May Flowers Are Here!

What a glorious month!  The flowers are blooming trees are budding and the sun is shining.  I know that brings about allergies, but I choose to concentrate on the positives of spring. This means the month of May is here with all of its special events.  I have seen so many wonderful events lately.  I am constantly amazed at all the opportunities for our students created by their teachers.  Here are a plethora of pictures from the various activities over the past couple of weeks.

The 2^nd grade was visited by the Japanese Consulate to culminate their study of Japan.  The students impressed the visitors with their knowledge of all things Japanese.  They also enjoyed a Japanese lunch in the Oakwood Room last week. 

The 5^th grade students finished their LS speech careers on Friday, April 29^th.  All of the 5^th grade students presented their well-researched and rehearsed speeches in the Oakwood Room.  The variety of topics was wonderful and their poise in public speaking was second to none.

Last week the PK, JK, and Kindergarten students hosted Mother’s Day Teas.  I was fortunate enough to visit a couple of them.  They had delightful programs and were so accommodating to their mothers.  They served them and cleaned up after them, which was a great gift. 

The first graders hosted their 2^nd publishing party of the school year last week.  They had created, written, and published fairy tales after their collaborative study of fairy tales with the fourth grade classes.  The students were well spoken and their stories were quite creative.  

Thursday is the annual Lower School Spring Concert.  All students should be taken to their respective location listed below at 6:30 p.m.   Pre K, JK, Kindergarten, and 1^st grade students should be brought to their classrooms.  Students in 2^nd and 3^rd grade should be dropped off with their teachers in the Lower Snowdon Library.  4^th grade students should go directly to Mrs. Caldwell’s room to meet their teachers, while 5^th grade students should be taken to Mrs. Byrne’s classroom in the hallway behind the AP Room.  Please remember students should dress appropriately for the concert.  Girls may wear party dresses or skirts and blouses.  Boys should be in dress shirts and ties with their dress slacks and nice shoes.  No sneakers or jeans, please.  The concert will start at 7:00 in the AP Room.  It should be a delightful event!

Friday is the annual Lower School Art Show from 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.  Each grade level has a scheduled time to visit the art show.  You are welcome to visit during your child’s class time or come when it may be convenient for you during the day.  Contact Mrs. Howard with any questions. 

Art Show Schedule

4^th grade 8:30-9:00

1^st grade 9:15-9:45

3^rd grade 10:20-10:50

PreK and JK 10:55-11:20

5^th grade 12:45-1:15

2^nd grade 1:30-2:00

Kindergarten 2:10-2:40

Upcoming Events

-Thursday, May 19th is the LAST teacher duty free lunch of the school year.  We can still use volunteers, if you are interested.  Please contact me or Kathy Marikakis to sign-up.
-Wednesday, May 25th is a 5th Grade Parent Reception for rising 6th grade students at 7:45 a.m. If your child will be attending Wardlaw-Hartidge for 6th grade, you should attend to hear more about Middle School and ask any questions you may have.  Please let Linda Kraynik in the Middle School Office know if you will be attending.

-Lower School Field Day is on Friday, May 29th.  All students will be dismissed at 12:30 that day. The theme is Around the World with Rammy! I'm sure it will be a beautiful day, but we do have a raindate of June 3rd scheduled, just in case.

Have a wonderful week!
Mrs. Baier

 

April Showers....

The month of April is just zipping by….before we know it May will be here with its lovely flowers and spring cheer.  My schedule has been full of classroom visits for presentations and lots of fun lessons.  Here are some pictures to highlight some of those visits.

The PE department has been busy thinking up new experiences for the Wardlaw-Hartridge Lower School students.  One of those is a brief introduction of Taekwondo in grades 1-4 taught by our own Kelly Shim-Choi.  I stopped by a 4^th grade class last week as they received their first lesson.

In between the days of rain to make our grass green and those flowers bloom, Mr. Howell managed to get the 2^nd grade students in Mrs. Cannizzo’s  PE class outside for some fun on the tennis courts.

The kindergarten students worked on a partner relay in PE the day I stopped by.

All second grade students have taken part in a Japanese presentation this week.  Working in partners or small groups, the students became “experts” on a particular aspect of Japanese Culture.  They presented their expertise to a group of classmates, teachers, and parents.   I was quite impressed with their knowledge and the way they educated their classmates. Here are a few pictures from some of the presentations I attended.  

The 5th grade students took a field trip to Manhattan last week to see the Broadway production of Wicked.  Our students were very well-behaved and were even complimented by other people attending the show.  Thank you to all of the parents who went on the trip to chaperone.  The 5th grade teachers and Mrs. Caldwell are using this show as an opportunity to talk with the students about social issues.  Each student will be writing an essay based on a particular character from the show and the grade will count for both English and Music class.  

Just a reminder there is no school on Friday, April 22^nd or Monday, April 25^th.

Students may start wearing shorts to school again (weather permitting) on Monday, May 2nd.  Please remember the shorts may only be uniform khaki shorts and only navy, gray, or white sneakers (with white socks) may be worn.

Here are some upcoming events:

-Fourth grade students are taking a field trip to Ellis and Liberty Islands on Wednesday, April 27^th.

-5^th grade speeches are on Friday, April 29^th at 8:30 in the Oakwood Room.

-The 1st grade publishing party is on Wednesday, May 4^th.

-The annual Lower School Spring Concert is on Thursday, May 12^th at 7:00 p.m. 

-The annual Lower School Art Show is on Friday, May 13^th.  More information will be sent home by Mrs. Howard in the coming days.

-The last teacher duty free lunch is on Thursday, May 19^th.  If you haven’t had a chance to volunteer for one of these lunches and would like to do so, please contact Mrs. Marikakis in the Lower School Office.

Have a great week!

Mrs. Baier

 

Special Event

Whenever you turn on the news lately, you always hear about two main topics, jobs and the economy. You may think it is too soon to think about what jobs your Lower School children may have someday, but I don’t feel that is the case.   As Lower School Head, I think of it quite often in the skills we need to teach children at this age to be successful as they grow older.  In Lower School, we build the foundation for job specific skills to be learned in later years.  As you know in building anything, the base is most important.  Get it right and everything else can be layered successfully on top.  At Wardlaw-Hartridge we are always looking for ways to make the foundation stronger for our students.

In looking towards the future, we often wonder what types of jobs will be available when our Lower School students reach the ages where they are planning their career paths. In order to become more informed on this topic, we have been having conversations with Professor Bill Rodgers,  the Chief Economist at the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. We would like to bring the entire community in on the conversation and The Wardlaw-Hartridge Parents’ Association is sponsoring an evening with Bill Rogers on Thursday, April 7th at 7:00 to do just that. I would encourage you to come and hear what he has to say about the future of jobs and what trends are in the job market that may affect our youngest students someday.  More information about the evening is coming home in your child's backpack.  If you have any questions or would like to RSVP, please contact Linda Coleman in the Admissions Office.

Along with jobs, economics is also an important topic to introduce to young children.  Professor Rogers has created a website called EconKids (http://econkids.rutgers.edu/econkids-home-econmenu-154 ) to help parents and teachers introduce economics to children.  Another good resource for materials, ideas, and books about teaching your children about money is
http://www.extension.umn.edu/Youth&Money/  It is never too early to teach children good money habits.  The benefits of this early education last a lifetime!  I hope you find all of this information helpful and will attend the talk by Professor Rogers on April 7th in the Upper Snowdon Library.

Happy Spring!
Mrs. Baier

March came roaring in...

Well, the weather keeps teasing us…one day spring…the next back to winter.  Hopefully, we will turn the corner over spring break.  I hope everyone has an enjoyable two weeks off.  We’ll see you again on March 28^th.

It was a fruitful first two weeks of March.  There were lots of exciting classroom activities going on in the Lower School.

On March 2^nd, we celebrated the birthday of Dr. Seuss.  Student in PreKindergarten, Junior Kindergarten, Kindergarten, and 2^nd grade gathered in the library to share stories.  The 2^nd grade students read Dr. Seuss stories to their younger friends and at the end, Mrs. Burg read The Cat in the Hat to everyone.  As you can see from the pictures, everyone got into the spirit by wearing their very own Cat in the Hat hat.  At lunch, Mrs. Burg played videos of students in Kindergarten through 5^th grade telling about their favorite Dr. Seuss books, with some Lower School teachers sprinkled in for fun.

 

Last week, the 4^th graders had a guest speaker, named Beverly Friend in the Upper Snowdon Library.  Beverly Friend is a Native American from the Cherokee nation whose family lived in the Woodland Region. She was a close friend of Lone Bear, whose photo appears in the fourth grade social studies book. Lone Bear came to speak to the Wardlaw-Hartridge fourth grade classes for many years until his death. Beverly Friend promised Lone Bear that she would carry on the tradition of speaking to children about the Native Americans. Many of the artifacts she brought to share with the class actually were owned and used by her grandfather and father. Here are a few pictures of her visit.

 

The 5^th grade students shared their Museo de Piramìdes Maya in Spanish class this week.  Each student researched a Mayan Pyramid of his/her choice and made a model of it.  The rest of the Lower School students visited the museum and listened to the 5^th grade students give information about their chosen pyramids as they toured the Spanish classroom.  Here are some pictures from both Museo de Piramìdes Maya days.

The chicks have hatched…the chicks have hatched…as you may have heard the eggs loaned to us by Quiver Farm hatched in the science tech room this week.  There were 8 cute, fuzzy, little chicks bopping around until Friday when they headed back to the farm.  The students were delighted to see them come out of their shells.  Thank you to Mrs. Meier for arranging this opportunity for the students.

On Thursday, I visited a 2^nd grade art class.  The students were using colored tissue paper to make watercolor “paint” on their pictures.  What a unique idea!  The students were quite excited about this new way to paint. 

On Friday, the 3^rd grade students shared their Native American knowledge with family and friends at the 3^rd Grade Native American Pow-Wow.  Students in both classes created displays and presentations or skits to show what they have learned.  It was a wonderful way to share all of the work they have done in class with family and friends.

 

The culmination of our week was the 1^st and 4^th grade performance of Little Red Riding Hood…a musical with a twist!  Both grade levels have been studying fairy tales at their own level in the classroom.  This event was a great way to have collaboration among the grade levels.  It also shows how well students at Wardlaw-Hartridge perform in front of an audience.  By starting at these younger levels, public speaking becomes a normal part of life.  I would like to say a very special thank you to Mrs. Jacobson, Mrs. Molloy, Miss Colandrea, Mrs. Ritz, Mrs. Burg, and Mrs. Caldwell for their hard work in making the show a reality.  Thank you, as well, to Mrs. Rappold for providing the “poodle skirts.”  The students did a wonderful job and will always have the lasting memory of this performance. 

Warm wishes for a wonderful spring break!

Mrs. Baier