SOLON & BEYOND: Catching up with news from Solon Elementary School

by Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percy
grams29@tds.net
Solon, Maine 04979

Good morning, dear friends. Don’t worry, be happy!

I am so happy to have received the report from the Solon School about all the exciting news about what has been going on there recently.

It starts out like this: Solon Fire Department Presents Fire Safety Programs/; On November 18, two firefighters, Todd and Jenny Rollins, from the Solon Fire Department, visited our school to teach our Pre-5 students about fire safety. This is an annual event every fall to remind students how to keep themselves and their families safe in the event of a fire. The students also learned about all of the safety gear that fire fighters wear and use in fighting fires.

We thank the Solon Fire Department for supporting fire safety programs in our school every day.

The following is from the Principal’s Message: I want to wish all our students and families a Happy New Year. I hope you had a festive holiday season and some special times with family and friends during the Christmas break. The Christmas spirit was alive and well in our community this year!

Many generous individuals and organizations supported our students and families during the Christmas season by donating food baskets, Christmas gifts, winter weather gear, and other items. We thank all of these wonderful people. Solon Congregational Church, New Hope Church and Homeless Shelter , Mrs. Ann Jackson, Mr. Leland McDonough, Mrs. Peggy Luce, Mrs. Terrie Hoops, and the Embden Town Office.

On January 5 our school board will consider extending their mask mandate through March 4 as a way to curb the spread of COVID in our schools and reduce the number of students and staff who have to quarantine. During the month of January we will be administering the NWEA assessment to students in grades K – 5 .

Students took these tests in reading, language use, and math in October and will take them again in May. The winter assessment helps us to check students progress and make adjustments in their instruction if needed.

Holiday Highlights: We enjoyed the Christmas season at Solon Elem­entary School this year. We were still not able to hold events such as a Christmas program or holiday concert due to COVID restrictions, but we did plan some fun activities for our students and staff. We had a Holiday Theme Week with a dress-up theme each day. We did a Secret Santa ornament exchange to make ornaments for others, and those ornaments decorated our Christmas tree. We had a contest to guess how many M&Ms were in a Santa ear jar. And the Solon PTO held a Christmas Shopping Day so students could buy gifts for their family members. The PTO asked each teacher to submit a wish list with items for their classrooms and they shopped for those. M&M contest winners were Xavier Poulin, Kabella Chreitien and Mrs. Rogers.

During the month of November, Solon Elementary School held a Thanksgiving Food Drive to benefit the Solon Food Cupboard. It was very successful, bringing in 581 items. The third grade class collected the most items with 129 with the fifth grade class in second place with 116 items.

I’m going to end this column with words from one of my many little books, this one is called Sunny Thoughts. And it states Words to Keep You Smiling, Shining, and Looking on the Bright Side: Resolve to see the world on the sunny side, and you have almost won the battle of life at the outset. Hope you have a wonderful day!