NEWS FROM THE BERKELEY HEIGHTS PUBLIC SCHOOLS MARY KAY MC MILLIN EARLY CHILDHOOD CENTER First graders at the Mary Kay McMillin Early Childhood Center recently celebrated their 100th day of school! The students were very busy taking 100 steps, making 100 chain links and painting 100 hands. The math centers challenged the students to games to 100, tallies to 100 and 100 # grids. Our young writers also answered the questions of who they would be in 100 years and what they would do with $100. These 100th Day celebrators also ran in place and stood in silence for 100 seconds! ******************************************************************

During the month of February, the students in the Grade 1 class taught by Mrs. Catherine Jones and Ms. Sally Stevenson worked on a mini-unit of study on penguins. The children wrote “All About Penguin Books,” and made several art projects. To culminate the unit of study, parent volunteers helped with penguin-themed activities that the children rotated through in small

groups. Some of the favorite “Penguin Day” activities included scooping goldfish crackers to feed their penguin babies and learning how to waddle like a penguin with an egg on their feet.

THOMAS P. HUGHES SCHOOL February has been a snowy month, and teachers are using the SNOW theme in many ways at Thomas P. Hughes School!

Students have been busy decorating the building with snowy artistic masterpieces, and teachers have been incorporating snow into their literacy and math activities on a regular basis. Snow poems, math problems, book reports and descriptive writing pieces are among the many activities that have kept our students engaged in learning throughout these wintry weeks.

MOUNTAIN PARK SCHOOL The Grade 5 students at Mountain Park School recently participated in a simulation that helped them to understand firsthand what it felt like to be an American colonist who had to pay taxes imposed by Great Britain. Each fifth grader played a role in the simulation. Some were members of Parliament, others were tax collectors, and one student in each class played King George III. All of the other students were colonists. Each colonist received ten (10) Skittles. The Parliament members then announced taxes on things like sweatshirts and boots. The taxes were paid in Skittles.

At the end of the exercise, many colonists had almost no Skittles left. The King received 50% of the taxes, Parliament got 40%, and the tax collectors took the remaining 10%. Strong cries of protest were heard among the colonists in each class. Luckily, nobody organized a Boston Skittles Party!

MOUNTAIN PARK SCHOOL (continued) Thanks to the generosity of the Mountain Park School PTO, Mrs. Jill Fischer (second from right), School Nurse, was able to purchase a “choking mannequin” to help provide instruction in Grades 4 and 5 Health Education classes. Since 3,000 people in the U.S. die every year due to accidental choking, this topic was

a very important one to address. The students discussed how choking can occur and how to perform first aid for a choking person in the absence of an adult. Every student enthusiastically demonstrated first aid for choking, using the mannequin. Choking prevention strategies were also explored as part of the Health lesson. ****************************************************************** Grade 4 students at Mountain Park School created a friendship bulletin board for February. The question posed to the children was: What qualities do you look for in a great friend? Mountain Park students look for people who have a great sense of humor, are compassionate, fun-loving, caring, and gentle. The hearts will be on display in the Fourth Grade wing at MPS.

WILLIAM WOODRUFF SCHOOL

Students at William Woodruff School recently participated in the annual National Geographic Geography Bee. Ten Grade 5 finalists competed in the Championship Round to earn the crown of Woodruff Geography Bee Champion and to have the opportunity to move on to the state level

competition. Daniel Marinko won the championship by answering seven of eight questions correctly, while second place honors went to Ryan Matthews and Trevor Consoli took third place. ****************************************************************** The iPads have made strong inroads into our school with students using the new technology to support classroom learning, reinforce concepts, and explore and research new topics. Second graders in Mrs. Cheryl McKinney’s class (shown at right) enjoyed the opportunity for some extra time working with the iPads as they waited to complete their reading testing.

WILLIAM WOODRUFF SCHOOL (continued) The birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a significant day at Woodruff School because it celebrates the birth of Dr. King and the start of the KJ Challenge. During morning announcements, the students learned from the fourth graders the character topic of the day. They were given possible scenarios to live out the topic and then challenged all students to “Live Dr. King’s Dream.”’ When students were caught “living the dream,” they were able to sign their name to the scroll by the picture of Dr. King located in the school’s front foyer. ******************************************************************

Giving of oneself is always the theme at Woodruff School and this month it was expressed in many ways. Students decorated lunch bags and packed lunches for the Bridges program to help families in need of a good meal. Students collected Pennies for Pets, raising over $200.00 to support a local shelter. The Student Council ran a book and video/DVD sale where proceeds went to supporting the School Store. All of the extra books, videos, and DVDs were donated to a school in Plainfield and a Saturday tutoring program in Newark. Cancer Awareness was promoted with the staff supporting a Lung Cancer Charity Day and making a donation in honor of Mrs. Kelly Murray’s father.

****************************************************************** Mr. Joseph Reel, a teacher at Woodruff and coach at Governor Livingston, organized a Coaches Against Cancer Basketball Game at GLHS in early February to raise funds to support cancer research. Two Woodruff students who in the past have battled cancer, Spencer Jacovini and Nick Tarabokia, were named game captains for GL, sitting with the team and cheering them on to victory over Oratory Prep. Woodruff’s Student Council made cancer ribbon buttons to sell at the event. Over $2000.00 was raised through the various promotions and entry fees.

COLUMBIA MIDDLE SCHOOL Students from Science classes at Columbia Middle School recently enjoyed a presentation by Mr. James Flakker, Science teacher at Governor Livingston High School, who spoke about the Student Spacecraft Exploration Program (SSEP) in which CMS students have been chosen to participate. In this "kickoff" presentation, Mr. Flakker discussed how students could work in groups and with partners to develop an experiment that could

(through a proposal process) one day join other experiments on board the International Space Station. More details about this exciting educational opportunity program will follow shortly and be posted on the bhpsnj.org, the school district website.    

*************************************************************************************Students in Grade 8 Physical Education classes were recently introduced to members of the Governor Livingston High School Color Guard. The Color Guard members first demonstrated, then taught the CMS students the skill of twirling flags. This is always an enjoyable time for soon-to-be ninth graders, some of whom signed up during the class to attend a meeting at the high school as prospective members of GL’s award-winning Color Guard.

GOVERNOR LIVINGSTON HIGH SCHOOL

A team of students representing Governor Livingston High School recently won high honors in this year’s WordWright Challenge, a national competition for high school students requiring close reading and analysis of many different kinds of prose and poetry. Participating along with 596 school teams from all across the country, the GL seniors tied for 12th place in the nation in the year’s second meet, which was conducted in December. This matches the Highlanders’ 12th place finish nationally in the October WordWright competition.

Governor Livingston students who earned the highest individual honors in the most recent meet included seniors (pictured L to R) Ipsita Chatterjee, who earned a perfect score; Ariana Chuba and Rachel Zhu. More than 69,000 students from across the country participated in this competition.

The Governor Livingston team is supervised by Mrs. Doreen Ladinski, Teacher of English at GLHS. Governor Livingston’s participation in this challenge has been made possible through a GLHS PTO grant awarded to the English Department Faculty. The GL students will participate in two more WordWright meets during the coming months, and medals and certificates will be awarded in June to those who achieve and/or progress the most during the course of the year.

GOVERNOR LIVINGSTON HIGH SCHOOL (continued)

All three Governor Livingston High School National Merit Semi-Finalists have been advanced to Finalist status based upon their achievement on the

2012 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®) as well as their academic performance in high school and performance on the SAT tests. The Finalists (pictured L to R) Helena Zhang, Alexandra Cassano and Kira Mathias-Prabhu, are among approximately 14,400 students nationwide that have been identified as Finalists from the pool of nearly 1.5 million junior students in more than 22,000 high schools. Helena, Alexandra and Kira will now have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 8,000 National Merit Scholarships worth more than

$35 million that will be offered this spring. This nationwide pool of Finalists, representing less than one percent of all U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state.

GOVERNOR LIVINGSTON HIGH SCHOOL (continued)

Governor Livingston High School is proud to announce that Teddy Cole (pictured second from left) and Kate Parker (far left) have advanced in the 2014 New Jersey Shout Down Drugs Music Competition, sponsored by the Partnership for a Drug- Free New Jersey. New Jersey students have participated in this nationally-recognized, award-winning high school drug prevention initiative for the past 10 years.

The goal of the contest is to challenge high school students to create original music and lyrics with powerful substance abuse prevention messages. This will allow teens to deliver the prevention message to each other through their favorite medium of music. Teddy and Kate will have the opportunity to perform their original piece at the 10th Annual Prevention Concert at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in Newark on May 21st.

The other Governor Livingston entry in this contest, created by Kylie Meltzer (pictured at far right) and Ryan Hernandez (second from right), is still in contention to make the finals as well. The remaining finalists will be announced on March 3rd.

 

 

 

 

 

DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL SERVICES

It’s hard to believe we are more than halfway through the 2013-2014 school year! As the Department of Special Services begins to plan for the 2014-2015 school year, parents are encouraged to share their priorities and expectations with their district case manager. Open communication and collaboration is the essence of the planning process for students with disabilities. Parents should consider the top three goals they have for their child for the coming school year – what they would like for their child to reasonably accomplish in one year’s time – and share these goals with their child’s teachers and case manager. This can lead to meetings/discussions that are focused and student-centered. The next meeting of the Special Education Parent Advisory Committee (SEPAC) will be at 1:00 pm on Wednesday, March 5th in the second floor conference room of the Clausen Administration Building, 345 Plainfield Avenue, Berkeley Heights. Please join us for our parent program, “What the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Means for You, Your Child, and Your School.” Dr. Paula Rust will present this program on Monday, March 10th, beginning at 7:00 p.m., in the Governor Livingston High School auditorium.