Mr. Powers, the principal of Baldwin Middle School, is working to prepare the building and schedule for our 5th graders who part of the 2010-11 6th grade student body. You can find his letter to all 5th grade parents here: Parent Letter-6th Grade Timeline
For a prior blog post on the transition meeting, click: 5th to 6th Grade
turning five years of age on or before December 1 of 2010 to enroll. Please fill out the forms below and return to the office at anytime or drop them off at the March 9 Kindergarten Round-Up meeting.Kindergarten Round-Up meetings will be held for parents on Tuesday, March 9. The meeting will offer parents information in preparation of your child entering Kindergarten Overview K current or Pre-Kindergarten Overview PK current in the Fall. The locations and times of the meetings are as follows:
Alward Elementary – 10 a.m. OR 7 p.m. (Georgetown parents who are not able to attend in the evening can attend the 10 am meeting at Alward. The information is identical to the meeting held at 7 pm.)
Georgetown Elementary – 7 p.m. only
We completed our first week of Bustin’ Thru Books Boot Camp. This reading camp is run with the help of a volunteer corp of dads who READ while kids in grades 1-5 READ! The goal of the camp is to provide time to READ with a focus on building stamina and endurance for reading.
We think of learning to read as a skill that can be compared to training for an athletic event. All athletes work with coaches who model the skill (teachers), perfect skills in sport clinics (reading groups) and have required time to practice on a daily basis (quiet, independent read time.) The more time you take to practice as an athlete, the better your performance. The same is true with reading. Our goal is to help every child attain 90 minutes of reading at their level each day. The parents who are volunteering to come in daily are allowing us to build in extra critical minutes for readers to just READ.
If you would like to volunteer, we would love to include you in the program. The only requirement is that you bring material to read! If you are interested, complete this survey and Jeff Wressell will contact you with time/date options.
WE ARE IN NEED OF VINYL BEAN BAGS for our reading time. If you would like to contribute $1 or any amount of money toward these, we would be so grateful. When boot camp is completed this spring, the bean bags will be used in classrooms. Thank you for any help you can provide!
Enjoy this video collection of photos from our first week of bustin’ thru our books!
The big highlight of this week will be Valentine’s Day celebrations in our classrooms, from ECSE to grade 5. For 
details regarding Valentine party times, check your child’s class blog.
A reminder to all: MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15 = NO SCHOOL. This is a teacher’s record day — time to work our second period report cards. This is also a day that we prepare for Parent/Teacher conferences (March 2, 3 and 4).
I follow the DAILY OM site that provides helpful strategies for physical and mental health, as well as tips for 
parenting. I received an update yesterday that is a helpful reminder to me, on the parenting end of my life, to work at not CONTROLLING all that my children do and think. As someone who manages an elementary building of many staff and hundreds of wonderful children, I have a tendency to manage my family, too. I share this link knowing that parenting is a work in progress for all of us!
To read the post from Daily OM, read on:
“Truly loving our children requires us to set them free and practice non-attachment. Trust and allow.
Parenting asks us to rise to some of the most difficult challenges this world has to offer, and one of its greatest paradoxes arises around the issue of attachment. On the one hand, successful parenting requires that we love our children, and most of us love in a very attached way. On the other hand, it also requires that we let go of our children at the appropriate times, which means we must practice some level of nonattachment. Many parents find this difficult because we love our children fiercely, more than we will ever love anyone, and this can cause us to overstep our bounds with them as their independence grows. Yet truly loving them requires that we set them free.
Attachment to outcome is perhaps the greatest obstacle on the parenting path, and the one that teaches us the most about the importance of practicing nonattachment. We commonly perceive our children to be extensions of ourselves, imagining that we know what’s best for them, but our children are people in their own right with their own paths to follow in this world. They may be called to move in directions we fear, don’t respect, or don’t understand, yet we must let them go. This letting go happens gradually throughout our lives with our children until we finally honor them as fully grown adults who no longer require our guidance. At this point, it is important that we treat them as peers who may or may not seek our input into their lives. This allows them, and us, to fully realize the greatest gift parents can offer their offspring —independence.
Letting go in any area of life requires a deep trust in the universe, in the overall meaning and purpose of existence. Remembering that there is more to us and our children than meets the eye can help us practice non-attachment, even when we feel overwhelmed by concern and the desire to interfere. We are all souls making our way in the world and making our way, ultimately, back to the same source. This can be our mantra as we let our children go in peace and confidence.”
Share the OM: To email this to a friend, click SHARE
To discuss this article, click DISCUSS
Mrs. Reagan reads Love That Dog to our class everyday. One day, she stayed for indoor recess. We made a BIG lincoln log castle. We asked her to take a picture and put it on the blog. She said she would if we wrote a story. This is the story.
By Jordan, Brayden, Connor and Evan (The Lincoln Log Experts from Mrs. Kuieck’s class)
*Mrs. Reagan reads this story to all the second graders.
Technically March does not fall in the spring, but it is close enough that I can wish my way toward it! We wanted you to get the date for our book fair on on your calendar and keep this in mind:
There will be a SPECIAL drawing on MARCH 4 for vouchers to use during the
Georgetown Elementary PTC Book Fair. The book fair will be held March 15-19.
There will also be a wonderful variety of books being raffled.
Continue to encourage your child to make their goal for this special drawing!
As we move into the new year, we are getting set for our new kinders and preparing our 5th graders for middle school. Orientation, instrument fittings and information nights are posted below. Mark your calendars! A note from Mr. Powers, the BMS principal, outlines the time line for these dates on this letter: Parent Letter-6th Grade Timeline
Orientation for our 5th graders at Baldwin Middle School (meet with counselors, tour of building, music testing, music concert with 6th graders)—Parents do not attend this event. Your child’s teacher will accompany the class during the school day.
Rental Nights: Parent meetings to find out about how to get an instrument (band and orchestra only):
Bustin’ Through Books Boot Camp began this week! Every child who participates logs minutes read
into an online reading log. Readers can also use this log for minutes read in the classroom and at home. EVERY MINUTE COUNTS!
If you would like to have your reader add minutes read at home, the reading logs can be found on the tab above called: BUSTIN THRU BOOKS There is a log for each child who is a camp member.
This photo graciously contributed by Adrian DeJesus, Love of Reading; 365 Project
Jeff Wressell, Chief Operating Dad of DESK (Dad’s Empowering Super Kids) and organizer of the volunteers for Bustin’ thru Books has asked me to do another blog shout out for Dads. He has received several volunteers, but needs more. If you are interested…read on:
If you are a dad of a child at Georgetown and have wondered how you can volunteer at school, we have the opportunity for you! Jeff Wressell has organized a volunteer program called D.E.S.K (Dad’s Empowering Super Kids) and this will kick off in partnership with our Bustin’ Through Books program. The philosophy of DESK can be found here: Dads Vol Program
Please consider participating in this opportunity! We would love to have you participate and be present in the school.
To find out more about the program, visit BUSTIN’ THROUGH BOOKS.
To volunteer, complete this survey: DADs WHO BUST THROUGH BOOKS
