Middle El

June 18, 2008

Welcome to the Middle El,

Thank you for a fabulous year, we would like to express to our wonderful parents how much we appreciate everything they did for us and their children throughout this school year, it was truly a pleasure to be able to work with such a great group of children. We had some memorable moments, we will leave the pictures of some of them on the web page for the summer. Thank you again and have a fun filled summer!

There are letters that explain the summer reading program for incoming 3rd and 4th grade students below.

Dear Middle Elementary Parents,

We are very excited about our summer reading this year! We are sending home a copy of Mitt, the Michigan Mouse, written by Kathy-Jo Wargin. It is the story of a mouse who loses his home, a mitten, and his adventures as he tries to retrieve it.

Included with your child's copy of the book is an activity packet. As you and your child read the book, track Mitt's travels as you number the events on Mitt's Travels, pages 11-12. Your child will turn this in when we return to school. Optional activities in the packet are Design Your Own Mitten, pages 1-2, and Sandhill Crane Origami, pages 8-10. Your child has checked the book out and is responsible for the care and return of the book in September (the cost of the book is $15.00 should it get lost or destroyed).

Also in the packet is ABC's of Book Sharing, a list of projects to do after reading the book. Your child must choose one to complete this summer, and bring to school in September. They will share their project in class during the first week of school. We anticipate that this project will represent the quality of work that we expect in third grade. These expectations include neatness, creativity, and detailed quality work.

When we return to school in September, we will do follow-up activities in class, so you may want to reread the book in August if you finish it early in the summer. We hope you and your child enjoy the book. We look forward to seeing everyone's projects the first week of school!

Sincerely,

The Middle Elementary Staff,

Mrs. Brueckner, Mrs. Dunsmorel, and Mrs. Zarate,

A B C of book sharing.doc There is a different ABC's of book sharing for the 4th grade student the link follows the fourth grade letter.

Dear Fourth Grade Parents,

Our summer reading assignment is Skylark, by Patricia MacLachlan. It is the sequel to Sarah, Plain and Tall, which we read together this June. We are enclosing The ABC's of Book Sharing, a list of projects to do after reading the book. Your child must choose one to complete this summer, and bring to school in September. They will share their project in class during the first week of school. We anticipate that this project will represent the quality of work that we expect in fourth grade. These expectations include neatness, creativity, and detailed, quality work.

Your child has checked the book out and is responsible for the care and return of the book in September (the cost of the book is $8.00 should it get lost or destroyed).

Sincerely,

Mrs. Neumann, Mrs. Logan and Mrs. Szymanski

Skylark- A B C of book sharing.doc

The Olympics were a lot of fun we have some really athletic students.

Tuesday June, 10th we went on a field trip to Genesee Parks and Rec. we hiked, visited the Stepping Stones Falls and took a ride on the Genesee Belle. It was a really great field trip we recommend it to everyone. It is a sweeeet place to go as a family just to enjoy each others company, you can hike, bike or just sit and listen to the falls.

We worked hard and played hard at Camp Lael last week!

Working together to rebuild the footbridge at Camp Lael.

The Michigan Hall of Fame Wax Museum

was a huge success.

On Tuesday May, 20th in outdoor education we started working in the Chatfield gardens. We planted potatoes, weeded and turned soil in all three gardens. We worked with stone and bone hoes and deer antlers rakes. Hope you enjoy the pictures that follow we know the students enjoyed their time spent in the gardens.

In Michigan History on Tuesday, May 13, 2008 we were able to better understand how an assembly line worked. We first had one student see how many products they could produce in 3 minutes. He was able to make one per minute. Then as a group we formed our own assembly line to see how many products we could produce on the line in the same amount of time. The end results showed that the assembly line could produce 5.3 per minute, proving the efficiency of an assembly line when it is working properly.

We are busy practicing our roles as famous Michiganders. Every student in the Middle El will pick a famous person that was important in some way to Michigan and our history. They will learn as much about them as they can from research material. We will be using books, encyclopedias, and the internet. Each student will have an opportunity to present themselves as that person at the Michigan Wax Museum. This will be on Friday, May 23rd in the Chatfield Gym.

Last week we started our study of Weather and Climate.

The Easter Egg Hunt was a blast, thank you to everyone for sending in the candy and a special thank you to Mrs. Donaldson, Mrs. Loveday and Mrs. Zarate for making the hunt a success!

Middle El students dressed for St. Patrick's Day!

Spirit Week, Go Chatfield!

Tuesday: Crazy Hat Day

We have Spirit in the Middle El!

Wednesday: Crazy Hair Day

Thursday: Beach Day

Friday: Blue and Green Day

The Science Fair was a huge success!

Flint Area Science Fair Winners!

The science fair projects were very impressive, our middle El students worked hard on their projects and it really showed. We were very proud of all of them. On Friday March 7, Mr. Kraly took some of the science fair projects to the Flint Area Science Fair and Two of our Middle El student's projects won. Congratulations!

Shortly after we arrived in class on March 3, we were gathered together in the library for a special presentation. We were all given dictionaries by the Rotary Club of Lapeer, the Kiwanis Club of Lapeer and Lapeer County Bank and Trust. The representatives gave a small demonstration on how to use some of the reference material in the dictionary. We were also treated to the reading of some folk tales, the students were given certain words to look up while they were reading the tales.

We are well into our unit on magnetism, we did some fun hands on experiments in class during February and continue to work with magnets this month.

Be sure to ask your child about science court.

On February 27th we went outside to work with Peter, we used a compass to determine our direction in order to arrive at a designated area. If you would like to know if we all made it to our destination and learn a little more about it you can visit Mrs. Logan's web page.

On February 6th 2008 the Middle El took part in a reenactment of the journey a slave would take on the Underground Railroad, if you would like to follow them on their journey you can visit Mrs. Neumann's web page.

We had a wonderful time with Peter on February 13th doing volume experiments with snow and ice. We will let you know the results when we are finished. If you would like to learn more about this please visit Mrs. Dunsmore's web page.