The Foote School 
E-News
December 3, 2015
In This Issue
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A Theater Production to Celebrate Our Centennial



The 7th/8th grade play, A Centennial Celebration of One-Act Plays, opens tonight in the Sandine Theater. All tickets are $12 and may be purchased at the front desk.

To celebrate Foote's 100th birthday, the student cast and crew and Director Julian Schlusberg have put together a fantastic show with a comedy (Chekhov's A Marriage Proposal), a mystery (Lucille Fletcher's Sorry, Wrong Number), and a musical (Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock's The Diary of Adam and Eve).

Performance dates:

Thursday, Dec. 3 - 7:00 p.m.
Friday, Dec. 4 - 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, Dec. 5 - 7:00 p.m.
Sunday, Dec. 6 - 1:00 p.m.
AllSchoolNewsALL SCHOOL NEWS AND INFORMATION
Student Participation in Assemblies

With the Winter Assembly approaching, we want to remind parents that student participation in musical performances is an important part of the music curriculum and supports our school community. Students look forward to assembly performances and practice diligently for them. When one or more students are absent, it can affect the parts rehearsed by the group. The faculty respectfully asks that you bear this in mind when planning family vacations. Thank you.

Winter Assembly
Friday, December 18
11:00 a.m. in the Hosley Gym

Groups performing:
Grade 1
Grade 3
Grade 6
8Y Handbell Ensemble
8Y Steel Band
9th Grade Handbell Ensemble*
9th Grade Steel Band*
Jazz Rock Band
Chorus

*(if your child is in handbells or steel pans this trimester, they will perform)

Spring Assembly
Friday, March 11
11:00 a.m. in the Hosley Gym

Groups performing:
Kindergarten
Grade 2
Grade 4
Grade 5
8Z Handbell Ensemble
8Z Steel Band
Jazz Rock Band
Chorus
Orchestra

Please Claim Lost and Found Items


Lost and found items will be placed in the back of the gym during the Winter Assembly on Friday, December 18 (11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.)

Items not collected will be donated to a local charity after the assembly.

If you are looking for something now, please ask the front desk staff for assistance.

Thank you!
Save the Date for Scratch Day - Jan. 23

On Saturday, January 23, Foote will host Scratch Day, a morning to meet, share and learn about coding and technology. The event is open to students in Grades 3-7 and any experience level.

Registration is now open for Foote families - click here to view the program and to sign up. Registration for the general public will open on January 11. This is a free event, but enrollment is limited in each class/session and overall enrollment will be capped at 150.

Special note to parents: In order to save their work on Scratch Day, students will need a Scratch account (requiring both parental permission and a parent's email address). Students will be able to create an account on Scratch Day, but it is easier to create one in advance. (Click here and then click "Join Scratch.")

Questions can be directed to Julianne Ross-Kleinmann (jross@footeschool.org) or Deborah Carpenter (dcarpenter@footeschool.org).


   
Winter Minicourses for After School Students

It's time to sign up for winter minicourses. Courses offered this trimester include "Basket Making," "Baking With Kathy," "Shining Stars," "Minecraft for Beginners," "The Art of Storytelling" and more!

Click here to download course descriptions.

Click here for the enrollment form.
  
This Holiday, Give the Gift of Horizons
Horizons at Foote has beautiful holiday cards that you can use to make a donation in someone's honor. It's a great, easy and meaningful gift.

Each card lets the recipient know that a donation has been made in his or her name to help low-income children in New Haven participate in our six-week summer enrichment program. This is a great way to streamline your holiday giving and make a difference in the lives of our neighbors! The cards don't cost anything other than the donation - and there is no minimum. If you would like some cards, please email Jaime Cole, Executive Director of Horizons at Foote, at jcole@footeschool.org. For more information about Horizons, click here.

Thank you for your consideration and support!
  PTCNewsPTC NEWS
Support Foote with Amazon Holiday Purchases


Are you planning to do online shopping this holiday season? You can give back to Foote while you shop! Amazon will donate 1 percent of your purchases to the charity of your choice through the Amazon Smile program. Sign up here and choose to support Foote School.

DayInLifeA DAY IN THE LIFE OF FOOTE
Early America Day


Benjamin Franklin, Noah Webster, Squanto, Eliza Pinckney and a host of other early Americans (aka seventh graders in period costumes) visited classrooms on the day before Thanksgiving to talk about their roles in our country's founding. As they do each year for Early America Day, seventh graders recited carefully researched monologues as their historical figures, capping off their weeks-long unit on early American history.

Afterward at the Thanksgiving Assembly, the students introduced themselves in character to the whole school and sang the classic early American song "Amazing Grace." Find more photos on our website.

 
Donated Stumps Create An Outdoor Classroom

Grace Peard's first grade students have a beautiful new outdoor classroom - with a tree stump for each child - courtesy of Sandweiss Tree Service, which recently delivered 18 stumps to Foote.

Inspired by the Reggio Emilia educational philosophy, the stumps provided the perfect place for Grace's students to share their Thanksgiving poems with each other last week.

The outdoor classroom will support the Grade 1 curriculum in myriad ways, Grace says. "Our science unit is all about organisms and we do a lot of sketching outdoors," she says. "The stumps will provide a great place to sit and observe and take in the birds and trees in our natural surrounding."

Special thanks to Foote parent Ben Sandweiss for donating the stumps.



'Mixing It Up" at a Community-Building Lunch
Would you rather be held in high esteem by one person, and only one person you respect, or by 10,000 people you don't? Would you rather have the power to temporarily rewind to better times or fast-forward through painful ones? Would you rather be a bull rider or the clown that distracts the bull?
 
Students in grades 4 through 9 pondered those and other questions together on Wednesday during Foote's third "Mix It Up" lunch, an activity aimed at building an inclusive school community by grouping students from different grades together for lunch and conversation.

The event was sponsored by F-STAND (Foote Students Against Negative and Discrimination) and group members served as facilitators of the lunchtime discussions.

"It was hard in the beginning to get everyone to bond but once we got talking and we gave them the questions, everyone got engaged with it and really enjoyed it," says eighth grader Serena Levin.

"In my group, there was a little kid who was sitting outside the group, not saying anything, and by the end he was talking and more involved than most of the other people," adds eighth grader Eva Illuzzi.

 

Singing a Holiday Classic

Keeping with a long-standing Foote tradition, second graders performed the holiday classic "Over the River and Through the Woods" at last week's Thanksgiving Assembly in the Hosley Gym. Click below to watch video.

 
 

From the Faculty Blogs

Chester Sharp shares a list of books his second graders are using to talk about diverse family structures.

Hilary Pearson's first graders learned all about Norway during a special visit from "Farmor" (pictured).

Melissa McCormack's third graders used a sales circular - and lots of math - to plan a Thanksgiving Day menu for under $45.

To read more, check out the Lower School blogs and Middle School blogs.
DatesDates to Remember

Dec. 3-6 - Theater Production: A Centennial Celebration of One-Act Plays

Dec. 18 - Winter Assembly - 11:00 a.m. in the Hosley Gym - 12:30 p.m. All-School Dismissal

Dec. 19 - Jan. 3 - Winter Break - NO SCHOOL

Jan. 4 - Classes Resume