GSD E-Blast

Dear GSD Families,

It may be cold outside but things are warming up in GSD with many Spring events scheduled! In this E-Blast, you will find information on Kindergarten round up! Please make sure to pass along our Kindergarten round up information to friends and family. We are excited to welcome our future Marauders in the fall of 2023!

Your partner in education,

Amy Conway

Superintendent

Research shows that being happy and positive primes the brain to be more successful and productive. Promoting positivity will enhance our student’s academic ability and develop them into happy and positive thinkers and leaders. Each month we will highlight a building or staff member that is spreading “The Orange” (Happiness) through Gibraltar!

Chapman held its first Kindness Coin Challenge this school year, hosted by our Social Worker, Mrs. Laub! Students and staff explored how to show kindness to others, why showing kindness is important, and how to prevent bullying. As a part of the Challenge, each class was given Kindness Coins. If a student showed a random act of kindness to another person, they would be given two coins - one coin to add to their class coin collection, and one coin to be given to another student whom they caught being kind to someone else. At the end, we not only celebrated the class who had the most Kindness Coins by having a pizza party, but we learned how contagious spreading kindness and happiness can be!

Do you have a child at home who will be five years old on or before September 1, 2023? Do you know someone who does, perhaps a friend or a neighbor? If so, Gibraltar School District has a spot waiting just for them in our kindergarten classrooms next year! Gibraltar School District offers both a traditional Kindergarten program as well as a Young Fives Kindergarten program. Both of these programs have a strong focus on the math and literacy skills needed for a solid foundation through the course of the formative elementary years. Registration opens very soon, on February 21. Once you register, please join us for an informational night, for parents and prospective students, on April 11 at 6:00. These will be held in each elementary building. Visit our website for more information!

http://www.gibdist.net/about/register-students/kindergarten-young-5s-registration

Carlson High School hosted our Annual Shooting with the Stars game on Sunday January 15th. The boys and girls basketball teams had the pleasure of hosting teams from Jo Brighton High School. Our teams were able to spend the day with the athletes from Jo Brighton as well as compete on the court against them. Each athlete was introduced and able to leave with a special photo. Special thanks to all that make this event possible!

December was a busy time for our students as we prepared for our winter concert! The students were so excited, and they had an amazing performance. Thank you to all of our family and friends who attended and celebrated with us!

Now that the big show has wrapped, it’s time to move on to some of our more hands-on instrument units! Kindergarten, first, and second grades will start learning and practicing rhythm notation and reading. We’ll use non-pitched percussion instruments to make our own rhythms and have a noisy, fun time! Third grade has begun the basics of treble clef musical notation, and we’ll be applying their new knowledge to glockenspiels. Fourth graders are excited to apply their learning to recorders. Each student will have their own recorder and will showcase their skills at next year’s winter concert. After spending previous years playing percussion and wind instruments, ukuleles will allow fifth grade students the opportunity to try a string instrument. We learn how the instrument makes sound, how to play a scale, and finally how to play chords so we can play along to some of our favorite songs!

We’ll also be learning about musicians and composers (both classical and contemporary), singing new songs, and moving our bodies with movement activities and dances. The second half of the year is always a busy time for our music classes as we make joyful noise!

Improving our reading comprehension skills is a HUGE part of 3rd grade! The entire grade level just finished, Matilda, by Roald Dahl. After completing the read aloud the students, teachers and with parents celebrated this classic book with a themed party. Parent volunteers helped prepare Wormwood style TV dinners with Newt Surprise waters. Later the students enjoyed Bruce’s chocolate cake! It is always a blast when we can tie together our learning, parent involvement and a little bit of fun.

This past Saturday, our amazing CHS band students competed at the District 12 MSBOA S/E Festival at Livonia Franklin High School. This was the 1st LIVE S/E festival since 2020 and our students had excellent performances! Below are the students who achieved Division 1 ratings:

Flute Duet: Ariel Rassmussen and Ava Stankula

Sax Quartet: Mason Washam, Cameron Bendelow, Gavin McMaster, Hayden Flemming

Percussion Quartet: Makenzie Rynberg, Emily Winters, Adira Dwyer, Peyton Pitt

Trumpet Quartet: Peyton Allen, James Hartzog, Veronica Niezgoski, Nick Stuart

We have 24 fourth and fifth graders that have joined our FLL (First Lego League) robotics club at Weiss. The students in the club will be building robots, learning to code and program the robot, and having it solve specific missions throughout the rest of this school year. We are so excited to see what they will learn in this club throughout the next few months! Thank you Mr. Budziak for sponsoring and leading this club!

What is First Lego League?

FIRST® LEGO® League guides youth through STEM learning and exploration at an early age. From Discover, to Explore, and then to Challenge, students will understand the basics of STEM and apply their skills in an exciting competition while building habits of learning, confidence, and teamwork skills along the way.

Parsons' students celebrated their positive behavior at our January Town Hall. Students received awards for their leadership on the bus, in the hallway, at lunch, and in special classes. Pirates gold grade level winners won a special surprise! Fire Chief Bill Cain invited grade level winners to the fire house. Two fire trucks picked up the students at Parsons and drove them to the fire house for a pizza lunch! Thank you to the Gibraltar Fire Department for supporting Parsons' students!

There are many ways to spread kindness to others. It could be something as simple as opening the door for someone, returning a lost item, or even a "pay it forward" in a drive-thru line. During the last 3 months, LVS staff handed out kindness cards to students who were "caught" doing something kind for others. Students who received a card filled out a form and then passed the kindness card along to someone they saw being kind to continue the kindness chain.

Congratulations to everyone who received a kindness card and to our raffle winners. It was great to recognize the kindness of our students towards others and see the kindness spread from student to student!

We just recently replaced all of the science and math furniture in our classrooms and we couldn't be happier with the new desks, tables, and chairs. They provide our students with more workspace and the ability to collaborate more easily when working in groups. This more flexible furniture will allow for many years of successful use for our students and staff!

Congratulations to Jonathan Bailey, our new Sub Bus Driver. He has passed his road test and will be taking beginning bus driver training in March. We are hiring bus drivers and bus aides. If you are interested, contact us at (734) 379-6370.

Gibraltar school district kids LOVE our homemade pizza!

We FUEL kids at each elementary school once a week and daily at Carlson and Shumate with our pizza's.

WATCH monthly for special features on National food days!