Lincoln Early Childhood Center

💻✨ New Year, New Chromebook! ✨💻

This Wednesday and Thursday were all about fresh starts as our Technology department hosted Chromebook Swap Days for our rising 8th grade students!

Students exchanged their old devices for brand new Chromebooks that they will use throughout their journey with us—all the way until graduation or they leave the district.

Here’s to new devices, new opportunities, and a bright future ahead! 🚀📚

Save the dates, Westfield families! 🗓️ Here is your September 2026 schedule of key events to help kick off a successful and exciting school year:

Sept 1: First Day for Students 📚
Sept 4: Student Early Dismissal (PK-12) ⏰
Sept 7: District Closed – Labor Day 🛑
Sept 10: Elementary Schools – Back to School Night 🏫
Sept 15: Board Meeting 👥
Sept 17: Intermediate School – Back to School Night 🎒
Sept 24: WHS Back to School Night 🏛️

Here’s to a fantastic month ahead! ✨

While our buildings may have been quiet, a tremendous amount of learning, planning, and preparing was happening behind the scenes this summer at Westfield Public Schools. 📚✨We are proud of the hard work and commitment shown by every member of our team:

👩‍🏫 Our Teachers collaborated on new curriculum
💼 Our Administrators engaged in collaborative planning
🧼 Our Custodial & Maintenance Staff participated in detailed facilities training

We are excited to carry this great work into the new school year! 👏👏

📅 Save the dates! As we prepare for the start of the 2026–2027 school year, please note these important August events:

🔹 August 25 at 7:00 p.m. — Board of Education Meeting
🔹 August 26 — Teachers and Paraprofessionals Return
🔹 August 27 — Staff In-Service Day

Please also watch for additional information and important updates directly from your child’s school as we get closer to the start of the year.

We look forward to welcoming our staff back and beginning another great year in Westfield Public Schools!

Construction is officially underway on our Referendum projects! This summer’s work includes site work, HVAC relocation, a new drive loop and canopy, restroom renovations, and Learning Commons updates.

More updates to come as work continues this summer.

Wishing our students, staff, families, and community a safe, joyful, and healthy Independence Day. 🇺🇸

Our Kindergarten authors recently celebrated the completion of their All About books! Over the past several weeks, students have been immersed in nonfiction reading and used what they learned to become experts on topics of their choice. Through planning, drafting, revising, and creating detailed diagrams, they worked hard to publish informational books that teach others. We are so proud of our Kindergarten experts and the knowledge, creativity, and perseverance they demonstrated throughout this writing journey!

🎨✨ A Year of Creativity! ✨🎨 Our Pre-K artists recently received their artwork portfolios and enjoyed reflecting on the many projects they created throughout the year. As they organized their work, students celebrated their growth, creativity, and accomplishments. These special portfolios serve as a wonderful reminder of a year filled with learning, exploration, and artistic expression! 🎨🖌️💙

Our annual Multilingual Learner Family Dinner was a wonderful celebration of learning, language, and culture! Students proudly showcased projects they worked on throughout the year to strengthen their language proficiency and delighted families with songs and poetry performances.

The evening was made even more special as families shared dishes representing their cultural heritage, creating a spectacular display of pride, tradition, and community. A beautiful celebration of the many languages, cultures, and accomplishments that enrich our schools every day!

Our kindergarten students are getting ready for a big new adventure! 🎒✨ Across the district’s six elementary schools, students attended their First Grade Orientation, where they had the opportunity to explore their new schools, meet staff members, and make new friends. It was an exciting experience filled with smiles, curiosity, and anticipation as they prepare for the next step in their educational journey. We can’t wait to see all they accomplish in first grade!

Kindergarten students are building strong reading and writing skills through systematic phonics instruction! By learning letter sounds and how sounds work together, students are decoding words, reading with confidence, and writing independently with greater ease every day. ✏️📚

Our kindergarteners took their music lesson outside today as they prepare for their upcoming Kindergarten Celebration! 🎶☀️ Students practiced songs, movements, and performance skills while enjoying the beautiful weather. We can’t wait to see them shine on the big day! 🌟🎤

On an unusually hot day, spontaneous, student-directed dramatic play took over the playground as our young archaeologists turned a quiet corner into an excavation site. ⛏️☀️ With curiosity leading the way, students found a meaningful outlet for their energy through digging, discovering, and imagining together. Their excitement peaked with a small but memorable find...a worm! 🪱

💰✨ Our Pre-K learners are exploring the world of money through hands-on discovery! This week, students practiced counting coins and sorting them by shape and color, building early math skills while having fun with real-world materials.

Through play and exploration, students are developing important skills in counting, classification, and number sense - gradually building to understand how money works in everyday life. Great job, Pre-K economists! 🪙📊

In Art this week, Kindergarten students are exploring the principles of collaging with Ms. Hynes! Using a variety of colors and edges, students are designing a vibrant backdrop for the upcoming Kindergarten celebration. This joyful project encourages creativity, student choice, and self-expression while giving students the opportunity to contribute to something meaningful for their school community. It’s authentic learning at its best - creating with purpose, pride, and imagination!

From tiny caterpillars to beautiful butterflies 🐛🦋 Over the past few weeks, our Pre-K students have been observing, questioning, and learning all about the butterfly life cycle. Today, their excitement took flight as we released our butterflies! 🌸 A special moment of wonder, growth, and hands-on learning our students won’t forget.

Today our kindergarten classroom transformed into a team of digraph detectives! Students eagerly searched for pairs like “sh,” “ch,” and “th.” Anticipation filled the room as each new discovery unlocked another piece of the mystery. Curiosity drove thoughtful questions, while joyful cheers erupted with every solved clue. Through play, collaboration, and purposeful learning, students strengthened their phonics skills and confidence. This engaging foundation lesson showed that when imagination leads, learning follows. Case closed—our detectives cracked the digraph code and had a blast doing it! We can't wait for next case!

🔍❤️ Kindergarten Word Detectives! ❤️🔍 Our kindergartners went on a Heart Word Scavenger Hunt around the school, searching for words they know “by heart”! With clipboards in hand, they spotted familiar words, practiced reading them, and celebrated each find together. A fun, active way to build confidence and strengthen early reading skills! 📚✨

Students practiced the -ck digraph through a hands-on literacy activity making “Yuck Yuck Soup.” Using picture word cards with matching spellings, they blended sounds, read words, and built early decoding skills through playful learning. 📚✨

Our Pre-K artists explored the life of Vincent van Gogh, drawing inspiration from his famous sunflower paintings. Using Model Magic, they sculpted bright flowers and leaves, then built a simple 3D still life with a vase, table, and wall—proudly gluing their sunny creations together! 🌻