Giving Thanks

Dear Middle School Families,

Dear Families,

On the Wednesday before the Thanksgiving break, we had our annual Thanksgiving Assembly. It was a gathering at which our students’ voices rang clear and true.

The fifth graders shared stories of thanks written to important people in their lives. These stories focused in on the individual they were thanking and through rich description brought that person and why he or she was important to life for their listeners.

The sixth graders shared a collective poem that focused on those things for which they were most thankful. The poem touched on the personal and the global and built to heartfelt shared expression of thanks.

The middle of the ceremony was reserved for our newest assembly tradition. During the weeks leading up to the assembly, Middle School music teacher Matt McLean worked with fifth and sixth grade classes to create the lyrics for an original composition “Thankful Are We”  focused on the spirit of giving thanks. The fifth and sixth grade classes sang their verses and the community joined in on the upbeat choruses.

The seventh graders who earlier in the morning held their annual food celebration reading offered  stories about foods that were connected to their family, their heritage or their past. Following the assembly, they retired to the cafeteria for a literal feast of their “literary” subjects.

As has become our longstanding tradition, the eighth graders offered their revision of  the Byrd Baylor story I’m in Charge of Celebrations. Their revision reflected the collaborative work of the entire eighth grade class. While adults provided some general context and support for the work, the process that gave rise to its writing and the final product were truly student-centered efforts and reflective of our progressive practice. I hope that their version of “I’m in Charge of Celebrations” gives you as much pleasure as it gave us. Enjoy!

Of General Interest . . .

1) There is still time to sign up for the second two terms of Adult r(ED). Don’t miss out! Click here to view the course offerings and meeting dates. There is a $100 registration fee per course for each participant. If you would like to register for one of these courses, please contact Rowena Penaranda-Askins at rpenaranda@lrei.org or (212) 477-5316, x295.

2) Alumni College Panel: Join us for our annual Alumni College Panel.  This is a terrific opportunity to hear recent LREI grads discuss their transition from high school to college and how their time at LREI prepared them for success. Thursday, January 6th, 6:30PM, PAC 40 Charlton Street. Moderated by our new Director of College Guidance Carey Socol. RSVP to Liza Sacks at (212) 477-5316 ext. 291 or lsacks@lrei.org. Click here to view and print a flyer with full details.

3) Our brand-new community cookbook, Downtown Potluck, a wonderful compilation of recipes from our talented parents and teachers will be on sale on Wednesday, December 8th, at the Book Fair, through Friday, December 10th. The book costs $25 for those in our community and supplies are limited. Think of it for your holiday gift-giving. If you pre-ordered a cookbook, please pick it up at the book fair, or email cookbook@LREI.org.

flyer_WinterConcert_12.94) LREI Winter Concert: Join us on Tuesday, December 14th, to see LREI students at their musical best. The concert will start at 6:30PM in the Eisner & Lubin Auditorium, which is located on the 4th floor of NYU’s Kimmel Center located at 60 Washington Square South. This wonderful annual event features performances by all three divisional choruses, the middle and high school jazz bands and the high school brass ensemble.

5) For some pre-LREI Winter Concert pleasure, The Glass Menagerie Chorus, LREI’s resident adult chorus, conducted by Susan Glass, will perform its winter concert on Saturday, December 11th, at 8:00PM, at St. Joseph’s Church, 6th Ave. and Washington Place. See attached flyer for more details.

6) Spirit Club: Get out of the cold and come and join the fun at one of our Knights home games next week! All games are held at Thompson Street Athletic Center, 145 Thompson Street.

  • Monday 13th December 4pm   Varsity Girls vs Churchill
  • Tuesday 14th December 4pm   JV Boys vs Churchill
  • Wednesday 15th December 3:30pm   MS boys vs Friends, 4:30pm MS Girls vs Friends
  • Thursday 16th December 4pm   Varsity Girls vs Steiner, 5:15 JV Boys vs Steiner

We will also be having the last Spirit Super Fan Club of the year before the double-header on Wednesday from 3pm until game time. Spirit Club is open to all – come hang out and have a snack, do your homework and have some fun while the teams warm up. So come ready to scream, yell, wave your flags and MAKE SOME NOISE!! LET’S GO KNIGHTS! Click here for a flyer with all the information.

Click here to access the most current “At a Glance” calendar for the 2010-2011 school year.

7) For additional school news, you can follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

8) LREI is a member of NYC-Parents in Action (NYC-PIA – http://www.parentsinaction.org/). NYC-PIA provides parenting education, information and a communications network to help parents prepare their children and teenagers to cope with social pressures and to make sound choices towards a future free of alcohol and drug abuse. Click here to view upcoming events and/or to download their calendar.

For All Grades . . .

AMidNightDream_hi2-11) The Middle School is proud to present William Shakespeare’s much-loved, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This vibrant and colorful production, which features thirty middle school students, is ideal for the whole family. Join us as we enter a world in which fairies are mischievous and interfere with mortals lives and where love, revenge, jealousy and magic entangle the human world with the fairy kingdom. This is a “must see” production, with many strong performances from our cast of sixth through eighth graders. Tickets are on sale in the Sixth Avenue lobby starting on Friday, December 3rd and on the days leading up to the shows. Performances are scheduled for Friday Dec 10th at 7:00PM, and Saturday, Dec 11th at 2:00PM and 7:00pPM. Tickets are $12 adults and $10 students, children and senior citizens.

2) BOOK WEEK is here! Authors and illustrators will be visiting all LREI grades week of December 6th. Authors slated to visit middle school classes include:

The Book Fair runs through Friday, December 11 at 6 PM in the 6th Avenue Auditorium. Please click here to fill out a Pre-Authorized Purchase Form, for your child to pick out books at the fair!

3) From the Afterschool Office Please visit the Afterschool blog and see what we have been up to at: http://blog.lrei.org/afterschoolphotos/category/enrichment-class/. Our most recent post includes pictures from Swimming class, a new Enrichment Class this year.  Also, please check out Reds Cooking Day and Reds Art Day. Enjoy! Afterschool Schedule and Registration for the Winter/Spring Session: Afterschool will send out an email including the General Registration forms for Core, Enrichment, and Instrumental Programs for next session early next week. This information will also be posted on the website before we go on Winter Break. Please note: The Enrichment and Instrumental Registration Shuffle will take place on Tuesday, January 4th at 3 p.m.  We urge you to turn in your completed registration forms to the Afterschool Office by that time.  Registration forms received after the shuffle will be processed on a first come, first serve basis. Please contact the Afterschool Office at x239 with any questions.

4) Also from the Afterschool Office: The Piano/Voice Recital and Instrumental Concert will take place at the Sixth Avenue location on Wednesday, December 15th. This is an opportunity for students to share a piece they have been working on throughout the session. Your child and her/his teacher have discussed whether or not to perform in the upcoming program (as not all students choose to perform at this time), so please touch base with your child’s teacher if you have any questions.

  • The Piano/Voice Recital will be held in the PAPAS, and will start at 5:30pm (doors will not open until 5:25pm as performers will need time with their teachers, and to get settled before the recital)
  • The Instrumental Concert (Guitar, Drum, Recorder, Flute and Brass) will be held in the Auditorium, and will start at 6:30pm (doors will not open until 6:25pm as performers will need time with their teachers, and to get settled before the concert)

Note: Performers should arrive 15 minutes before showtime. We look forward to seeing you there! Please contact the Afterschool Office with any questions at (212) 477-5316, x239

5) Summers at LREI:

Session Dates:
June 27th-August 5th, 2011
Session 1: June 27th-July 8th
Session 2: July 11th-July 22nd
Session 3: July 25th-August 5th

Early Registration for returning 2010 camp families will run December 8th-17th. During this period, returning families will have the option to register online for either two, four, or six weeks of Summers at LREI programs at a discounted rate of 10% off session fees.
General Registration will open to all families in early March. In order to receive email notifications regarding online General Registration, visit summers.lrei.org and enter your information into the New Inquiries section.

New in 2011:

  • Band Camp (taught by LREI Middle School Music and Band Teacher, Matt McLean), a two-week music intensive consisting of all woodwind, brass, and percussion instruments for 11-13 year-olds during Session 1. Specialty Camp programming for Session 2 is TBD, and will be announced on the camp website by December 8th.
  • Musical Theater Workshop for ages 9-13 and Musical Theater Home Group for ages 7-8 will be offered for all three sessions of camp.
  • Six week Home Groups are an option for campers attending all three sessions of camp, offered at a discounted rate of 15% off camp fees. Home Group activities will be geared toward the experiences of children participating in the entirety of the camp program.
  • Sibling discount of 5% off camp fees per child for same sessions of registration.

Please visit summers.lrei.org for more information or call (212) 477.5316 ext.298 to speak with the Summer Camp Office.

For Eighth Grade Families . . .

1) Looking ahead to the spring, click here to access the registration form for the spring Gettysburg/DC trip that will take place next May. I’m sending you this information now so that you can spread out payments over a longer period of time. If you register online, please use the following trip ID#: 55757. If you have specific questions about payment, please do not hesitate to contact me. If you have not done so already, please register ASAP.

For Seventh Grade Families . . .

1) Please join us as we celebrate the opening of our Seventh Grade Colonial Museum on Wednesday, December 15th, from 6:00-8:00PM. Students have been working diligently on their Colonial Projects in core and in related studies in art, music, and science. We anticipate an exciting array of unique exhibits, each capturing some aspect of Colonial American life. Some students have expressed a desire to dress in traditional Colonial attire. This is permitted. For those students who choose not to, we ask that they come to school on Wednesday dressed nicely. Collared shirts are encouraged for the boys, skirts or pants for the girls. Please no t-shirts, jeans, or sweats. As is our custom, a potluck dinner held in the cafeteria will follow the exhibition. While all varieties of victuals are welcomed, those with a colonial bent are most appreciated. A list of colonial inspired menu items appears below. You can click here to access the potluck sign-up form (click on the “7th Grade” tab at the bottom of the page). Links to some colonial inspired recipes:

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. We look forward to seeing all of you on the evening of the 15th.

For Sixth Grade Families . . .

1) On Wednesday, December 15, the sixth grade is going to St. John the Divine catherdral as part of our studies of the Middle Ages. Students should bring a bag lunch (no nuts, seeds, or glass bottles) on that day.

2) On Friday, January 7th, the sixth grade will travel to the Met to view the Arms and Armor collection. trip. Students should bring a bag lunch (no nuts, seeds, or glass bottles) on that day.

For Fifth and Sixth Grade Families . . .

1) The LREI Intramural Basketball season here. Regular team practices will start on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, December 14th-16th. Students will be informed as to which morning practice is for their team. Players attend one morning practice each week. The full practice and game schedule will be forthcoming. Players should bring a completed permission slip to the first practice if they have not done so already. If there are certain morning practice days that your child cannot attend, please indicate this on the form so that your child can be placed on a team whose practice schedule works for your family. Forms can be downloaded from the Athletics section of the LREI website. All games will take place on Friday afternoons.

For Fifth Grade Families . . .

1) On Thursday, January 20th, the fifth grade will travel to the Brooklyn Museum for our annual visit to their Egyptian collection. Students should bring a bag lunch (no nuts, seeds, or glass bottles) on that day.

============= For additional information, follow these links: =============

A reminder that the individual homework blog and the “feeds” for every class can be accessed from the Digital Classroom link on the sidebar (you may want to bookmark this page for easy access). These feeds provide an easy “one-click” solution to find out what has been assigned for homework. Keep in mind that a feed will only show what has been posted as of the time you check it.

Don’t forget to check the LREI website for updates and other interesting school-related information.

Be well,
Mark

Comments are closed.