Newsletter - Pleasant Valley Community School District

Bridgeview News
March-April-May
Bridgeview Office Number
332-0215
Address:
316 S. 12th Street
LeClaire, IA
Web address:
www.pleasval.k12.ia.us
Upcoming Events:
Bridgeview Celebrations
It is hard to believe we are beginning the final stretch of our 2014-15
school year. We have much to celebrate and many goals to achieve yet
at this point in the school year. A wonderful parent resource is now
available through the Iowa Reading Research Center at http://
www.iowareadingresearch.org/literacy-resources/supportingmaterials/ . This website offers many fun tips that are research-based in
parent-friendly language regarding interacting with your child(ren)
through literature.
Spring is almost here and with spring comes baseball. Therefore, we
have a fun goal set for all Bridgeview students to meet their nightly
reading expectations and have parents sign off on their spring reading
promotion sheet in order to get free tickets to a Quad Cities River Bandits game later this spring. Please read the hand out with your child
(ren), sign off on the sheet weekly from February 23 through March 27
and have your student turn in the sheet at the end. This is a great way to
celebrate literacy and enjoy some family fun at the ballpark soon after!
School Safety and Procedures
Bridgeview’s parking lot procedures have been carefully analyzed and reviewed. They
are posted on the website at http://www.pleasval.org/pdfs/bridgeview/
ParkingLotDiagram&Directions.pdf or available in hard copy form in our office. Please
make sure any adults responsible for dropping off and/or picking up students have read
these directions carefully. Also, please note the following:
Our top recommendation is for students to enjoy a safe and healthy walk or bike
ride to school and home. Encourage students to dress properly for walks/rides to and
from school.
•
If personal vehicle drop off or pick up is necessary, it is strongly recommended that
students are picked up safely (meaning they do not have to enter traffic) off of Davenport Street to the east of the building or Stagecoach Trail to the west of the building.
•
3-2-Solo Fest @ JH-4 PM
3-3-Conferences 3:30-8 PM
3-4-Early Dismissal 1:30 PM
3-6-no school-Kindergarten
Kindergarten registration
9 AM-cafeteria
3-9-School Board Mtg.-5:30
3-10-PTA Mtg.-6 PM
3-13-Spring Break through
March 20
3-23-School Resumes
School Board Mtg.– 6 PM
3-26-Spring picture Day
4-3-No School-Good Friday
4-7-8th Grade Band tour
4-8-Early Dismissal 1:30 PM
4-9-PTA Skate Party-6 PM
4-13-School Board Mtg.-6 PM
4-14-Biz Town Interviews
PTA Mtg.-6 PM
4-15-Elementary Choral Tour
4-20-MAP Testing-through
May 8
6th grade district band
Rehearsal-Gray
4-21-6th grade district band
Rehearsal-Blue
4-23 BLAST 6 PM
4-24-WALK-A-THON
4-27-School Board Mtg. 6 PM
District Band Night-Gray
6:30 PM
4-28-District Band Night– Blue
6:30 PM
4-30-Beg & Int. 6th grade choir/
Orch. Concert 6:30 PM
5-1-Grandparents Day 1 PM
5-4-Safe Routes to School
5-5-First grade-Learning
Campus
5-6-Early Dismissal 1:30 PM
5-7 Science Camp
5-8-Science Camp
5-11-School Board Mtg. 6 PM
5-12-Biztown
6 grade orientation-9 AM
PTA Mtg.-6 PM
5-14-2nd Grade –Botanical
Center
5-20-6th grade Track Meet @
HS
5-21-Flag Essay Ceremony
8:45 AM
5-25-No School
5-26-School Board Mtg.-6 PM
5-28-Last day of School-Early
Dismissal-11:30 AM
Kindergarten
We have had a busy winter staying warm inside Kindergarten! We have been snuggling up with lots of great non-fiction
books!! Zero the Hero helped us celebrate being 100 days smarter. You should have seen all of the great 100s Day collections!! We are looking forward to a fun-filled spring. We have some exciting science units coming up that include observing worms, fish & butterflies and a fun filled trip to the zoo…unless there is still snow outside!!
In first grade, the students have been reading many, many books! Thank you, parents, for helping your child with reading at home. Learning to read is a complicated process that takes practice and patience. We use several reading strategies at school that can also be used at home. They are as follows:
Look at the Pictures for Clues
Start the Tricky Word
Use your Tucker Signs
Skip the Word but Go Back
Look for Chunks
Flip the Switch (long or short vowel sounds)
Ask “Does it make sense?”
All of these strategies are familiar to the students. You may help your child by prompting him/her to use some of these
strategies, especially when reading their Book Baggie books.
We will be celebrating “Read Across America” in March and reading lots of Dr. Seuss books. You can read these with
you child too and enjoy the wonderful world of Dr. Seuss!! If you don’t have any Dr. Seuss books, you can go visit the
library. They have a wonderful selection! There is also a great website to go do some phonics games:
www.seussville.com
We will continue our Social Studies units with learning about maps, what groups we belong to, how families are special, and what families need and want. We will finish our last unit in Science with pebbles, sand, and silt. We have a
lot of really fun activities the students will enjoy!
Coming up in Math, we will continue our spiral curriculum with telling time to the half-hour and quarter-til, addition
and subtraction, and problem solving. Keep up the good work with getting the homework done for our math lessons!
The students are really starting to understand the concepts even more.
We will begin our CORE unit #5 and continue work with the units. Some of the things we will work on for Unit 5 will
be sequential storytelling, key details, central message, nouns and verbs.
This year has gone by so fast and the kids are learning so much! Thanks again for all your support at home with our
reading and math homework.
2nd Grade
Energy is in the air as we anticipate the promise of warmer weather with spring on the horizon! Mrs. N and
Mrs. H are channeling all of the students’ wonderful energy into some fantastic learning.
In Language Arts the students have been assigned the job of “book critic”. They are presenting their book reviews via iMovies. We can’t wait to share them with you at conferences! Students have been learning the difference
between facts and opinions, and then defending their opinions with evidence from the text. We are also working on
compare and contrast with both fiction and non-fiction texts with a focus on cultural differences in literature. Finally,
collaborating with peers continues to be a common thread throughout our language arts unit. Please remember to have
your child read 20 minutes each evening and fill out the monthly reading calendar!
In Math, we are working on a unit that focuses on number patterns to develop our readiness for multiplication
and division. **Please continue to work on basic addition and subtraction facts (up to 18).
After spring break we will begin our second science unit all about plants that will include a trip to the Quad
City Botanical center.
Finally, Mrs. H and Mrs. N are so excited for conferences and to be able to share second graders’ hard work
and progress. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to have these important conversations.
- - 3rd grade - The third semester is underway and the 3rd graders are working hard. The students will have an opportunity to show
their point of view in both literary and informational texts. Students have a chance to form an opinion based on the character,
author, or narrator’s point of view. This will also carry over to our next writing project of expressing their personal opinions
and thoughts on a chapter book they are reading. Students will have a chance to present and persuade their audience to read
their selected book! Their ideas, voice, and word choice will be stretched to the max in this writing piece! Later, we will focus
our attention on literature circles for the remainder of the year. Literature circles are a great way for students to interact with
one another on discussing and analyzing characters, setting, and plot.
There will be lots of hand-on activities in math and social studies. For the remainder of the year, our focus will be on
fractions, multiplication, division, and fractions. In social studies, we have taken a turn right into our community! Students
will be discovering important aspects in the Quad Cities and in Iowa. Topics include Iowa’s basic facts, representation, famous landmarks, and people. The students always look forward to learning about the state they live in!
Fourth Grade News
We are gearing up for a busy spring in 4th grade. We have many field trips coming up to help us prepare for the
highly anticipated trip to Biz Town on May 19th. The students will be interviewing for their job at Biz Town on April
14th. We will help them prepare for this interview at school, but please help them prepare at home as well so that they
feel very positive and confident on that interview day. We also enjoyed our first field trip of the year to Q.C. Symphony
in February.
We are winding up our Southeast and Midwest Units in Social Studies. The rest of the year will include short
visits to the remaining regions of the United States and learning about the history of LeClaire. Thank you for your help
with the postcard project in 4H. Postcards have been pouring in and we are having a great time checking the mail each
day, as well as sharing them with the class.
Upcoming math units will be covering perimeter, area, and percent's. Please continue to practice long division
and double digit multiplication with your children. Just one problem a night will help reinforce and retain those concepts.
Mrs. Hamann & Mr. Nichols
Fifth Grade Flashes
Fifth grade has been working on summarizing, identifying the theme in poems, and figurative language in reading.
In writing we have begun writing opinion articles. Colonial America and the Revolutionary War are the next topics of
study in social studies. We are finishing positive and negative numbers in math and will begin working with fractions,
percent's, and decimals next. Math facts have shown lots of improvement, but please continue to work with them at
home. A few minutes a night makes a big difference. Please continue to encourage your child to read at least 30
minutes every night and record it on his/her reading log. We enjoyed meeting with you at conferences. Have a wonderful spring break with your families!
Mrs. Larson and Mrs. Sitrick
This is a busy and exciting time of the year for 6th graders! We’re finishing up our 2nd Inquiry Based project where students
researched a famous, historic speech in order to prepare an Informative Essay and present in front of a panel their claim of the
speech’s impact on history. Math finds us delving deeper into Algebraic concepts and principals we touched on earlier in the
year. No matter what we’re working on in math, students are continually pushed to “prove” their answers and “explain” their
understanding. In social studies, we’re coming to the end of our stay in the Far East and getting ready to head back west
where we will finish the year in ancient Greece and Rome. The interactive Greek Wax museum is always an end of year
highlight. Some big things 6th graders have to look forward to: visit to the Jr. High, 6th Grade camp out, 6th grade track meet,
and so much more!
Measels Info. Some of you will have received letters mailed to you regarding the measles and actions that will be taken in the
event there is a case at Bridgeview. Note that to date there have NOT been any cases of measles reported. You received a letter
if your child has not been fully vaccinated with the MMR. We do understand that in some circumstances you were left with no
other choice and unable to vaccinate.
We are taking measures due to the fact that several surrounding states have confirmed cases of measles putting Iowa at risk of
having measles brought in by infected persons. The Pleasant Valley District will be working closely with both state and local
health officials in the event of an outbreak. To read more about measles go to the following web pages: http://www.cdc.gov/
vaccines/vpd-vac/measles/fs-parents.html or http://www.idph.state.ia.us/idph_universalhelp/main.aspx?
system=IdphEpiManual&context=measles_factsheet.
2015/2016 Future Kindergartners: Welcome to Bridgeview! We are looking forward to learning all your new faces. Parents
we just want to make sure you are aware of the necessary health documents that HAVE to be on file by the start of the
2015/2016 school year. An immunization record, dental record, and vision screening is by law required in order to start
the school year! We also request that you have a physical on file typically the vision screening can be done at the time of the
physical. Please start setting up these appointments now so there are no surprises when your kiddo wants to start school and
cannot because the documentation is not complete. You can start bringing this information in anytime if you already have.
4th Graders: Sometime in April we will have your human growth and development class held. This will be a one day event.
Boys and girls will be separate. Girls will be taught by Mrs. Albrecht and Mrs. Strobbe and the boys will be taught by Mr. Duwa. We will discuss basic hygiene, puberty changes occurring at this age. Prior to this class a letter will go out informing you
what day this will be held.
Dental Bus: Our six month check-up will be occurring for those students that were seen on the Give Kids A Smile Dental bus
in the fall. Once again the bus will be present to see how everything is going for these students. Call if you have any questions
regarding this. This date is set for April 17th.
6th Grade Campout: If you have a sixth grader that is attending the sixth grade campout in May please remember any health
needs they may have and notify the school prior to this trip so accommodations can be made. We also ask if your student will
be in need of any medication that you provide this to the school in a day advance to avoid any confusion on the busy morning of
departure.
6th Graders: On your preparation for the junior high please remember that your student will be in need of a Tdap vaccine along
with a physical if they plan to participate in any sports. Check with your family Dr. if your student already has or is in need of
this vaccination.