Summer Letter

Dear Parents,

I trust your 5th grader is enjoying the summer months. I'm doing all I can to put in a few miles on my bike before The Norris Cotton Cancer Center Prouty ride next week. The fundraising goal of $2.5 million currently stands at $1,221,000 and is growing at about $25K per day! This note is a preview of events and activities that should help you and your child prepare for the upcoming school year.

I hope that your child will have the opportunity to find engaging books to read over the summer months. I know that a good number of students will find exciting books without any prompting. If your child has a hard time selecting titles, take a look at our librarian’s list of suggested titles. http://www.tgs-putney.org/summerreading2010/5thsummer10.pdf As the summer continues, please make sure that your child is reading. In my experience, a child continues to build reading fluency if he or she completes 5 or more books of substance during the 12 weeks of summer. Please do not feel obligated to have your child produce polished book summaries or a writing journal. I am happy to look at short summaries but I don't expect a formal critique or essay.

We’ll begin the year reading Jean Craighead George’s My Side of the Mountain. This classic story nicely dovetails with other curricular components. The majority of the text will be read in class. However, you can expect to see short reading and writing assignments at home. As a parent, you might consider reading the story in advance. It makes for a quick and lively read and having a sense of the story might facilitate answering any questions your child could have while completing the first written assignments of the year.

Fifth graders will primarily be using the University of Chicago’s Everyday Math curriculum. The text begins with a short review of the basic multiplication facts (1-12) and then goes on to look at the product of two numbers as an array. Before long, we’ll be investigating prime, composite and square numbers. Being proficient with the multiplication facts is an important and emphasized skill. I’ll work to cultivate this, but your help in the weeks before school would be appreciated and beneficial.

For many years, fifth graders have taken an overnight fall trip to the Merck Forest campground. Merck Forest is an outdoor education/agriculture center located just outside of Dorset, Vermont. The center maintains a number of hiking trails and campsites. I would like to make this trip again with a focus on establishing friendships, new and old, and positive social dynamics. We will leave The Grammar School on Thursday, September 29th and return on Friday in time for the PM busses. Interested chaperones should contact me.

If you find yourself shopping for school supplies, I suggest obtaining a good supply of pencils and a pencil box of some sort. Rather than using a traditional 3-ring notebook, I ask that students select a sectioned accordion type envelope with a flap enclosure. Students should also bring a set of colored pencils, a highlighter or set of highlighters, a ruler (centimeters and inches) and a calculator (I recommend the Texas Instruments TI 30X) with a square root and exponent key. All of these materials are available in the classroom but I find that ownership goes a long way towards organization. I ask that students do not bring their own small staplers or pencil sharpeners.

I look forward to seeing you at the beginning of school conferences. This aspect of the calendar affords us the opportunity to set and discuss specific individual hopes and goals for your child. Please contact Tammy in the main office to schedule a conference in August.

Sincerely,

Charlie