September 2012

Newsletter

Welcome Back Students! (Letter from the Director)

The

Summer

Programs

come to

an end

& Fall

Classes

Begins!

Dear Parents, I find that the beginning of the school year is always my favorite time. Getting to know all of the students and seeing the change in dynamics as personalities begin to form, knowledge base expands, and we all get to know each other once again. This year you may have noticed that we have started off with significant changes. The main building is dedicated to Primary families only. Infants and toddlers also have their own space, along with our Elementary age students. The staff really worked hard over the summer to get everything in place! This year we have a few more changes in store. In an effort to better commu-nicate with you, we are in the process of implementing new communication software. This software is accessible through your e-mail address, and will allow you the ability to see the lunch menu online, the class snack sign up lists, class calendars, schedule conferences, and more! For parents who are interested, a mobile app for this software will also be available. We are very excited about this new change – and hope you will be too. Look for more information in the next few weeks. As a side note – Primary parents, please be sure to attend one of the two parent workshops on September 18th. For your convenience, the “Steps to Reading” seminar will be offered at two times: 7am and 5pm. Please sign up in the front office. The Elementary Parent Workshop will be offered on September 25th at 5:30 pm. Your child does not have to be enrolled in a par-ticular class to attend – however, we ask that you RSVP to the front office so we may plan accordingly.

Samantha

Infant Environment

We are so excited and happy to be in our beautiful new room.

Everyone is doing great with the new schedule of sleeping, tummy-time and feeding. Max and Owen have moved to the Toddler One class and Fisher is transitioning now. We have welcomed a precious little girl, Ellie Claire Long, to our class. The boys (especially Miles in Toddler One) has enjoyed having a new girl in the class, since it has been a long time since we’ve had a baby girl. Fisher is up, crawl-ing, and pulling up on things to see above the floor. Sullivan and Gabin are beginning to move freely on the mat. They enjoy saying, “bye,bye”, “da-da”, “ma-ma”, and of course, their own language.

We are expecting to have a grat time this year!

Toddler One ProgramThe Summer is ending, and we have had a BLAST! The Toddlers

are really enjoying the new Infant/Toddler Environment. We have really enjoyed learning our colors and animals (the color yellow and lions seem to be the favorites). We welsomed Max and Owen from the Infant Program and have two new additions to the Toddler One fam-ily, Myles, Hope, and Calise! Fisher will also be joining us soon. We said goodbye to Sophia and Harrison as they moved up to the Toddler Two Program.

This fall we look forward to learning sign language!

Infant Program:

Ms. Anne&

Ms. Maggie

Toddler OneProgram:

Ms. Brenda&

Ms. Sophia

Brennan Hall: Upper School News- 4th-7th

Line Designsby:Erick Ordonez

by: Tom Magee

This new school year is off to a great start and we are really enjoying being back with our friends. Even the rising 4th graders seem right at home. We have begun to plan our service projects and field trips. The week of September 10th marks the first of our weekly visits to Master Kim’s School of Tae Kwon Do. We are also continuing to go to the Mauldin Sport Center with Coach Kim for P.E.

During the summer Mr. and Mrs. Freund and their daughter Natalia, one of our alumni currently at St. Josephs, donated a “jazz rug” to Brennan Hall. They hung it behind the piano, and it looks really great. Mr. and Mrs. Ward, and Rader and Lindsay (also BH alumni) donated two floor rugs and a small vacuum. Feel

“Character Poem” by Bryan Ordonez

FIRST STANZA

I am the fastest runner in my class, besides my friend,I wonder if the world will ever end,I sometimes hear strange noises at night,I see myself in the mirror; I am wonderful in my head,I want to go to school…some-times,I am cool, I think.

SECOND STANZA

I present my projects at school,I feel pain for others,I touch the sky in my dreams,I worry about others,I cry when someone dies,I am nice to people.

THIRD STANZA

I understand some things that others don’t,I say over a 1,000 words a day,I dream about zombies,I try to stay awake at night,I hope to be an astronaut when I grow up,I am cool, I think .

Natalia Freund

Monarch ClassroomWe welcome back all our students, both new and returning, to school this year. We’re off to a great start getting to know our new friends and reacquainting ourselves with returning friends. We’ve had a few tears, but so far everyone seems to be adjusting just fine settling in to the new routine and environment. We have begun our music classes with Ms. Cheri and are ex-cited to be learning new songs and preparing for International Day already. The children have enjoyed getting to know Ben, Ms. Cheri’s guide dog. They all know that he is a working dog and is there to do his job. Everyone has been very re-spectful of the rules and has made both Ms. Lori and myself very proud.Lots of other exciting things have been happen-ing since the beginning of the year including several birthdays for Addison Bragman, Addysen Jordan, Raina Patel and Kaylee Elrod. Happy birthday to each of you!! We had fun with the birthday celebrations in class, and even though there are lots of new faces this year, all the chil-dren were able to learn the birthday song quite well. We are looking forward to learning lots of new things over the next month as we enter fall. We have such a lovely view of the playground and will be able to observe the changes that come in autumn. The children have really enjoyed having the big, shady playground to play on this year and especially like playing on the tire swing, slides and clubhouse.We also have our annual pumpkin patch field trip to look forward to coming up in October. The final date has not been set, but will be sometime mid-October. We will be sure to let parents know details as soon as we get a confirmation date from Stewart Farms so you can plan ahead to hopefully join us for all the fun.Be sure to remember to check your child’s folder each Friday to see what they have ac-complished during the week, and see if you can find their owl on the classroom door. We are looking forward to a wonderful school year.

Activity Group: Ms. Mary, Ms. Jaquetta, Ms. Teresaa couple of weeks. We are looking forward to lots of exciting discoveries as the year pro-

gresses. We are meeting new friends, and reacquainting with old ones.

The Activity Group will be in the gym starting at 8am. We have a grat sched-ule of activites, classes, and special programs planned for the children. -Science Connection with special science projects, and pleanty of “hands-on” do-it-yourself activites. -Creative Dance keeps our bodies moving and exercises our muscles.

Our schedule is also filled with music, art, and Spanish each week! Once a month we will have story-time with Ms. Ayers form the Greenville Co. Library. We will also be taking field trips. If any parents would like to volunteer to help with art projects, storytime, or anything else...please let us know. Please check your child’s folder every Friday in the Main Buliding & thank you for your support!

Red Admiral & Eastern Swallowtail Classes Ms. Faria & Ms. Wynetta

It has been such a wonderful start of the school year. All the children have adjusted so well in the class and bring such energy and enthusiasm into our environment.

We have been busy practicing our Grace and Courtesy lessons and Walking on the Line exercise. The children are intrigued by the globe and puzzle map lessons. Four directions, parts of a tree and layers of the Earth are some of many activities we will be doing this month.

A special birthday wish for Mary Beth, Sasha and Emma Yennie who celebrated their special day with us in the month of August and September. We have enjoyed eating the birthday bread as much as they have enjoyed preparing it. Jack and Mathis also celebrated their birthdays before the start of the school year. This year, we are try-ing weekly snack instead of daily snacks. We appreciate all your support regarding this change. The snack calendar will go home with you only if your child is bringing snack that month. Ms. Wynetta and I would like to thank our parents for all their patience, understanding and support in ensuring that this school year got off to a great start. Thank you for sharing your precious children with us and we look for-ward to a wonderful school year.

Western Swallowtail Class Ms. Samantha & Ms. SadiaClassroom News: Our afternoons have been nothing but eventful. We start and end each day with a song – and the children are settling into the routine nicely.

We have already had several birthdays come up – Ethan, Kamaria, and Audrey (who is right around the corner) have celebrated their life with theclass. This is a special ceremony where we honor each year of your child’s life. The children are enjoying the routine and are learning the process easily.

Just a few reminders as we go into the school year – I am noticing many students who are taking an interest in letters and reading. Please remember that we do not use the letter names when talking about letters, instead refer to them by their sounds only. I encourage you to attend the upcoming workshop to get more information about this topic. When we all work together, learning comes so easily at this age. Also, folders are placed outside of the classroom on Fridays. Please make sure you check your child’s folders for any paperwork that needs to be taken home. You should have all received at least one e-mail from me… look for more in the coming weeks!

We have started this year in a brand new classroom with new floors and a fully functional kitchen. This year we welcomed eleven new students to

Bergamo - Natalea, Sophie, Srinidhi, Charley, Luke, Shiva, Oliver, Tyler, Ethan, Audrey, and Maximus “Lucky”. The first year have started reviewing their

work from their primary classroom and at the same time getting new les-sons like: working on spelling words, tally marks, synonyms, compound

words, opposites, homonyms, sound alike, counting money in groups, learn-ing place values up to a million, and greater and less than symbols. Our se

cond year students have started working on fractions and rounding num-bers. Our third year students are working on fractions with different

denominators, changing fractions to decimal fractions, guide words, and definitions of spelling words.

Bergamo Classroom

Our next field trip is to Paris Mountain in the month of October.Children have already started their extra cur-riculum activities - Span-ish, P.E., music, and art. Students are very ex-cited to practice a mu-sical play directed by

Ms. Cheri. It is a fairytale from China, “The Nightingale”. This play will take place in November. Our first parent education night is on Tuesday, September 25th at 5:30 p.m. All parents new to Bergamo are invited.

Our first field trip was to Niven’s Apple Farm. Students got to sit on a hayride, walk through a

maze, and pick apples from the trees for them to take home. It was a good day and everybody got

their shoes and socks wet while picking apples, which the children did not mind at all. Thank you

to all parents who helped us on the field trip.

Toddler Two Program: Ms. Doris, Ms. Carmen, Ms. Luz, Ms. Deborah, & Ms. Teia

The MSM Toddler II Staff would like to thank all of our parents for helping to make 2011-2012 a suc-cessful and fun learning year! We appreciate all you do!

Special Thanks To…

- Scott Lanning for food and toy donations, and for spending time with us during celebrations

- Kristina and Matthew Cazessus for donations and willingness to spend time in the classroom

- Samantha Johnson for working so hard with our staff to improve your child’s development and com-fort, and for sharing books with our students

- Chris and Kristen Mason fort the parting gifts and for always remembering to notify us ahead of time of changes and concerns with their child

- TO ALL OF THE PARENTS FOR SHARING YOUR CHILD WITH US!

Congratulations to our Graduates:

- Welles Sherrill, Leah Schaberg, Eleanor Dunlap, and MaryBeth Mason. We really enjoyed having each of them in our class this year!

What Has Been Going On:

During the summer we did lots of fun and interesting activities.

- We planted a vegetable garden and tended it all summer.

- We talked about bugs and studied how they help us. We also studied how some bugs change as they grow, and talked about some bugs that we do not like.

- We studied the jungle and the animals that live there.

- We looked at the desert and the plants and animals that live there. We also compared the difference between the jungle and the desert, including their plant and animal life.

What’s New:

At the start of the fall season we will study letters A, B, F, M, & P; numbers 0-4; and the colors: red, white, and blue. We will learn and practice “safety rules” and “good friend rules”. We will also prac-tice with crayons, markers, and painting with brushes.

Calligraphy by: Ryan Bayadi

by: Alex Magee

Visit for 9/11As part of our work for the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, we baked cookies and delivered them to our local police and fire departments. We also visited the small Veteran’s Memorial on E. Butler Rd. and learned how to properly fold the American flag. We have con-tacted a soldier who is currently on a tour of duty and hope to send him a care package as soon as we know what he needs. We will keep you posted, and have a list of items you can help with by the next newsletter.

poem by: Ryan Wagner

Brennan Hall: 4th-7th Grades

This Month’s Survey:

We got to know each other this year by collecting our opinions. Below is a composite list of what we think the “best” things are:

The best car is… a Puma, a Delta-wing Racecar, a Limo,The best sport is… TKD, Baseball, Basketball, Swimming,The best color is… Black, Purple, Neon Green, RedThe best food is… PB&J, Crepes, Macaroni and Cheese, Crois-sants, Pizza, The best drink is… Fanta, Milk, Water, Sprite,The best song is… We Are Young, Boyfriend, Payphone, Greenday, Jar of Hearts,The best radio station is… B 93.7,The best television show is… Mad, American Dad, Family Guy, Sponge Bob, The best movie is… The Hunger Games, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Woman in Black, The Mysterious Island,The best game is… Minecraft, Logos, Skyrim, Zelda,The best school subject is… Recess, Math, Science,The best hobby is… Playing video games, Soccer, The best animal is… a dog with a good personality, a liger, a wolf, a tiger,The best season is… Winter, Summer, Spring,