Midway Mustang Memo
March 2023
Dear Midway Families,
As we welcome in March, we are so grateful for the sunshine, smiles, and successes of our Mustangs! We want to celebrate and congratulate our Science Olympiad Team, a 4-H winner, our Oratorical Speaker and Technology Competition participants. Our first Science Olympiad Team knocked it out of the park last month at the competition held at Lambert High School. We had six different partner teams win awards and we recently found out the Mustangs placed 4th overall in the Science Olympiad competition. We are so appreciative to our staff member, Cassidy Walker, for investing her time each month to prepare the students. We also want to thank Denmark Student, Navya A, for helping as well as the parents of the participants. We look forward to growing this team in the future.
We want to recognize Midway 4th grader, Shaurya, who placed 1st at the District 4-H Project Achievement with his Environmental Science project. The program offers the opportunity for students to select a project area of interest, research the topic, write a speech, and present it in front of judges using a poster and prop. We also want to recognize 5th grader, Siddharth, who represented Midway in the Forsyth County Oratorical competition sponsored by the Sawnee Cumming Optimist Club. He spoke about “Discovering the Optimism within Me” and did a wonderful job. Public Speaking is such an important life skill and to begin developing in this area in elementary school is quite inspiring. We are so very proud of both boys! Congratulations on a job well done, Mustangs!
Congratulations to Midway's Lanier Regional Technology Competition participants. We had a great number of participants this year and are so proud of each of them! They created a technology project, shared their knowledge with the judges, and displayed strong presentation and collaboration skills. The projects included coding, animation, project programing, video production, graphic design, 3D modeling, digital game design, and internet applications. Two students placed first in their categories of internet applications and project programing. Lakshmi V and Ashrita S will represent Forsyth County Schools at the State Technology Competition on March 11th.
We are truly grateful for our Amazing PTO!! They recently sponsored two wonderful events...Fun with Your Son and Dance with Your Daughter. Both had record attendance and everyone had so much fun. So many people shared their time and talents planning, organizing, setting up, decorating, volunteering and cleaning up. Thank you from the bottoms of our hearts for pouring into the lives of each of our Mustang Family Members. Also, thank you to PTO for brightening the Midway campus with new flowers.
We are in the process of beginning to plan for next school year. Parents may submit input regarding their child’s learning style and characteristics of the type of learning environment that may best meet the needs of their child. Please be assured we read each submission and consider the information when forming classes. Our goal is to set each student up for success. The Parent Input survey will close on Friday, April 28, 2023. Please click on this link to share your input.
Looking ahead to the Georgia Milestones State Assessment, that our 3rd – 5th grade students participate in during the spring; we would like to work together to make your child’s experience a positive and successful one! Here at Midway, students have been preparing all year long as they gain grade level knowledge and skills. Below are some suggestions you can do at home to help start the day positively:
Ensure your child arrives at school on time.
Have your child eat a healthy breakfast at home or school.
Ensure your child gets a good night’s sleep.
Encourage your child to do their best.
Please see this link for additional resources and information about the Georgia Milestones Assessment.
Thank you for your continued partnership. We are here to support you and appreciate you sharing your precious children with us each day! Please let us know if you have any questions or need anything at all.
Kind regards,
Daphne Rogers
Jennifer Brown
Davis Barlow
Midway's Oratorical Participants
Midway's Oratorical Contest Winner
Midway's Oratorical Contest Winner
4-H winner
Midway's Science Olympiad Team
Midway's Science Olympiad Team
Midway's Technology Competition participants
PTO Dance with your Daughter Event
PTO Fun with your Son Event
Important Dates
March 6th-10th: School Breakfast Week
March 9th: Early Release
March 10th: No School for students
March 24th-30th: Spring Book Fair
April 3rd-7th: Spring Break-No School for Students
April 14th: Denmark Community of Schools Spring Fling
Spring Book Fair
Literacy Corner
Greetings, Families!
It's hard to believe that March is already upon us! Now is a perfect time to begin preparing students for summer reading! Continue having conversations with your child about their power goal and what strategy they are using to practice. If students are in grades K-2, word work and talking about the stories they are reading are great ways to help them learn. If you have a child in grades 3-5, asking them to retell what they're reading about, and asking them about meanings of words and phrases is helpful.
At this point, your child should have a good understanding of what kinds of books they like to read. Help them expand their love for books by investigating new series. Partnering with your local library and entering into summer reading clubs is a wonderful way to keep your child engaged as well. As always, listening to your child read nightly is a great way to understand how they're doing, while also sharing quality time together. In addition, for each 15 minutes of reading they do, they should continue logging one step in their reading logs. Each night, two steps (30 minutes) is encouraged.
I am happy to help you and your child with additional information and resources! Feel free to reach out to me anytime!
Sarah LeBlanc
Instructional Literacy Coach
Mathematician Spotlight: Greg Tang
Author and math-guru, Greg Tang, combines his love for numbers and reading into picture books that kids from kindergarten to fifth grade can enjoy. My personal favorites are The Grapes of Math and Math Fables. Readers unknowingly learn problem-solving tricks and strategies with riddles that offer clues on how to look at the problem creatively. Our school library and Forsyth Public Library have many of these books that your child can check out. In addition, Greg Tang has a great website for students with interactive skill and learning games, along with brain teaser puzzles.
As always, reach out to your child’s teacher, or to me, for additional support or questions. I’d be happy to recommend more math picture books based on skill!
Mary Catherine Adam
Math Instructional Coach
Counselors Corner
As we step into Spring, we wanted to share some helpful resources with you that can be found on our Midway Counseling Webpage. You can access the webpage here:
Midway Counseling Webpage https://www.forsyth.k12.ga.us/domain/3073
There are two great community parenting resources available during the month of March for anyone that may be interested. More information can be found here:
Community Parenting Resources https://www.forsyth.k12.ga.us/Page/55619
We recently presented information about Zones of Regulation at our last Coffee with the Counselors and those resources can be found here:
Zones of Regulation – a tool for emotional regulation https://www.forsyth.k12.ga.us/Page/55999
Next month we are planning to host a Coffee with the Counselors on Internet Safety. There will be representative from FCS School Safety department, as well as a representative from the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office. TENTATIVE date is April 13th @ 6pm.
In the meantime, we encourage you to listen to our other Coffee with the Counselor sessions on Anxiety and Zones of Regulation if you were unable to attend.
Coffee with the Counselors https://www.forsyth.k12.ga.us/Page/54593
As always, please reach out if we can be of assistance to you or your child.
Stacy Hodges, Grades K-2 and Mandy Malcolm, Grades 3-5
STEM Summer Camp
PTO News
Thank you to all the families that participated in the Midway PTO hosted events: "Fun with your Son", and "Dance with your Daughter". We had nearly 300 participants on both nights, there was a lot of Magic and Dancing at the school, thank you for all that participated. We hope you will join us again next year!
March 13th starts Teacher Appreciation Week. Please look out for the PTO flyer in your child's fold for more information. Let's make 2023 a huge year to celebrate our school, teachers and staff!
We hope you will check out our Dream Dinners Spirit Night fundraiser.
- Visit the Dream Dinners website https://dreamdinners.com/main.php?page=store&id=29
- Choose any March "Special Event" time to pick up at the Dream Dinners in Cumming, GA store.
- Enjoy 3 delicious family dinners prepared in our local prep kitchen for just $60!
- Thaw, cook, enjoy.
Forsyth County Schools does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, age, disability, or gender in employment decisions or educational programs and activities.
Midway Elementary School
Email: jlundstrum@forsyth.k12.ga.us
Website: www.forsyth.k12.ga.us/midway
Location: 4805 Atlanta Highway, Alpharetta, GA, United States
Phone: 770-475-6670
Facebook: facebook.com/midwayes
Twitter: @MidwayES