Newsletter 6/21/18 Last Day of School!

Happy Summer Everyone!

We had a wonderful week together.  Here are some highlights:

Baseball Day:  We made words by gluing balls into mitts and everyone on Team Henry signed their autograph on one another's bats.  We wrote in our journals for the last time today, made cards for our Room Moms and recorded the June weather data.

Beach Day:  We used magnets to spell beachy words today, passed around a beach ball while sharing kindergarten memories and then read outside in the shade with sunglasses! We also prepared our summer reading/writing journals and celebrated our amazing year together.

Wipe Out Day:  We read our Just Right books for the last time and then began to pack ourselves up!  We talked about summer safety and enjoyed the 5th Grade Clap Out

Last Day:  The whole school enjoyed a slide show in the morning and then gave Mrs. Valenzano a special goodbye for her retirement.  We reflected on our Leadership Campaign and added the last stars for the day (see photo). We said good luck and good bye to our 5th Grade Buddies and enjoyed a recess together.  We read Oh!  The Places You'll Go and then shared hugs and high fives!

Thank you for a wonderful year together.  It is such a blessing to work with your children and see them grow as learners.  I am so proud!  Please keep in touch and enjoy your summer!

With much love, 
Sandy Henry

5th Grade Buddies...

... and more Buddies!

Signing team autographs

Amazing readers!

Our Leadership Campaign was a huge success!

We're FIRST GRADE ready!

Bye bye!  

Newsletter 6/15

We joined new character clubs in Reading Workshop this week.  The students enjoyed meeting new character friends and comparing their books together.  Discussions such as "I notice that Tiny the Dog is small in my book, but then bigger in your book!  What about the other Tiny books?"  or, "Fly Guy is really gross in my book.  Is he gross in your book? Where?" could be heard all around the room.

Towards the end of the week, we packed up our character books and read about ladybugs and pirates!

We finished our last writing unit and packed up all of our published pieces.  We can't wait to look over them all with you on Tuesday so we can all see how we've grown as authors!  Like Reading Workshop, our daily writing is now connected to our theme for the day, imagining that we're pirates, etc.

We are doing addition and subtraction in our themes as well!  We're adding ladybugs and finding hidden equation treasures around the room.

We're celebrating 7 summer birthdays and we're all set for Father's Day!  Gifts and cards were sent home on Thursday.

News and Notes:

• Book sleeves are due on Monday.
• Congratulations to our class!  We were the 3rd class in the school to return all of our library books!  We earned a star on the wall!
• Class Celebration, Tuesday 6/19 from 2-3.  
• Please let me know if your child will not be in school through next Thursday.
• Remember to send your child to school with a backpack every day.
• Check the Theme Day schedule for next week.  Baseball Day is Monday!
• The last day of school is a half day, so the cafeteria will not be selling snack.

Making equations with ladybug stories

Visiting First Grade

Newsletter 6/8/18

We made character clubs in Reading Workshop this week!  Every child joined a group which was studying a literary character.  Each student within that group studied a different story about the character.  We examined the pictures and what the characters did and said.  Then, we got together in our "character clubs" to compare our stories and thoughts about the character's traits.  Lastly, we made a word web about each of our club characters.  Ask your child about his/her character!

We also read a story called Mole's Hill multiple times.  This was a science based story, demonstrating how an animal can change it's environment to fit it's needs.  Each time we read the book we learned new things. 

In Writing Workshop, we learned that now that we are expert authors, we can tackle even the hardest of words!  We practiced tricky words on white boards.  They don't need to be spelled perfectly, although each should have a vowel, but we do need to try our best!  We also learned about DIALOG within stories and some of us are experimenting with quotation marks.

We embraced subtraction this week.  First, we looked a the difference between addition and subtraction.  One is putting two sets together and the other is separating from a set.  We used manipulatives to begin, then we learned about equations and the symbols involved (-), and lastly, we wrote equations ourselves.

We went back to our Second Step studies this week and we learned the most effective ways to calm down.  It's okay to feel strong feelings, but we need to be able to calm them down before we make a bad choice.  Ask your child the "Calming Down Steps"  (put your hand on your belly, say the stop signal, name your feeling, take a belly breath).

We had a blast at Field Day this week!

News and Notes:

• book sleeves due on Monday.  We will be getting our last round of books in our sleeves next week, either Monday or Tuesday.
• Please check the Theme Days note on the blog or the paper sent home
• Raz-Kids has been updated for your child to use all summer

Spelling tricky words

Learning math symbols

Forming equations to match subtraction stories

Character Club Fun!

Field Day Fun!

Tug-O-War champions!!

THEME DAYS!

In case you need it...