Grundy Avenue Newsletter
~ June 2020 ~
Dear Grundy Learning Community;
As you know, I will be retiring at the end of June and I am excited to welcome Mr. Thomas Lipani as my replacement. Mr. Lipani currently serves as the assistant principal of Sawmill Intermediate School in the Commack School District, where he has held the position for the past year. Prior to his time at Sawmill Intermediate School, Mr. Lipani was an elementary classroom teacher in the Sachem Central School District for 15 years, a principal’s aide for three years and the assistant supervisor for the Sachem Extended School Year Program for two years. I am confident that Mr. Lipani will do a fine job as Principal at Grundy School. We have been in touch and are working together for a smooth transition.
We proudly say Good-bye to our 5th grade class. An awesome group of boys and girls who will be missed. We know you all have bright futures ahead of you and Seneca is lucky to have you! Keep working hard and make Grundy proud.
Please see the information below from Mr K and Ms Malley about a virtual Field Day! We look forward to seeing your pictures of fierce family competition. Good luck!
Thank you for a wonderful last 4 years of a long career in Sachem. I will miss all of you and think of you often. Stay safe! Be Kind! Be well!
Love,
Mrs. Amato
Kindergarten news....
Kindergarten is full swing into distance learning. We found some creative ways to celebrate Mother's day by making cards and working on Mother's day writing activities. In math, we have been working on addition and subtractions facts and numbers to 20. In science, we have been learning about plants and animals. Some have even gone on virtual field trips to learn more about animals. Kindergarten has been busy practicing their sight words, learning about digraphs, and reading books on raz-kids and epic books. We have had the opportunity to meet up in small and large groups on google meets. We ended the month by listening to read alouds and poems about Memorial day and identified facts learned. The Kindergarten teachers have found different ways to keep in touch whether it was through letters, home visits, or virtually and we are so proud of their hard work and adjustment to this change during this time! We miss them all!❤
First grade news...
Our first graders did a marvelous job on their distance learning in May. In math, we continued to use the Zearn website to learn about adding and subtracting bigger numbers, shapes and even started telling time. In reading, our students have read some fantastic books on the Raz Kids and Epic Books websites. As writers, our students have worked on a variety of writing pieces. They have written how-to stories explaining the planting process, informational stories reporting facts about animals, friendly letters to characters in the stories that they have listened to and opinion pieces telling us about why their favorite fruit is the best! We are so proud of our students hard work!
We are looking forward to lots of learning and fun in June. We want to remind our first graders to post on the First Grade Flip Grid and to send us their photos of the adventures that they are having with their Flat Teacher! We are so excited to see all of the responses!
Our first graders have worked very hard this year both at Grundy and at home in their distance learning. We are so proud of each of them! We are also very thankful to our first grade families for all of their support this year. We hope all of our first graders and their families have a great summer! Be safe, stay healthy and have lots of fun! We will miss you and wish you all of the best in second grade!
second grade news...
third grade news...
The third-grade students continue to amaze us with their perseverance and commitment to distance learning. We commend the parents who are working so hard to keep the children learning and accountable. Although we can’t be in the classroom observing our own butterflies, Mrs. Skillman is taking our students through the life cycle of butterflies virtually. The children will make daily observations through home movies and photographs and will use the Epic website to gain knowledge about butterflies through their daily reading assignments. The children will continue to use the IXL website to enhance their ELA skills. They are encountering shapes and measurement on the Zearn website and continue to challenge themselves with supplemental and optional material. We enjoy reading the various writing assignments and continue to see growth in grammar and structure. We will continue to monitor all student progress and will work with parents to finish out the year successfully. Again, we want to thank the parents who became partners with the teachers and teachers to their children. We miss the students and wish everyone continued health and safety throughout the summer. We are looking forward to seeing our students soon!
fourth grade news...
We never anticipated having to end our school year like this, nonetheless, we are grateful for the time we did get to spend teaching our fourth graders! We are so proud of each student for taking on the challenges of distance learning and trying to learn a new way. Our distance learning will continue through June 25th, so please keep this in mind when making summer plans.
Fourth graders, please continue to learn and grow throughout the summer. It’s so important, now more than ever, to continue to read, write and practice your math fluency. You can still continue to utilize Reflex Math and Raz Kids. You can also keep a summer journal to write in and read some books you’ve never read before. Try a new series or genre...you never know what you’ll love reading unless you try it.
We miss all of you dearly and hope that you have a wonderful and safe summer!
fifth grade news...
Another successful month of distance learning for the 5th graders. We are so proud of our students for logging in daily, doing their best and participating in all of our activities.
For math this month, students practiced converting customary units of measurement. From Gallon Kingdom to comparing inches and feet, our 5th graders tackled problems successfully! We watched videos, completed slides and memorized some tricks to become conversion masters! Recently, we have started to work with coordinate grids. Boom Cards have been a really fun, interactive way to work on reading and plotting coordinates.
Sadly, our New York City trip was canceled this month. The 5th graders took a virtual trip instead! We visited the Museum of Natural History, Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, The MET and more. The children then completed a project by inserting a picture of themselves somewhere in the city. Our album looks great...we have some creative boys and girls in our classes!
School Budget Vote...
news from the nurse...
Hello Grundy!
I hope everyone is well 😊 I want to wish you all a happy and healthy summer!
Just as a reminder for September, NYS will be requiring physicals for students entering grades K, 1, 3 and 5. Dental certificates and also requested for these grades.
All incoming Kindergarteners and students with previous religious exemptions must be up to date with immunizations in order to enter school in September.
Students entering 6 th grade will require a Tdap vaccination when the turn 11 years old. Please check with your child’s physician to make sure immunizations are up to date.
If you have any questions please feel free to email me at jbruno@sachem.edu.
Happy Summer!☀️
Virtual Field Day at Grundy!
If you give a Principal an apple....
News from the Reading Room...
Reading students are busily working from home. They are working on word building skills each week with a Boggle challenge. Some students are working on becoming published authors using Story Jumper. Here they can choose to create their own book or use a template to help guide them. Bravo to those that have finished their books.
Since we are all missing the face to face contact, we have taken to Flip Grid to discuss the books we are reading. It is great to see all the smiling faces and hear about all the great books they are reading.
All reading students also have access to I-Ready, Raz Kids and IXL learning platforms. Here they can practice and review skills, read books of their choice and strengthen their comprehension. In addition to their classroom assignments, reading students have been logging in and completing a variety of tasks each week. I am so proud of all their hard work.
News from the Speech department...
The Summer Slide
The last day of school is a time of great excitement when children trade their textbooks, tests, and Google Classrooms for lazy summer days. It is often a relief for both parents and children to “put school away” for the summer. Unfortunately, many children who don’t engage in learning activities into the summer find they have forgotten things or fall behind their peers once the new school year begins. Summer learning loss or “the summer slide” is the phenomenon that occurs when children forget academic material after taking long breaks from school.
So, what can you do to prevent the “summer slide”? Parents don’t need to spend lots of money buying specialized programs. Instead, consider these simple ideas to keep your child engaged in learning activities during the summer months.
- Encourage your child to read 20 minutes every day. Public libraries are great resources for summer reading lists by age/grade level, and they often offer reading programs.
- Read to your child to build listening skills, engage the imagination, and increase vocabulary.
- Unplug from technology and give your child time to read and escape the heat of the day.
- Keep books in the car for your child. Listen to audiobooks on long trips.
- Encourage math skills by creating number books of things you collect or do during the summer.
- Practice estimation skills by guessing how far and how long a road trip will be. Have children compute arrival times and miles covered.
- Provide math workbooks with activities to complete on road trips or during quiet times.
- Encourage your child to keep a reading log and calculate the minutes read each week.
- Cook with your child. Have your child follow simple recipes to learn fractions and practice measurement skills.
- Encourage your child to practice writing skills by writing letters to relatives, sending postcards from camp, keeping a summer journal, writing a book, or authoring an online blog.
News from the library...
I can’t believe that it is June! We did it! I hope everyone is doing okay. I know that we definitely had some challenges these past few weeks, but you guys were champs! I loved seeing you at our google meets and the terrific work you have been sending me. Just a couple of things I wanted to mention. There will be dates in the near future that you can drop off library books at the school. If anyone needs me to tell them what books they have out, please email me and I will send you that information. Also, a shout out to our fifth graders! Best of luck to you all, I know great things are ahead. Remember this time in your lives as one that gave you more family time and a bit more quiet time. Grundy, enjoy your summer and don’t forget to keep reading! Reach out if I can help you pick a great book to choose!
Musical notes...
Thank you for a wonderful year and thank you also for your patience with distance learning! Ms. Karbowiak and I have been so grateful for all the support our department has received.
5th Graders: I would like to have you sing your moving up song like we did for the other.
If you check google classroom, there is a practice track to listen to. Put in your earbuds/headphones, and record yourself singing along with me. Then you can email the video or voice memo to me (agallagher2@sachem.edu), add it to your assignment in google, or add it to the flipgrid (https://flipgrid.com/7ccd9364). The more voices, the better we sound!
Have a wonderful summer everyone! Be safe and stay healthy!
Police Week!
News from the Math room...
As our school year comes to an end, I would love to see our Grundy kiddos continue to practice some of the math they have learned this year. Here are a few math ideas to help your child keep your child's mind nice and sharp!
A web site for all ages is www.mathplayground.com The children can explore math games, logic puzzles, word problems, Timez Attack (for mastery of multiplication facts), geometry, perimeter, area, probability, pattern blocks,
Lego shapes, and measuring angles...it's one of my favorites!
Math poetry is also fun, and two books that all children enjoy are Louis Sachar’s, Sideways Arithmetic From Wayside School, and More Sideways Arithmetic From Wayside School. The children will have fun solving more than 50 mathematical brain teasers while reading this great collection of Wayside School stories.
And don’t forget how we use math in our every day lives. If your child is helping you set the table, you can ask “If there are five of us for dinner and we each get a knife, fork and spoon, how many pieces of silverware do we need altogether?”
These past few months have been incredibly challenging for us all. I hope we somehow work our way back together for the fall and until then, please stay safe and have a wonderful summer 😊
News from the resource room...
To all my amazing students,
I’m sorry our year ended the way it did. I would give anything to give you one more hug or high five. I miss your smiles, hugs, laughter and all the learning we did together. I’m proud of you all and all your hard work.
Please remember this is temporary. We will see each other in class again. We don’t stop learning because we have stopped going to school. Only how we are learning has changed. We can do this together. Keep up with the learning. Remember to read over the summer. Keep a journal and write about all the fun experiences that you will have with your family. I look forward to reading all about them when we meet again.
To my All-Star 5th Graders, you will never forget this year. Always remember how hard you worked and how you proved how tough you are. I am always here for you and know you will do great things at Seneca. Make me proud and make yourself proud too!
Love you all, Ms. Turner
Grundy Ave School
Website: www.sachem.edu/Grundy
Location: 950 Grundy Avenue, Holbrook, NY, USA
Phone: 631-471-1820
Facebook: facebook.com/GrundyAvenueElementarySchool
Twitter: @GrundyAve