Giving Thanks with Stories

Dear Families,

With the Thanksgiving Break receding into the past and the Winter Break just ahead of us, I thought I’d take a moment and share with you some of the highlights of our recent Thanksgiving Assembly. As one teacher commented to me after the assembly, “this year the students’ voices were so present.” And indeed they were . The assembly was a veritable feast of stories offered by each grade and as a collective group.

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 what I hope will become a new tradition for our assembly. During the weeks leading up to the assembly, Middle School music teacher Matt McLean worked with classes to create an original composition focused on the spirit of giving thanks. The sixth through eighth grade classes sang their verses and the community joined in on the choruses, which were composed by the fifth grade. Click here to read the lyrics of our “Thanksgiving Song.”

The seventh graders who earlier in the morning held their annual food festival offered  stories about food that were connected to their family, their heritage or their past. Following the assembly, the sixth graders joined them in the cafeteria to continue the communal “breaking of bread.”

As has become our 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 the their version of “I’m in Charge of Celebrations” gives you as much pleasure as it gave us. Enjoy!

I also hope that your Thanksgiving like our assembly was filled with stories both new and old.

This Week’s Attachments
General:
November MS Parent Rep Meeting Minutes
Book Week Pre-Authorization Form
Eighth Grade:
DC Trip Registration Form
Seventh Grade:
Fifth and Sixth Grade:

Of General Interest . . .
1) Reminders from Phil:

  • While I am always happy to have people stop by to see me in my office at anytime, I am not always there. In order to make it easier to find me, I will be available for drop-in conversations in my Sixth Avenue office from 8:45AM-9:30AM on December 12th and December 17th.
  • We will be distributing an updated LREI Directory after Winter Break. Please contact Mary Shea (mshea@lrei.org) if you would like to revise your family’s information. Remember that you can print individual pages from the electronic version of the directory if you wish. Also, the most up-to-date school calendar is the one of the web site. On this page you can download LREI’s calendar to you iCal. You can choose which events are displayed on your version of our calendar by clicking on the “filter events” button on the left hand side of the calendar page.
  • Important Dates:
    • December 15, 2008: Tuition Remission deadline for applying for Tuition Remission.
    • January 15, 2009: Re-enrollment contracts will be mailed to all families no later than this date.
    • February 1, 2009: Re-enrollment contracts are due.

2) 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. This will be organized by the Parent Rep. 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.

3) The Middle School Play is here! Just a reminder that the Middle school play “The Snow Queen” adapted by Adrian Mitchell and directed by Middle School drama teacher Joanne Magee will run this Friday and Saturday, December 12th and 13th. The Friday performance is at 7PM and the Saturday performances are at 2PM and 7PM. All performances will take place at the Charlton Street PAC. Tickets are $10 for students and $12 for adults and are being sold in the Sixth Avenue lobby (8-9AM) every morning this week. This is a beautiful contemporary production with delights for students of all ages. Join us as we follow Gerda on her journey as she tries to save her best friend Kai from the clutches of the Snow Queen. See you at the theater.

4) Book Week is still here! December 8 – 12, 2008
Children’s and Young Adult authors and illustrators will be visiting classrooms throughout the school, from the Fours through twelfth grade. The Middle School schedule of visits is as follows:

The Book Fair begins on Wednesday, December 10, at 2:00PM in the Sixth Avenue Auditorium and ends on Friday, December 12, at 6:00PM. Stop by and buy! Browsers welcome too! Books for all ages, librarian recommendations, perennial favorites, adult reading, gift ideas, cookbooks and gift vouchers for teachers and specialists are available. All proceeds go towards the LREI Literary Initiative, which helps the school’s library and librarians better serve our community. Click here to download the pre-authorization form to facilitate your child’s book buying. Please click here for more information about Book Week.

5) Glass Menagerie,  LREI’s resident adult chorus directed by Susan Glass (High School Chorus Director and Lower School Parent), will have its Winter Concert “NOEL: Songs of the Season” on Saturday, December 13, 2008, at 8:00PM at St. Joseph’s Church in the Village (Washington Place and 6th Avenue — 2 blocks below 8th Street) Admission is $20 ($15 students/seniors).

6) School Store will be open before break: The LREI School Spirit store will be open
on Monday and Wednesday the 15th and 17th of December,  8:00-9:00AM in the Sixth Avenue lobby and both lunch periods in the Charlton Street lobby.

7) From the Big Auction Committee: Since the auction is two months earlier this year (on Thursday, March 5th), we need you to get your donation forms in earlier. We would like to have as many of the forms in by the Thanksgiving break as possible, which is just around the corner. Click here to download the donation form. The deadline for forms is Friday, December 12th. Our goal this year is to have each parent donate/solicit one item, and we’re attaching a form here for your convenience. If you would like to run your ideas by someone, please contact one of us (Jenn Esposito at jenn_espo@msn.com or Mamie at mamie.mcindoe@gmail.com) or Pippa Gerard at 212-477-5316 x236 or pgerard@lrei.org or Sandra Song at 212-477-5316 x275 or ssong@lrei.org. Thank you and we hope to hear from you soon!

8) Toys for Tots: from Margaret, Sharyn and Sherezada’s 5th and 6th Grade Advisory
Dear LREI families, During the holiday season, it is a tradition in many cultures to give children gifts. Unfortunately, while lots of families can afford to give gifts, some families cannot. We are asking you to donate new un-wrapped toys to Toys for Tots. Toys for Tots is a non-profit organization whose mission is to distribute toys to these less fortunate families. You can drop off new toys in the Toys for Tots box located by the front desk in the Sixth Avenue lobby until December 16th. These toys must be non-violent and non-projectile, and appropriate for children ages 0-16. Some ideas for toys are: sports equipment, art supplies, books and stuffed animals. Please bear in mind that there are children who will be very glad once they receive the toy that you have donated. Thank You.

9) Red is Green Committee’s December Sneaker Recycling Drive
Starting Monday, December 1st, LREI will be recycling old tennis shoes through the Nike Re-Use A Shoe program. Shoes will be ground up and recycled into outdoor basketball courts, volleyball courts, tennis courts, soccer fields and playgrounds. You can drop off your old sneakers in the collection boxes located in the lobbies of the Sixth Avenue and Charlton Street campuses through December 19th. The criteria for donations are:

  • Any athletic shoes (running shoes, sneakers, etc.)
  • All brands of shoes are accepted
  • No shoes containing metal
  • No cleats or dress shoes
  • No wet or damp shoes
  • No sandals or flip-flops

Thanks to all the families who participated in the first LREI Recycle Month – we collected over 1000 plastic bags to be recycled! We’ll be keeping the box in the Sixth Avenue lobby for a while longer, so please continue to drop off plastic bags. Also, you can always bring your bags to Whole Foods, Staples, Barnes & Nobles and other chain stores to be recycled. Still to come… January is recycle your greeting cards month! Save all your cards this holiday season and we’ll be collecting them in January. St. Jude’s Ranch accepts recycled cards which they use to make “green” holiday cards. The proceeds go towards helping abused, abandoned and neglected children.

10) The Alumni College Panel: Our annual Alumni College Panel is scheduled for Thursday, January 8th at 6:30PM at the High School. Meet recent LREI graduates and hear from them about their experiences and  how LREI prepared them for college. Moderated by Amy Shapiro, Director of College Guidance. RSVP to Liza Sacks, at lsacks@lrei.org or (212) 477-5316 ext. 291. Click here for more information.

11) From the LREI Family Handbook: Vacations: We remind families to only take vacations during LREI breaks and that your child’s time away from school does not begin before the school break does or end afterwards. Teachers use each scheduled day to support their classroom program goals and the School’s mission. Students who miss days adjacent to breaks, or who take vacations outside of our break times, miss work and can disrupt planned activities. This affects the learning of the absent students and her/his classmates. In addition, divisional or all-school assemblies often precede our longer vacations. These gatherings are essential for creating the sort of community that drew you to LREI. Students sing, listen to speakers, applaud their schoolmates, meet students in other divisions and generally strengthen community ties.

We will not honor families’ requests to receive work their children will miss due to family vacation plans. Families that are presented with once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to make an extended visit to another city, country, etc. should speak to their child’s principal. In general, we are focused on making sure that we are using each moment of each school day as effectively as possible. Part of being able to do this is to have each student in school each of these days. Thank you for your support of these efforts.

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

13) 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 2008-2009 calendar. You can also access their website at http://www.parentsinaction.org/.

For Eighth and Seventh Grade Families . . .
1) Boys and girls practice and basketball schedules are online:

For Eighth Grade Families . . .
1) While the trip to DC is not until the spring, please use the attached form to register your child for the trip. If you have questions about payment, please do not hesitate to contact me.

For Seventh Grade Families . . .
1) Please join us as we celebrate the opening of our Seventh Grade Colonial Museum on Wednesday, December 17th, 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. 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 17th.

For Fifth and Sixth Grade Families . . .
1) Intramural Basketball:

  • Students will be assigned to a team by Friday, December 12th.
  • The week of December 15th players will have practice either on Wednesday or Thursday depending on what team they are on.
  • Click here to view the full practice and game schedule.

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

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

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

  • View important middle school dates here.
  • View all events with the LREI On-line Calendar
  • LREI Athletics. For general LREI Athletics news go to this link . This page will provide general announcements, game summaries, league standings and season recaps.
  • Click here to view the Middle School Photo Gallery.

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

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