The Quokka

Dear Parents and Staff,

Didn't we have a wonderful event this past weekend? It was so good to see all of us together with our friends and families. The auction was a new hybrid format - remote and live - and everything worked out well.

Thank you to our co-chairs Jillian Beckley and Elizabeth Scero. They orchestrated a first-rate event with help from all of you and their team: Lisa Alberts, Shelley Blakeney, Katelyn Drake, Andrea Glomski, Heather Johnson, Kristen Haas, Katie Huber, Angella Martzig, Brigid Perrine, and Kate Schanne.

A big thank you goes to Joan Barrett who did so many auction tasks, including reservations - managing ticket purchases and the seating plan. Job well done, Joan!

I'm glad that the auction was not my final good-bye. That would have been too hard. The school is now in the very capable hands of Pauline and all of you. Pauline comes with new skills and talents that will help the school to grow and thrive.

Warm regards,

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

Wed March 15: Parent-Teacher Conferences - No School all levels - There is Kids' Club.

Fri March 17: Brain Day!

Tues March 21: Parent-Teacher Conference - Elementary ONLY dismisses at 11:30 am. There is Kids' Club in the afternoon.

Fri March 24 - Fri 31: Spring Break - There is Kids' Club if you sign up in the office.

Mon., April 3: Classes resume

We have one more Parent Focus Group session left! We hope to see you join Pauline for a time to share your thoughts about New Morning School.

If you would like to sign up for this make-up session, please click on this Sign-Up Genius link: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F054EADA72DA7FE3-parent.

Saturday, March 18, 9am Make-Up session for all programs

We look forward to welcoming prospective families in the coming months. They are always so eager to learn about the school. Our best publicity is word of mouth. Here are ways you can help:

• Talk about the school when you are with friends
• Share our postings on social media. That can make a big difference.

New this year, Dearborn Brand has joined us as a Platinum Sponsor. Thank you to Kathryn and Aaron Peacock for supporting the school's auction.

Full day Kids' Club will be available on Wednesday, March 15, as there will be no school for all levels for Parent-Teacher conferences.

Also, extended Kids' Club will be available Tuesday, March 21. At 11:30am, Elementary students ONLY dismiss for Parent-Teacher conferences. Kids' Club will run in the afternoon.

There will be full-day Kids' Club during Spring Break, Friday March 24-Friday March 31. Please sign your child up at the front desk, so we can staff accordingly.

We are looking for a family to take Oreo and Snickers home for the upcoming spring break. It’s not too soon to consider being vacation hosts for Spring Break, which is March 24-April 2. If you are able, please email Marisa@newmorningschool.com.

Mr. Russell is looking for a family (or families) to feed the salmon during the upcoming spring break, Friday March 24-Sunday April 2. Please email Mr. Russell at russell@newmorningschool.com, or see him at school if you are able to help.

NMS families scheduled to clean the school this weekend are the Corliss, Huber, Haas, Baker/Edwards and Martzig families. Cleaning checklists will be available on the counter at the front desk Friday afternoon. Thank you for keeping our school sparkling clean!

Anyone who turned in their pizza money for last Friday will receive their pizza order this Friday 3/17! Please do not enclose bills larger than $20 in your child's pizza envelope. Thanks!

Preschool Teachers:

Marisa Downs marisa@newmorningschool.com

Danielle Provencher danielle@newmorningschool.com

☘️Hello Preschool, families and friends☘️

March is Reading Month rolls on. This week we will be reading books by authors / illustrators, Bryan Lies, with his series of bat adventures and Chris Van Dusen, with his series of “If I build a…” imagination adventures books.

This short week will not host a “Teacher of the Week” but is still sure to be filled with fun and wonder. Our kiddos will work on portfolio work this week at Art, and our Discovery stations will host a leaping, leprechaun counting game and a lucky gold coin dice roll game. Shaving cream and cloud dough will keep hands busy this week our Sensory stations.

*Notes to remember:

• No school on Wednesday, 3/15 for parent-teacher conferences

• This Friday, 3/17 is Brain Day at NMS. There will be a special presentation that will teach us interesting facts with hands-on activities all about the brain. We may even have a chance to hold or touch real brains

• Coming up next week on Tuesday 3/21, we will celebrate Character Day schoolwide. Kiddos can come to school dressed up like their favorite book character.

• Next week on Wednesday, 3/22 and Thursday, 3/23, our preschool rooms will have pajama day.

Thank you so much for coming out and supporting our kiddos, our school, and our vision at our 50th NMS annual auction. It was an amazing event and an extraordinary evening to be able to spend with everyone.

☀️Here’s to a wonderful week ahead☀️

~Marisa & Danielle

Teacher: Pauline Nagle pauline@newmorningschool.com

Lead Aide: Shelley Blakeney

Dear Parents,

Reading month continues to be full of fun and silliness! Here is the calendar again with our planned activities.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1grCoLAinh8HoJVrUyy7O0fiNNg7SCp9J7p1UqRXsvfo/edit?usp=sharing

We loved hearing our favorite poems and Ms. Shelley brought some leprechaun fun, reading a story about those mischievous gold diggers and making a trap. It seems like the leprechauns were enticed with our gold, but responded with a “Nice Try!” note, so we are going to have to try harder. The class decided that if we each made a trap, we were bound to catch one on St. Patrick’s day. We’ll be making blueprints for our individual traps on Tuesday and making them on Thursday. We have 6 shoe box sized boxes and need 6 more, so if you have any laying around, please send them in tomorrow!

Reading

Last week was filled with a lot of phonics practice and learning. Early readers are learning how to use their sounds and blend them together to read consonant, vowel, consonant (CVC) words and our primary readers are learning about double letters and blends. It’s so fun to see kids begin to connect sounds with letters to make words. When you are out and about, if you have an early reader, encourage them to sound out short words or parts of words, especially with those patterns.

Math

In math, we are continuing to practice building our number sense, writing numbers in all forms, and building numbers with our ten frames and base-ten blocks. For developing mathematicians we are talking about comparisons between numbers using mathematical language like how many more, what’s the difference, which is fewer. Knowing how to talk about numbers is just as important as knowing how to add and subtract.

PBL

We noticed that many kiddos have peaked an interest in ocean life. Last week we began exploring things we know about ocean life, building a KWL chart (Know, Want to know, and what we have learned) This week we will explore what we WANT TO KNOW about ocean life and begin a class study. It’s such a fun topic. We can’t wait to see where the kids want to take this learning.

We’ll also have Brain Day on Friday, where we will do some special learning activities with some students from Wayne State University.

Thank you for your attendance and/or support of the NMS 50th Anniversary Auction. It was a wonderful event, both in-person and on-line. It certainly takes a village and we thank you for your part in our success!

For those I haven't met with, I look forward to seeing you at Parent/Teacher Conferences this week on Wednesday, March 15th.

Please let me know if you have any questions or needs!

Best,

Ms. Pauline

Teachers:

Hannah Diaz hannah@newmorningschool.com

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

EL Lead Aide: Karen Staples

Happy St Patrick's Day! Those pesky leprechauns may appear this week. They always have a way of causing mischief in our classroom. The students can make a leprechaun trap this week to help catch them. Our comedy show is also this week. Each student will tell 2 jokes. They do need to be approved by the teachers. We can't wait to laugh with our friends. Thank you to all the mystery readers that have come in to read. We love having guests and listening to great books. There are still some openings if you would like to come in. Happy St Patrick's Day! Please click on this SignUpGenius link to be a Mystery Reader: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080e48aaa72ba4fa7-mystery#/

Our students had a special speaker Lizzie come into class Thursday morning and teach them how to use procreate. They created some great art and learned a lot about the program.

Reading

The scholars are finishing up book reports and will be presenting them to their classmates. This is a fun way to show what they know about their books. Ask your student what kind of book report they are doing. They have been working hard to complete them. Please help to encourage your students to read at home and fill out their reading log. They should be reading 3 days a week. They are working together to earn some treats. In group this week they will be having a book tasting and sampling different books and filling out a review on them. This is a fun way for us to talk about different genres and messages books can help teach us.

Writing

In Writing group we are working on compiling a booklet of poems. We have written Acrostic and Shape poems and soon will be jumping into Limericks. Some groups will be trying out Haikus, Cinquains, Diamantes, and other types of poetry if time allows. We are also continuing to practice our proofreading skills.

Math

• The Fortnite Kittens are working on telling time on an analog clock and practicing addition with regrouping.

• The Pug Puppies are working on learning their multiplication facts and discovering the tricks to figure out a story problem.

• Bagels are discovering the joy of long division.

• Cactus Clean and Floppa Blades are working on division with decimals.

Important Dates to Remember:

Monday : Read to your stuffed animal.

Wednesday : No School - conference day

Thursday: Comedy Show

Friday: Bran Day We will have special guests teaching us about the brain. Also wear green for St. Patrick's Day!

If you have any questions please let us know.

Hannah, Christine and Cynthia

Teachers:

Linda Hyde linda@newmorningschool.com

Nicole Matoian nicolem@newmorningschool.com

Hello Middle School Parents,

It was wonderful to see so many of you Saturday Night at the New Morning School 50th Anniversary Gala. What a wonderful and generous outpouring of support for New Morning School! We feel it is a privilege to be part of this wonderful community.

Just a reminder that we will see many of you for the Student-Led Parent Teacher Conferences this Wednesday, March 15th. Also, in celebration of March is Reading Month, next Tuesday, March 21st, we invite students to come to class dressed as their favorite literary characters. We can't wait to see what the students choose to celebrate!

This will be a busy week for Middle School. Students will take last Friday's scheduled Vocabulary tests on Monday, and then receive new words to coordinate with their reading for another test on this Friday, the 17th.

Students seem to be enjoying reading their novels. This week Language Arts Group A will finish Chapter 3 of Kira Kira, and then move on to read Chapters 4 and 5. Language Art Groups B and C will read chapters 2 and 3 of The Outsiders. Both groups will discuss and answer comprehension questions about the assigned sections of their novels.

In Social Studies, students will complete their study of the Protestant Reformation by answering some comprehension questions, and later in the week we will focus on some significant women in history as a celebration of Women's History Month.

In Math, Group A will begin a new unit on Dividing Fractions. We’ll begin by reviewing the terms “dividend” and “divisor” as we explore how the size of the divisor affects the quotient. Group B will also begin a new unit on Rational Number Arithmetic. Our first focus will be on adding and subtracting signed numbers (negative and positive) in different contexts such as temperature, elevation, and deposits and withdrawals. Group C will continue their study of functions by beginning to draw their own graphs of functions that represent real-world stories. We’ll also determine whether a function is increasing or decreasing based on whether its rate of change is positive or negative.

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