We can hardly believe it’s already the final month of the school year! Together, we’ve navigated a year filled with growth, discovery, and countless memorable moments. As we approach summer, we look forward to celebrating all that our students have accomplished.
We are so grateful for the vital role you, our families, have played this school year. Your support, whether through volunteering, encouragement, or simply being a partner in your child’s education, has been invaluable to our collective success. Thank you for being a part of our school community
We are also grateful to all of you for celebrating our teachers and staff during Teacher Appreciation Week! Your generosity and recognition was so thoughtful and we are proud to work in a community that values education and the professionals who support your children.
We look forward to finishing the year strong, and if we don't see you at school, have a safe, relaxing, and joyful summer!
Last Day of School, Friday, June 27
On the last day of school, Friday, June 27, we will have our School-Wide Moving-Up with the passing of the flags and parade for our JJHS Graduating Seniors and 5th Graders. These events are for students only please.
Dismissal is at 10:45 am on the last day of school only.
If you are picking up your child on the last day, please arrive by 10:30 so that you are not entering as buses leave. If you would like your child to ride in the good-bye bus loops, then they will need to be a bus rider on the last day of school.
K-5 June Curriculum Highlights
Kindergarten: In Kindergarten, students will engage in active thinking during reading activities to balance the tasks of decoding texts and comprehension. They will develop skills such as synthesizing information while reading, focusing on story elements, predicting outcomes, monitoring for coherence, reacting to content, and asking and answering questions. In writing, students will compose persuasive letters aimed at improving their neighborhood by addressing issues observed in their classrooms or school environment. In word work, children will continue to explore digraphs and blends as they construct and read more complex words. In mathematics, students will extend their understanding of the counting sequence up to 100, including counting by tens and ones from any given number up to 100. In Science students will continue learning about Sunlight and Weather and how the sun warms the Earth’s surface.
Grade 1: First graders are ending the school year strong as they further develop their skills across the curriculum. During word work, students will practice spelling multisyllabic words with suffix endings. They will learn that –es can also be added to make a word plural. As students’ words become increasingly longer, we will focus on all the sounds in a word by naming and marking syllable types. In Writing Workshop, children will continue to produce realistic fiction stories. They will move from becoming skillful storytellers to skillful writers of stories. Our work in Reading Workshop will also support the work of our writers. Students will be studying characters closely to learn about their likes and dislikes but also learn about the characters’ feelings. Authors don’t always name how a character is feeling, so readers will have to do more work to infer precisely how a character feels and keep track of when those feelings change. In math, students will be learning the value of coins and count combinations of dimes and pennies. They will also begin to read a clock and tell the time to the half hour and hour. Our geometry unit will involve identifying two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes based on their attributes. In Social Studies students will be introduced to economics as they learn differences between needs and wants and determine when people may save or spend money.
Grade 2: Second graders look forward to many exciting activities as the school year ends. The Flag Day Concert and Field Day are among them and are fast approaching! There is also, of course, more learning to do! Measurement, Geometry, and Graphing Data are the last few units in math. The students continue to have hands-on fun in our final science study of plants and animal interdependency. Our on-going participation in the school garden supports this work. In reading and writing students are Stepping into the World of Story by reading and writing realistic fiction stories. Recognizing story elements and developing well thought out characters are the highlights of this work. We’ll wrap up Fundations with the last of the vowel teams and continued trick word practice.
Grade 3: As we approach the final stretch of the school year, there's still a lot of excitement and learning ahead. Our math unit on perimeter continues to challenge and engage students with new concepts and hands-on activities. Following this, the "Stepping Up to Fourth Grade" unit will help prepare everyone for the next academic milestone. In language arts, students are harnessing their research from our previous reading unit to craft persuasive speeches aimed at saving their chosen animals. Additionally, we will wrap up our review of the six syllable types by exploring r-controlled syllables combined with other syllable types, reinforcing essential reading skills. To top it all off, special end-of-year activities are lined up, ensuring a memorable and enriching conclusion to the school year.
Grade 4: June marks the end of a very exciting year for fourth graders. They begin the month with a kickstart to graphic novels. Not only do students study how graphic novels are made, but they also discover the technical parts of a graphic novel, including the grammatical features of comic book language. After this study, students engage in the writing process to develop their very own graphic works of art. It is a huge hit of the year! In math, students preview fifth-grade math skills in their “Stepping Up to Fifth Grade” unit. This unit includes more work with decimals, fractions, and measurements. In social studies, they will continue studying various perspectives by examining how the experiences of people from many backgrounds during the Industrial Revolution, women’s suffrage, and immigration helped shape New York’s history and influenced the way communities grew and changed over time. Finally, fourth graders will investigate waves, energy, and information in science by exploring how sound and light travel, how energy moves and changes, and how we use patterns to send and receive information.
Grade 5: June is a very exciting time for our soon to be graduates! There are plenty of 5th grade events planned with district wide field trips, visitation to the middle school, rescheduled kickball games, and moving up rehearsals. In between all of the excitement, students will continue to work on their note taking and research strategies through their unit on Civil Rights. This will further develop their skills in determining main ideas and supporting details, reading non-fiction texts and decoding technical words, as well as sorting and prioritizing information. Math will find students wrapping up the year with units on coordinate grids and algebraic thinking in patterns. Scientists wrap up exploring life at the molecular level and a journey into early civilizations takes place in social studies.
Social Emotional Learning
In May, our School Social Worker, Ms. Ryan, taught SEL lessons. In our K-2 classrooms, students read “Beautiful Oops” by Barney Saltzberg. This book uses “mistakes” to demonstrate how blunders can become wonders and teaches students that it's perfectly fine, and sometimes fortuitous, to make a mistake. Students then receive a paper with a purposeful tear in it and are asked to make their own
“Beautiful Oops”. They then share their creations with the class.
In our 3-5 classrooms, students watched the video, "What is resilience” and discussed strategies to use when things go wrong (because they do sometimes).
The focus for June is reflecting on our growth!
We are connecting this work to our June common read: Songbird by Jenn Larson.
In June, Ms. Ryan, our School Social Worker will also review concepts taught throughout the school year (size of problem, being flexible) and 2nd STEP lessons related to our monthly themes.
Belonging at IMES
In June, all KLSD schools will honor PRIDE Month. Our District, including our the Equity and Racial Justice Committee (ERJ), along with our building-level IMpact committee continue to help us create a sense of belonging in our schools and community. The guiding principle is that everyone deserves to be treated with kindness and respect, no matter who they love and how they express their identity. All students will notice the PRIDE flag displayed and a bulletin board that highlights images of noteworthy individuals of the pride community.
Classrooms will also be recognizing the federal holiday, Juneteenth.
Teachers will be highlighting Juneteeth with their students, sharing the significance and importance of the holiday. Books that we have in our classrooms that tell the story of Juneteenth include: All Different Now, Juneteenth for Mazie, Opal Lee and What it Means to Be Free, and The History of Juneteenth. Students will learn about this federal holiday which celebrates when the last enslaved people, in Galveston, Texas, finally learned they were free. Students in grades K-2 focus on the Meaning of Freedom and students in grades 3-5 focus on Freedom from Slavery.
By embracing diversity and creating a mirror and window for students, we foster an inclusive environment where everyone feels welcomed and valued.
Start with Hello Program Update
During the month of June, our grade 5 start with hello leaders will be putting the feedback they received from K-4 students into action during lunch and recess! After co-leading workshops school-wide, our leaders synthesized student responses to the question, “What can I do to reach out and help?” when a peer seems socially isolated. We presented the students' ideas and this important work to the school during our May Sharing assembly.
In the coming weeks, our Grade 5 leaders will visit lunch and recess periods to encourage our students to practice these strategies. We will also be reaching out to Gr 4 students and families before the end of the year to identify those interested in volunteering to join the Start with Hello leadership group next year.
Summer Reading 2025
June 13: All books due back to the library so if you have a book at home, please be sure to return it.
Summer is the perfect time to relax, explore, and dive into great books! Let’s keep those brains growing all summer long!
See the link below with recommendations from the KLSD elementary library media specialists!
Shout Outs!
Thank you to Mrs. Higgins, general music teacher, for an outstanding Grade 5 Play!
Thank you to our parents/guardians who made Teacher Appreciation Week incredible!
Thank you to our Green Teams for promoting sustainable practices.
Thank you to our IMpact for Kids club for contributing to the IMES Art Show and presenting at our school-wide assemblies.
Thank you to our students for demonstrating Kind, Responsible, and Safe behaviors and for working hard each day!
