Middle School Newsbite: January 27th, 2025

Posted Date: 1/27/25 (7:51 PM)

Celebrating 5th & 6th Graders

To celebrate student growth and success on the iReady diagnostic and all their accomplishments leading into the 2nd half of the year, we threw 5th and 6th grade breakfast celebrations. Thank you to the SHRSD PTO for providing donuts, chocolate milk, and orange juice for everyone!

Teachers as Scholars

Ms. Isabella's Research on Family Literacy Published by the Rutgers Center for Literacy Development

The Rutgers Center for Literacy Development at the The Rutgers - New Brunswick Graduate School for Education shares a newsletter that reaches 10,000 people. Ms. Isabella's studies on family literacy featuring her engagement with South Hunterdon families last year was featured on page 7 of the newsletter.

Ms. Isabella wrote, "Family literacy is closely connected to closing the achievement gap and improving overall reading comprehension. I was interested in this topic because of its relevance and because I wanted to encourage families to remain involved in their child’s education beyond second grade."

Through her research, Ms. Isabella realized that many family literacy programs were conducted in person, but many parents were unable to attend. In response, Ms. Isabella created weekly videos focused on fun and simple reading and writing activities that parents could complete with their children in just 5-10 minutes per day.

Reading Activities

1. Making Predictions
2. Asking and Answering Questions
3. Making Connections
4. Echo Reading

Writing Activities

1. Letter Writing
2. CUPS Strategy
3. Opinion Writing
4. Research Writing

In her videos, Ms. Isabella showed families how to make predictions before, during and after reading a book. She focused on how to ask deeper comprehension questions and use the text to answer them. She explained different connections that could be made to the text, such as text to self or text to the world. She also showed parents how to echo read with their children to improve fluency.

Ms. Isabella taught parents how to practice creating letters and addressing them to different people. She shared the CUPS strategy, which is an acronym for capitalization, understanding, punctuation and spelling. She modeled how parents could use would you rather questions to encourage opinion writing. Ms. Isabella also supplied parents with resources to help them participate in research writing with their children.

Ms. Isabella's third grade classroom was previously featured here, and you can learn more about her dog, Riley, here.

Congratulations, Ms. Isabella, on your research and hard work!

Library News

Ms. DiSalvi focuses on Science

During the month of December, Ms. DiSalvi worked with 5th grade science classes to enhance their study of Earth's systems. Students researched the four major systems and worked together to create a 3-D hanging Earth.

In January, Ms. DiSalvi worked with 6th graders on the cause and effects of rising global temperatures and climate change. During their research time, they focused on organizing information, identifying valuable websites and paraphrasing. After conducting their research, students worked together in cooperative groups to choose their own presentations.

What's Coming Up?

Important Dates

01.27.25 Board of Education Meeting
01.28.25 Start of High Impact Tutoring
01.30.25 Report Cards posted on Parent Portal
01.31.25 5th Grade Field Trip @ Arden Theatre
02.10.25-02.13.25 Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) Week
02.13.25 Field Trip - Cereal Box Drive
02.14.25 & 02.17.25 School Closed - Presidents Weekend

After School Programs

Floor Hockey Tuesdays through March 11
Coding Club Thursdays through February 27th
Science Olympiad Rotating Dates
High Impact Tutoring Tuesdays, Wednesdays & Thursdays through May 1st