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Riverdale Heights
Elementary School
May 2015
Important Numbers:
Attendance: 332-0616
Main Office: 332-0525
Belmont Administration
332-5550
Upcoming Events:
5-12
5th gr. Field trip to
Wallace’s
5-12
6th grade visit to
Jr. High.
5-12
3rd grade field trip
to Lock and Dam
5-20
6th grade Track and
Field Day at HS
5-22
Kdgn field trip to
Niabi Zoo
5-24
HS Graduation
3:00 PM
5-25
NO SCHOOL
Memorial Day
5-28
LAST DAY
Have a safe summer!
See you in August.
Address:
2125 Devils Glen Road
Bettendorf, IA 52722
Web address:
www.pleasval.k12.ia.us
From the Principal
It is hard to believe how fast the 2014 – 2015 school year flew by! I
want to thank everyone for their support and partnership in working with
your children this year. I am very excited to return next year to a new class
of kindergarten students and another year with your children. Though I am
sad to see our 6th graders go, I am excited for them as they begin their transition to Junior
High.
PTA: I would like to send a huge THANK YOU to all parents that served on PTA this
year, along with all those that attended meetings. I truly appreciate all the time and effort
they put forth to plan activities for students and their families, along with all they have
done to raise money for the school and provide club opportunities for students. They are a
great group of people to work with and I value their ideas and suggestions in helping activities run smoothly at Riverdale Heights.
PARKING LOT SAFETY: Please continue to be mindful of parking lot procedures.
Please follow parking lot signs, even in low traffic times. I have been told of several close
calls with people not following the “Do Not Enter” sign, and there are many more children biking and walking to school this time of year. It is important to be attentive in the
parking lot and in all areas around the school to ensure student safety. Thank you for your
help in following procedures.
LOST AND FOUND: Our lost and found has grown over the last few months and contains many great items! Please check our lost and found and claim any items you may be
missing. Lost items not claimed will be donated in the summer months.
As the year concludes we will be saying goodbye to the following staff members:
Jaime Monreal, Erin Latoria, and Carrie Moberg will be pursuing other opportunities.
Jaime is moving back to Chicago to be close to family. Erin Latoria will be the ELP
teacher at Hopewell and Carrie Moberg will become an Instructional Coach at Pleasant
View. I would like to personally thank each of these teachers for their dedication to
Riverdale Heights and the students. They will be greatly missed.
I hope everyone enjoys a safe and relaxing summer break and look forward to seeing
everyone at the start of the 2015 - 2016 school year.
Jennifer Gertson, Principal
Honoring Our Flag
On May 8th the entire school honored our flag and
our veterans at a ceremony outside around the flag pole.
Bob Brockhouse of the LeClaire American Legion presented a flag to Vinay Joshi as the winner of the
Riverdale Heights fifth grade “What the Flag Means to
Me” essay contest. Our Harmonics group sang the National Anthem, our band trumpets played “Taps”, and
the students and staff sang patriotic songs. Also honored were several military veterans, including parents
and grandparents of our students.
Riverdale Heights Meet and Greet
Parents—
Meet and Greet for next school year will be held on Wednesday, August 19 from 5:00-6:30pm.
Registration packets need to be returned to the office by Wednesday, May 13, 2015. A completed registration
packet reserves your classroom spot for next year. We are asking for your help in making this work:
•
If possible, put extra money in your child’s lunch account BEFORE the end of this school year. This money rolls
forward to next year.
•
Also , any registration paperwork needs to be turned in by the end of the school year.
Last Day of School - May 28th!!!
Students will be dismissed at 11:30 and no lunch will be served on this day.
As the year closes, remember to have students return all their Library materials. Search the backpacks,
bedrooms, closets, and any other likely (and unlikely) hiding places for these elusive items. Otherwise,
district policy is to bill the student for the missing books or magazines. It’s much easier, saving time and
trouble and paperwork, for everyone to simply return the materials. Everything must be returned by May
21st at the latest so that we can complete the library inventory.
The winner of the Iowa Children’s Choice Award for 2014-15 was The Ghost of Graylock by Dan
Poblocki. Out of the nearly 20,000 votes from across the state, this title was over 800 ahead of any other entry, even though there were some outstanding selections by excellent authors. Next year’s list of
titles is available in our library as well as the public libraries.
Over the summer, take time out of your busy schedule to read and write. There are many great books out there waiting to be discovered. For the older kids, try All the Answers by Kate Messner, or Island of Shipwrecks: The Unwanteds by Lisa McCann. Middle readers might enjoy Tales of the Great Beasts, a special edition in the Spirit Animals series, or a couple new Big Nate books by Lincoln Peirce.
For the younger crowd, Samantha Berger has a fun story about a crabby
kid called Crankenstein. Another wonderful title is William Joyce’s awardwinning book, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. Check
out the outstanding video on Youtube.
Don’t forget to visit the Bettendorf public library and be sure to take part in
their summer reading program. Enjoy the time off. Relax, recharge, and read.
Miss Iowa Visit
On April 29th, Miss
Iowa, Aly Olson,
came to visit us at
Riverdale Heights.
She read to each kindergarten class as
well as talking to the
all the students about
diversity at a school
assembly.
Have a GREAT summer!! Do all kinds of wonderful things, go on exciting adventures,
read a ton of books, and come back ready for school in August!
We can’t believe that our Kindergarten year has come to an end. The year has just flown by so
quickly! The kids are all excited about first grade and summer! May is a very busy month for us in
kindergarten. We are looking forward to our last field trip to the zoo on May 21st. Please make sure
to send a sack lunch with your child, dress them appropriately for the weather, and apply bug spray
and sunscreen lotion before sending them to school. We will have our track and field day on May
22nd. Please watch for classroom notes for the scheduled time. We have been studying butterflies
in our classrooms. We are anxiously waiting for them to become butterflies! We will get to watch them for a short time
before releasing them. Thank you so much for sharing your children with us this year! Have a wonderful summer!
What a fantastic year it has been in First Grade as we learned to read and write, and extended our
knowledge in math. It never ceases to amaze us how much growth our students make over the course of
a year. And it’s not quite over, with Track and Field Day yet to come.
With a few months off from school, it’s very important that the students keep practicing what they
have learned over the year. Please continue to have your child read and journal this summer. Also, keep
reviewing those math skills! This will help the students to be ready to go when they start second grade in
August. Have a wonderful time with friends and family enjoying the hot and sticky Iowa weather.
As we finish our school year, Second Grade students will be reviewing the main reading skills and strategies we
have covered this year, including asking and answering questions, retelling stories, comparing and contrasting, finding
main idea and details, finding morals of stories, and using illustrations and text features to improve comprehension. Students will be reading independently with teachers using the Fountas and Pinnell series in order to determine
their current reading level. Students will also read short stories to measure fluency, accuracy and comprehension.
We will complete Units 11 and 12 in math, which focus on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division story
problems and review calendar, clock skills, timelines, multiplication and division facts, graphs,
and the mode of a data set. Continue to practice addition and subtraction problems because all
students are expected to have 95% mastery of these problems for the tests soon. Students can
begin to practice multiplication facts over the summer for third grade!
Students have been learning so much about the life cycles of plants, plant parts and their jobs,
plant uses and how plants grow since our ‘gardens’ began! We will take our field trip to the Botanical Center later this month on Friday, May 15th. Please make sure to send a sack lunch that
day!
A note will be coming home soon about the last Four Fabulous Days of Second Grade. Students will participate in
Game Day, Pet & Picnic Day, Track & Field Day and Gum Day. Please let teachers know if you have any questions
after you have read the note.
Please make sure to continue reading with your child over the summer and consider getting a public library card if
you do not have one! It is very important that students continue to read throughout the summer in order to be prepared
for third grade and continue making growth as readers! Thank you for all you have done throughout the year at home to
support your students!
May has arrived and before we know it summer will be here. However, Third
Grade is still running hard towards that finish line, summer break. In English Language Arts, we will finish discussing point of view. Students get to show off their
yearlong learning on a couple assessments that will be taken the last two full weeks
of school. Make sure they come to school prepared; meaning they have eaten a
healthy breakfast and have had good night’s rest. Additionally, students will be writing opinion pieces and researching information about Iowa. In math, we ask that students continue working on their basic facts, especially multiplication. Finally, this
month third grade will visit the Buffalo Bill Museum and then Lock and Dam 15.
Let’s have a great ending to third grade so each student is ready for fourth grade!
The Fourth Graders are finishing the year strong with Biz Town! The students participated in mock interviews on April 14th at the Jr. High. A huge thank you to parents
and people from the community for giving their time so the district’s fourth graders
could experience this educational opportunity. The fourth graders held elections for
Mayor of Biz Town on the 15th of April while showing great support for all the candidates during this democratic process. We attended Biz Town on May 5th and all businesses paid off their
loans. Students did well recording their expenditures in their check registers and used debit cards for the first time! In
our last chapter of math the students will be learning about rates: solving rate problems, converting rates, and doing
some comparison shopping. In social studies we will wrap up our study of the regions. It’s been a year filled with lots of
learning. Have a great summer!
The Fifth Grade students had the opportunity to visit Wallace’s Garden Center on May 12. They learned the difference
between annuals and perennials. They also learned about
ground cover and which plants survive the best in direct sunlight. The students then worked in groups to select flowers to
be planted in the butterfly garden.
In math, students have been reviewing the properties of geometric solids.
They learned how
to use a formula
to calculate the
area and volume
of various shapes.
Students will
wrap up the year
taking a brief
look at probability.
Science Camp was the highlight for the month of May for the Sixth Graders. Nothing can beat
hanging out with your friends outside, discovering caves, splashing in a creek, sitting around a camp
fire, eating s’mores and sleeping in a cabin all during two school days! Thank you to all of the parents
and teachers who make this outdoor classroom possible. Valuable life lessons are learned and memories are created to last a life time! Track and Field Day is on May 20th. Students will have an opportunity to spend the day exercising and meeting new friends from other 6th grade PV elementary schools
in our district who will also be attending. The 6th graders are also looking forward to their Celebration Day on May
26th, celebrating their time here at Riverdale Heights, group games, pizza for lunch and a roller coaster movie will be
the exciting events on this special day. It has been a fabulous year. The 6th graders have used their lifeskills of caring,
responsibility, teamwork and effort. They have prepared themselves for their next step in their education. Mrs. Merrill,
Mr. Ruth, Mr. Barber and Mrs. Sokolik wish them all the best as they move out to the PVJH!
Flag Ceremony
May 8th, 2015
Summer Reading From Scholastic
Scholastic is offering an online summer reading challenge, with
tons of activities, polls, quizzes, along with book recommendations for any reading preference, from nonfiction to fiction. They
also will be highlighting featured books each week by popular
authors. Kids can earn points for the number of minutes they read,
and participate in an attempt to set a world record for reading. For
more information, go to http://www.scholastic.com/