The Friday Note April 29, 2011

Transcription

1 The Friday Note April 29, 2011 May 2011 Sunday, May 1st Diversity Meeting 4pm 375 Grand St. Newburgh Mothers Group Thursday, May 5th Parent Group Meeting 7:30pm Saturday, May 7th Friday, May 13th Jump Rope for Heart! Saturday, May 14th Tuesday, May 17th Downstairs Closed Teacher/Parent Meeting Wednesday, May 18th Downstairs Play 9:15 am Monday, May 23rd Annual Art Show 1pm Tuesday, May 24th Annual Art Show 6-8pm Wednesday, May 25th Downstairs to the Bardavon Friday, May 27th Teacher Work Day No School Monday, May 30th Memorial Day School Closed Cooperation! The Randolph School, 2467 Route 9D, Wappingers Falls, NY tel: fax: web:

2 DOWNSTAIRS 3s and 4s This week we had a trip to the farm. The farm was alive with all of the signs of spring. We explored the farm using our senses. The colors of the flowers and plants were vibrant, and the smells were strong some good and some bad! We got to smell and taste onion grass, mint leaves and lemon balm. In the barn, the spring also brought forth the arrival of some new babies two pigs and one calf. The calf was very friendly and let us pet him through the fence. Thank you all for your help and participation in these trips throughout the year. Our trips to the farm help us in learning about science, nature, and respect for all of the plants and animals on our wonderful planet. Another thank you for all of the work that went into the floors and painting of the walls. The floors are beautiful! We can't seem to stop remarking on what a difference it makes, giving our space a fresh, bright feeling. We all worked together in the downstairs carrying blocks and stacking them in the block room on Tuesday before circle time. At circle time, we noticed the changes around us, and observed the difference in noise level we may experience in the block room. Using our inside voices in this space, and trying to keep the blocks from crashing, will help to keep a comfortable noise level. You may have also noticed that the loft is officially open! On Tuesday, we talked about the safety rules for the loft, and demonstrated how to climb the ladder, as well as how to get down. This new space will accommodate three children at a time right now, and will provide a different perspective for play in the great room. Spring has sprung! The weather is finally getting warm, and we are enjoying our outdoors time in the sunshine. Please remember to bring in a bottle of sunscreen with your child's name on it to keep at the school if you would like them to apply it before outdoors time. A sun hat is also helpful to keep the sun out of the eyes, and keep the bugs from our faces. An extra set of seasonal clothes should also be in your child's bin or cubby. Here's a peek at our End-of-the-Year Calendar. Please take a good look and arrange your calendars now so we can spend these special times together. ADVENTURE DAY: Thursday, June 2 at Bowdoin Park. This is a full day event for all Downstairs children. Last Day of School: Thursday, June 9. This is a half-day (12:30 pick-up for everyone). We'll come back for an early evening Stepping Stones Ceremony at 5:30. Randolph School Camp: June 27-Aug weeks of fun-tastic adventures!! May 2011 Sunday, May 1st Diversity Meeting 4pm 375 Grand St. Newburgh Mothers Group 7pm@Randolph Thursday, May 5th Parent Group Meeting 7:30pm Saturday, May 7th Friday, May 13th Jump Rope for Heart! Saturday, May 14th Tuesday, May 17th Downstairs Closed Wednesday, May 18 Downstairs Play ~ Owl Babies 9:15am Teacher/Parent Meeting Monday, May 23rd Annual Art Show 1pm Tuesday, May 24th Annual Art Show 6-8pm Wednesday, May 25th Downstairs to the Bardavon Friday, May 27th Teacher Work Day No School Monday, May 30th Memorial Day School Closed This week s Fruit Cafe Provider Antoni Stachnik

3 UPSTAIRS The Authors It is amazing how much things can change in one week! During our Spring Break, major areas of the school have transformed and we have turned the corner into spring. Trees are leafing, flowers are blooming, and the yellow finches are visiting the Forest Room bird feeder, lingering sometimes for more than ten minutes, delighting us with their vivid colors. The Authors themselves returned from their break as taller, stronger, and faster individuals. We began our week with a trip to the farm, planting rows of onions, noticing changes and taking field notes. The trees are greening, the flower gardens are offering spring blooms and some of the greenhouse plants are large enough to be planted outdoors. Buttercup has delivered a calf and there are two new spring pigs. Back at school, Jacob sang songs with us in the amphitheater, painted lady caterpillars arrived via Fed-Ex, and Kim shared a slide show and treat from her trip to Ecuador. On Wednesday, we reviewed our field notes and used them to inspire more detailed writing about the farm. When we weren't writing, we were busy baking for Grandfriends Day on Friday. We are reading about eggs, watching the eaglets grow in their nest in Iowa, preparing for hatching this year's clutch of Magical Randolph Chickens, studying the way that different authors write, keeping track of the days of school, preparing seeds for planting and getting ready to dig our garden. The place Where the Wild Things Were has given way to more typical decor; classrooms have gone through a spring cleaning and reorganizing; and children are busily reading, writing, reflecting, discussing, calculating and classifying. Brad and the High School boys are working with the Authors to choose and build rockets. Math-a-thon is coming to a close. Farm and theater trips, Adventure Day, visits to the stream are coming. Life in the Upstairs for the Authors is busy and productive. Thank you to the parents who work to make the Randolph campus glow. From the grounds and landscaping, to the empty basement, to the new floor in the entry, to the polished wooden floor in the Great Room, and to the brightly painted and curtained Upstairs Block Room, our school is looking beautiful. Also, we know that we couldn't have our wonderful monthly visits to the farm without parent drivers. Thank you again. It is Grandfriends Day today. We are turning our attention to showing these special guests the amazing work, the amazing ideas, and the amazing people gathered here at Randolph School. May 2011 Sunday, May 1st Diversity Meeting 4pm 375 Grand St. Newburgh Mothers Group 7pm@Randolph Thursday, May 5th Parent Group Meeting 7:30pm Saturday, May 7th Friday, May 13th Jump Rope for Heart! Saturday, May 14th Monday, May 23rd Annual Art Show 1pm Tuesday, May 24th Annual Art Show 6-8pm Friday, May 27th Teacher Work Day No School Monday, May 30th Memorial Day School Closed This Week s Snack Provider Tues. 5/3 Milla Berg This Week s Snack Provider Thurs. 5/5 Asher Straus

4 UPSTAIRS Emperor Penguins We've launched our long-awaited study of Human Powered flight. Did you know that Leonardo da Vinci left design sketches for a helicopter and plane? Several of our students did. We've been studying the hot-air balloon, originally demonstrated by the Montgolfier Brothers in the seventeen hundreds. Then, each of the Penguins drew his or her own beautiful balloon, which are on display in the front stairway. We also learned a bit about the early aeroplanes the biplanes of The Wright Brothers and a monoplane by Berliot. One of the math groups today measured lengths of line in the same measurements as the wingspan and length of the Wright Flyer III, which was their first plane to have the space to include a passenger. On Monday, weather permitting, we will line out the dimensions on the back field so we can get an idea of just how large this two-person plane really was. Both of my math groups will shortly be moving on to a study of statistics and probability, each in their own way. Randolph students have an advantage in studying statistics, because they have been working with surveys and graphing for quite a while. We will continue to review our math facts as we move forward with this new topic. Tomorrow, students who have not yet chosen their book will be asked to do so. I will then order the books which should arrive in the middle of next week. Before we begin our reading of these biographies, we will do an introduction to the idea of biography itself. Who writes a biography? How do they know about the topic of the biography? How much of a biography is fact and how much is fiction? May 2011 Sunday, May 1st Diversity Meeting 4pm 375 Grand St. Newburgh Mothers Group 7pm@Randolph Thursday, May 5th Parent Group Meeting 7:30pm Saturday, May 7th Friday, May 13th Jump Rope for Heart! Saturday, May 14th Monday, May 23rd Annual Art Show 1pm Tuesday, May 24th Annual Art Show 6-8pm Friday, May 27th Teacher Work Day No School Monday, May 30th Memorial Day School Closed This morning in circle we began to review editing marks in preparation for editing in our new, twice weekly, writing groups. Many of the Penguins have been asking for a writing group, and this will be a combination of free writing and guided writing along with editing and publication.

5 High School Avery & Cody May 2011 Sunday, May 1st Diversity Meeting 4pm 375 Grand St. Newburgh Mothers Group Thursday, May 5th Parent Group Meeting 7:30pm Saturday, May 7th Friday, May 13th Jump Rope for Heart! Saturday, May 14th Monday, May 23rd Annual Art Show 1pm Tuesday, May 24th Annual Art Show 6-8pm Friday, May 27th Teacher Work Day No School Monday, May 30th Memorial Day School Closed As the semester is winding down the High Schoolers are thinking of how to spend their last month of the year at Randolph. We have several projects that we will have time to complete once they are at Randolph for five days a week. It has been quite an experience for both of them at DCC this year. They have gotten a taste of college life, both the good and the challenging. The environment there is so different from life here at Randolph. Avery and Cody learned many valuable lessons and they worked very hard to succeed in their classes and more importantly, at the lessons of how to be a college student. Avery is excited that he was exposed to a new language (Italian) and Cody was excited to learn that Watson (the IBM program that won on Jeopardy) is written in Linux. Hopefully the tree house will be finished soon now that the weather has improved. We are planning to have another trip out to Fire Island. The return to our roots as it were. We are planning to do studies while we are there as well as work on our literacy and final themes. While in the Hudson Valley we will try to go on a few field trips and tours locally. The goal is to have their final time at Randolph to be a grand finale.

6 April 2011 (Key: All School, Downstairs, Authors, Emperor Penguins, Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 1 Penguins to see The Man Who Planted Trees Community Clean-up Day! 10am-4pm Penguins Native American Museum & Play 5pm 13 Authors Journey to Where the Wild Things Are 5-6: Spring Vacation Spring Vacation Spring Vacation Spring Vacation Spring Vacation Teacher Work Day No School 26 Authors to the 27 Downstairs to the Farm Grand parents/ Grand friends Day! 30

7 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 1 Mothers Group 4pm Diversity Meeting 7pm May 2011 (Key: All School, Downstairs, Authors, Emperor Penguins, Parent Group meeting 7:30pm 6 7 Dwell, Climb, Fly 12-4pm Jump Rope For Heart 14 Dwell, Climb, Fly 12-4pm 15 Mothers Group 4pm Downstairs Closed Parent/ Teacher Conference. 18 Downstairs Owl Babies Play 9:15 am Randolph Annual Art Show 1pm 24 Randolph Annual Art Show 6-8pm 25 Downstairs to Bardavon 10am Teacher Workday No School Mothers Group 4pm 30 Memorial Day No School 31

8 School/Community Announcements Randolph Twitters!! Come follow our Tweet. If you write them, they will follow.your children s quotes that is. And we re not only writing them down, we are tweeting them on Twitter! Come follow Twitter! The Randolph School posts wonderful photo albums on Facebook at randolphschool. You don t need to have a Facebook account to visit our page. Just visit the link and check us out! The Parent Group would like to THANK all of you who spared their time and helped renovate and clean the school over spring break.. Working together and seeing the improvements was a wonderful experience. Thank you Alisa, Christine, Elizabeth, Pedrito, Noah B., John, Brad and Susan, Patrick, Diane, David and Anita with the Authors, Kasia, Knut, Katlyn, Brandon, Kai, Robert, Kalene, Mindy, Brent, Kathryn della Bitta, Isaac, Beth and the faculty! And Thank you, to the professional helpers Doug Donaghy for finishing the floor, John Cooke's employees Lotero and Jorge for ripping out the old carpet, Richard Wilson for painting, and Colin Cuite and his employee for tiling the entryway. Many thanks to Molly McCoy (Asher s mom) for making an awesome Mac n Cheese for Something in a Bowl this week! Parents, don t forget to check the school calendar on our website and click on Meal in a Bowl to find out who s making it and what s in this week s Something in a Bowl!

9 Announcements Continued.. Randolph School friend and Constitution Marsh/Audubon instructor, Eric Lind is currently having an exhibit of photographs and a few sculptures at the Beacon institute gallery - and a bird walk on Denning's Point later this month (4/30). Stop by if you can! Cat Shelter News Mid Hudson Animal Aid is a local Cat shelter in Beacon. It is a non killshelter and it does not ever turn cats away. Cats, as you might know, often catch diseases like FIV and Leukemia. Beacon's cat shelter takes care of all the cats, it even turns out that MHAA has an FIV room and Leukemia room. Taking care of all cats is actually happening here in NY. Audrey, the director of MHAA, is helping cats with a lot of other cat lovers working to buy medicine and food. At least two cats go to the vet every day, Audrey says. Audrey and the board of MHAA have found a way to make feral cats adoptable by having a program called Feral Friends. Feral Friends is a program where people sign up to work with a cat that is feral and civilize it. The shelter is open every day of the week except Mondays, so you can sign up to help or donate money at our school jar. I hope that you like cats! Signed, Ava Fisherman! Anita Rose Merando and Shelly Gartner Classic Jazz Standards Duo Thanks to everyone who participated in the Hannafords Helps Schools program. We just received a check in amount of $96 from them! Friday, April 29, 6-9 PM Vigneto Cafe 80 Vineyard St in Highland excellent food and family friendly First Sunday Jazz May 1, 5-8 PM Whistling Willies American Grill Main St in Cold Spring

10 A Few Fancy Photos

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