| Upcoming Events | | | 10/8 | Middle School Dance (6-8)
| 7pm-11pm | | 10/13 | Boys Soccer @ St. John's Episcopal School | 3:30 PM | | 10/13 | Girls Soccer vs. St. John's Episcopal School | 3:30 PM |
|  |
| Child Care for Conferences and Volunteers! | | Calling all Parents Attending Conferences and Barnesville Basement Volunteers! Child care will be available to you during your conferences and while you volunteer helping set up the Barnesville Basement. Please contact Karol Nave to sign up for this special service before October 19th. This is not an all day option, but is a free service during these times. | |
| Facilities and Transportation | | As mentioned in the last BITS, next week is Safety Week. Monday afternoon we will have our tornado drill followed by our Code Red drill Wednesday morning, and Thurday morning our students will see a brief video regarding bus evacuation. After viewing the video, the students and teachers will go through an actual bus evacuation drill. Also, during the week we will have our monthly fire drill. | |
| Advancement | | The Annual Fund campaign is in full-swing! Many families have responded to the letters they received and to the phone calls of our volunteer Annual Fund Current Parent Committee members. Thank you! Since 1999, 100% of our faculty and staff have participated with the Annual Fund. 100% of our faculty, staff and our Board of Directors have already pledged this year. High participation rates from Board members, faculty, staff and parents are favorably looked upon when we apply for grant monies. So, your contribution to Barnesville via the Annual Fund allows Barnesville the opportunity to realize additional funds for student programs! If you haven’t done so already, I ask you to join us today with a pledge or gift to Barnesville through the Annual Fund. Each contribution, no matter the size – be it $50, $500 or $5,000 – touches the life of each and every one of our students! • Pledge or give online
• Pledge or give via the remittance envelope included with your letter from Mr. Huber
• Give your pledge to the Annual Fund volunteer parent when they call If you have questions, call me at 301-972-0341 ext. 235. Thank you for supporting Barnesville! ~Georganna Glen, Director of Advancement | |
| Barnesville Basement | | The Barnesville Basement sale is coming soon - On Oct 23rd from 8-4, and Oct 24th from 10-3, the gym will be transformed into the biggest garage sale you will ever see!! For those new to the school, this fundraiser combines a great service to the community with a fabulous way to clean out your closets. You can help with: - DONATE: We will be accepting tax deductible donations of gently used clothing, household items, books, toys, furniture and sporting goods, and almost anything else. Drop off will be 3 - 6 pm Oct 20th, 8am - 6pm Oct 21st, and 8am – 5pm Oct 22.
- VOLUNTEER:
- Set-up
- Clean-up
- Cashiers and Sale Workers
- DISPLAY a lawn sign advertising the Basement!
- FLYERS: Can you hang a flyer on a community message board at your coffee shop, church, synagogue, grocery store, etc? Easy and Effective!
- SNACKS: We always need and appreciate donations of snacks, drinks, or sandwiches to feed the workers.
- RACKS: If you have a portable hanging clothes rack, we are looking to borrow a few for the week.
Free childcare will be available on Thursday and Friday for all volunteers, but you must register with Karol Nave by Oct 19th for this service. Please contact Janine Huber (janinebhuber@hotmail.com) or Julie Landis (julesaland@aol.com) with any and all questions. Thank You! | |
| Auxiliary Programs | | Barnesville Ski Club Dear Parents, Last year we saw the successful formation of the Barnesville Ski Club. The club was started by a group of Barnesville parents who share a passion for winter sports and wanted to help our kids get excited about learning and developing their skiing and snowboarding skills while also building new friendships. We of course also wanted to save on the high costs to enjoy our sport. It was a great success! We made a total of 11 trips as a group last season and saw many of our kids improve from beginner to advanced skiers over the course of just a few months. My son, now in 3rd grade, improved dramatically last season after spending two seasons on beginner slopes with me because his friends wanted to try other slopes and he wanted to follow. He improved without realizing it and by season’s end he was coming down a black diamond slope! It was the same story for many of the kids in the club last year. Thanks to Ski Liberty’s Night Club Card Program we were all able to ski for one flat rate price at the beginning of the season. Night Club Cards are only available through group membership but each member uses their card individually. In addition to a Night Club Card which allows for free skiing after 4PM everyday, many parents also opted for an Advantage Card as well for only $20 more which provided 40% discounts off rentals, lift, and lessons anytime you want to go. Our group has already has already reached 20 members for this season and we look forward to you joining us. Let us share in watching your children, and you, improve, build friendships, and enjoy the snow! For more information please contact Ted Rutsch at 301-748-3407 or email me at trutsch@gmail.com. Regards, Ted Rutsch | |
| From the BPC | | Holiday Shop Volunteers Needed! Yes, it's that time of year again. Holiday Shop is looking for volunteers to help out! We need wrappers, shoppers, shop helpers and a couple of cashiers. Also, set up and Clean up help. Timely Topics (And other not-to-missed, parent education events coming to you this fall! ) OCTOBER 14th Sponsored by Parents Council of Washington: Dr. William Stixrud, a neuropsychologist, will speak about stress, motivation and achievement. The talk will be at the National Cathedral School on the evening of October 14th. I've seen him speak on this topic before -- he's brilliant and entertaining. Mark you calendars! More details to come...
NOVEMBER 18th, 7:30 - 9:30 PM Sponsored by The Parent Encouragement Program's Noted Parenting Author Series: Po Bronson, author of NutureShock: New Thinking About Children, will explain why he believes so many of society's current strategies for nurturing children are backfiring! Learn startling findings in all areas of parenting reseach. Tickets are $25 -- at the The Landon School Mondzac Performing Arts Center, Potomac, MD. More info at www.pepparent.com.
DECEMBER 3rd, 8:30 AM to 11 AM Join us at Barnesville for a just-in-time-for-the-holidays workshop on Limit- Setting During the Holiday Season! Learn strategies to help avoid over-indulgence, how to use wish lists to help kids winnow down wants, and preplanning with the family on expectations during the holiday season. Don't miss this two hour workshop with a experienced parent educator from The Parent Encouragement Program. | |
| A Note From Ms. Nave | | It’s time to sign up for conferences:
Conferences days have changed a little this time. We are offering a full day for conferences on Friday, October 22 and half a day on Thursday, October 21. There is a noon dismissal on Thursday and no school on Friday. Please be sure to let me know if you need kids club during your conferences as space is limited. Tooth box report- just for fun!
The Tooth Fairy has been busy the last two weeks. Madelyn Amick and Cal Walton each had a tooth looking for a tooth box.
| |
|   |
| | From Our Head of School | | This past week I attended a talk given by Curtis Johnson, one of the authors of the book Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. As I heard him speak about how technology would profoundly change teaching and learning, I grew so frustrated that I began to develop an outline for this essay – ironically, by surreptitiously tapping out notes on my iPhone. Part of my frustration with his talk is with the promised technology itself. There is a powerful allure to acquiring the latest and greatest, but in doing so, we sit on the bleeding edge of innovation, with all its inherent challenges and uncertainties. If there is one thing that teachers need in a classroom, it’s reliability. The more time spent worrying about whether the LCD projector is going to work, the less time there is to attend to the students’ many and varying needs. Students bring enough variability on their own without us adding more to the equation. In the September 19th issue of the New York Times Magazine, there is a glossy double page spread of classroom technologies over the centuries, beginning with wooden horn-books from colonial times and ending with the iPad. To look back at some of the technologies of the past is to see the contents of the local landfill. Does anyone remember Skinner teaching machines? Scantron graders? Language lab headsets? Interestingly, it is the oldest teaching technologies, the chalkboard and the mass-produced pencil, that have had the longest run in classrooms. While I would be hard pressed to find a working mimeograph, I know exactly where I can find (and use) a piece of chalk. Please be assured that I am no Luddite. This essay was composed on my new netbook/tablet which I’ve been proudly showing off to everyone I meet. I look forward to a day when all textbooks can be downloaded onto cheap tablet computers, when buildings share their energy information for students to see, when virtually every product of school can be safely composted after its use. But as author Kevin Kelly wrote in an essay in the same magazine, the oldest technologies are more likely to continue to be useful, and students should find the minimum amount of technology that maximizes their options. The other part of my frustration with Johnson’s talk is that for all of technology’s promise, there are two central elements of education that can’t be supplanted with technology. First, schools need to teach students to work with each other face to face; to experience frustration, challenge, and inspiration through direct social interaction. Instead of attending Johnson’s talk, I suppose I could have downloaded a YouTube video of his presentation and saved the gas money and the commute. Yet had I done that, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to spend time talking to fellow heads and trustees about the future of education. Technology can be wonderful for answering specific questions, but learning isn’t all about getting answers to specific questions. Techonology’s other gap is that it doesn’t allow students to experience the wonder of nature, to show them problems without immediate solutions. By way of illustration, I share the following story: Recently I was outside on recess duty with some of our lower school students. One of the boys came running up to me with a piece of quartz in is hand. He wanted to know more about the rock – what it was called, why it broke so easily, where he could find more. He then found a bigger piece of quartz next to the soccer field and set about trying to dig it out with some classmates. I overheard their questions as they poked at it – how big would it be? How do we fill the hole when we’re done? Can you use a piece of quartz to dig out quartz? This is what sets schools apart from a simple collection of online videos. Children, working together, wondering at the world, becoming curious scholars. So long as our newest technologies work to support this, then we are on the right track, and there is a place for schools in the decades to come. John Huber | |
| Spanish Performances | | To celebrate the last day of Hispanic Heritage Month, next Friday, October 15th, our students will be performing songs and a dance immediately following Morning Meeting (approx. 8:10am). - P-K, Kindergarten and 1st Grade...Song “Los amigos”
- 2nd Grade ……..Song “Colón Colón”
- 3rd – 8th Grade……. Dance “ Waka Waka”
Parents are welcome to join us for this brief performance (approximately 15 minutes), but if you are unable to stop by don't worry! We'll be videotaping this festive event and putting it up online for all to view. Should you have any questions, please email Senora Zeppos. | |
| Halloween | |  | | Click here to download the Halloween flyer | | |
| Middle School | | Middle School students had two great assemblies this week. The first assembly took place on Tuesday, October 5th in the gym. The 4th through 8th grade students had the opportunity to listen to "Magpie," the husband and wife duo of Greg Artzner and Terry Leonino. The show they saw, "Battle Cry of Freedom; Civil War to Civile Rights," told the story of the continuous struggle of freedom throughout our nation's history through song. Over the years, Terry and Greg have become distinguished for producing programs of music for museums (including the Smithsonian Institution), schools, and other special events. They are master artists with the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts, and in that capacity have worked in many residency programs and teacher training workshops, demonstrating their methods for utilizing music effectively as a tool for early childhood education. We were very fortunate to have had them perform at Barnesville! The second gathering the middle school students had this week was with Debbie Kovalsky who is an expert in internet/tecnology safety. She met with our 7th/8th grade students for a session, as well as our 5th/6th grade students and covered a variety of topics with the kids such as screename and password safety, cyberbullying, safety in who you talk to on the internet, etc. It was valuable information for the students and we have attached an internet safety contract and a parents pledge for you to go over with your children and sign in order to continue this conversation at home. 6TH THROUGH 8TH GRADE "BACK TO SCHOOL DANCE TOMORROW NIGHT Our dance will begin at 7:00 PM and end at 10:00 PM. The cost is $10.00 at the door. Your child should bring the following item to the dance listed by grade level below: 6th Grade - bring any type of drinks and cups 7th and 8th Grade - bring any type of snack food Please make sure to pick your child up promptly at 10:00 PM. They are permitted to ask friends outside of Barnesville to attend this dance. Conferences: Don't forget to sign up for a conference with your child's teachers if you have not done so. Just give Karol Nave a call and she will arrange a time for you to meet with your child's teacher. ~Vickie Roos, Assistant Head of School Save The Date! Middle School Social, Friday, November 5th, 7:30pm Hosted by the Pappas Family 6th Grade Helps Set New World Record! October 7th, our sixth grade took part in an exciting challenge called “Read for the Record”. The event is sponsored by Jumpstart, a group that prepares low income children for success in school in life through their literacy programs. They have joined forces with Pearson Publishing to make the event possible. The goal? To have 2.5 million people reading Keats’ “The Snowy Day” to children around the world on the same day! To make it possible, the book was made available on-line, so we were able to use the computer labs to share the book with our second and third grade friends. But you haven’t heard the best part yet! For each book we read, Pearson publishing will donate a brand new book to literacy programs around the world! So thanks to our efforts, new children’s books will be enjoyed by children who truly need them. But that’s not all! The project continues throughout the year, so the 6th grade will be sharing stories with our younger grades all year, building friendships while emphasizing the pleasure that reading can give. And it will be the gift that keeps on giving as children’s literacy programs around the world receive new books because of our efforts! Well done, 6th Grade! ~Ms. Sheppard, 6th Grade Lead Teacher | |
| Lower School | | Our Lower School students had the opportunity to listen to "Magpie," the husband and wife duo of Greg Artzner and Terry Leonino on Tuesday of this week. The show they saw, "Living Planet,"celebrated the diversity of life on earth and how we can help preserve it through song! As I walk around the lunchroom I am reminded how important it is for you parents to pack a nutritious lunch for your child. What they eat at lunch time fuels their bodies and brains for their afternoon of learning and activity. It is so important to give them food rich in nutrients and low in sugar and unhealthy fats. You need to read the labels of juice drinks and fruit packs marketed towards kids. Some brands of juices are 100% juice, but some may contain more sugar than anything else. Mini cans of fruit should be in fruit juice. Fruits in syrups have a high sugar content. Bologna and salami can be replaced by turkey and tuna, and keep in mind that prepackaged lunches may be convenient, but they are often higher in fat, sugar and calories than meals that you might prepare yourself, and they are more expensive. There are great websites to help you pack nutritionally healthy lunches and to keep the lunches from becoming boring. Something to think about as we work to keep our kids properly "fueled" for the day! Conferences: Just a reminder that conferences are approaching in a couple of weeks. Please take a moment to contact Karol Naveand arrange a conference with your child's teacher. ~Vickie Roos, Assistant Head of School | |
| Admissions | | It is hard to believe that we are already starting the Admissions cycle for next year! I feel like I just welcomed all of our wonderful new families! Do you know someone who might be interested in a Barnesville Education? Please tell them about our upcoming Open House where they can meet Administrators and enjoy a tour with Parent Volunteers: Admissions Open House: Saturday, November 6th @ 9:30 am
Getting the word out to the community is so important! Please stop by the Admissions Office for an Open House invitation(s) to post or share with your friends and neighbors or click here to download! Thanks for your help! ~Susanne Johnson, Director of Admissions | |
| Communications and Marketing | | This year, we'll be posting class newsletters for EVERY GRADE on the Barnesville School website! Under the Academics Section of the website, find your division (Lower or Middle School) and then select your grade. There, you should find the newsletter for your grade. You'll find information on each subject, as well as other specials and event information. Check it out! ~Nicole Campbell, Director of Communications and Marketing | |
|
|