MUSEUM

Thank you to our teachers, aides and students who are working hard preparing for Museum day on Sun., Feb. 12, 2:00 - 3:30 pm. Friends and families are invited! If you have some time, offer your help to any teacher. We have some really interesting topics.

COMMUNITY EAT & MEET - This Tues., Jan. 24, at 6:30 pm

This is a required meeting for all community involvement or co-op families. We need a quorum so that we may vote on our proposed by-laws. Last fall you had the option to meet in a small group to hear about the changes. See below to refresh what you know. Here is the agenda:

• We'll start with a pot luck dinner at 6:30 pm. Please bring a dish to share.
• 7:00 pm - Vote on the proposed by-laws
• 7:20 pm - Update on the auction
• 7:30 pm - Break into small group meetings so that preschool parents can hear from the K-1 teacher; K- 1 parents can hear from the elementary teachers, and elementary parents can hear about the middle school program. We'll have a group of our current 7th an 8th grade parents for casual conversation about choosing a high school and managing the transition.

AUCTION

The excitement is building as we move toward our Live Auction and 50th Celebration on March 11, at 5:30 pm, and our remote auction, March 10 - 12. Thank you for what each of you have done to help with this event to date. Here are some points about the auction.

• You can help by purchasing a toy that your child likes and have it sent to the school. Children's item of all types do really well at our auction.
• If you haven't yet purchased your auction tickets, you have until January 31, to purchase a table at a discounted rate of $1,100 per table of 10. After that date, all tickets will be $125 each.
• As a tradition, our graduating 8th graders are invited to attend with you. You just need to buy them a ticket. They hear about auction for so many years that in their graduating year, we love to have them attend.
• And last, we are working on publishing a photo book of our first 50 years. The books will be on sale at the auction. If you or someone you know could be a partial sponsor of this book, then proceeds on auction night will go 100% to the school. Just let us know.

Warm regards,

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

Sometimes when we run into problems, it's easy to ignore it....until it gets bigger. We encourage our students to face problems head on, whether it's a challenging problem or assignment, or a conflict with a peer. One way we help students use words in a manner that supports their feelings, as well as make clear what their needs are is by using I-Statements. Here is a link with more information on how we can constructively communicate in adult relationships more effectively using I-Statements as well. The graphic below shows how we use this process with young children. https://www.relationshipsnsw.org.au/blog/i-statements-vs-you-statements/#:~:text=Starting%20a%20sentence%20with%20'I,our%20own%20thoughts%20and%20feelings.

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

Mon 01/30: Preschool Parent Focus Group 6pm

Thu 02/02: 100% Auction Merchandise and Raffle Tickets DUE

Mon 02/06: Middle School Parent Focus Group 6pm

Sun 02/12: Museum: 1:00 prospective parent mtg.; 2:00 - 3:30 pm Student Museum

Mon Feb 13: No School - There is Kids' Club

Mon/Tues Feb. 20-21: Winter Break - No School - There is Kids' Club

Wed Feb 22: Professional Development day - No School - There is Kids' Club

Mon 02/27: Elementary Parent Focus Group 6pm

As you know, my role at New Morning as Associate Head of School will move forward to the role of Head of School upon Elaine's retirement in June. Having a year to learn the school community before taking the helm is extremely valuable. I have learned so much from Elaine, the staff and your children so far. I am learning what makes NMS such an amazing community and why it is so valued. I would like to hear more from you, the parents, over the next few months to add to my learning. I want to hear about what is going well and what you would like to see improve. Please join me for a focus group via ZOOM. The focus groups are organized by program. You do not need to attend more than one. If you have children in multiple programs, choose one that you feel you want to speak to the most.

We will send out a Sign-Up Genius and zoom links in a separate email. For now, here are the dates for you to attend to add to your calendar. I'm really looking forward to meeting with you.

Warm regards,

Pauline Nagle

Monday, January 30 6pm Preschool

Monday, February 6 6pm Middle School

Monday, February 27 6pm Elementary

Monday, March 6 6pm K-1

Saturday, March 18 9am Make-Up

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!

Autumn Insurance & Benefits and Auto-Owners Insurance have been our auction video sponsor for many, many years. Curt Rager, CEO, has been with the firm for over 40 years. Curt and his staff treat every client like an honored guest, not an interruption. They focus on turning every contact into a lifelong win-win relationship. Curt and Tami's children, Ryan and Evan, attended New Morning. Curt served as our board chair for many years. THANK YOU for all of your support!

NMS families scheduled to clean the school this weekend are the Opara, Fowler, Blomberg/Moss, Kish 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!

We have snow!! The metro area is expecting additional snow accumulation this Wednesday. In case of inclement weather, please check local news media for school closure information. New Morning School follows Plymouth Canton Schools guidelines for winter weather closures. School closures will also be notified via REMIND. Please be sure you are signed up to receive messages and indicate text messaging as an option if you wish to be included in this notification.

There has been a confirmed case of Strep Throat in the Elementary classroom. Click on the link for more information from the CDC.

Preschool Teachers:

Marisa Downs marisa@newmorningschool.com

Danielle Provencher danielle@newmorningschool.com

Preschool News

Our “museum” study of guinea pigs is in full swing. This week at our art tables, friends can paper mache their own individual 3D guinea pig. For a discovery activity we’ll begin discussing and deciding what large collaborative 3D thing to build. We’ll also learn what the different sounds guinea pigs make mean and more about how they communicate. Later in the week, friends can conduct their own surveys to guinea pig questions they may have. We'll push, poke, and pull play dough at our sensory tables.

Thank you to all who have purchased items from the guinea pig amazon wish list or elsewhere! Also, thanks to friends who have sent in fresh veggies for Oreo and Snickers to enjoy. Feel free to send in small amounts of romaine or red leaf lettuce, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, cucumber, carrots, or bell peppers. An apple slice, strawberry tops, and even a tomato now and then is a treat. If friends come in with a little here and there, we should be in good shape.

Our next break from school where the pigs will need vacation hosts is Friday 2/17- Tuesday 2/21. If you’re interested, please email marisa@newmorningschool.com. If no preschool families are available, we can ask the rest of the school families.

Our teachers for the letter “P” are Eliza and Olivia in Danielle’s room and Zoe and Felix in Marisa’s.

After our big museum event, comes Valentine’s Day! On Tuesday, February 14, we’ll celebrate and share valentines. Everyone is invited to attend that morning, but if it’s not your child’s scheduled day, please plan to stay. We’ll craft, eat special snacks, play a game, and pass out valentine cards. A sign up will be shared in the near future. There are 25 preschoolers. Please only fill out the sender portion of the card and leave the recipient portion blank. Remember, we try to avoid candy or sugary treats.

Winter in preschool means getting dressed in all the gear, snow pants, boots, coats, hats, and mittens. Please make sure your child is equipped with the above labeled items. On snowy days, friends may sled if they have one at school (please write their name on it). Unfortunately, friends may not share sleds. If the “feels like” temp is under 20, we don’t go outside and will be in the gym for recess. Lastly, if Plymouth-Canton schools have a weather-related closure, so do we.

~Marisa & Danielle

Teacher: Russell Lightfoot russell@newmorningschool.com

Hi everyone,

Here is a little update to let you know what the students have been working on since our return after the Christmas break.

Middle School: We have started a new unit on chemical reactions. We began by thinking of the question, ‘How can you make something new that was not there before?’ The students investigated what happened when we put store bought bath bombs into water. Next we made four different home made bath bombs, each using different ingredients. We are working on trying to discover if the gas created is new matter or something that is already there. In STEM we revisited some team work activities and talked about ways to motivate and encourage each other.

The salmon are continuing to do well and I’m grateful to the two families who helped out over break. We played a game called ‘Salmon Survival’ and also learned a bit more about tagging.

5th grade: The students have started a new unit called ‘Chemical Magic’. In this unit, students investigate the properties of matter by dissolving everyday chemicals to make solutions and by exploring simple yet surprising chemical reactions. Through these investigations, they begin to build conceptual models for the particulate nature of matter. We carried out an experiment to discover what could clean old coins and also how we could change the appearance of a steel nail.

4th grade: We finished our unit on energy by thinking about where it is that energy comes from. Our new unit is ‘The Birth of Rocks’. Students investigate features and processes of the Earth’s surface. They explore the rapid process of volcanic eruptions! In contrast, students also explore the gradual Earth processes of weathering and erosion. They will apply their knowledge and design solutions to mitigate the impacts of these processes on humans. We have begun a study on Ashfall Fossil Beds in Nebraska.

2nd/3rd grade: Our new unit is ‘Invisible Forces’. In this unit, students explore the forces all around them. They investigate the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces, the pushes and pulls of bridge structures, and the effects of friction on the motion of objects. Students also explore the power of magnetic forces and investigate firsthand how these forces can be used to help us in our everyday lives. We started off by looking at what an ‘Ice Board’ is and how we think it works. We then carried out an investigation using hoppers that we had built!

In STEM the elementary students also took part in several different activities that had a focus on team building! They also had a go at playing the ‘Salmon Survival’ game.

K/1: The next unit for our K/1 students is ‘Lights and Sounds’. In this unit, students investigate light and sound! They explore how materials vibrate and how vibrating materials can make sounds. They also investigate light and illumination and use those investigations to create simple devices that allow them to communicate across a distance. We watched a video from the Everglades and listened and watched carefully to see what we could discover. Next we had fun finding out how they make the silly sounds in cartoons and we had a go making some of our own. Finally we read a book by Michael Rosen called ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ and used things from the classroom to add our own sound effects!

Take care,

Mr. Russell

Teacher: Pauline Nagle pauline@newmorningschool.com

K-1 Lead Aide: Shelley Blakeney

Dear Parents,

A fun week was had in the K-1 Classroom. We learned a bit about Chinese New Year, which was celebrated on Sunday. We begain to present our Vision Boards and practice our presenting skills. We played the game Sequence, which is a personal family fave, and continued to reveal mystery bags. We celebrated Melody's 7 trips around the sun this week too. We also spent some time working through problems through using I-statements and will continue this practice as typical social problems arise in the classroom or at recess.

Reading

In phonics, we learned /ou/. We used a fun video song to help us see how this sound is used in words and writing. We don't want to be the only ones that have this stuck in our head, so here it is for you to play at home too! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TZTJZfBYfk

We worked with each student on reading their museum books to find answers to their curious questions. We'll continue to work with kids to find fun facts and interesting data to add to their museum work this week.

Writing

Students continue to write in their daily journals. In addition, we continue to work on our questions for our museum research. We are now reading our books and finding the answer to our questions. We will be adding additional visual projects this week to go with their research and learning, depending on the topic. Please dress your child in clothes where you don't mind a little mess. From day to day over the next few weeks, we will be creating and making messes!

Math

In math, we continued to build number sense through games and play. We'll continue this during our museum work. This week up coming we will learn a bit about graphing data to add to our museum projects.

Feel free to reach out with any questions, needs or concerns as they arise. Email, text, or catch me at school any time.

My best,

Ms. Pauline

Teachers:

Hannah Diaz hannah@newmorningschool.com

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

EL Lead Aide: Karen Staples

Museum

Goals are being met and minds are getting filled with lots of great information! Our scholars are doing great learning about their topics with the thanks to all of our aides and special guest, Heather Johnson, who have helped the scholars work on reading and understanding the information.

Many topics can go on a field trip. If you would like to take your child somewhere to research their topic (The Henry Ford, an aquarium...) this is the week to do it! We do ask you to take photos. The photos and a short write up would be placed on their board.

The focus this week is on rewriting their answers and working on their diagrams, maps and graphs. Soon we will be ready for the display board! They need to be 36"x48". They come in a variety of colors but white or black works with any of the colors the scholars pick for mounting their work. When you bring in the boards, be sure to put your child's name on it. Thanks!

To another unusual winter week,

Christine, Hannah and Cynthia

Teachers:

Linda Hyde linda@newmorningschool.com

Nicole Matoian nicolem@newmorningschool.com

Hello Middle School Parents!

We hope you enjoyed the weekend and dodged the snowflakes. We have three weeks to go until Museum Sunday, February 12th. Students should bring in their tri-fold display boards no later than next week Monday, (January 30th) and should bring in shoe boxes for their dioramas if they plan to create one.

This week we enter Week Three of our Museum project. Students have finished their

Works Cited entries and will finish their note-taking on Monday. They are ready to

organize their ideas into a formal outline and begin the writing process. This week

during Language Arts, students will learn to write an outline, how to write a thesis

statement, an introductory paragraph as well as their body paragraphs. This will be a

very busy week of writing!

In Social Studies, we'll spend a little time exploring the Chinese Lunar New Year, the

Year of the Rabbit, as well as the week's news stories on CNN10.

In Math, Group A will begin a new unit on Unit Rates and Percentages. We’ve spent the

past few weeks reviewing long division strategies and simplifying fractions which will be

helpful in this unit. We’ll begin by familiarizing ourselves with different units of

measurement for length, volume, and mass and then establishing anchor quantities for

each unit (for example, the width of our finger is about one centimeter). Then, we’ll

begin converting measurements to different units.

Last week, Group B completed their end-of-unit assessment on the area and

circumference of circles. As a reward for such great mastery of the subject matter, they

will enjoy some pie (pi π) this week. The next unit of study is Proportional Relationships

and Percentages. They’ll begin by comparing scaled copies of the same figure, and

work toward developing different strategies for solving a problem involving equivalent

ratios with fractional quantities.

Group C will continue with their study of linear equations and move to a system of

equations where they will find values of the variables that make both equations true at

the same time. They will also create graphs of the equations to find an ordered pair that

two real-world situations have in common.

Enjoy your 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