The Quokka

Dear Parents and Staff,

We welcome you back after spring break. I hope that each of you had some time for fun and family get-togethers. Some of you traveled far away and we're glad you're back. Some had a relaxing time at home.

Now it's time to focus on the spring activities at New Morning School. The teachers are re-charged to help make your child's program shine! Thank you to the staff for the dedication that it takes to be ready for the first day after break.

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

Mon Apr 3: Classes resume, Re-enrollment Registration & Co-op Selection closes today!

Wed Apr 5: Financial Aid Applications DUE

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

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

https://s1.snowmancloud.com:9243/portal/100178/login

Detailed directions for completing registration are included in your email. You may also view details about Tuition rates and Co-op Assignments through documents in the Helpful Links section of this newsletter.

Please do not hesitate to contact Joan or Pauline to support you with any questions you have through this process.

Financial Aid is available in limited amounts for those families that demonstrate a financial need for tuition reduction or scholarship assistance. To apply for financial aid, an application must be submitted by Wednesday, April 5th. This application is completed through the SSS Financial Aid portal here:

https://sssandtadsfa.force.com/familyportal/FamilyLogin?startURL=%2Ffamilyportal

Please contact Joan if you plan to apply or have any questions.

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

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.
• Pass along our Summer Science Camp info to neighbors and friends. This helps families experience New Morning School first hand.
• Encourage folks with interest to contact us and go for a tour.

You can help!

We are seeking parents who would like to help plan our family and alumni picnic. We want it to be family-friendly. Please let Elaine, Pauline or Kit know if you would like to be on this team. We won't meet a lot, but together we can plan a great event!

NMS families scheduled to clean the school this weekend are the Martzig, Corliss, Huber, Baker/Edwards and Haas 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

Hello and welcome back preschool families & friends,

🌧️🌈This week we will be exploring rain and rainbows. At our art centers, we will paint a rainbow by creating a rainbow using a light source and compact discs as our reflector. Our fine motor skills will be put to work painting “Raining Rainbows”. Discovery Centers will keep our curious minds wondering with “jumping rainbows” and “we’ll make it rain” with clouds in a jar.

This week our kiddos have a fun and squishy experience in store, as water beads will fill our sensory table.🌈🌧️

Our Teachers of the Week, this week for the letter ‘Ee’ will be Paige & Jackson in Marisa‘s room and Charles & Ruth in Danielle‘s room.

🌷Spring is here; April Showers give way to May flowers 🌺 With rain forecasts projected please make sure kiddos have rain boots, and a change of clothes, including extra socks and underwear.

*Attached is a link for our upcoming class trip planned for Wednesday, May 3, 2023 to the Hands-On Museum in Ann Arbor. All are invited! (Any child that is a full day Wednesday student and is planning on coming back to stay for the remainder of the day, meet us back at school by 12:30 PM.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RoVWASp5ZByQ2nbz20VRMxQB86UpcsuUQaelT9yccsY/edit

Here is to a fantastic week ahead☀️

~Marisa & Danielle

Teacher: Pauline Nagle pauline@newmorningschool.com

Lead Aide: Shelley Blakeney

Dear Parents,

We had a wonderful READ IN last week culminating our Reading Month Activities. Thank you again for joining us for Mystery Reader. If you missed out on that fun, don't worry! Feel free to send an email and we can find a time for you to come in to read, if you'd like!

We started getting ready for some Easter fun this week by dyeing some rice to make "Easter Rice" for our sensory table. We've made yellow, orange and pink/red so far and look forward to adding a few more colors this week.

Reading & Writing

We continue to practice clapping and tapping out sounds in words to write and read. These two strategies are great for early readers and writers to use. Clapping words into syllable parts helps students create bite size chunks to sound out. It's okay if they do not get all of the word patterns when writing. For now, they can use the phoneme/grapheme (sounds/letters) that they hear and write it. They will be able to write longer words if they break it into syllables and feel successful by doing so! All students are working to be more independent in their writing each day.

Math

Early mathematicians are working to build their knowledge of numbers up to 20. We are also practicing number bonds, fact families and word problems with our rising mathematicians.

PBL - Ocean Life

We spent time last week exploring ocean books and sharing facts we noticed from pictures and what we read. This week we will dive into the locations of our 5 main oceans and the sea animals that live in each area.

SEL - Social Emotional Learning

Thank you for your support as we continue to practice kindness. Coming back after the break, we are practicing our routines again and reminding to use whole body listening by sitting on our bottoms, active listening, hands to self and lips quiet. We'll focus on the idea of using our voice in kindness and respect for the next few weeks, to help everyone feel good while working and playing in our classroom community.

Best,

Ms. Pauline

Teachers:

Hannah Diaz hannah@newmorningschool.com

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

EL Lead Aide: Karen Staples

Reading Month

Thanks for all of your support during Reading Month! The scholars loved the Mystery Readers! Thank you Niles Tindell for coming in to read, it was so much fun having a sibling read to everyone! Camp-Read-a-Lot was a huge success and Alicia Stephen’s amazing s’mores! Thanks so much for making our camping snack and the backpacks filled with camping supplies!

Guess what April is?

April is Math Month! Some of our students are suffering with a fixed mind-set about their math ability and we are attempting to help them see, they can learn new things. We are going to do a variety of activities this month to take the notion of math is boring out of the equation!

We sent home the April calendar filled in with every Monday is Bring in a Stuffed Animal to practice their facts at school and on Friday they can show math in different ways on their clothes.

We also sent home a logging sheet with bubbles on it. We are encouraging everyone to practice their math facts three times a week for ten minutes and play a math game. There are so many ways to practice math. Flashcards are a classic way but it may not resonate with your child. They could work on adding or subtracting numbers up to 10 or 20. It could be working on the multiplication facts that they haven’t mastered yet or it could be working on strategies to make adding, subtracting and multiplying easier for them. Everyone learns differently so flashcards are one option, but they can also play other games that help reinforce math skills. They may get more out of writing down the facts they want to get better at and make it into a concentration game or bounce a ball as they repeat the facts. Since everyone learns differently, incorporating seeing, hearing and moving when they are trying to learn something new is powerful. It will stay with them longer if they say the facts while they are moving (it could be writing, walking, hopscotch or jumprope) and seeing them!

If you need a game or suggestions, let me know. The goal is to have fun with math! On the logging sheet, just have them note what facts they worked on in the bubble and the game each week. The hope is 10 minutes of practicing math facts three times a week and one math game will become a fun family activity. It would be interesting for our young scholars to see just how many facts they master over the next couple of weeks. It would be an excellent way to show themselves that they can do whatever they set their minds to! A little extra effort goes a long way in all things: sports, relationships and learning.

On Thursday, April 27th, we will have a Math Fun Fair but they have to participate in all of the calendar activities to attend. We may need to ask for extra assistance for that day, so if you are interested in helping, please let us know.

This week in Math our math groups we will be working on:

• The Fortnite Kittens are working on telling time to the quarter hour and starting a unit about kittens. It will be an interesting unit that covers money, time, graphing and kittens.

• The Pug Puppies will be working on perimeter then area this week. They will also continue working on decoding story problems.

• Bagels will continue working on long division and start adding with decimal points.

• Cactus Clean and Floppa Blades are reviewing fractions

In Writing Groups, we are writing about our Spring Break experiences and then practicing proofreading and editing. We are also working on our grammar skills during independent practice time. Ask about the fun journal topics we are writing about! One may include a talking frog. Just a reminder, we do have spelling this week!

Preparing for Stanfords

The third and fifth graders will be taking the Stanford Test over the next couple of weeks. We break it up so our scholars won’t be stressed. We encourage them to take their time and do their best. Sometimes they get anxious about taking the test. Your encouragement and support of getting them to bed and having a great breakfast is always a good way to start. Just a reminder: Wednesday, April 12th is a half day except for our third and fifth graders. They will stay and take the longer sections of the achievement test that day. Please be sure your child is available to take the test.

Social Studies

This week we are exploring the world to prepare for our trip on the Oregon Trail in May. We will start by reviewing the continents..Afterwards everyone will pick one state to learn more about to share with the class.

Teachers:

Linda Hyde linda@newmorningschool.com

Nicole Matoian nicolem@newmorningschool.com

Hello Middle School parents!

We hope you had a relaxing and rejuvenating break. It's hard to believe that it's April already. We have a busy week ahead of us as we resume our studies.

Our 7th graders will complete some practice for the Stanford Test which will begin next week, Wednesday, April 12th, in the afternoon.

Language Arts Group A will resume their study of Kira Kira and read chapters 6-9 by the end of the week. They will focus on reading comprehension, summarizing skills, and the ability to identify literary elements in the story. On Friday, they will take a vocabulary test on 10 words they will encounter in their reading this week.

Language Arts groups B and C will resume their study of The Outsiders and read chapters 6-7 by the end of the week and focus on both the conflicts and themes of the story as well as opinion writing. They will take a vocabulary test on Friday over the words they will encounter in their reading this week.

In Social Studies, students will begin a multi-layered study of the Age of Exploration, which took place during the Renaissance, as well as its implications/connections to the Conquest of the Americas, the Atlantic Slave Trade, and the Columbian Exchange. This will be a month-long study and will culminate in both group presentations as well as an assessment.

In Math, Group A will review multiplying and dividing fractions and take a short assessment on Thursday, before we move on to multiplication and division with decimals next week.

Math Group B will solve problems involving subtracting negative and positive numbers. Students will also begin working with multiplication of signed numbers to solve problems involving position, speed, and direction.

Math Group C will review what we’ve covered on functions and take a Mid-Unit Assessment on Thursday, before we move on to volume of cylinders and cones on Friday.

Enjoy the week and keep in touch!

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