, field trips, and to learn about Summer Reading!

 Jamie Giordano

 

SOME UPCOMING DATES TO PUT ON YOUR CALENDAR
 

·       Kindergarten Celebration – June 15 at 1:30pm

·       GRADE 5 DARE Graduation and Celebration ~ June 20 at 10:30am

·       June 20 – Half Day – Dismissal at 12:17pm – Bagged Lunches will be sent home

·       June 21 – LAST DAY! Half Day – Dismissal at 12:17pm – Bagged Lunches will be sent home. The T3 Report Card will be printed and coming home on the last day of school in backpacks. Look in the envelope also for Summer Reading information. 

  

TRMS Mission Statement: 
We at Thames River Magnet School:
Believe in ourselves, Engage and explore, Learn from each other, 
Open our minds and hearts, Never give up, and Grow together!

Update 5/6/22

Dear Families and Friends of TRMS,

I am so proud of how hard our students worked on SBAC testing during the first week. They persevered through difficult questions, double check answers, and applied strategies. They were well prepared by our amazing teachers.

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week which I always celebrate it as Staff Appreciation as it takes everyone of us to be champions for our students and make our school community an amazing place. Thank you to the PTO who sponsored a breakfast for our staff on Tuesday and they donated a well-received toaster oven which is already put to good use. PTO met on Tuesday and voted to generously fund a Field Day T-Shirt for each student.

The last day to donate towards helping the African Penguins is Friday, May 13. You can donate Cash or Check made out to: Thames River Magnet School. Please put Penguins on the notes section of your check.

Kudos to Mrs. Bryant's class who collected many bags of trash around the school during our Earth Day Celebration!

Have a nice weekend! Happy Mother’s Day!

Jamie Giordano

SOME UPCOMING DATES TO PUT ON YOUR CALENDAR

·       May 8-20 SBAC Testing continued

Please see the schedule posted to the GPS website under Students and Families. https://www.grotonschools.org/parent-and-students/sbac-testing-spring-2022

·       May 13 Last Day for donating towards Endangered African Penguins

·       May 17 Early Dismissal

·       May 30 No School for Memorial Day

·       May 31 Field Day for K-2; Rain Dates June 7 and 8

·       June 1 Field Day for 3-5; Rain Dates June 7 and 8

·       June 6 Spring Concert at 6pm

·       June 17 Last Day for Preschool/PreK

·       June 20 Early Dismissal at 12:17

·       June 20 Last Day of School – Early Dismissal at 12:17

 

TRMS Mission Statement: 
We at Thames River Magnet School:
Believe in ourselves, Engage and explore, Learn from each other, 
Open our minds and hearts, Never give up, and Grow together!

 

Is your child turning 5 on or before January 1st?  Come join us for our first back-in-person Get Ready for K Night!  This event is for parents to visit your child's school, learn about the TK and K Programs, ask questions, and visit the K Classrooms! 

• Click here to register for this event and learn information! 
  • Feel free to also just stop by the night of the event!
• Click here if you need to register your child for school!  

Screening Information for the Summer will be coming soon, but for now SAVE THE DATES:

• August 10th and 11th - Four Year Old K Screeners
  • Open to all four year olds and those interested in-consideration of the TK Program!
  • Will be held at Thames River Magnet School.
• August 30th - September 1st - Four and Five Year Old Screenings
  • Will be held at the school your child will attend.
  • Any four year old screened August 10th-11th will not need to come to these screenings.

 

Update 4/29/22

Dear Families and Friends of TRMS,

     We had a super first in-person assembly on the Thursday before Spring Break. We celebrated Month of the Military Child and “N” in our Mission Statement for “Never Give Up.” Part of our TRMS Band playing and did amazingly. Anchor 4 Life (A4L) leaders read about the Month of the Military Child, explained how the dandelion is the representative flower and why we wear purple. Thank you to Mr. Schneider for leading the Band ensemble and to Anjie Leonard, MFLC Counselor for helping the A4L students prepare.

     Our Earth Day Celebration was an amazing day! Students, staff, and teachers all enjoyed a great day outside rotating to different stations such as making bird feeders, planting in the 12 garden beds, having fun with the earth parachute, watching birds with the Audubon, making woodland homes, enjoying a special Earth Day healthy “dirt” snack and so much more! Thank you to Stop and Shop for donating all of the seed pods that each student was able to take home. Thank you to the parent volunteers, to NESS volunteers, and Project O volunteers who came and helped to make the day run so very smoothly. See the pictures posted to our TRMS website and to GPS Facebook page. 

     SBAC testing starts Tuesday for students in Grades 3, 4, 5. Please see the schedule posted to the GPS website under Students and Families. https://www.grotonschools.org/parent-and-students/sbac-testing-spring-2022

     Mr. Sabilia’s class is helping to create another TRMS Trail. Our White Trail is used often by classes and soon a Pink Trail will be added to our school campus. The covered pavilion will be coming next week. It was just delayed over the Spring Break. It will be a great addition to our garden bed area. Soon the green house will be put up as well. Very Exciting!

     There are many field trips coming up, so please check your child’s backpack and return permission slips as soon as you can. Thank you!

     Next week is Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week. I am so honored and proud of our entire TRMS Staff. The commitment and dedication that they put forth every day to make each day an engaging learning experience for our students is outstanding!  

     Have a super weekend!

     Jamie Giordano

SOME UPCOMING DATES TO PUT ON YOUR CALENDAR

·       May 3 – SBAC Testing begins

·       May 17 Early Dismissal

·       May 30 No School for Memorial Day

·       May 31 Field Day for K-2; Rain Dates June 7 and 8

·       June 1 Field Day for 3-5; Rain Dates June 7 and 8

·       June 6 Spring Concert at 6pm

·       June 17 Last Day for Preschool/PreK

·       June 20 Early Dismissal at 12:17

·       June 20 Last Day of School – Early Dismissal at 12:17

 

TRMS Mission Statement: 
We at Thames River Magnet School:
Believe in ourselves, Engage and explore, Learn from each other, 
Open our minds and hearts, Never give up, and Grow together!