LRE-I, Robot

Dear LREI Families:

For many years, robotics has played an important role in the Middle School science and technology curricula. As many of you already know, our classroom inquiry has been supplemented by our award winning Middle School Robotics team. This year, interest in the program has grown so much that we now have two teams competing in the FIRST Lego League. This past weekend, both teams competed in the Manhattan borough competition and they both did extremely well.

  • The Advanced Team won 1st place in the Robot Performance category— their robot achieved the highest score in the competition in this category.

  • The Rookie Team won the Champion’s Award — the Champion’s Award is given to the team that achieves the highest combined score from their Project Presentation, Technical Presentation, Robot Performance and Teamwork

Most impressive. Under the guidance of science teacher Sherezada Acosta, art teacher Carin Cohen, and computer teacher Steve Neiman, both teams will now prepare for the FIRST Lego League Citywide Competition in which the top teams from the five boroughs will compete against each other. This competition will take place on January 26th, so save the date! More details to come in January.

Whether as part of the curriculum or as part of our extracurricular program, robotics provides a meaningful entry point to learning that supports creative problem solving, experimentation and risk taking. Building a robot requires students to analyze their environment and the parameters of a particular challenge. Through this process, students quickly discover that even the simplest of tasks can be surrounded by a level of complexity that demands focused critical thinking.

As students work towards the solution to a particular problem, they also learn that having a good idea is not the same thing as designing and implementing a solution to a challenge. As a result, students learn to experiment with their ideas and adapt them to the constraints imposed by the real world.

They also learn to represent their ideas and plans in a formal programming language. This provides a direct experience in exploring how symbolic language can be used as a means for representing and describing actions that can be directly experienced and observed. Finally, because they engage in robotics with other learners, they regularly practice and come to see the value in collaboration. They learn that the successful completion of a task requires contributions from all of the group members and, more importantly, they see how their multiple points of view on a challenge can propel the group’s thinking in directions that they would likely not have discovered on their own.

So our robotics program is just one of the many tools that we use to narrow the distance between learning and experience that are part of our progressive toolkit.

With the robotic teams’ victories fresh on our minds, congratulations are also due to the Middle School Girls Basketball team and the Middle School Boys Basketball team who have both started off their seasons with impressive victories. Please check the home game schedule for the boys and for the girls and we hope to see you at the Thompson Street Athletic Center.

This Week’s Attachments
General:
LREI Senior Arts Showcase
Letter from Kitty Highstein
Visibility Exhibit Letter
Community Service Committee Calendar
Book Fair Pre-Authorization Form
Eighth Grade:
DC Trip Payment Letter
Seventh Grade:
Sixth Grade:
Intramural Basketball Schedule/Roster
Fifth Grade:
Intramural Basketball Schedule/Roster

Of General Interest . . .
1) From the LREI Family Handbook….Gifts to Teachers: If your child wants to give his or her teacher a gift at winter break, the end of the year, or any other time during the year, a homemade gift or drawing is welcome and appreciated. A group gift from parents and children in the class may be given at the end of the school year. It has been our experience that individual gifts, though thoughtfully intended, may be misinterpreted by the children and, consequently, we discourage this. Thank you for your awareness and cooperation.

2) From School Nurse Kitty Highstein: As we head into the winter months when all of us become more susceptible to the illnesses this season brings, we need to be especially careful about when children who have been out sick are sent back to school. Please read the attached letter for some guidelines we would like you to follow.

3) This week is Book Week. Please visit the MS library blog to view a schedule of all the authors who will be visiting classes. Students will also have a chance to attend the Book Fair and purchase books. Click here to download a copy of the Pre-Authorization form.

4) Winter Choral Concert by the Glass Menagerie Chorus, LREI’s adult chorus-in-residence (Susan Glass, founder and music director) will take place on Saturday, December 8th at 8:00PM at St. Joseph’s Church in the Village (Sixth Avenue and Washington Place).

5) Save the Date: The LREI Senior Arts Showcase will take place on Monday, December 10th, from 6:30-8:00PM at the SoHo Apple store. Click here for more information about this exciting event.

6) A message about Chess from Afterschool: We are currently putting together the Afterschool Enrichment schedule for the January through June session. We plan to offer Chess on Tuesdays but are undecided as to the age range. If your child is interested in participating in this class, please let us know so that we can offer a class which will accommodate the largest number of interested students. – Cari Kosins (ckosins@lrei.org) and Kelly Eudailey (keudailey@lrei.org)

7) From the Community Service Committee: Please view the calendar of events, a few highlights are below:

  • An important note from Sarah and Victor’s advisees: Last Wednesday, December 5th, our eighth graders helped hand out food at St. John’s Food Pantry, after the seventh graders in our advisory bagged up the food the day before. After finishing Wednesday afternoon, we were lucky enough to be given a tour of their facilities by Joe Spicketts, the director of the Food Pantry. During this tour we were shown the stock of food for the up-coming holiday season. Joe informed us that he was unable to receive the necessary amount of canned pink salmon and canned ham they need to feed the number of families coming to them over the holidays. We decided that we are going to have a salmon (canned, 15-16 oz.) and ham (canned) drive to supply St. John’s Food Pantry with what they need. This is a great organization that feeds families from 14th Street to 60th Streets, river to river, with no questions asked, other than a proof of address. Many of us have been volunteering here for all of Middle School years, and we are very strongly committed to getting them, and the families they serve, what they need during the holidays. We urgently request that everyone in the Middle School community please bring in as many cans of pink salmon and ham as you can, before our winter break, as a lot of New York families need to be fed this holiday season! Thank you, Ava and Cellie (Sarah’s eighth grade advisees)

8) Please read the attached letter from the LREI Lesbian Gay Straight alliance (LGSA) announcing the upcoming Visibility show.

9) For updates on faculty performances, openings, presentations, and publications visit the Faculty in the News page on the school web site.

10) LREI is a member of NYC-Parents in Action (NYC-PIA). 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. Please read the attached flyer to view their 2007-2008 calendar. You can also access their website at http://www.parentsinaction.org/.

For Eighth Grade Families . . . .
No updates this week.

For Seventh Grade Families . . .
1) From Matthew and Victor: Please join us as we celebrate the opening of our Seventh Grade Colonial Museum on Wednesday, December 12th, from 6PM to 8PM. 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. Please speak to your parent rep about what to bring as they will be coordinating this part of the evening. 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. 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 12th

2) Please visit math teacher Michelle Boehm’s blog to read the new unit letter.

For Sixth Grade Families . . .
1) Please read the attached schedule/team roster for the fifth and sixth grade intramural basketball program.

For Fifth Grade Families . . .
1) From music teacher Henry Chapin: The entire fifth grade will be singing at this year’s Winter Concert, which is scheduled for Tuesday, December 18th, 6:30 – 7:30PM, at the PAC. On Thursday afternoon, December 13th, the class, along with all three divisional choruses, will travel to the Hudson Guild Fulton Community Center, 119 9th Avenue at 18th street. On both December 13th and 18th, students must wear chorus dress: a solid color shirt, and black pants or skirt. Please no t-shirts, or sweat pants. Students may bring chorus dress to school, and they will have time to change. The fifth grade chorus members should arrive for warm-ups and seating at 6:00PM. Parents will be asked by ushers to remain outside the PAC until doors open at 6:15PM. The concert will last approximately one hour, and the grand finale will involve all choruses. We ask that you do not leave the concert after the fifth grade chorus sings, and remain until the completion of the program. Singing in the Winter Concert is the culmination of much of the fifth grade music curriculum this Fall, was announced at curriculum night, has been announced to classes, and the concert is on all LREI calendars and schedules. It is important that your child experience this process of making art. If there are extenuating circumstances that will result in your child not being able to attend, please let me know directly. My email is hchapin@lrei.org.

2) Please read the attached schedule/team roster for the fifth and sixth grade intramural basketball program.

For additional information, follow these links:

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

Be well,
Mark

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