Central Dauphin School District



Central Dauphin School District

Chambers Hill Elementary School

Steven Epstein - Principal

From the Principal’s Desk

June 1, 2012

Dr. Luis B. Gonzalez Dr. Carol Johnson

Superintendent Assistant Superintendent

HAVE A GREAT & SAFE SUMMER

School Office Hours – Summer, 2012

Please call the school (561-1655) if you have any questions. Mr. Epstein will be in and out, so please leave a message on his phone (x 220). The actual hours of the summer office is Monday through Thursday 7:00-5:00. You can also reach Mr. Epstein at anytime via email at sepstein@. If you know of someone who needs to register a child for school, please have him/her call the Administration building at 545-4703.

June/July/August Activities

• June 6th – 2:30pm 5th Grade Promotion

• June 6th – Last day of school for PM Kindergarten

• June 7th – End of the 4th marking period

• June 7th – Last day of school (12:00pm – noon dismissal)

• August 22nd – Back to School Day and Kindergarten Orientation (See schedule below)

• August 27th – First day of school

Back to school day / Kindergarten Orientation Schedule

Students and parents/guardians are invited to participate. Please be prompt because we will start on time. AM kindergarten families, please make sure you are at Chambers Hill Elementary to be able to leave for the 10:00am bus ride. The bus rides are for kindergarteners and their parents/guardians only.

10:00 – AM Kindergarten Run (bus ride)

10:30 – BTSD/KO for all parents/guardians and students – Meet in the auditorium (multipurpose room)

10:45 – Students and parents/guardians with teachers in the classrooms

11:05 – Switch classrooms with multiple students in the building

11:25 – PM Kindergarten Run (bus ride)

Special Events in History

On the morning announcements, we provide information on a special event in history. The following are those events that took place in June throughout history.

• On June 1st 1938, Superman 1st appeared in DC Comics Action Comic Series issue #1

• On June 4th 1800 the White House was completed and President John Adams and his wife moved into it.

• On June 5th 1876 bananas were first introduced in the United States at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia PA.

• On June 6th 1664 New Amsterdam was renamed New York City

• On June 7th 1775 the United Colonies changed its name to the United States

Supporting Academic Progress at Home – Some Helpful Hints

Get Ready for Summer!

By: Reading Rockets (2008)



Reading Rockets has packed a "virtual beach bag" of activities for teachers to help families get ready for summer and to launch students to fun, enriching summertime experiences. Educators will find materials to download and distribute as well as ideas and resources to offer to students and parents to help ensure summer learning gain rather than loss.

The school bell may stop ringing, but summer is a great time for all kinds of learning opportunities for kids. Reading Rockets packed this beach bag full of activities for teachers to help families get ready for summer and to launch students to fun, enriching summertime experiences.

In the beach bag you'll find materials you can download and distribute, but you'll also find ideas for things that you may want to gather and offer to students and parents and for connections you'll want to make to help ensure summer learning gain rather than loss.

Ideas for summer learning fun

Offer recommendations for active learning experiences. Check with your local department of parks and recreation about camps and other activities. Find out what exhibits, events, or concerts are happening in your town over the summer. Create a directory or calendar of local summer learning fun to share with your students and their families. (Be sure to note any costs involved.

Encourage parents to build reading and writing into everyday activities. Some ideas to pass along: (1) watching TV with the sound off and closed captioning on, (2) reading directions for how to play a new game, or (3) helping with meals by writing up a grocery list, finding things in the grocery store, and reading the recipe aloud for mom or dad during cooking time. More ideas at PBS Parents (in Spanish, too) and ReadWriteThink.

Encourage writing. Give each of your students a stamped, addressed postcard so they can write to you about their summer adventures. Or recycle school notebooks and paper into summer journals or scrapbooks. Check out the pen pal project at Schwab Learning or these "writing through the summer" tips from Sylvan Learning Center.

Enter a contest. Create an original 60-second video on how to help the environment. Or submit original creative writing to Teen Ink. Older kids and tweens can find a rich collection of contests in the Just for Fun section on .

Everyone's blogging! Arrange for a safe, closed community so that your students can blog over the summer. Edublogs offers teachers and students free blog space and appropriate security. Students will need an e-mail address in order to create an account. Free, disposable e-mail accounts are available at Mailinator. Students can create an account there, use the address long enough to establish the blog and password, and then abandon it. Or have parents check out SparkTop (originally created by Schwab Learning) for blogging and other writing opportunities.

Be an active citizen. Kids who participate in community service activities gain not only new skills but self-confidence and self-esteem. Help them zoom into action! Resources from ZOOM can help them get the most out of helping others this summer.

Help parents plan ahead for fall. Work with the teachers a grade level above to develop a short list of what their new students have to look forward to when they return to school. For example, if rising third graders will be studying ancient cultures, suggest that parents check out educational TV, movies, or local museums that can provide valuable background information on that topic.

Ideas for summer reading fun

Make sure kids have something to read during the summer — put books into children's hands. Register with First Book and gain access to award-winning new books for free and to deeply discounted new books and educational materials or find other national and local programs and organizations that can help.

Get your local public library to sign kids up for summer reading before school is out. Invite or ask your school librarian to coordinate a visit from the children's librarian at the public library near the end of the school year. Ask them to talk about summer activities, educational videos, and audio books at the library and to distribute summer reading program materials. Colorín Colorado has tips for parents in English and in Spanish about visiting the local library.

Let parents and kids know about the free summer reading incentive programs sponsored by publishers and booksellers such as Scholastic's Summer Reading Buzz, HarperCollins Children's Books Reading Warriors, the Brain Food program from Book It!, or the Barnes & Noble Summer Reading Program.

Active bodies. Active minds. Major League Soccer's Summer Bridge Activities website includes a "get active, get moving, get smart" section to help families find a good balance between physical activity and reading time during the summer months.

Encourage parents to start a neighborhood book club with other families this summer. It's a great way to keep the summer learning social and low-key. Warmer weather can inspire some not-so-run-of-the-mill meeting places, too: a tent or picnic blanket in the backyard. If the book club catches on, it's something to continue throughout the school year. PBS Parents has a wonderful collection of tips on how to start a club and encourage great discussions.

Online resources for parents

Share examples of good interactive educational websites that parents and young kids can explore together. Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) has an excellent bilingual site called "Let's Read as a Family" designed to help Latino families read, sing, and share stories together at home. National Geographic Kids offers great nature videos, activities, games, stories, and more. Take a trip through an amusement park of math and more at the extremely interactive math website CoolMath4Kids.

Suggest audio books as an alternative to print, especially for kids with learning disabilities that make reading a struggle. You can now download stories to iPods and other mobile devices, perfect for car rides or a lazy hot afternoon. AudibleKids has an extensive collection of downloadable books, and some of them are free through a partnership with RIF.

For students with vision or learning disabilities, tell your parents about Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, which allows their children to listen to books over the summer.

Suggest to parents that they set up a summer listening program which encourages their children to listen to written language. Research shows that some children with learning disabilities profit from reading the text and listening to it at the same time.

Distribute a checklist for parents that provides tips on how to find a great summer program. This one, developed by the Johns Hopkins Center for Summer Learning, is a good basic resource.

Build background knowledge. Put an article about summer learning in your school or PTA newsletter.

Give parents a tool to help them promote healthy and balanced media use at home during the summer months. The PACT from the National PTA may help families come up with good screen time compromises. (The PACT is also available in Spanish.)

Offer reading reminders to parents with these tip sheets from Reading Rockets available in 11 languages.

Promote simple, fun items that support the reading habit. Reading Rockets has created a "Warning! Reading Rocket in Orbit" door hanger in English and Spanish. And HarperCollins Children's Books has a colorful collection of click-and-print bookmarks.

Offer recommended reading. Books about summer stuff are fun summertime reads. The Association for Library Services to Children, a division of the American Library Association, provides updated lists for summer reading. Or ask your school or public librarian for an age appropriate reading list.

Some students enjoy doing worksheets while others get very excited about puzzle books and word scrambles, so you might send home a few of these types of activities as an option. Teacher Planet offers loads of links to summer-themed printable activity sheets. And HarperCollins Children's Books has literature quizzes, games, and printables in their Games & Contests section.

Supporting Academic Progress at Home – Some MORE Helpful Hints

10 Weeks of Summer Reading Adventures for You and Your Kids

By: Reading Is Fundamental (2000)



It's not hard to help your children keep their interest in reading and learning during the summer break. Here are ten weeks of suggestions to encourage your children to open books even after school doors close.

Children acquire skills throughout the school year, but they can lose ground if learning stops during the summer break. Fortunately, learning never has to stop. Children who read throughout the summer gain skills, can start the new school year with a better understanding of language and the world around them, and discover the joy of reading. The more they like to read, the more they will read.

It's not hard to help your children keep their interest in reading and learning. Children learn through a variety of activities, and almost everything we do presents an opportunity to read. When you're eating breakfast, read the cereal box; if you're in a restaurant, read the menu. Read the newspaper with your children and discuss what's happening in the world.

Reading every day, even if it's for just a few minutes, improves children's ability to read and learn all year long. Here are 10 weeks of activities that involve reading and related skills. There's no special order, and you don't have to do everything listed in a particular week. Just pick the ones that look interesting and fun!

Week 1: Celebrate summer

• Write a list of things you want to do this summer. Don't forget to include reading!

• Make a chart to keep track of all the books you read this summer.

• Write down on your calendar the time the sun sets today.

• Start a summer scrapbook. Include souvenirs of any trips you take, photos, ticket stubs, and projects you work on during the summer.

• List all the books by your favorite author. See how many you can read this summer.

• Swap books with a friend. Keep sharing books throughout summer.

• Take a walk. Write about or draw the things you see that show summer is here.

Week 2: Keep in touch

• Make a personal phone book. List phone numbers and addresses of your friends and relatives.

• Design your own stationery and write a letter to a friend.

• Start a journal with a friend or relative. Take turns writing in it all summer long. You can even do this by mail or e-mail.

• Write a letter to your favorite author. A librarian can help you find a postal or e-mail address.

• Draw a picture postcard of an imaginary place. On the back, write a message. Mail it to a friend or relative or put it in your scrapbook.

• The first U.S. postage stamps were designed in 1847. Be a philatelist. Design your own stamp.

• Word game! Invent a code (A=1, B=2, for example). Send a message in code to a friend.

Week 3: Discover recipes for fun

• List all the ice cream flavors you can think of. Now put them in A-BC order.

• Invent a recipe for a cool summer drink. Write it on a recipe card. Serve the drink to your friends.

• Go to the library and find a cookbook. Make the most interesting dish in the book.

• Read the directions on a box of gelatin. Ask a parent if you can help make dessert tonight.

• Work up an appetite by reading a story about food. Make and eat the food you read about.

• Word game! How many smaller words can you find in the word watermelon?

Week 4: Travel the world

• If you are going on a family vacation this summer, read about your trip. Mark your travel route on a map.

• Pretend you are going to visit another city, state, or country with a friend or relative. Write to the tourist bureau for more information. If you plan to visit a foreign country, write to the embassy. Visit the library and find books about the place you want to visit. Or search online for information. Plan your itinerary – and don't forget to check the weather!

• Pick an important news event from another city, state, or country. Find as much information on the topic as possible – read newspapers, listen to the radio, and watch TV news. Talk about what you learned.

• Word game! Look for out-of-state license plates. Make a list of all the state names and slogans. Decide which ones you like the best. Ask friends and relatives which are their favorites.

Week 5: Enjoy the great outdoors

• Pick wildflowers and press them between the pages of a heavy book until the end of summer.

• Plan a backyard camping trip with a friend. List all the things you will need to survive.

• Plan a family 'booknic' at your favorite outdoor spot, such as the beach, a park, or the woods. Pack lunch and plenty to read.

• Collect shells at the beach or rocks along a trail. Use a nature guide to identify them.

• Find something small enough to put in your pocket. Write or tell a story about it.

• Look for shapes and designs in the clouds. Draw them.

• Word game! Make a list of words to describe fireworks.

Week 6: Visit fun places

• An animal has escaped from the zoo! Make up a story about it. Tell it to a friend or family member – or write it down. Add pictures, if you'd like.

• What museums are close to your house? Are there any old, historic buildings in the area? Find these places on a map. Find out what is on exhibit at the museums and why the old buildings are important.

• Go back in time and pretend you lived in – or did business in – the oldest building in your area. Write a story about how you spent your time.

• Make a list of zoo animals. Sort them by different categories, such as type of animal (mammals, fish, etc.) or coloring (green, brown, striped, etc.).

• Visit the zoo with friends or relatives and find the animals on your list.

• Visit a museum or historical building with friends or relatives. Write a list of things you see that you didn't expect.

• Word game! Think of the softest animal or the oldest thing you've ever touched. Write a poem about it, but don't use the word soft or old.

Week 7: Become a publisher

• Make your own joke book. Collect jokes and riddles from your family and friends.

• Cut out pictures from an old magazine or catalog. Write a story about them.

• Create a rebus story (a story that uses pictures to represent words). Write a short story, and then substitute pictures (that you draw or cut out) for some of the words.

• Start a round-robin story. Write the beginning, then ask friends to add to it until it has an ending.

Week 8: Watch the skies

• Learn what birds live in your area. (Birds are described in books called Field Guides.) Wake up early to go bird watching and list the birds you see.

• Which constellations can you see on a clear summer night? Look at the sky using a star guide to help you find the constellations.

• People have been looking at the skies for generations. Ask a grandparent or a much older friend to tell you a story about his or her childhood.

• The first UFO was reported in 1947. Read a science fiction book in honor of it.

• Word game! Baseballs also fly through the sky in summer. Find a list of baseball teams in the sports section of the newspaper. Put them in A-B-C order.

Week 9: Design something big

• Invent a tool to help you do chores more easily. Draw a picture of it or make it from some old junk.

• Read aloud the names of some of the cars in the classified section of your newspaper. Design a new car and name it.

• Walk around your neighborhood and look at the houses. Design a house that would best suit your lifestyle.

• Design your own board game and write the rules.

• Everything we use was designed by someone. Start a collection of things you like, or add to a collection you already have. Use a guide to learn the value of your collection.

Week 10: Honor summer's end

• Remember the wildflowers you pressed between the pages of a heavy book? Remove them, and put them in your summer scrapbook or paste them on heavy paper to make a bookmark.

• Review the chart you made to track the books you read this summer. Pick new books to read.

• Notice what time the sun sets today. Compare it to the time the sun set during week one.

• Make a list of the supplies you need for school. Start shopping.

• Plan an end-of-summer celebration. Write a list of the 10 best things you did this summer. Design a menu of your favorite summer treats.

• Word game! Summer days are the longest days of the year. List the longest words you know.[pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic]

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