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Greenfield Center School
Monday Bulletin | |
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 Dear Families-
Wowser. Yesterday's open house was excellent. Thanks to everyone who baked (there was nary a crumb left!) and to everyone who came to enjoy the show and talk about our school. We had a huge crowd (see photo) of folks who enjoyed Tom Ricardi's presentation. Many people then went right into the classrooms for nest making, bird feeder creating, mask making and owl pellet dissecting. I talked to prospective family after prospective family right until the end. Phew! Again, thanks so much for your participation!
I am pleased to announce that we have signed on with Parent Reach, a company that calls parents to alert them to snow days, delays and other important school-based messages. In the event of a cancellation or delay, we will initiate a phone message and everyone in the school will be called almost instantaneously. We will be giving one phone number for each household to Parent Reach to use. If you do want want us to use the phone number in our directory, please call and let April know what a better number is, by this Wednesday. We hope to have the system in place by next week. We'll send an email to confirm when we have officially begun.
There is no All School this week. Over half the school is going to UMass for a musical performance, so we are skipping this week.
Thanks again for your enthusiastic support of our admissions work this weekend. We had so many new families in our classrooms. It felt very lively and genial. Thanks.
Jane |
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Calling All Internet Users!
Tracy Austin, mom of Prime, Lexi, introduced to us a terrific new fundraiser that is completely painless. It all seemed too good to be true, so I researched it a little and found that lots of schools and organizations are raising formidable amounts of money with this program. Essentially, we are asking any supporter who uses the Internet to do their search via a small Yahoo toolbar that you download to your web browser. You simply use it to do your Internet searches, and when you click on a sponsored ad, the school earns 10 cents. That's 10 cents for every click! All you have to do is click--you don't even have to pursue the sponsored ad in any other way or buy anything. This is a simple, free and very powerful way to generate a continual flow of money into the school's coffers, with no out of pocket expense for anyone. Details, and download, coming soon.
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Mid Ums North
Now that our scale maps are finished, the Mid UMs Northerners have been discovering how latitude and longitude can help us find any place in the world. Next week we will start our mapping final project, a scavenger hunt. This Friday, we are traveling to UMass to see the funky and energetic Hot 8 Brass Band. Also, more snow means more sledding. YEAH!!!
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Mid-UMs South
Mid-UMs had a great week working on our fort in the baseball field. You should take a look as you sit in the dismissal line or even get out of your car and walk over to stand in awe of it's amazing height! We plan on having morning meeting in our fort on Tuesday and are very proud of all the work we did together to make it possible.
Last week we also continued to lead All School. Gus, Jack, Rory and Sarah did a great job of making All School fun for everyone as they sang every word they would normally have spoken. We will be taking this week off because of our field trip to see the Hot-8 Brass Band, but will be back to lead All School on Friday the 13th!
We had many compliments about the inauguration day poems shared in last week's bulletin. If you'd like to read all the amazing poems they are displayed among our art work in the hallway of the third floor.
This week we will be concentrating on learning about different landforms and designing our own imaginary islands with examples of these landforms.
We are also holding our final discussion about Sharon Creech. Throughout this author study we have been amazed by the similarities we found between books that appear to be so different on the surface. Last week as we discussed themes found in her books we could not name a single theme that was not present in at least one of her other books being read!
Have a great week!
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Mups
The MUPS had an amazing visit to the Deerfield Academy Planetarium on Friday. It was the perfect size for us. A miniature dome, containing about 20 seats and a very kind man named Mr. Howell who was both gentle and captivating. We got to know Orion the hunter quite well. This week we will write beautiful thank you cards to Mr. Howell. We also begin an art exploration of Vincent van Gogh, specifically concentrating on the painting Starry Night, in keeping with our Solar System unit.
We look forward to more snow play. Following the lead of the Midums, we have been enjoying building snow forts. In writing we are composing fables based on Aesop's and the modern fables of Arnold Lobel. Our morals include: "Fights can lead to disaster," and "Treat others as you would like to be treated." All involve animal characters. Have a great week!
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UM6
Friday we are heading off with the MUPS and Mid UMs to UMass to see the Hot 8 Brass Band from New Orleans. It is sure to be a treat! Before then, we will work on creating a shadow puppet play based on Greek myths about Perseus. Students will also be creating models of the Universe - quite a daunting task but one UM 6ers are up to. Did you ever know that you lived in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy? They know this and will be representing this knowledge in their models.
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Uppers
We are always amazed at the seemingly endless amount of creativity we see from the Uppers; from fiction writing in Lit, to science, to the APs, the Uppers are incredible. They have been working on Analogous Cell Models in science and have compared the inner workings of a cell to things such as a computer, a country, a baseball team, and even a lunch box! This week we will be looking at mold and hopefully make some exciting discoveries about the micro-world. Wednesday Barb will be out so we will start the music studio next week.
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Primes
The Primes are looking forward to their third Primes/Mups ice skating trip on Monday. Last week the first year Primes wrote in their journals about how much fun they had, while the second year Primes described the new skating skills they have been mastering. Lucy wrote about how she enjoys gliding across the ice. Elizabeth, Kathleen and Luke wrote about the steps they go through to get up off the slippery ice when they fall. Daniel described how he uses the steel edge of his skate to push off and go fast. We will use an author's circle to enable the Primes to share their insights with each other following this weeks trip.
"What do wild animals eat in the winter?" Last week, based on our readings, each of the Primes wrote about what they thought a particular species of animal would eat. This week we will try to find out if their hunches are right. They will each make a plan, then build a biodegradable container for their sample of food. We will hike up onto Rocky Mountain and leave these feeding experiments out in the snowy forest. Later in the week we will revisit our experiments and study what was eaten and any animal tracks we can find.
"Protons, neutrons and electrons, oh my!" Some Primes have become fascinated with atomic numbers... and nuclear synthesis. A promising area of math awaits us. This is a developing story. Stay tuned.
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Announcements, Announcements, Announcements......
1. From Uppers Students Jenna, Meghan, Kate and Kellie:
"Please remember to bring in non-perishable food donations and everyday necessities (toothbrushes, etc). We are collecting these to give to Jessie's House at the Northampton Shelter. We have one more week to collect. There is a box in the Finer building entrance, and one under the chart in the brick building. Thanks!"
2. Jonah's Social Justice Project
You may have figured out by now that that the Uppers are all doing social justice projects. People have picked a project that addresses a problem in the world. One of those problems is the of junking old computers. There are lots of reasons it makes sense to recycle computers. For one, recycling helps to reuse what is salvageable which saves resources. Also, there are many hazardous substances in computers, like lead, lithium, cadmium, mercury and beryllium that should not be put into landfills because they can contaminate ground water and our environment.
For my social justice project, I'm recycling computers. Bring your old computer to the Uppers Building and I'll take care of it.
Got an old computer?
Recycle it
Friday, January 30th to
Wednesday, February 4th
Fee: $10 per computer
Jonah Hudson-Erdman
3. From: Julia B, Marie Joe and Libby:
In the Uppers we do a social justice project. this project is to help citizens learn about our world's problem and give them information about helping. For our project we are making fabric bags we will be passing out at Stop and Shop and other grocery stores. The reason we are passing out the bags is that we need to stop using disposable bags and to make sure don't waste more oil for the future, (because when we process papers and plastic bags, we use a lot of oil.)
We need:
Large pieces of canvas or strong fabric.
Old sheets, pillowcases or strong pieces of fabric large enough to make a grocery bag---about half yard of fabric per bag.
Where:
Box in front doorway of Finer building---ask Julia B, Libby and/or Marie Joe.
THANKS!!!!!!!!!
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After School Camp
Hi all! We are having MidWinter After School Camp the third week of February, the 16th through the 20th. As usual, kids can be signed up for any number of days, from just one to all five. We will open the camp at 8am each day, and have morning circle around 11am, ("brunch circle") Children should definitely arrive before 11, so they can be part of the circle and eat lunch with us. Please pack your child with plenty of food and a change of clothes, as well as snow pants, hats, mittens, boots, coats and any extra sleds. We will be making afternoon snack (and maybe a few surprises), but lots of food from home is still essential. Kids can listen to ipods and use electronic equipment during quiet time only. At all other times, ipods must be played for everyone through our speakers and electronic equipment cannot be used. Cell phones cannot be used at any time. If you need to reach your child, please call the after school number: 774-1700.
How to sign up:
Each day of camp is $30/child. Please put payment in the "After School Payment Folder" (on the wall as you walk in) and sign up on the Big MidWinter Sign Up sheet you will find there. Please do this by the end of Wednesday, Feb. 11th. Please note that there is a $10 late sign-up fee for payment after Feb. 11th, (per child, per day.)
Take good care,
Olover and Evelyn | |
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Important Events! 
Don't forget!
This Friday, February 6th, from 6-8pm, 4th-6th grade parents are invited to a special Uppers Information Night at the Katy Robbins and Peter Garbus house. All the Uppers teachers will be on hand to talk about the program. In addition, current and past Uppers and parents will speak about their experiences in the program. Please arrange for childcare for this Center School parents only event. Light refreshments will be on hand, along with beverages and lovely company. We look forward to seeing you there!
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| Upcoming Events |
February 2--Ski/Skate
February 6--Uppers Information Night for current 4th-6th grade parents (see sidebar for full details.)
February 9--Board Meeting 6:30
February 10--Picture Day (snow date February 12)
February 11--Last day to sign up for February Break camp at After School
March 5 and 6--Parent Conferences
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Contact Information |
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Greenfield Center School
71 Montague City Road
Greenfield, MA 01301
413-773-1700
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Earn
$100
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If you refer a family to the Center School and they end up enrolling, we'll gladly thank you with one of the following one hundred buck options:
1. $100 applied to your tution bill
2. $100 gift card to the grocery store of your choice
3. $100 donation to the charity of your choice
Thanks for helping us keep the school full and vibrant.
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| Offer Expires: When we are full | |
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