Avoiding the Summer Slide

As summer approaches we all have visions of floating in the lake, taking road trips, and slurping up melting creemees. Amidst all of that summertime fun I have encouraged all of my students to set summer reading goals for themselves to avoid what I call the "summer slide" in their literacy skills.

On the last day of school your child will be coming home with a summer reading calendar that they have already been logging into everyday in the month of June. They are encouraged to continue logging the minutes that they read each day. At the end of the month they can add up the minutes and then at the end of the summer bring their reading calendar back to school with the total number of minutes that they've spent reading. Everyone who participates and returns a calendar will earn a small prize and the five readers who accumulate the most minutes will earn an extra prize. The minutes that they record can be from independent reading, being read to, or even listening to an audio book.

I will also be sending home a handwriting packet for your child and a handy letter formation guide for you to help them to practice their letter formation over the summer. Research shows that by mastering proper letter formation students are able to write with greater ease and in turn produce writing pieces of greater quality.

Lastly, I encourage students to practice fact fluency for addition and subtraction in any way that they find fun. This could be on a website, adding dice together, making flashcards or playing card games.

I would also like to provide you with a few resources about reading that you may find interesting and helpful over the summer. I hope that amidst the business of this time of year you all find some time to curl up in a hammock and enjoy some summer reading yourselves.

Reading Resources
Summer Reading Tips for Parents of Second Graders
2011 Summer Reading Lists
Top Ten Summer Reading Resources

See you in August!

Barnyard Banter

Another digital slideshow by Smilebox

As you can see from the slideshow, the first graders of Synergy had an awesome trip to Shelburne Farms on Tuesday, June 7th. The weather was spectacular and we enjoyed an afternoon of chasing chickens, brushing cows, tasting yummy cheeses, and even getting an up close look at some adorable new piglets as they slept soundly.

During our study of farms over the past few weeks we have learned that farming has many rewards but is also a lot of work that takes careful planning and dedication. Please comment with us on whether or not you think you would like to be a farmer and why. The students will be learning how to comment on the blog and you can read their opinions in the comment section as well.

Thanks!

Powerful Poets

Bravo to all of the Synergy Poets for a job well done at the poetry jam on Wednesday night. They put so much hard work into their practices, even in the hot weather and it showed. I hope that you all enjoyed seeing them perform.

As the year comes to a close I just wanted to let you know about a few important dates that are coming up and give you some details about them.

June 7th- The first graders will be taking a trip to Shelburne Farms in the afternoon to culminate their Farm unit. We will be eating an early lunch at school, so there is no need to plan differently for lunch. Please have your child wear sneakers that day as I'm sure that the farm has their fair share of mud. We're hoping for sunshine and can't wait to see some of the animals that we've been learning about up close and personal.

June 9th- Field Day- We will head over to WCS in the morning for field day. I have already sent home an email about this, but just a reminder that your child should have sneakers,sun protection and a bottle of water. We will return to ABS for lunch and our regular afternoon schedule. The rain date for field day is Friday, June 10th.

June 15th-Synergy "Stay"cation at WCS- We will walk over to WCS as a team and spend the day doing different events from sandcastle building to kickball. All families are welcome to join us for any amount of time on that day. More information to come next week about the events.

June 17th- Last Half Day for students.