Grandparents & Special Persons Day was a lot of fun for everyone. The students first performed songs, many using musical instruments, too. Thank you to Ms. Husing and Mr. Schwartz for organizing such a terrific assembly. Activities were planned in the classrooms and everyone had fun reading, working and making projects together. Thank you to everyone who supported the Book Fair as well.

The fifth graders participated in the regional spring Stock Market Game competition which concluded on May 4th.  Over a ten-week period, nine teams from Portledge competed against more than 200 local teams of fourth through sixth graders, including those from other area schools such as the Buckley School and Harbor Country Day School. In this real-time simulation of the NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchanges students invested $100,000 through the website smgww.org. Portledge students worked with their technology instructor, Ms. Mucciaccio, researching companies, creating graphs and developing their team strategies for buying and selling stocks. Three teams from Portledge’s fifth grade class ranked 3rd, 5th and 6th place out of the 219 teams with the highest ending equity being $106,769!  The top team, G and M, included Gabriella Rabito and Meg Weissman. Their winning strategy was, “We look at the popularity and news headlines of companies.”   Amazon and Apple were among their top stock picks for playing the game. The 5th place team, Mission Stock Market, was Laura Yardeni and Michael Venuti with an exciting final equity of $105,225! The 6th place team, Noisy Boys, was Finn McNamara and Spencer Hall, who finished with an impressive $105,172. It was a valuable experience for all the fifth graders who employed skills in technology, cooperative learning, math, and so much more!

Thank you to everyone who came to meet Lella Gandini, North American Liaison for Reggio Children. She spent a day and a half visiting the classrooms and meeting with teachers.

We had a special assembly this week on Tuesday with the fourth grade presenting their “Living Wax Museum.” The students wrote biographies on a wide range of people throughout history up to modern day. The students learned about Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Princess Diana, Michael Jackson, Mia Hamm, Michelle Obama, John Lennon, Stan Lee, and other historic figures. Everyone did a terrific job! Thanks to Mrs. Lemma and Mrs. Cavrell for working behind the scenes.

This week’s Wednesday assembly featured the Kindergarten class. They performed a play entitled “The City Never Sleeps” based on their year-long Reggio Emilia inspired project where they have been “studying” and “creating” their own cities. Thanks to Mrs. Cavrell, Ms. DeVito and Mr. Schwartz for helping the children do such an outstanding job!