Family Notes: August 23, 2013

I begin this new school year with a profound sense of thanks. Thanks for all our new students and families who will enhance and enrich our whole school. Thanks for having found a building in close proximity to our home school that will serve us well as a lower school. Thanks for all our talented and hardworking teachers and staff who have approached this huge undertaking of opening a new facility, with all of its unexpected hurdles, with a "can do" attitude and sense of joyful adventure. I am grateful that we have the opportunity to share the work that we do.

In the words of Melody Beattie, journalist and international best selling author, "Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend."

I anticipate a school year full of joyful adventures.

Warmly,

Ms. Lam

Diana Lam

Open Houses and Other Important Dates

We are so excited about school opening for the 2013-2014 School Year and invite all of our families to attend all the Open Houses that pertain to their children.

Open House (Lower Campus)

Week of August 26th

Date	Time	Class
Wednesday, August 28th	3:00-3:45	K1 Open House (Ms. Mason)
Wednesday, August 28th	4:00-4:45	2^nd Grade Open House (Ms. Gampel)
Wednesday, August 28th	5:00-5:45	K1 Open House (Ms. Boyd)

Thursday, August 29th	3:00-3:45	2^nd Grade Open House (Mr. Larney)
Thursday, August 29th	4:00-4:45	K2 Open House (Ms. Randolph)
Thursday, August 29th	5:00-7:00	Ice Cream Social at Upper Campus- all staff and families *
Thursday, August 29th	6:15-7:00	1^st Grade Open House

For Ms. Katie Biro's K-2 class only:

Date	Time
Thursday, August 29th	4:00-4:45
Thursday, August 29th	5:45-7:45
Friday, August 30th	4:30-7:45

Open House (Upper Campus)

Thursday August 29^th from 5:p.m. to 6p.m. Students and families from grades 3 to 7 can tour their classrooms and meet their teachers.

Thursday, August 29^th there will also be an Ice Cream Social for all families in all grades. This will be held in the parking lot in front of the door to the upper school at 25 Arlington Street from 5p.m. to 7p.m. and is an opportunity for school personnel to meet families, and for children and families to see where they will be attending school. This is different than Back to School Night, which will be held on September 12^th.

Additional dates to put into your calendar are:

Friday, September 6^th from 5p.m. to 6:30 p.m., a Pizza Party sponsored by the Parent Advisory Council (PAC) (also in the parking lot of 25 Arlington Street)
Wednesday, September 18^th from 5:30 to &7:001^st official PAC meeting of the year. This will take the form of an information fair, giving new and returning families an overview of all the ways families support the work of our school.

Bus Notification

We upgraded our Bus Delays Notification System to track the daily attendance of students. We need ALL parents to sign up, including the ones that will pick up their children or have their children walk home.

At the moment the system will work on several levels:

For all children - it will track daily attendance and log all events of daily dismissal for safety purposes.
For children that take the bus on a regular basis - parents will be notified when their bus leaves school main building via text messages on their cell phone and email address.
For children that don't take the bus - dismissal managers will be checking i.d. of the adults that pick up, and will track times and changes of pick up.

We will be adding more features to the system soon, so walkers and children's arrivals to school will have notification options as well.

The sign up forms and more information can be found here:

http://www.conservatorylabparents.com/busing-info-and-tools/

This page contains more information on what to expect with busing and additional tools to help parents prepare for new school year.

Middle School Orientation

Orientation week here at the upper school was very successful from the perspective of its leaders. Andres Cruz Torres, Principal of the Middle School, was very happy that most of the families attended, that relationships were forged with the crew leaders, and that the foundation for the Middle School Creed was begun. A special focus on developing empathy by each student had them creating their own "I "version of what they will incorporate as their own from the five values, Tenacity, Integrity, Courage, Compassion and Reflection.

Kat Jara, one of the El Sistema Co-Directors, stated that "Our new middle school musicians jumped into the El Sistema program: new incoming students tried out on all wind instruments and were assigned either trumpet, trombone, clarinet or flute based upon those auditions. They immediately began work on the basics of music, learning about rhythm and beat through an introductory musicianship class taught by Jeanne Segal, and then began the process of making beautiful sounds on brand new instruments. Our winds resident artists, Clayton DeWalt, trombone; Chris Schroeder, trumpet; Adam Eccleston, flute; Juan Ruiz, clarinet, worked each day to advance a little more toward a group sound."

Adrian Anatawan, also Co-director of El Sistema and Conductor for the Dudamel Orchestra continued the glowing report. "This was a week of experiment, from the perspective of Dudamel Orchestra rehearsals. Specifically, we unveiled the prototype of our Advanced Musicianship Course, a hybrid between a music literacy and performance, focused around score reading of unarranged repertoire (in this case, John Williams' Raiders March from Indiana Jones). We also have incorporated the use of iPad percussion instruments to great success; this will allow us to expand the creative and expressive capacity of the orchestra, and will lay the groundwork for using technology as an assistive aid for students who may have motor or cognitive challenges in the school."

Middle School Musical Showcase

Performance opportunities are a wonderful motivator for students so our middle school students ended the school portion of their orientation with a musical showcase of what they had learned. A huge part of the initial process of learning a new wind or brass instrument is simply learning how to make a sound.

The flutes started off the series with Mr. Eccleston leading his eight new flute students through rhythmic exercises. Next, Mr. Ruiz and the new clarinet section played Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. They were followed by Mr. Schroeder and the trumpets and then Mr. DeWalt, our new band leader (see below) and the trombones. All the horn players "buzzed" with their mouthpieces and played scales. We are so proud of our new students! They proved they are up to the Conservatory Lab challenge.

All the "new" middle school students then demonstrated what they had learned in Musicianship class through a rhythmic performance led by their instructor, Ms. Segal. Mr. Anantawan and the Dudamel orchestra provided the program's finale by performing the first 42 bars of the main theme from Indiana Jones complete with percussion. Our middle school students are clearly ready for great things this year.

Meet Mr. DeWalt

With the expansion of our music program, we are excited to introduce the newest member to our Resident Artist staff and the leader of our newly formed middle school wind band. A current doctoral candidate at New England Conservatory, Clayton DeWalt is an active freelance trombonist in the greater Boston area, playing a range of styles, including Jazz and Blues, Funk, Salsa, Balkan Brass, and Classical. He holds a Masters in Music in jazz trombone from NEC, and a Bachelors degree in music education from Slippery Rock University.

"I'm really excited to have the chance to work in the classroom with the students every day of the week," Clayton said when asked about what he is looking forward to the most about his experience at Conservatory Lab. "Having such a frequent, focused rehearsal schedule will provide an opportunity for us to reach remarkable levels of musicianship and creativity, as well as a very real sense of community."

An accomplished Jazz improviser, Clayton is very passionate about integrating music literacy, aural skills and improvisation in his rehearsals. "I feel that this approach provides an opportunity for students to find connections between a wide range of musical genres and styles."

When Clayton is not playing or teaching music, he's usually outside with his dog, Fiddle, traveling up the New England coast, and spending time cooking and enjoying food with his wife and friends.

Uniforms

Don't forget: all students must come to school in uniform on the first day. Many families came in to have their students measured by Tucker Allen and his team from Allen's Uniforms. Use this link and then "Shop By School" to find polo shirts and fleeces. The company is extremely helpful about exchanges and quick with the shipping.

Upcoming Concert: Dream Chorus to Celebrate 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington

On August 28, 2013, the 50th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington will be commemorated in Boston by the

Memorial March for Peace 2013.

The Memorial March honors the lives of those lost to violence, the enduring spirits of their families and all those who work for peace. Events include a peace vigil at 1:00 PM at the Garden of Peace in downtown Boston, the march to Newton Centre co-led by Isaura Mendes of the Bobby Mendes Peace Legacy, City Mission Society of Boston and Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries, a light supper at First Baptist church in Newton Centre and an evening Interfaith Gathering for Justice and Peace at 7:00 PM with speakers Professor Susannah Heschel, Rev. Kim Odom and Donnel Baird of BlocPower in Brooklyn, NY and performances by the Lovetones and the Dream Chorus, (including several Conservatory Lab students) led by Joanne Hammill.