Blog – Page 10

September 18, 2012 By admin

From the Desk of Susan Chilvers / 9.13.12

It’s good to be back starting, unbelievably the 43rd year of the school and I am working on trying to feel wise and experienced rather than old! We had a great back to school picnic last Saturday and it was good to spend time with new families, catch up with old families as well as well as having recent graduates join us to share experiences from their first day or two of high school.
The school inside and out looks great thanks to the efforts of the workshop crew on Labor Day weekend and a generous donation by one of our long-time families of a carpet cleaning service and general cleaning service just before school started. What a big difference it made!
I have enjoyed visiting in all three classes this week and love seeing the new mix of students in each group and their enthusiasm for beginning the year. Most of my time has been spent with the younger class but I have plans to work on a regular basis with middle and older classers as the year progresses. The younger class are a delightful group full of energy and personality.
Boat Day will soon be here and our boat groups will be made and start working together next week. Each boat group is comprised of some students from all three classes and we have activities planned this week to help children get to know those in the other classes. Today each class did some experiments with one of our parents on flotation to show how boats float and how much weight different types of bottles and cartons can support. Thank you to all of you who have already contributed materials for boat day but as always WE NEED MORE milk and juice cartons, water bottles of all sizes, gallon containers, etc., etc.-whatever floats! Besides personal collections, you can also ask at local coffee shops, delis, etc. for them to save their empty milk containers for you. If you have any questions, please check with us. More details about the actual boat day will be in next week’s bulletin.

Last year the younger class started collecting money (usually change from pizza) in a world money box I brought back from England. We decided to buy mosquito nets at $12 each to help prevent children’s malaria in Africa. When school ended I opened the box and there was $38.47 in it. We have subsequently purchased 3 nets through NetsforLife and wanted last year’s little classers to know this.

Finally, communication is very important at TNS because we are different from many other schools and misunderstandings can occur if people get worried, anxious, puzzled or frustrated and don’t share it. Feel free to talk to me and/or the teachers if this occurs and we will address your concerns.

September 11, 2012 By admin

Important Information for TNS Parents

Please make note of the following important items:

HOURS – School hours are 9:20 a.m. to 3:20 p.m. (except for Wednesday when the hours are 9:20 a.m. to 12:20 p.m.) Students should not be dropped off at school prior to 8:40 a.m. and all students must be picked up by 3:40 p.m. If for some reason you are going to be late for school in the morning or picking up in the afternoon, please call the office. As we all know the local construction has impacted traffic in the area so please make sure you leave yourself enough time to get here.
PICK UP – If someone other than usual will be picking up your child from school (babysitter, grandparent, going home with another student, etc.), please be sure that Jill knows. There is a sheet posted outside the office where you can write down your child’s name, and who is picking up. In addition, please make sure your child knows who is picking them up. If you have to unexpectedly have someone pick up your child, please call the office and let Jill know.
CLOTHES – Please make sure your child has a change of clothes in his or her locker. This is important for students of all ages at TNS as many of our projects are very hands on and can be messy. Remember to replace the clothes if your child has to use them.
FOOD – Every child needs to bring a snack and lunch each day with the exception of Wednesday-snack only and Friday-snack and money to buy pizza or a sub (students are welcome to bring their lunch on Friday if they do not wish to purchase lunch). Pizza is $1.50 a slice and subs are $2.50 for half of a small sub or $5.00 for a whole small sub. Please note the following items with regard to food:
* The microwave is only available for use during lunch, please do not send microwavable items for snack
* Younger class students are not permitted to bring in anything that needs to be microwaved for more than ONE minute (for example, if you are sending in a frozen meal or
macaroni and cheese mix, please cook it at home first and then we can just reheat it.)
* Reminder, Younger and Middle classes are nut free.
HOLIDAYS – We love our diverse population here at TNS and do our best to accommodate holidays. The New School is closed next Monday, September 17, in observance of Rosh Hashanah. We inadvertently scheduled school on September 26, Yom Kippur (a day we usually close) so this year school WILL be open on that day. We apologize for this error and respect and understand if your child stays home on Yom Kippur to be with family. If your family observes a holiday that is not on the TNS calendar, feel free to keep your child home to celebrate but please just let us know. Thank you.
SHOES – Please remind your children that shoes are to be taken off and put on the shoe rack when entering the building (many older classers have been forgetting to take off their shoes). Any child is welcome to bring in slippers or “inside shoes” if they prefer.

We are off to a great start and look forward to another fun-filled year at The New School! Thank you for your cooperation.

September 11, 2012 By admin

Start saving your cartons and bottles for Boat Day!

Start saving your cartons and bottles for Boat Day on 9/28! We start planning the boats right away and before you know it it’s time to start building them. These first few weeks always go super fast…

Also, if each family could send in one or two rolls of duct tape at the beginning of school that would be great too!

September 10, 2012 By admin

Welcome (& Welcome Back) to TNS!

Welcoming the new students & families at the Back To School Picnic — Welcoming the new students & families at the Back-To-School Picnic

Welcome back to school, everyone! We had a great time at the picnic on Saturday and were so happy that the rain held off until precisely 6pm when we were done 🙂 Thanks to all who brought a dish to share. What delicious variety and every bite was enjoyed. Just in time for the back-to-school cakes and that special time at the end where we welcome all our new children and families. Best wishes for a wonderful school year!

Here are a few Allergy Info reminders:

NUT FREE ZONES
Younger Class – Rebekah is asking parents NOT to send in any nut products for snack or lunch until the parent meeting on Tuesday, September 18 where she will discuss this issue.

Middle Class – The middle class is nut free this year. Please do not send in any nut products for snack or lunch. If your child needs to eat nut products, please see Kathey.

August 31, 2012 By admin

August Class Updates

Jay’s Older Class update:

I have had a good summer and hope that everyone has enjoyed their summer as well. Over the past few weeks, I have been working in my classroom and have many projects to start off the year. One of the main projects under the animal theme is about dogs. This work will involve researching a breed of dog, looking for dogs in advertisements and in the media, dogs in the news, famous dogs, and an art project of drawing a dog a day for 16 days in a row. I have also found interesting information in National Geographic on the evolution of dogs from wolves. This work will lead into a broader study of what animals we currently have as pets and animals that may be pets in the future.

Another project I am very excited about is having each student choose a Grimm’s fairy tale — read it and then recreate the story in a 12-frame format. Each frame of this format will have a writing and a drawing to retell the story. I have given this project to a TNS graduate, who is amazingly talented in this type of work, and hopefully he will have work that I can use as an example to start this project off. I am also doing this project as I often do with work that I assign. I do this so that I can show students my ideas for the project and also to see how much work is involved in doing it. This gives me a good idea of what I am asking each student to do, and I am often surprised at how much work some of my ideas require. I am working on the Tale of The Owl, and I am really enjoying it.

I have many other projects that you will see when we have our back to school picnic in September.

In addition to our many computers, each class will now have two iPads this year. I attended an apps workshop at the Apple Store this summer and found it amazing and overwhelming. I have added some apps and hope to add more as the year progresses. I thought it was reassuring however that our presenter at this meeting said that he thought that our focus for education should be to teach people to be human. This was interesting to hear from a person who has so much knowledge about the technology that is available today. We can now secure almost any information we need within a matter of minutes. He clarified his thoughts on what it meant to teach people to be human by mentioning two skills that he thought were of the utmost important. These skills were in the areas of communication and collaboration, and to me this is exactly what we have been doing all these years by teaching our students to think for themselves, be an active participant in group activities, and make the most of who they are as people.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone at the picnic or on the first day of school.

Kathey’s Middle Class Update:

It is lovely here in Vermont. The weather has been beautiful so far and we have been able to take advantage of it by doing lots of swimming and walking. It is a bitter sweet vacation as we were here in Wilmington last year when the town was devastated by Hurricane Irene. Vermonters are incredibly tenacious and have done an amazing amount of restoration but still have much to do. One of the reasons I vacation here is that the natural beauty of the land, the “can do”, independent spirit of the residents and the creative force that resides here is incredible. I use part of my time here every year to renew my spirit and to look for new and exciting projects to bring back to share with my class. Yesterday we visited a small museum in Brattleboro that is chock full of organs from the turn of the century manufacturers, the Esty family. We had a great tour and fascinating conversation with the docent that covered everything from how organs are made to how to preserve history while still embracing new technology as a way to share it with future generations. We also discussed the difficulties of being a small organization trying to do big things. The museum is trying to start a maker lab for kids about the science of sound and music. I hope to be able to connect with them via the computer and share our interest in the hands-on approach to learning and also hope I can arrange a virtual field trip to the museum for the class.

We will be starting the year off with planning a project about our backyard habitat. The project will include identifying what animals and insects live in our backyard, learning how to identify the plants and trees that are growing around us, looking for signs of Monarch butterfly migration, and planning a year long natural habitat project. We will be using drawing journals to document our year and I would like to keep a class video diary using the iPads that we will be able to share with parents at the end of the year as well.

A few practical notes:
Children need to wear clothes and shoes that are comfortable and practical for walking/playing in the yard/gardening etc. Everyone needs a change of clothes in their locker.

We have many children with specific dietary requirements that include allergies, gluten free, vegetarian, vegan etc. Children also have their own personal preferences. We honor these choices and all try to help one another feel comfortable with them. The children are especially good at following a few rules that we adjust every year to make it easier to accommodate these many variations. The rules this year are:

The Middle Class room will be a nut free zone. If your child needs to bring in nut products please speak to me about it.
Label any homemade treats sent into school with all ingredients and store bought treats should come with ingredients labels still attached.
If your child has specific needs, please send in a shoe box sized container with tight fitting lid, marked with their name and filled with alternative wrapped snacks/treats that can be substituted when they can’t eat what is being served. We keep these in the kitchen so children can access them whenever necessary.

If your child has particular dietary guidelines please make me aware of these.

I would like to welcome everyone back to school especially our new families and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone at the picnic.

Rebekah’s Younger Class Update:

I hope everyone has had a wonderful summer and is excited for September!!!!! I have been working in my class, thinking a lot about all the possibilities for wonderful projects focused on and inspired by our theme of Animals. We will be starting the year with a project on Underwater Animals. I would love donations of magazines and calendars with underwater animals, fish, etc…. for collaging and other art, if you have any please bring them on the first day of school. Also just a quick reminder that my class will be continuing to follow our peanut rules: NO nut products and I will go over all of our rules at my Parent Meeting on Tues, Sept. 18th but if you have any questions please feel free to call. Also please make sure you child has their extra change of clothes and shoes with them on the first day — you never know when mud, water, accidents might strike! Have a great Labor Day see you on the 8th, Rebekah