One thing is for sure! 1M girls LOVE to read!!! We love to read with our neighbors

and we love to read to ourselves! Your daughter has probably shared that since Homework folders have stopped their homework is to read 30 minutes each night. They can read books, magazines, sports scores or recipe books. As long as they are reading! Maddie and Madison highly recommend a timer. It is hard to keep track of the time when you are fully engrossed in a book. Of course we highly encourage reading all summer long. There are summer reading assignments for each grade.

They and a wealth of other information is posted on the library Haiku page.

www.schacademy.haikulearning.com/rdeberardinis/lsgirls-summerreading

You can also check out books from the SCH libraries. Here is a message from the librarians about how to go about it:

Summer is fast approaching, and, hopefully, is a time for your schedules to be a little more relaxed - with more time to read, enjoy and discuss books! To support your "book-filled" summer, the SCH Academy Libraries on both campuses encourages you to borrow one, two or a whole stack of books for the summer. Come and browse, then scan/check the books out with a librarian. Borrow books for you, your partner or kid(s)!

To return the books, you can: drop them off at the receptionist station on either campus

OR keep them ALL summer and return them when you get back to school

OR email Rene at: rdeberardinis@sch.org -- to arrange for a time to meet at a SCH Library over the summer to swap books AND borrow more! If you would like your daughter to choose h er own books to borrow for the summer, please send in a note or email authorizing your child(ren) to borrow SCH Library books for the summer: Rene at: rdeberardinis@sch.org OR feel free to stop in with your child(ren)! Thanks - and happy reading!

Here are some of the talking points we remember Gigi sharing: • Rhinos horns are being hunted also for beauty products and medicine • Palm Oil is in lots of things like skittles and Oreos. They plant it and cut down rainforests where the orangutans live • Taking animals and using them in commercials and TV shows isn’t nice • Elephants stay alive a long time, like 60 years • 40,00 muscles in an elephant trunk • An elephant that was captured from its mom and put in the circus and made to ride a bicycle and they rescued it. His name was Nicholas and he was rescued. He was an orphan elephant. • At the orphanage they treat the baby elephants like the mommy would. • The trainer that pretends to be the elephant’s mom sleeps with them. On the ground! • The trainer does basically everything with them and sometimes gets days off • They have the elephants meet every trainer so they won’t be too attached to one person. They would be too sad if the person wasn’t there one day. • When the Orangutans sleep in the trees they may be ready to go back in the wild and they pick two to put in the wild together • The dad elephants leave the group for a bit • The adult animals are killed for their tusks and the babies are orphans and the rescued orphans go to the orphanage.

Chicks 2013 from Stephanie Moore on Vimeo.

A belated Thank You to everyone who conspired to surprise me. It is quite hard to do so I was rather impressed!

Customize a thank you

The entire First Grade engaged in a design thinking project over the past few weeks. We saw how many children in Kenya make toys from found materials. We worked to design a toy for another First Grader!

Design Toy from Stephanie Moore on Vimeo.

There have been reports of a small herd of African forest elephants found in the Wissahickon woods. They are being referred to as the 1M herd. They were spotted getting a drink at the stream and traveling down the trail! Be on the lookout!

Grandparents and Special Friends from Stephanie Moore on Vimeo.

first grades red giant concert from Stephanie Moore on Vimeo.

Can you find our lines of symmetry?

Symmetry from Stephanie Moore on Vimeo.