Don't forget next week's noon dismissal on Friday! 

Heritage faculty member, Elizabeth Zhao-Kanode, is offering a 15-week, after-school, Mandarin Chinese Enrichment program beginning January 24.  The program is open to all Middle and Upper School students as well as adults.  Download the flyer.

There is also a program for PK - Lower School students beginning January 25.  Download the flyer.

We are happy to announce the Georgia Goal kickoff for 2012.

Please join us as we seek participation in Georgia's Qualified Education Expense Tax Credit from at least 100 donors for the 2012 tax year.

Why should you participate?  You can redirect a portion of your Georgia state taxes to support The Heritage School and also claim the contribution as a charitable deduction on your federal tax return.

More information and forms are available on our website, or contact Jennifer Thomasson at jthomasson@heritagehawks.org, or 678-423-5827.

Service to others is an essential aspect of a Heritage education.  In December, we reported on a number of projects our students have been involved in.  Here are a few more.

Over the holiday season, approximately 6000 military personnel were expected to pass through the Atlanta airport and use the services of the USO.  On January 4, Bank of Coweta  provided 200 sack lunches for the USO.  Students in grades 2 through 7 decorated the lunch sacks for military personnel who were served lunch by Bank of Coweta and the USO.  Students expressed their appreciation for the service of our military men and women as well as wishing them well.

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The Heritage Gobble Bowl and Christmas Give started 13 years ago when the mother of a Heritage student was tragically dying of cancer.  The Fellowship of Christian Athletes wanted to help provide Christmas for this suffering family.  To raise money, they sponsored a Thanksgiving flag football tournament for students.  Since then, the FCA has sponsored the Gobble Bowl annually and given to families who have immediate unforeseen need.  Each year it has grown, and the students have received even more joy than those families they serve.

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The fourth graders earned money to make blankets for the children at Angel's House as part of their holiday charity project. 

Not many people have a chicken mummy to worry about over the Christmas holidays.  However, six intrepid volunteers in Mr. Marchman's sixth grade history classes had a little different Christmas break than the rest of us.   E. Mansour, E. Lawrence, K. Cox, E. Stoffle, J. Gainwell, and O. Gentry were the brave care-takers of the "chicken mummies" this year. Their job was to care for their work group's chicken mummy- a sometimes smelly and revealing adventure!

The sixth grade history classes are mummifying store bought whole chickens for forty days as part of their study of ancient Egypt. They carefully prepared the chickens after first giving them royal names such a "Roni" or "Shaquille."  They removed the hearts, livers, and gizzards from each chicken and learned some anatomy lessons in the process. In some cases, they found two necks or no organs inside of chickens making for some interesting conversations. These chickens were cleaned up with ancient Nile water courtesy of our tap and coated inside and out with salt.  Eventually they will dry out into unique mummies.

The students will finish the project in January by making amulets and wrapping layers of linen around each chicken to complete the mummies. Then they will paint appropriate hieroglyphics on their homemade coffin boxes and eventually process their mummies to the "Valley of the Dead Chickens" here on campus. This year's Seventh Grade knows the secret of that location. There their beloved mummies will be respectively interred.  The students might just take a peek at last year's mummies to see just how well they are holding up, if they don't get scared off by thinking of the Curse of King Tut. 

The AP Statistics class recently completed a unit on experiments and surveys. Each student chose a project with a partner to learn about sample design, polls, randomization, and bias. The projects included a Pepsi/Diet Pepsi taste test, student opinion interviews, and a taste test of generic versus name brand food products.

This is the fourth year Heritage has offered AP Statistics.  It has been a very successful addition to our mathematics curriculum.  Students have enjoyed the real-world applications of the course, and former AP Statistics students have returned to comment on how helpful the class was in numerous college courses.  At the University of Georgia, Statistics is required instead of Calculus for majors 33 to 1.  Heritage is pleased to be able to offer both of these courses to prepare our students for what they will encounter in college.