Dear Cerrito families,

A heartfelt thank you to all of you for your thoughtful year-end gifts and cards. We are truly touched and moved by your sentiments. A special thank you to Erin Pederson for organizing the Amazon wish list for all of you to help stock our library with  beautiful books for next year and beyond. Check it out!

Another special thank you to Katy Grannan and John McNeil, who continue to blow me away with their generosity and mad skills. Here is a rough cut of the class play, courtesy of John and his studio. It takes a few minutes to download, but I’m pretty sure you’ll want to see this. I’ll switch this link out with the final once it’s ready.

Fifth graders heading into sixth at TBS or elsewhere: you know what to do because Loa told you all about it. You can email her if you have any questions: lortiz@theberkeleyschool.org.

Fourth graders heading into fifth grade, here’s what you need to know about staying sharp this summer. Avoid the summer slide…unless, of course, you are at a water park 😉

Math: Show Me 1/2 packet. Do it all by the beginning of fifth grade. It’s easy…ish once you get rolling. Keep in mind that the “1” changes after ten pages or so, so watch out for that.  You will need Cuisenaire rods to complete the packet. Here’s a link to the rods. Bring them to school next year and you can use them in class, too.  I will also let you sign some out for the summer, if you don’t want to buy them and promise to return them. Fractions are the hardest work of fifth grade math, so get ahead. Julia also sent home your Bridges workbooks, so if you really love math and want even more, do a page or two a day to get even more practice. If you lost your packet in the final day shuffle, here’s a download to the whole thing!

Reading: You must read one of the following two books this summer for a lit circle we will have in the first few days of school in September. Read about them to decide which one is right for you! You may of course read both (and lots more!).

Guided Reading Level R

From Kate DiCamillo’s website: The summer Opal and her father, the preacher, move to Naomi, Florida, Opal goes into the Winn-Dixie supermarket and comes out with a dog. A big, ugly, suffering dog with a sterling sense of humor. A dog she dubs Winn-Dixie. Because of Winn-Dixie, the preacher tells Opal ten things about her absent mother, one for each year Opal has been alive. Winn-Dixie is better at making friends than anyone Opal has ever known, and together they meet the local librarian, Miss Franny Block, who once fought off a bear with a copy of War and Peace. They meet Gloria Dump, who is nearly blind but sees with her heart, and Otis, an ex-con who sets the animals in his pet shop loose after hours, then lulls them with his guitar. Opal spends all that sweet summer collecting stories about her new friends, and thinking about her mother. But because of Winn-Dixie or perhaps because she has grown, Opal learns to let go, just a little, and that friendship-and forgiveness-can sneak up on you like a sudden summer storm.

Guided Reading Level Z (in our experience, this is such an engaging story that readers at about level U and above enjoy this book)

From Wikipedia:

Ada is a ten-year-old girl who has never left her apartment in London. Her abusive mother is too embarrassed to let her go outside because of her clubfoot (a twisted foot). Ada is forced to spend her days inside a one-bedroom apartment with only a window that lets her see the outside world. She spends her entire life crawling and can barely stand up. She cooks and takes care of her six-year-old brother Jamie.

The year is 1939 and World War II has started. The government begins to evacuate children out from London, to escape from the war, sending them to the countryside. Ada’s mother does not know if she will send Jamie but does not want to send Ada. She tells Ada that nobody will want to take care of her, and refuses to send her away. Ada has spent all summer teaching herself how to walk and decides to leave with Jamie without their mother knowing.

When they arrive at the countryside, nobody wants Ada and Jamie, so they are sent to live with a woman named Susan Smith. Susan lives alone in a two-floor house and makes it very clear that she does not want kids, thinking she is not fit to care for them. Ada’s experience in the countryside is very different from her life in London. She is able to go outside, learn new things and be taken care of, in contrast to her life in London where she was abused physically and mentally. Ada’s low self-esteem prevents her from appreciating everything that Susan is doing for her. In the countryside, Ada teaches herself to ride a pony, and learns how to read and write. Moreover, in the countryside, Ada learns that her clubfoot does not have anything to do with her intelligence.

After months of Susan trying to contact Ada’s mother for permission to operate on Ada’s foot, Ada’s mom appears to take the children away. She brings them back to London where she has moved to a new apartment, and takes Ada’s crutches away. Continuing to abuse Ada and refusing to let her outside, she is not interested in taking care of her or Jamie and only moved them back because it was going to be cheaper for her. Ada confronts her mother and finds a way for her and Jamie to move in permanently with Susan. The story ends with Ada and Jamie unwittingly returning the initial favor of being able to live with Susan, as a bomb struck Susan’s home while they were away, completely obliterating it. The story ends with Ada saying: “So now we’re even”.

 

Writing: As the great writing teacher Hannah Sippl likes to say, “A writer is someone who writes.” Simply put, you will get better through practice, as you saw this year. Keep a journal this summer and jot down a few lines every day. Sometimes write a page or more! Keep up the practice. Kids, this is a great excuse to get your parents to take you out to a good stationery store and have them buy you the journal of your dreams and a cool pen.