Brunswick Acres Parent Newsletter

The crisp autumn air is finally here and we are enjoying fall here at Brunswick Acres! October is always a busy month, with Back to School Night, the Week of Respect, Violence & Vandalism Awareness week, the Walkathon, and Fall Festival and Halloween prep! Please check out our pictures and videos, as well as our upcoming events below! Lots of information in this newsletter!

October 25th - PTO Fall Festival, 7pm

October 29th - Kindergarten (Familygarten) Parent Evening, 7:00pm-8:00pm

October 30-Nov 4th - Scholastic Book Fair

October 31st - Spirit Day - Black and Orange Day

October 31st - Halloween Parties @school

November 4th - Parent/Teacher Conferences -9:00-2:00, 5:00-8:00pm

November 5th-8th - No School for Students/Teacher Professional Development

November 15th - Spirit Day - BA Colors (Blue and White)

November 21st - Kindergarten (Familygarten) Parent Evening Part 2, 7:00pm-8:00pm

November 22nd - Spirit Day - Ties & Tutus Day (wear a tie or a tutu, or both!)

November 27th - Early Release, Thanksgiving-eve

November 28-29th - No School, Thanksgiving

Like last year, conferences will be scheduled using Genesis. You will need to log into the Genesis Parent Portal to choose a time for your child(ren)'s conference. Genesis opened up for parent scheduling on October 18th and are scheduled on a first come, first served basis. If your schedule is limited or if you need an evening conference, it is best to schedule early. Scheduling closes on October 30th at 4:00pm.

Below are links to assist you in scheduling your child’s parent/teacher conference using a desktop/laptop or smartphone in the Genesis Parent Portal:

To view a video modeling how to sign-up for conferences on a computer, visit:

tinyurl.com/SBconferenceHowToVIDEO

To view screenshots modeling how to sign-up for conferences on your computer, visit:

tinyurl.com/SBconferenceHowToDESKTOP

To view screenshots modeling how to sign-up for conferences on your mobile device, visit: tinyurl.com/SBconferenceHowToMOBILE

If you do not remember your Genesis parent access information, are having problems accessing your account, or difficulty making your conference, please contact Mrs. Castaneda in the main office.

You may also access the Genesis Help Desk at www.tinyurl.com/genesishelpdesk

The week of October 7th was the Week of Respect. This is a week where schools focus on character education and kindness in order to help to prevent harassment, intimidation, and bullying and focus on a respectful school environment. This year our theme was "Be a Bucket Filler!" We all read the book Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud and worked on ways that we can be "bucket fillers" and not "bucket dippers." Students came up with many ways that they can promote a Bucket Filling Classroom and ways that they can be BA Proud by showing pride in themselves when they work hard and try new things and supporting their classmates when they do the same!

This past week was Violence & Vandalism Awareness Week. Our focus for this week was how BA Bears take care of our environment. We kicked off the week on Friday with the Walkathon combined with our first annual Unity Day! Students met with buddy classes to work together and take care of each other in grade level and buddy activities. At the end we came together to do our school wide dance! It was a wonderful, fun morning, although it was a bit chilly. It motivated us to keep moving, though!! Today we capped off the events by focusing on what our BA Bears can do for our school and schoolmates by creating chalk drawings outside!

We are so excited to announce that last June we submitted our application to be a bronze level certified Future Ready School and in September we were notified that we passed!

The Future Ready School program was developed to acknowledge schools that "establish a culture of digital innovation, where educators are empowered to deepen and extend student learning through the use of technology, digital content, and media."

The application process was lengthy, but gave us a good opportunity to look at our strengths and areas of focus in the area of technology integration. I'd like to thank all of our teachers who provided information and evidence, but especially our committee, who volunteered many hours of their own time to complete the required documents for the application! Thank you, BA Team!

Now we are looking for a good place to put our pretty new banner!

The BA Future Ready Team:

Mrs. Dixon, Mrs. Henning, Ms. Moffett, Mrs. Rosa, Mrs. Steele, Mrs. Ta

We hope that you saw the email about Halloween sent last week, but here is a quick summary of the events at Brunswick Acres:

• Class parties are in the afternoon. In order to keep crowd levels down, only room parent volunteers may attend the parties.
• Students should not come to school in their full costumes. They will change into costumes in the afternoon. Please coordinate this so that it is as easy as possible for them to change as independently as possible. Please remember, no play weapons are allowed as part of a costume.
• If you do not want your child to participate in the Halloween parties, please email the classroom teacher by Monday 10/28 so that we can ensure that they get sent to the Harvest Program.
• Students will head home still in costume so that you can begin your celebrating right away! Have fun!

Fall is here!

As members of the PTO, our goal is to encourage interaction between the school and family and work with the teachers to improve our children’s educational experience. The PTO plans many fun and exciting programs during the school year as a way of giving back to our children’s education. The success of our numerous programs is dependent on the joint efforts of the parents and teachers. We want to thank all those parents and teachers who have volunteered their time and skills to help plan these events and make them memorable for our children. If you have a moment, we encourage you to come and help in any way you can. We understand the busy lives of parents, but remember, our children directly benefit from our efforts.

If you haven’t already paid your membership dues for the PTO, we highly encourage you to join. Simply send an email to baschool.pto@gmail.com and pay the $10 dues.

Upcoming events sponsored by the PTO

October 25: Fall Festival – Calling all Brunswick Acres Elementary School families! Kids and parents get dressed up in their Halloween costumes, dance to music played by our famous DJ, have pictures taken at the photo booth, participate in a costume contest, play fun games, enjoy craft activities and much more! If you haven’t already bought your tickets, tickets will be available at the door for $7

October 28 – November 4: Scholastic Book Fair – Encourage your kids to spend some time cuddling with a good book. We need help setting up, helping children browse and purchase. Please consider donating some of your time to help out.

November 4: Teacher Conference Dinner- The PTO will be hosting a dinner for the teachers to help them keep their energy up for the parent-teacher conference marathon.

November 12: Picture Day Retakes – This is for those kids who missed the first picture day.

Successful events hosted by the PTO

October 8: 1st PTO meeting – We held our first PTO meeting of the year and introduced the room parents, passed the budget, and heard about the ongoing learnings in each of the grades.

October 10: Picture Day – Your child’s picture and the class picture was taken. Pictures will be sent home next week. If your child missed it, picture day retakes will be on November 12.

October 18: Walk-a-thon – We held the annual walk-a-thon to raise money for Chromebooks. If you haven’t already, don’t forget to send in your collection form and $.

_____________________________________________________________________________

We are looking for pictures for the yearbook. If you have photos related to any of the categories below, please send them to us.

Photo Category Email Photos To:

Autism group submit+BAS-autism@edophotos.com

Chorus submit+BAS-Chorus@edophotos.com

Drama Club submit+BAS-Drama@edophotos.com

Fall Festival submit+BAS-FallFestival@edophotos.com

Fifth grade submit+Classof2020@edophotos.com

First grade submit+BAS-Firstgrade@edophotos.com

Fourth grade submit+BAS-Fourthgrade@edophotos.com

Halloween Parade submit+BAS-parade@edophotos.com

Jr. Drama Club submit+BAS-JrDrama@edophotos.com

Kindergarten submit+BAS-Kindergarten@edophotos.com

Orchestra/Band submit+BAS-music@edophotos.com

Second grade submit+BAS-Secondgrade@edophotos.com

Spirit Days submit+BAS-Spirit@edophotos.com

Third grade submit+BAS-Thirdgrade@edophotos.com

Looking Ahead…

While these are some of the PTO sponsored events listed above, we welcome ideas for new school wide events for our children’s benefit. If you would like to contribute, don’t hesitate to contact Seema Parikh at baschool.pto@gmail.com

Please remember that the answer to many of your questions is located in the parent handbook! Please click here to view it!

Also, remember that our classrooms are nut-free. Please do not send in any snacks or treats that may contain nuts.

October is Dyslexia Awareness Month. South Brunswick is committed to being a Dyslexia Friendly district with the ability to embrace and support the strengths and talents of our students with Dyslexia. On October 15th, our staff members throughout the school wore red to honor Dyslexia Awareness.

1 in 5 people may have indicators of Dyslexia. On October 15th, you may see educators wearing red shirts to bring attention to the 1 in 5 statistic.

Some history:

In September of 2014, NJ passed three laws related to Dyslexia. In short, the law requires two hours of mandated training related to Dyslexia for appropriate school personnel; screening for any child who shows indicators of dyslexia or other reading disabilities early - by the end of the first semester of second grade with further comprehensive assessment and interventions to follow; and finally, Dyslexia is now identified in the New Jersey Special Education Code of Law under the classification category of Specific Learning Disability.

Currently, research shows that approximately 1 in 5 students may struggle in reading and writing. Early intervention can greatly increase success for such students.

Those who are dyslexic may experience difficulty with: learning letters and their sounds, decoding words, reading comprehension, written expression, grammar/mechanics, spelling, and rapid word retrieval. Strengths for these students may include: verbal communication, visual arts, computer science, design, drama, electronics, mathematics, mechanics, music and/or sports.

If Dyslexia runs in your family or you have concerns about Dyslexia and your child, reach out to your child’s teacher or administrator.

Our district is very proud of our commitment to being a Dyslexia Friendly district. Our teachers created this video to showcase our commitment to supporting students with Dyslexia and other learning difference. You can see the video here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Cpni_wZZynNkp2R0RUVTBSWGM/view?usp=sharing

In addition, our district was featured in New Jersey Family magazine (August 2017) in an article entitled, “Help! My Child Has Dyslexia” http://www.njfamily.com/Help-My-Child-Has-Dyslexia/

One of the best things we can do for our children is to build independence and responsibility. They may think they don't want it, but secretly the LOVE to be a part of helping and supporting their families and schools. This is a great article on appropriate chores for students at their different ages. Take a peek and see which ones might fit into your home!

Email: stacey.ta@sbschools.org
Website: http://www.sbschools.org/schools/ba/index.php
Location: 41 Kory Drive, NJ, United States
Phone: 732-297-6621
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SBSDBA/
Twitter: @sbsdba