Dear Parents,

With the cold weather upon us, we are seeing increase in illness. We appreciate everyone's mindfulness as we balance staying in school with keeping your kiddos healthy and well. One thing we learned over the Covid-19 pandemic is that masks work from a protection stand point. You may want to consider having your child wear a mask at school more often during this winter season. Masks are available at the front desk as you walk in.

Thank you for all of your donations for our annual auction. The auction team is hard at work with inventorying and making sure we are ready for our remote and in-person event. It is really helpful if you turn in items as you get them so they do not have a rush of items at the last minute.

On Wednesday, Dec. 21, we have another chance to come together in community at our Holiday Performance. The performance takes place in the evening and will be held at the PARC. While the students are preparing for their part, get your singing voices ready for our community sing-along portion as well. It's going to be great!

Have a wonderful week!

Warm regards,

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

Wed 12/14: Santa Shop

Fri 12/16: Spirit Day Holiday Style and Pizza Lunch

Wed 12/21: Holiday Performance 6:30p at PARC, Last Day before Break

Thu-Wed 12/22-1/04: Winter Break - NO SCHOOL and NO CHILDCARE

Mon 01/16: No SCHOOL - Martin Luther King Day (no childcare)

Tue 01/24: Community Meet & Greet - required Bylaws vote 6:30p

Young children and their grown-ups are invited to frolic this Winter at

New Morning School. Me and My Shadow is a toddler and parent program designed around 2 and 3 year olds. The program allows toddlers an opportunity to experience a preschool setting.

Our Me & My Shadow classes provide special one-on-one time for parents and children and first steps toward socializing with other children.

Parents and children will enjoy • Music • Finger-play • Art • Readiness • Snack • Story time

Please share with your family and friends that are parents of toddlers! Thanks for spreading the word!

New Morning is a great place for kids and families. Thank you for choosing us to be your school community. We are even greater when wonderful families like you join as well. Please share our Open House dates with families, friends, neighbors, relatives that you think would enjoy our program as much as you do!

Tis the season to meet up with friends, family and co-workers. It is a great time to spread the word about our phenomenal prizes listed below:

1st prize - Long weekend located in West Olive, MI cottage on Lake Michigan. (Dates agreed upon by donor (Sleeps 7)).

2nd prize -Blackstone flat top 2 burner gas grill/griddle.

Tickets are available for $100 thru Shelley Blakeney sb1132@yahoo.com or (248)787-9687. Kit also has tickets available for purchase at the front desk! Please return stubs completely filled out ASAP to Shelley or Kit. Final collection deadline for completed stubs is February 1, 2023.

Lifetouch will return to New Morning School this Friday 12/16 from 9-11am, to photograph anyone who was not present during picture day. If your child had their photo taken, but you would like a retake, please bring your child's picture packet to school that day. There will be order envelopes available.

The envelopes for the Santa Shop will be in your mailboxes today. The Santa Shop is scheduled for Wednesday, December 14. Please take the time to fill out the envelopes with the names of people your child will purchase gifts for. It will help the Santa Shop Helpers guide our young shoppers! Last year was such a huge success for everyone! All the children delighted in making purchases for the special people in their lives!

Although the Santa Shop is on Wednesday, December 14, preschoolers who come on Tuesday and Thursday are also welcome to come to the shop.

The store will be located in the elementary classroom. The schedule is for preschool to come through from 9- 9:45am, the kindergarten - first grade from 10 - 10:45am, middle schoolers from 12:30 - 1pm and elementary students from 1- 1:45pm.

Ms. Hannah is coordinating our Food Drive for the Oaks Village Homeless Shelter in Monroe. Ms. Hannah and her husband regularly support Oaks Village and we are joining her in giving this holiday season. Oaks Village is not government subsidized, so they rely solely on donations. Because they do not have government requirements, they are able to provide more support for longer durations for families.

Additionally, all proceeds from the Santa Shop will be put towards a video game console for Oaks Village. The Elementary students wanted to provide something that kids would enjoy when they take shelter there. Thank you for being a part of supporting those in need!

In conjuntion with the donations to purchase a gaing system for Oaks Village, we are asking for canned or non-perishable foods to be donated. We have placed a large box where the mailboxes are located to make it as painless as possible. This small act of kindness will make the holidays merrier for families in need. We will have the box available until Friday, December 16.

https://www.oaksvillage.net/oaks-shelter

Preschool Teachers:

Marisa Downs marisa@newmorningschool.com

Danielle Provencher danielle@newmorningschool.com

Preschool News

Warm greetings! This week we’ll be finishing up holiday gifts and sending them home, practicing for

our performance, and working on December portfolio work. Feel free to listen to "Frosty the Snowman" and "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" on repeat to help your child learn the words! We’ll have a new version of fake snow in our sensory tables. Wednesday is our school Santa Shop hosted by our elementary friends! Information and envelopes went in family mailboxes last week. If your child doesn’t attend on Wednesday, they are welcome to shop anytime besides lunch (11:30-12:30). The shop will close at 2:30.

Our teachers for the letter “I” are Charles and Lea in Danielle’s room and Atticus and Patrick in

Marisa’s.

You may have heard some talk about a pair of guinea pigs who are looking for a home and a

classroom considering pets. It’s true and it’s our class! Before I commit, I’m looking for feedback from our families. Please take a moment to fill out the following google form.

https://forms.gle/dAEpUksJ2Brm7Drh8 Thank you!

Have a wonderful week!

~Danielle and Marisa

Science Teacher:

Russell Lightfoot russell@newmorningschool.com

Hi everyone,

I’m in need of some kind volunteers to help feed the salmon over Christmas break. I’m going out of state with my family, so any help would be appreciated. It doesn’t need to be every day, every second or even third day would work well. The food quantities are all set and I can give you further information if you are interested.

So, if you are able to pop into school between Friday 23rd December and Wednesday 4th January, please email to let me know. Even if there is only one date you can do, I can start to make a schedule. If you have any questions please let me know. It really is a quick job that should only take a few minutes.

Many thanks in advance,

Mr. Russell

Teacher: Lucy Bratt lucy@newmorningschool.com

K-1 Lead Aide: Shelley Blakeney

Dear Parents,

We had a lot of absences due to illness last week. I do hope everyone is feeling better. We are doing the best we can to limit the spread of germs; we’ve learned about microbes and the children are being given frequent reminders about proper handwashing and hygiene when blowing noses or coughing etc.

Due to low numbers we kept new content to a minimum last week, which gave us a chance to solidify learning of recent key concepts. It also gave me a chance to carry out a few assessments and to add some fun challenges as extension tasks. We enjoyed a few craft activities and our classroom is looking festive with homemade holiday decorations. We have been busy learning our songs for the holiday performance on December 21st. And during free choice time, the children collaborated to create a candy store in our creative play area. Everyone joined in with creating “candy” for the store using various materials. It was a joy to watch them role-playing together in their make-believe world.

We are almost at the end of our addition Math unit and this week the children will be introduced to word problems and column addition.

In Writing we will be continuing to focus on nouns and in Reading we will be covering the sounds oo/oo, y, x and ch.

Finally, a few reminders:

• The New Morning School Santa Shop will be held this week on Wednesday, which is an opportunity for the children to buy holiday gifts for family members. Please ensure you return their envelopes, money and list of who to buy for before then.

• Children will need a Christmas/holiday outfit to wear for our holiday performance on December 21st.

• Tuesday December 20th will be a Christmas/holiday PJs day.

Have a great week,

Ms. Lucy

Teachers:

Hannah Diaz hannah@newmorningschool.com

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

EL Lead Aide: Karen Staples

Santa Shop

This is the week for our Santa Shop. Everyone has applied for a job and is excited to purchase gifts for their families. We are asking everyone to wear something festive on Wednesday. It can be a Santa hat, antlers, or festive holiday sweaters. Please be sure to fill out the Santa Shop envelope to help your child know who to purchase gifts for. Thanks for your help in making this a fun event for our scholars!

The Birthday Committee

The birthdays from September, October, November and December have planned their celebration for Thursday, December 15. They have declared it a PJ and Stuffed Animal Day!

Acts of Kindness

The elementary class has invited the Kindergarten-First Graders to cookies and watch the Polar Express together! We will be doing this on Tuesday, December 20!

Here's to another wonderful winter week,

Christine, Hannah and Cynthia

Teachers:

Linda Hyde linda@newmorningschool.com

Nicole Matoian nicolem@newmorningschool.com

Greetings Middle School Parents,

We're continuing our countdown to the Winter Holidays. Last Wednesday, our Middle School class enjoyed a wonderful trip to the Detroit Institute of Arts where students learned more about Renaissance Art, viewed the Diego Rivera murals, Rembrandt's work, Egyptian, African, and Native American Art, and enjoyed a delicious lunch. It was a memorable trip! This week we continue to practice our rendition of the famous holiday poem "The NIght Before Christmas" which we'll perform at the Holiday Performance on the night of Wednesday, December 21st.

Also, we plan to have a small holiday celebration on the 21st and would appreciate food donations for the party. Please let us know what treats you plan to send in for that day.

This week we have a lot to learn. In Language Arts, ELA Group A will read and study the poem "Identity" by Julio Noboa and then compare and contrast the speaker's view of their identity with both the character Amy in the short story "Fish Cheeks," and the narrator, David, in the short essay "Chameleon." Students will learn how to write a comparison contrast paragraph and how to employ transitional statements and supporting quotes. ELA Groups B and C will read the short story "The White Umbrella," by Chinese American writer Gish Jen, and the short story "Hello My Name Is....." by Korean American writer Jason Kim, and analyze symbolism, theme, and how the main characters changes over the course of the story.

All Language Arts groups will be assigned a list of 15 words on Vocabclass.com from the last two weeks of their reading. They will practice working with these words this week and take a test over them on Monday of next week, the 19th of December.

In Social Studies, students will learn about Northern European Renaissance Humanists, Erasmus and Thomas More, the invention of the Printing Press by Johannes Gutenberg, and Northern Renaissance writers like William Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Rabelais.

In Math, Group A will be taking an assessment on our Ratio unit. We’ll break the assessment into small chunks over a period of a few days. Group B took a unit assessment last Thursday in which everyone did very well. Group C will take their unit assessment on Tuesday of this week.

Ms. Nicole will need to report for Jury Duty on Thursday of this week. Hopefully I will be excused or only need to report for a short period of time. Ms. Karen will be the sub in my absence. Students in all math groups will review concepts with fun, holiday math activities during these last 8 days of school. We’ll begin new units of study when we return in January.

Enjoy the 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