W H at 'S N Ew at Spring Glen
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W H AT 'S N EW AT SPRI N G GL EN STUDENTS OF THE MONTH Congrat ulat ions t o our Superint endent 's St udent of t he Mont h for May: Julia Law rence-Riddell- 6t h Grade MESSAGE FROM MR. HORNREICH Dear Spring Glen Families, As my third year as your principal comes to a close and you begin to enjoy the warm days of summer, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your continued commitment of our school community.. There is so much to celebrate again this school year. The academic progress the children made during the course of the school year was evident through our final assessment data. For example students in grades K-6 worked hard to improve their writing using the Writers? Workshop Model from Columbia University. Students in grades six wrote fascinating fantasy stories and shared them with families. Students in 4th grade led the State Fair and created research projects about the different states. These are just two examples of our fabulous students? academic successes. The multitude of year-end educational celebrations was a source of pride for everyone. Each grade level culminated learning with a variety of enriching and engaging field trips. Our teachers worked diligently to increase home-school communication through meetings, emails, newsletters and postcards. Our PTA received many awards for their community involvement, increase in membership and strong commitment to our school. I would like to thank Hinda Piscitelle for her leadership with the PTA. Most recently, PTA paid for a variety of cultural enrichment experiences this year and organized our end of the year celebration at Paradise Country Club. On another note, please join me in wishing Mrs. Ramie Ackley and Mrs. Hinda Piscitelle well on their retirements. Between the two of them, they have taught many students in Hamden. While we will miss them deeply, we will seek to fill these positions as soon as we can. Finally, our speech and language pathologist, Jen Pohl was crowned Spring Glen?s Teacher of the Year. We have so much to be proud of. As I looked into the audiences gathered together at the various events, I could see memories being created in the eyes of parents as the children shared their songs, poetry, science and social studies projects and pieces of writing. I am proud to work in a school that values education, but also values the arts. The talented students of the chorus, orchestra and band demonstrated their talents at evening performances. The Art Show once again proved to be popular with hundreds of families attending. Students performed in our fabulous school play, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. There were so many parents in attendance for both the concerts and the play. Our field day was truly ?The Best Day Ever!? We are also a school that encouraged our students to be kind, through bucket filling, morning meetings and the RULER approach to emotional literacy. They enjoyed the last few months with a trip to Paradise Country Club, fishing and hiking through our state parks, yearbook signings, a trip to NYC and finally an emotional graduation day. We will truly miss our 6th grade students who are going off to middle school.-please wish them good luck. MESSAGE FROM MR. HORNREICH (CONT.) Class placements will be mailed in August as well. Prior to the start of school, emails will be sent home about our new family play dates. Ms. MIra Debs is coordinating these wonderful events. She can be reached at [email protected]. The dates are also listed below. 1. Sunday August 6th, 3-5 pm, Bassett Park, Ridge Rd. 2. Sunday 8/13, 3-5 pm, Mill Rock Park , Mill Rock Rd. 3. Friday 8/18, 3-5 pm, DeNicola Park, Treadwell St. 4. Wednesday, August 23rd, 4-6 pm, Spring Glen school playground (after K Orientation) Also, our Back to School picnic will take place on September 1st. Spring Glen School is truly a collaborative community where all stakeholders work together to ensure that the students receive the best possible educational experiences during their time here. Our vision states that, we will prepare students to be open-minded, independent thinkers who are creative problem solvers, who will become respectful responsible citizens, and who can work collaboratively in an ever changing global society. Our vision drives our work each day and we can?t do it without working collaboratively. Spring Glen School values community and your children give us a special reason to come together. The collaboration between our talented staff, students and the Spring Glen parent community inspires and motivates me to continue to lead Spring Glen to be the best it can be. On behalf of the Spring Glen Community, I wish all our families a summer filled with friends, family and lots of laughter. Feel free to contact me if I can be of any assistance to you or your family during the summer months. With gratitude, Howard Hornreich Principal SUMMER READING Parents and guardians - Reading during the summer months is an enjoyable way to spend free time. It's also important in developing the life-long habit of reading. Children can chose books freely based on their interests -- mysteries, fantasy stories, humor books, adventure -- and read anytime they want. The benefit is that reading during the summer builds and maintains their reading skills, besides being fun. I encourage all of our Spring Glen families to make summer reading a tradition in your homes. Plan regular trips to the public library or bookstore. Have fun browsing or ask the staff for their recommendations. Consider choosing a variety of nonfiction and fiction books . Participate in the many free summer reading programs offered in our area. We hope you all will read as much as you can. And please make sure your child participates in our Hamden Summer Reading program. A reading journal is being sent home with report cards, and it can also be downloaded from our website beginning June 16. Your child should record and rate the books they read and return the journal when school begins again in August. Wishing you and your children a happy and healthy summer of reading. Howard Hornreich Principal GRADE HIGHLIGHTS We want to thank all of your child?s vocabulary and background the kindergarten parents knowledge is endless! We encourage all for allowing us to get to families to spend time reading with their know and love your children over the summer. Visit Hamden?s K children! The growth and public libraries. Sign up for the Summer independence we have Reading Challenges at the Miller Memorial seen is incredible! We Library and at Barnes and Noble (your child are so proud of all they can earn a free book!). have accomplished this school year and We wish all of you a fun, safe and restful can not wait to see what they will go on to summer vacation! We look forward to do in the years to come! seeing all of the children when they return Continue to engage your children in for the 2017-18 school year! reading, writing and thinking over vacation. Summer is the perfect time for children to see that learning is fun and can happen anywhere! Plant a garden, visit free museums, take pictures and collect items on nature walks, use binoculars and bird watch, help with yard work, volunteer at a soup kitchen? the opportunities to build For the month of May, first grade revisited skills that we have learned throughout the year. In Language Arts, we read nonfiction books and identified text features, topics, and main ideas. We also read fiction books and retold the stories, wrote about the author?s message, and discussed story elements. Encourage your child to discuss these 1 concepts when reading throughout the summer! In Writing, we finished our realistic fiction books. We moved onto writing our own research books. Students chose a person, place, or animal to research. They found certain information to include in their writing. Students were very excited to revisit nonfiction writing. In Math, we extended our knowledge of geometry. Students worked on partitioning shapes into halves and fourths, made three-dimensional shapes, and used shapes to make new shapes. We continued working on adding and subtracting and telling time to the hour and half hour. Keep on practicing addition and subtraction math facts to increase math fluency. We had a great year in first grade and wish our Spring Glen families a happy and healthy summer! GRADE HIGHLIGHTS , CONT. As the school year a unit on fractions. We have also played lots comes to a close, we of numeracy games to prepare for third grade. would like to thank all of In writing, we have written about science using our families for their a lab report format. We loved doing some fun 2 support throughout the experiments in the process! school year. In May, we Please continue to read and discuss lots of observed the life cycle of books with your child over the summer. Be the Painted Lady butterfly. sure to include both fiction and non-fiction We enjoyed the whole texts. Also, continue to practice math facts. project including the release of the butterflies! Automatic knowledge of facts will greatly help In reading, we have been focusing on solving problems. comprehension strategies in both fiction and non-fiction text. In math, we have completed Have fun and enjoy time spent with family and friends. Third grade has been very busy in these last Boat ride on Monday, few months of school.