“The memories we can treasure,

Teaching you has been a pleasure!

The year now ends, and we must part.

Always know you are in my heart.”

The final week of school is upon us! This week we will work with review concepts and preparing our minds to keep sharp over the summer. We will enjoy some special occasions like planting our avocado tree that we started as a pit in Kindergarten, watching Charlotte’s Web, and creating a special Memory Book.

Report Cards will be mailed home along with a Math Review Packet and a Summer Reading Log. Remember your child is required to read at least 20 minutes each day–this will help prevent the “summer slide” (where all the knowledge slips away because it’s not used over summer.)

We wish you a safe and happy summer! It has truly been a pleasure teaching your child. Thank you for entrusting us with your future!

This week we will…

-Read the story, Ben Franklin and His First Kite, and discuss how we can use something familiar in a new way.

-Work with the prefixes re and un as in reopen and unhappy.

-Take our FINAL Star Reading Test.

-Practice our spelling words: unhappy, refill, untie, undo, repay, unkind, undress, retell, reopen, refund, different carry. Bonus: answered.

-Work with the high-frequency words (word wall words): answered, brothers, carry, different, poor.

-Continue the study of pronouns in our writing.

-Wrap-up Rocket Math.

-Continue our work with money by identifying coins and bills and comparing and calculating the value of mixed sets of coins and bills. And begin calculating change due after making purchases.

-Begin individual and whole group assessments for report cards.

-Continue mapping out the travels of FS. A huge Todah Rabah to our host families for sharing their knowledge with us!

Reminders:

-We will have no school on Monday, 5/28. We hope you enjoy Shavuot and Memorial Day!

-There is a Talent Show on Thursday, 5/31, at 2:30 pm.

-Our final homework packet is due on Friday, 6/1!

-Our final All School Shabbat is on Friday, 6/1.

-Our last day of school is on Thursday, 6/7. We will have a party to celebrate with a special treat and join the whole school for year book signing and farewells.

Below is an e-mail from Lt. O’Neill in response to the care packages sent by our class:

“Your generosity is amazing.  The guys opened the boxes with me.  When we opened them and saw the toys, beef jerky, and magazines everyone was like this is great.  Especially awesome were the mini cliff bars and the beef jerky.  The chocolates made it ok.  Silly string was awesome as well. People were grabbing snacks and putting them in their drawers and sharing—it was awesome.  Everyone also liked to read the cards from the kids.  It is such a morale booster to know that people at home genuinely care enough to support us.  I think everyone got to share in the goodies…some people were super excited for the Entertainment magazines to learn about new movies, some were excited for women’s health, and some were excited for the water balloons. We just cant thank you and your parents enough.  There was truly something for everyone in those boxes.”

This week we will…

-Read the story, Alexander Graham Bell, and discuss how great ideas change the way we live.

-Work with the the vowel sound in /aw/ and /au/ as in “saw” and “pause”.

-Take our FINAL AR test on Wednesday.

-Practice our spelling words: saw, draw, crawl, straw, law, jaw, paw, lawn, yawn, hawk, through, science. Bonus: learn and telephone.

-Work with the high-frequency words (word wall words): built, early, learn, science, through.

-Study the use of “I” and “me” in our writing.

-Continue with our Rocket Math program, and use the time to review addition and subtraction facts with the children who have “soared” through our Rocket Chart. Our final day of Rocket Math will be on 5/30. We will then gather all Rocket Math folders and make copies of additional tests so your child can work on these over the summer. These folders will be sent home at the beginning of the last week of school.

-Work with money by identifying coins and bills and comparing and calculating the value of mixed sets of coins and bills.

-Begin individual and whole group assessments for report cards–can you believe there are only 12.5 days of school left?!?!

-Continue mapping out the travels of FS. A huge Todah Rabah to our host families for sharing their knowledge with us!

Reminders:

-Tuesday, 5/22, is Rosh Chodesh and Dress-Down Day.

-Wednesday, 5/23, is our final AR test. Please begin returning all MJGDS library books.

-Friday, 5/25, is our Bikkurim Festival. Please check out the details under Morah Rachel’s post.

-We will have no school on Monday, 5/28. We hope you enjoy Shavuot and Memorial Day!

-There is a Talent Show on Thursday, 5/31, at 2:30 pm.

-Our final All School Shabbat is on Friday, 6/1.

-Our last day of school is on Thursday, 6/7. We will have a party to celebrate with a special treat and join the whole school for year book signing and farewells.

This week we will…

-Read the story, Simple Machines, and discuss the difference that great ideas can make. We’ll also learn about great ideas that have made our lives easier.

-Work with the diphthongs oi and oy (foil, boy) and suffixes -er and -or (painter, inventor.)

-Select AR books and enjoy reading groups.

-Practice our spelling words: oil, soil, voice, point, boy, boil, coin, oink, toy, joy, against, heavy. Bonus: goes, inventor, writer.

-Work with the high-frequency words (word wall words): against, goes, heavy, kinds, today.

-Study pronouns and write about an invention we’d like to create to make our lives easier.

-Continue with our Rocket Math program, and use the time to review addition and subtraction facts with the children who have “soared” through our Rocket Chart.

-Work with telling time to the nearest hour and half hour. We’ll also work with understanding events of the day such as morning, afternoon and night and estimating time. A “Friendly Notes” packet will be sent home by Tuesday.

Reminders:

-We hope to see you at our All School Shabbat on Friday at 3:15.

-We are so excited that our Flat Stanleys are returning to school! So far we’ve learned about the states of Washington, New Jersey, Connecticut and Tennessee. We’ve also visited Rome. We can’t wait to continue this project!

This week we will…

-Read the story, Henry and Mudge and Mrs. Hopper’s House, and discuss what treasures we share with our neighbors.

-Work with suffixes and the vowel sound ‘oo’ as in moon.

-Select AR books and enjoy reading groups.

-Practice our spelling words: slowly, careful, quickly, useful, painful, playful, sadly, gladly, nicely, wonderful, because, across. There are NO bonus words this week.

-Work with the high-frequency words (word wall words): across, because, dance, only, opened, shoes, told.

-Continue our study of adjectives with a focus on adjectives that compare such as tall, taller, tallest.

-Continue with our Rocket Math program, and use the time to review addition and subtraction facts with the children who have “soared” through our Rocket Chart.

-Work with fractions and use the words such as whole, half, and fourth, halves, fourths, etc.

-Continue our study of Force and Motion.

Reminders:

-A HUGE thank you goes out to all our amazing families for such an awesome showing of support for our “Operation Todah Rabah” project. We mailed out SEVEN boxes and will keep you posted when they arrive to the ship.

This week we will…

-Read the story, Peter’s Chair, and discuss what treasures we share at home.

-Work with compound words.

-Select AR books and enjoy reading groups.

-Practice our spelling words: backpack, outside, baseball, herself, flashlight, bluebird, lunchbox, suitcase, inside, brainstorm, picture, remember.

-Work with the high-frequency words (word wall words): picture, remember, room, stood, thought.

-Continue our study of adjectives with a focus on adjectives that tell how many.

-Continue with our Rocket Math program, and start a Problem Solving Skills group for the children how have “soared” through our Rocket Chart.

-Continue our Numbers to 40 chapter. We are working with adding and subtracting two-digit numbers. Please refer to “The Friendly Math Notes” we sent home a few weeks ago. These notes detail how to help your child add and subtract without necessarily “borrowing” but rather by using number bonds. 30-5 can be thought of as 20 + (10 – 5). You can subtract the 5 from 10 and add that to 20, which equals 25. You borrowed, but you did not set up the math problem as most of us were taught to in elementary school.

-Continue our study of Force and Motion.

-Continue our “Operation Todah Rabah” project. Thank you for your tremendous support! You’re generosity is amazing!

Reminders:

-Catalogs for our final Scholastic Book Order of the year were sent home this week. Please take an opportunity to support our classroom by placing an order by May 3rd. If you don’t order books for the summer, we strongly encourage you to visit the library this summer.  Your child should continue to read at least 15 minutes every day even when school is out!

-edJEWcon will be held at our school this week! Please check the main blog for more information.

-Donations for Operation Todah Rabah are due by this Friday, May 4th.

This week we will…

-Read the story, The Lady in the Moon, , and discuss how we share special days with family and friends.

-Work with long i words with ie and igh (lie and light.) We will also work with words with kn (that sounds like /n/ in knee) and wr (that sounds like  /r/ in wrench.)

-Select AR books and enjoy reading groups.

-Practice our spelling words: lie, tie, high, might, right, night, bright, light, pie, tight, above laugh. Bonus words: happy, happier, happiest (Review of our previous work with dropping the y and adding an i before the ending.)

-Work with the high-frequency words (word wall words): above, eight, laugh, moon, touch.

-Continue our study of adjectives with a focus on adjectives that describe what kind. For example a happy celebration or a juicy watermelon.

-Continue with our Rocket Math program, and start a Problem Solving Skills group for the children how have “soared” through our Rocket Chart.

-Continue our Numbers to 40 chapter. We are talking about the meaning of the ones and tens place, and will begin adding and subtracting two-digit numbers by the end of the week.

-Begin a science unit on Force and Motion. We will discuss how objects move, explore motion and experiment with a special visit to the science lab.

-Start our “Operation Todah Rabah” project. A new blog post will be added in the coming days with more details.

Reminders:

-After a long delay we are excited to announce Part 2 of our Flat Stanley project. In Part 1 your child had FS visit for the weekend. Now we’d like you to select a family member or friend to host FS. We are trying to learn about the country and the world so someone that lives  far away is best! Please send in a stamped envelope that is addressed to your selected “host family.” We will add a letter and FS paper doll to the envelope and mail it out in hopes the that “host family” will return it to our class within the coming weeks. Thanks for your support!

-We will celebrate Yom Ha’ Atzmaut with a Field Day on Thursday. Please make sure your child wears his/her team color. This is sure to be an exciting day!

-Catalogs for our final Scholastic Book Order of the year were sent home this week. Please take an opportunity to support our classroom by placing an order by May 3rd. If you don’t order books for the summer, we strongly encourage you to visit the library this summer.  Your child should continue to read at least 15 minutes every day even when school is out!

-If you would like your child to participate in the special Wednesday snacks this May, please return the payment and form to the front office or in your child’s folder.