The Quokka

Dear Parents and Staff,

We're looking forward to a really beautiful weather week! I hope you and your children enjoy the warmth and sunshine!

This week on Wednesday, April 12, the elementary and middle school classes ONLY dismiss at 11:30 am. Morning Elem and MS aides should plan to stay until 12:30 pm. Preschool and K-1 have regular classes all day. Our 3rd, 5th, and 7th graders should plan to stay for the afternoon. The afternoon is an assessment day and they will be taking the Stanford Diagnostic reading and math test and will be taking breaks as well.

There are two events coming up in May that will culminate our 50th anniversary celebration:

• Sat., May 20, is our Golf Outing with a 1:30 pm shotgun start at Salem Hills Golf Club
• Sun., May 21 is our Family and Alumni Picnic from 1 - 4 pm.

Mark your calendars and more info will be forthcoming.

Warm regards,

Elaine Kennedy, Head of School & Pauline Nagle, Associate Head of School

Wed Apr 12: PM Assessment Day for ELEM & MS - Dismissal for those programs at 11:30am

Tues Apr 25: Community Meet & Greet 6:30pm - bring a dish to pass

Tues May 16: Fall Enrollment Night 6-8pm

Thurs May 25 & Fri May 26: Records Day - No school all levels; full-day Kids' Club Thurs May 25, May 26-No Kid's Club

Mon May 29: Memorial Day - No school all levels

Wed June 7: Performance- PS, K/1, EL, MS, Graduation 6:30pm at the PARC

Thurs June 8: Field Day & Last day of school - Dismissal 11:30am, Kids' Club all levels 11:30am-6pm

Summer Science Camps are back at New Morning School for 2023! 4 weeks available for ages 3 through entering 5th graders. Ages 3-5 are half-days and those entering Kindergarten through 5th grade can enjoy full days. Before and After care also available!

Many New Morning School staff will be working during Summer Camp including Ms. Danielle, Mr. Russell and Ms. Lisa. You can have the confidence that your child will be in good care over the summer.

Check out the details in our brochure. Contact us with any questions you may have! Registration is open now. Space is limited, so sign up early!

Register at: https://www.newmorningschool.org/summer-science-camp

In a few weeks you'll be receiving a SignUp Genius notification. Please sign up for shifts to volunteer for our picnic and golf outing.

NMS families scheduled to clean the school this weekend are the Opara, Drake, Blomberg/Moss, Corliss and Akinbosede families. Cleaning checklists will be available on the counter at the front desk Friday afternoon. Thank you for keeping our school sparkling clean!

Grab some friends and join us as we continue to celebrate New Morning School's 50th Anniversary with a scramble format golf outing on May 20th! Click below to sign in and sign up! Space is limited.

Preschool Teachers:

Marisa Downs marisa@newmorningschool.com

Danielle Provencher danielle@newmorningschool.com

Preschool News

We are gearing up for warmer spring weather. 🌞This week our classrooms will learn about bees! We’ll have some real beekeeper items, books, and lots of fun. Some art choices will be to make honeycomb cereal necklaces, bee bracelets, painting a honeycomb with bubble wrapped rolling pins, and portfolio work for the month of April. At the discovery tables, we’ll have a pollen transfer game, bee math, a bee hive spelling game, and end the week with a honey taste test. Friends enjoyed the rainbow water beads so much we’ll continue to play with them in our sensory tables for one more week.

Since the weather is warming up, please retrieve your child’s sled if they have one at school. Also, it’s time to switch out winter gear for rainy gear. Labeled boots and jackets can be left in cubbies if that’s your preference. Your child has surely grown, so switching out their change of clothes to a larger more seasonally appropriate set is also a good idea. Lastly, safe running shoes for school is recommended whether or not it’s a gym day.

Our teachers for the letter S are Ryan and Mabel in Danielle’s room and Evelyn and Gavin in Marisa’s. The kids have been doing an excellent job!

Mark your calendars for an upcoming field trip to the Ann Arbor Hands on Museum on May 3rd. Here’s the link to the information page, Preschool Field Trip- Ann Arbor Hands on Museum. Please turn in the money and bottom portion of the page by 4/28. It’s going to be a great experience!

Lastly, it’s time to replenish some of Oreo and Snicker’s supplies. If you are able, please check out this Amazon wishlist. Items can be purchased at a local pet store instead if you’d rather. Also, for example, the timothy hay doesn’t need to be this exact brand. If you find a better deal, get it! Thank you!!https://www.amazon.com/registries/gl/guest-view/1DL6WYBXYPLXL

Make it a wonderful week. ~Danielle and Marisa

Teacher: Pauline Nagle pauline@newmorningschool.com

Lead Aide: Shelley Blakeney

Dear Parents,

We hope you had a wonderful weekend and Easter holiday. Last week, we enjoyed learning about the fun adventures many of the kids had over the break, whether at home or on a trip. Ms. Shelley and I had some time to get away and feel refreshed and ready for the remainder of the year!

Reading & Writing

We continue to work with phonics, practicing our sounds and using the tapping and graphing method to blend CVC words. We are practicing how to smoothly put the first consonant and vowel together, then add the last vowel.

Our fluent readers are practicing "tricky" or sight words that are individualized and reinforcing short vowels. They'll be delving into long vowel patterns in the next few weeks.

Journal topics have ranged from ocean life questions to thinking about how to make someone's day brighter. We are noticing all of our students building in the many skills that they are learning into their journal writing. Letter formation and spacing is getting into place, along with the use of sight words and sounding out words while writing. Many students can do this with support.

Math

Early mathematicians are working to build their knowledge of numbers up to 20. We are focusing on counting after 10, starting with 10 and then counting up, rather than starting from the beginning with 1. This helps students gather the idea that in numbers 11-20 there is 1 "ten" and then some more, and then when we get to 20, there are 2 "tens".

Our next level mathematicians are working with number bonds, understanding that addition and subtraction problems can be though of as wholes and parts. Part + Part = Whole or Whole - Part = Part

PBL - Ocean Life

We have been learning about different animals in the ocean, mammals and sharks have been a very interesting topic. We also talked about the word "coast" and how the landscape can look different. We learned that 71% of the earth is covered in water! As we get closer to earth day, we'll be discussing pollution and how that effects our ocean waters and ocean life. More to come!

SEL - Social Emotional Learning

This week we are focusing on making good choices for ourselves for learning and how to voice our needs or concerns with kindness. Something that we can all practice is how we have a "tone" or a way that our voice sounds and we can make it kind or hurtful. We are catching kiddos use their kind voice and making sure they can hear how wonderful it sounds when used.

Just a reminder, that K-1 kiddos have a FULL DAY of school on Wednesday, April 12.

Best,

Ms. Pauline

Teachers:

Hannah Diaz hannah@newmorningschool.com

Christine Jansen christine@newmorningschool.com
Cynthia Weber cynthia@newmorningschool.com

EL Lead Aide: Karen Staples

Welcome back from Spring Break!

We have had lots of energetic students this week, eager for spring weather.

Thanks for everyone’s support in making Reading Month a huge success!

We are planning some fun math activities for our Math Fun Fair on Thursday, April 27. If you would like to help run an activity, please let us know.

Social Studies

This week everyone will be researching information about the state they selected. We are planning on having them present their information the following week to their classmates. We listened to the song, Tour the States.

Reading Groups

Each reading group started a new book last week. We will be reading together and discussing, they will have assigned reading, and we will be practicing comprehension strategies while reading these books. There will be assignments based on their books that they will need to complete. We will also work on new vocabulary words. The Floppa Blades are reading Where the Red Fern Grows, The Cactus Clan are reading Number the Stars, The Bagels are reading Holes, Pug Puppies are reading Ralph S Mouse, Banana Nenes are reading Mouse and the Motorcycle, and Pumpkin Spice is reading Flat Stanley. The hardest part about reading such a great book is not reading ahead. Ask your child how they are liking their book and what they remember about what they have read.

Writing Groups

We are continuing our work from last week. We have been editing our Spring Break writing pieces. We’ve been working hard to proofread on our own before asking someone else to proofread. I have seen a leap in confidence as they are critiquing their own work as well as giving helpful suggestions to peers. We also are continuing to go over the grammar practice activities that were given earlier. We journaled about living in a swimming pool, and living in a world with one color of our choice. Ask your child what color they chose and why! Some of the responses were very deep!

Math Groups

Last week we kicked off our Amazing April is Math Month! It was fun seeing everyone practice their math skills with their snakes, bears and frogs. Then on Wednesday we pulled out a bin of math fiction books. They found many stories that looked at numbers in different ways. It was great to see math coming alive in new ways.

Fortenite Kittens - have started a unit of kittens. This week they are making choices on what they need to buy their foster kittens within a budget of $250.

Pug Puppies - This week we will be exploring area and perimeter and how they are related.

Bagels - This week we are taking their dividing skills to explore averages and dividing with decimals.

Cactus Clan and Floppa Blades - We have reviewed adding fractions with denominators and Greatest Common Denominator. We will continue working on fractions this week.

Have a great week,

Christine, Hannah and Cynthia

Teachers:

Linda Hyde linda@newmorningschool.com

Nicole Matoian nicolem@newmorningschool.com

Hello Middle School parents!

I hope you enjoyed the holiday weekend with your families and were able to get out and enjoy the weather as well!

We have a busy week ahead. Just a reminder that Wednesday is a half day so that our 7th graders can begin the Stanford Test in the afternoon. Students took a practice test last week and did well on it.

Language Arts Groups B and C will read chapters 8 and 9 of The Outsiders and take a Vocab Test on Friday over words they will encounter in their reading. Students will focus on comparing and contrasting characters as well as the Cause/Effects of key decisions/actions taken by the characters as they near the climax of the novel.

Language Arts Group A will read chapters 10-12 of Kira-Kira and take a Vocab Test on Friday over words they will encounter in their reading this week. Students will continue to focus on writing a summary of the chapters they read, analyzing literary elements, and focusing on events leading to the climax of the novel.

In Social Studies, students will continue to work in small groups to research Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English Explorers of the New World. Students will construct Google Slide presentations to share with their classmates. Presentations will begin next week.

In Math, Group A will use a variety of strategies to multiply and divide decimals. Students will use knowledge of place value, base 10 diagrams, estimation, partial products, and partial quotients to assist them in their calculations. Group B will use patterns to multiply and divide negative and positive numbers. Students will use signed numbers to represent elapsed time and elevation in real-world situations. Group C will calculate the volume of cylinders, cones, and spheres and apply this knowledge to real-world situations. Students will also compare and contrast the formula for volume of a cylinder with the formula for volume of a prism.

Have a great week!

Ms. Linda and Ms. Nicole

Office Phone: 734.420.3331

Email: nms@newmorningschool.com

Elaine Kennedy, Head of School elaine@newmorningschool.com

Pauline Nagle, Associate Head of School pauline@newmorningschool.com

Joan Barrett, Admissions Director joan@newmorningschool.com

Kit Zrull, Administrative Assistant nms@newmorningschool.com