The Newton News
March 29, 2019
The Newton School's mission is t o develop each child’s potential for academic success, engagement and overall well-being. Through this process, we will enrich each child’s education with community involvement, collaboration and outreach.
Athletics and School Activities
EVENTS:

Baseball:
  • The Strafford Lion's Club will be organizing baseball again. Please go to this registration form if you are interested.

Track and Field:
  • With Thetford Academy for grades 7 and 8 (for now) starts Monday 3/25 3:15. Please let Blendon Salls know if your child is interested. Also Ellen Bagnato will be organizing a transportation sign up sheet if you can help with car pooling.

Basketball:
  • Wednesday, 4/3 4-7pm AAU Basketball at the Rosa Tyson Gym
K News
Ms. Kicza
Kindergarten learned about force and motion with Hannah from VINS this week. The students visited stations in small groups to experiment with pushing and pulling objects to move them. They experimented with moving a car on a ramp, blocks of wood on different surfaces, and different weights of rocks in containers. They found out how much force was needed to move the objects and recorded their results. The class enjoyed several books about force and motion and made connections between their learning indoors and a challenge outdoors to use what they knew about force and motion to move a sled full of materials to the forest classroom together.
1-2 News
 Mrs. Longcore, and Mrs. Robinson
First and second graders began a new unit on light and sound this week. We began with sound, and learned that vibrations make sound, and that sound travels in waves. After the read aloud book Our Ears are for Hearing, we put our hands behind our ears to “collect” sounds and noticed how much louder things were. Then students took a listening walk around the school and listened for many different sounds.

Over the next few weeks we will do some fun projects and need to collect materials. If you have any toilet paper or paper towel rolls, or empty tissue boxes, please send them in next week. We also need some flashlights to use the week after next. Kids will be very hands on with these, so if you have any of those inexpensive plastic flashlights we could borrow that would be great. Please label them with a tape label and I’ll be sure to get them back to you in a few weeks. Thank you!
Read more about our week in the K-2 newsletter!
3-4 News
Ms. Coté & Mrs. Marzot
Ms. Coté's reading group presented a readers' theater production of Tacky Goes to Camp.
7-8 News
Ms. Richardson, Mrs. White and Mr. Bagnato
History and Writing: The 7th and 8th grades have begun to study the life of Gandhi and his determination to bring independence to India. The students will also be planning out their Little Book of Ethics that will show their understanding of the ethical systems and beliefs of the five major religions. The audience for the books will be young children. Ask your child to tell you an interesting fact for each religion that they might include in their book.

Math: The 7th grade conducted a lab using toy cars to study distance, rate, and time, and the relationships between the three. We recorded one of the trials and afterward Simone helped us slow the video down so that we could see the cars speeding down the strip. Ask your student what adjustments we had to make to ensure that we accurately determined the speed of our Matchbox race cars. 

Operation Day’s Work: Our day of work will take place in May. If you have a job that you would like to hire a 7th or 8th grade student to perform, please let us know. Our earnings will go to the Kenyan School House Project. More information will be made available in the coming weeks.
The warmer weather of spring brings the opportunity for the 7th and 8th graders to participate in a rousing game of SPUD during recess.
Music News
Ms. Waswo
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The Music Gala is approaching!

Thursday April 11 from 5:30-6:30. 

Performance attire is required: Please have your children prepared with WHITE tops and BLACK bottoms. 

Feel free to contact Mrs. Waswo for any questions or concerns.
Farm to School News
Alyssa Marzot
Farm to School held their March Taste Test on Tuesday. Students had a chance to taste liquid gold and a huge part of Vermont's economy: maple syrup! Did you know that maple syrup is produced in every county in Vermont? Or that Vermont maple syrup comprises 40% of the maple syrup produced in the U.S., and 8% of the maple syrup produced worldwide?

Not surprisingly, students and staff alike loved the maple syrup produced right here in town by the Brown family. See the results in the pie chart below.

We will be meeting as a committee next Thursday, April 4th at 3:15 in Narwhal Nook to discuss the upcoming planting season. Please join us if you would like to get involved!
One Planet News
Kirsten Harlow
Session Three is well underway and we have been enjoying the new program leaders. Students have been building forts, candle making, working in nature journals and cooking.

Summer Camp registration is open! We expect space to fill up fast this year, so please send in your registration forms and a 50% deposit to hold your spot.
Lunch Room News
Gret Hewes
Sugaring Season is Here!

This past Tuesday, March 26th was our Farm to School March Taste Test. The students were able to taste some of last year’s local maple syrup. It was one of our most popular taste tests. See the Farm to School section of the newsletter for the results.

Please be sure that student hot lunch balances are paid. We are on a pre-pay system. You can pay online at mymealtime.com (there is a fee) or send cash or check payments into the office at no charge.  

Please send payments in to the office in sealed envelopes. Be sure to include the name of the student hot lunch account the payment is to be applied to. If you are paying for multiple student accounts please indicate the amount to be applied to each student’s account.

If you have any questions please be sure to contact me at ghewes@newtonschool.org
PTA News
Shannon Varley
BIKE-TO-SCHOOL DAY!
Mark your calendars! Bike-to-School Day will be held on Friday, May 17th.
Rain date TBD.
More details to follow.

PTA PLANT SALE!
The Newton School PTA Plant Sale will be held on Saturday, May 18th--please mark your calendars!
There are ways to help out: the month before the sale and on the day itself.  
Please email Kate Reimanis if you are interested in helping.

NEXT PTA MEETING
Tuesday, April 2nd
6:00PM
Newton School Library
Upcoming Events