Greetings Parents and Community Members

Welcome back once again to Clark's Corner. I hope this message finds you and your family well and enjoying the wonderful weekend.

Highlights from Mr. Clark

• CRCT Testing - This week we will complete our CRCT testing on Wednesday for our students in grade 3, 4, and 5. Thank you to parents for supporting the testing environment by limiting checkouts and bringing students to school a few minutes earlier than normal so they have additional time to start their day in a calm manner. Please continue to help children get a good night's sleep and have a healthy breakfast each morning.
• Instructional Highlights:

Parent Conference Night - This Wednesday we have our final Parent Conference Night. Please contact your teachers if you need to schedule a conference.

Small Fry To Go - Our Trout farm is up and running, and the small fry are thriving. We received them as sacfry when they were developing into small fry, and now they are growing into actual swimmers. The teachers and students are exploring and seeing firsthand what happens during the developmental life cycle of fish and what it takes to create a successful habitat. Small Fry classrooms connect students from Georgia to share experiences and their understanding of their worlds. They are also linked to environmentalists and scientists world-wide who can help students answer "hard" questions. The program includes a small fry curriculum that is cross-curricular (science, math, reading, language arts, writing, social studies, art, health education, character education, technology, and career education). These SFtG activities are correlated to State and National Standards and the Common Core GPS. Parents may learn more at the website: http://www.smallfrytogo.net/ We do need a few handy parents who can assist with building a more permanent shade/cover. If you would like to help please let me know.

May Days - This Thursday and Friday, we will hold our annual May Days. The primary grades will participate on Thursday, and the upper grades will participate on Friday. May Days are dedicated to the wonderful world of science. We have more than a dozen stations for each class to rotate through, ranging from planting to recycling, composting to observations in the garden. We are partnering with the Georgia Aquarium, the Small Fry to Go group, and Club Scientific to enhance the learning process. We also have professionals coming to teach our children about recycling and the impact conservation has on our planet, as well as a professional fish farmer. It has been and always will be our goal to provide fun and educational days like this for our students in the learning process. May Day is a chance for students to step outside the box and see real life examples of how science works in their everyday lives. We look forward to this wonderful event and invite parents to volunteer to help out these days and enjoy the wonder of learning with us. We are also planning ahead for a Fall Day that centers on math and science. So think ahead for the fall and possible volunteer opportunities.

• General Information - We posted the state of the school address powerpoint on our website. We had a great, thoughtful roundtable discussion on celebrations, and I would like to thank Mellie O'Keefe for moderating that meeting. We hope to get a survey out to the community soon to get feedback on activities we have completed this year and work to plan for next year. This Wednesday is our last Walk to School Wednesday of the year. This has been a fantastic success this year, and it has been great to see the number of children and parents walking to school on these days. I hope to see you walking this Wednesday.

Have a great week!

Have a fantastic day today with this beautiful weather. I hope you find this information helpful and useful. Please do not hesitate to contact me or the appropriate school personnel if there is anything we can do for you. Take care and have a great week!