THE TRAILBLAzER TIMES - Project Hope Foundation

HOPE ACADEMY
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Volume 10, Issue 5
January 2009
P r esch ool Ne ws
K-3
Ms. Sue
Ms. Cindy
The 3K Bears have
had another great
month at Hope! We
learned letters J & K,
numbers 10 & 11,
and the shape of a
circle. We have also
been making lots of
Christmas crafts and
decorations for our
trees at home. Our
Read-it-Again story
this month was The
Mitten about a boy
that loses a white
mitten in the snow,
and it becomes a
warm sanctuary for
many different animals. At the end of
the lessons I brought
in a large white mit-
The warm mitten becomes a sanctuary.
ten made out of a
sheet. The children
got to pretend to be
different animals all
stuffing into the mitten, just like the story.
We also shared photos and stories of our
grandparents
and
learned that grandmas go by many different names, like
Baba in our story, to
Norney,
Nana,
Grammy,
GrAnn,
Grandma, and many
more.
Thank you to our
3K parents and volunteers who keep
our class running
smoothly. We wish
all of our extended
Hope Family a happy
and safe holiday vacation and look forward to starting another great month of
learning and playing
in January.
K-3/K3/K-4
Ms. Brenda
Ms. Elizabeth
Welcome back to
school, we hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and break
from school.
We
missed everyone very
much. In January we
will learn all about
Wintertime and food
around the world.
Our letters for the
month are U, C, O,
and Q. We will also
be learning about
the numbers 7, 8, 9,
and 10.
We will
spend three weeks
on wintertime and
one week on food
around the world. In
art, we will make
snowman mosaics,
glittery snowflakes,
and snowflakes snow
drawing,
just
to
name a few. In science we will do a
water
experiment
and make frost. In
social studies we will
do a winter round
Inside this issue:
Preschool News
1&2
Academy 1 & 2
3
Academy 2 & 3
4
Academy 4 & 5
5&6
Box Tops
7
Luminary fundraiser
7
Golf
8
Upcoming Events
• Hope Stampede has been
canceled.
• Jan. 12 registration for
next year begins.
• Jan. 15 Chick-fil-a
biscuit sale.
• Jan. 16—19 No school
• Jan. 27 Chick-fil-a Night
• Feb. 13 Grandparents’
Brunch
PAGE 2
THE TRAILBLAZER TIMES
P re s c h o ol Ne ws ( co nt i nu e d)
robin, wintertime glyph, and
sort by season. On January
22nd we will go to the Peace
Center to see Aesop’s Fables.
K -4
Ms. Karen
Ms. Lani
In the month of December
we have finished The Gingerbread Man by painting the
fox, and working with manipulatives and worksheets.
We put together and decorated a gingerbread house
and made gingerbread cookies to eat. We also finished
talking about our five senses.
We learned about the sense
of touch by guessing what
was in some gloves.
We
learned about the sense of
taste by tasting something
sour, sweet, and salty.
Our letters for the month
have been C, O, Q, and G.
We read Corduroy and made
a corduroy bear for the letter
C. We made: an octopus for
the letter O, a queen’s crown
for the letter Q, and a giraffe
for the letter G.
We have enjoyed learning
about Christmas, making a
poinsettia, a tree, Rudolph,
and a wreath. We talked
“In January our book will
be The Napping House.”
about different kinds of
Christmas trees and learned
about reindeer. Thanks to all
our parents who sent things
for our Christmas party.
In January our book will be
The Napping House. We will
also talk about winter,
weather, and seasons. We
will finish learning to make
our upper case ABC’s. We are
learning to make S, A, I, T, and
J.
Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and will
have a good new year.
K-4
the “men” that Cady’s mom
brought. We have also looked
at holiday traditions here as
well as in other countries. It is
fun to talk about traditions
that are different from ours
and often seem strange to us.
It was great going to Barnes
and Noble and having a parent go with each child. We
hope each student got something new to read. Books are
so important!
In January, we will talk about
the new year, winter, and
weather. Our book will be
The Napping House.
Everyone in this K4 class
wishes you and your loved
ones a happy, safe holiday
season. We hope that 2009
brings lots of happiness and
good health.
Ms. Kay
Ms. Bernadette
The children are all excited.
The holidays will soon be
here. Can you believe it? We
have been busy practicing for
our program and are looking
forward to performing for our
families and friends.
During December, we
have continued our Gingerbread Man reading and projects. The children really enjoyed decorating and eating
The children decorated and ate
gingerbread men.
“ O ve r t h e p a s t 1 2 y e a r s , P r o j e c t H O P E F o u n d a t i o n h a s b e e n
helping families meet the daily challenges of autism.”
VOLUME 10, ISSUE 5
PAGE 3
Academy news
A -1
Ms. Christine
Ms. Kim
Our class had a wonderful
December filled with lots of
fun, seasonal activities and
culminating with an awesome Christmas program. Ms.
Kim and I are so proud of our
class’s performance. The children worked hard to prepare
for the program, and we feel
it really showed in their performance!
Language Arts/Phonics: We
will start off the month of
January with a short review
of our letter sounds and continue learning to identify
short and long vowel sounds,
as well as isolating ending
consonant sounds. We will
increase the frequency of our
journal writing. Also, we will
divide into guided reading
groups and begin having
reading books assigned as
part of homework.
Math: Last month, we began
working with a number line
to aid in completing addition
and subtraction problems.
The children are doing a
fabulous job with this skill! In
Touch Math, we have progressed from having both
numbers with dots on them
to only one number utilizing
the dot system. Also this
month, we will begin a new
circle time activity: each student will begin keeping their
own circle time folder. The
folders will contain a calendar
that they must fill in, a tally
mark page to count the num-
ber of school days in the
month, and a weather graph
page. Each morning we will
fill out each page and analyze
our data.
Social
Social Studies: We will begin
learning map skills this month
by creating our own maps of
the classroom and the playground. We will also map out
our route from the class to
the playground.
Science: In a combined art &
science project we
will make crystal
snowflakes using
borax soap.
We
will also conduct a
melting experiment
and discuss the different
states of matter.
Art: This month we will learn
about the art of Henri Matisse
and Helen Frankenthaler.
The children will also have
the opportunity to create
their own versions of these
famous artists’ work. This will
give the children the opportunity to explore new art techniques.
We hope everyone had a fun
and restful break.
A -2
Ms. Constance
Ms. Julie
Welcome back! Before our
much needed winter break, I
asked the Academy 2 students how they planned to
spend their holiday time. I
was very impressed that my
students wanted most to
spend time with their family.
Please enjoy!
Samuel: I am going to the
North Pole to make toys for a
girl. The toys will be nice.
Thomas: I want to go to Gattitown with my family. I want
to play bumper cars with Jay,
Jospeh, Mom and Dad. We
will go to get a toy.
Owen: During winter break I
want to play with my new
Star Wars toy with Mom and
Dad.
Maya: I would play a game
with my family. The game I
would play is Chutes and Ladders.
Mackenzie: I like to eat with
my family. I really like to eat
corn.
Ethan: I want to go to the
clubhouse to ride my bike
and go bowling with my family.
Grace: Over winter break, I
would like to snuggle up by
the fire, drink hot cocoa, and
read books. I would like to
watch a Christmas movie..
Also, I would like to go look at
the Christmas lights.
Isabelle: I would like to go to
Disney World and see Mickey.
I would like to go to New
York.
PAGE 4
THE TRAILBLAZER TIMES
Academy 2 & 3 news
“I asked the Academy 2
students how they planned to
spend their holiday time.”
Nick: I would go on vacation
to the train shop with my
Mommy & Daddy.
Justin: I am going to work on
my sports with my Dad. Then
I am going to watch sports.
Then I am going to play video
games.
Carter: I would like to play. I
would like to color.
Chas: Over Christmas break, I
want to play with my toys
and get presents.
William: I would play a board
game with Mom and play
school.
Amber: I want to go to Hollywild for Christmas. I want to
play games at my house, I
want to drink hot chocolate.
Lyndsey: I want to read my
books in my room with my
brother. He will read with
me.
A quick reminder about our
constellation box experiment.
Please send in a shoe box including the lid as soon as possible. If anyone has extra
boxes, those are welcome
too!
Also, Ms. Julie and I would
like to give a special thanks
for all of the holiday yummies
and goodies!
A -3
(continued)
Ms. Marydell
Ms. Marianne
Happy New Year Everyone! I would like to thank all
those who donated a blanket
to our “Project Blankets for
Love”. The recipients of the
blankets were more than appreciative. Our blankets will
be well used during the cold
winter months to come. You
are truly a loving, giving classroom family.
Our 4th grade math group
has begun to learn long division. They are very excited
about this new skill. Using
the individual matrix has
really been successful and
great for establishing responsibility with the 4th graders.
The 3rd graders are really flying high. They are using skills
such as simple division and
multiplication, measurement,
and solving word problems.
In Social Studies the 3rd
graders are learning about
the First South Carolinians
and a growing colony. We’ve
studied how the natural environment affected the way
people lived and how some
groups had trouble living together. The children were
really interested in artifacts
and how we can study early
South Carolinians by the
things they left here. Our 4th
graders are now ready to
study the New England,
Southern, and Middle colonies.
Learning about our
country’s beginning is so exciting.
In reading we are finishing
up our novel Sarah, Plain and
Tall. We are not only enjoying the novel, but we are also
practicing answering questions in complete sentences
and writing friendly letters.
In music we are studying
the music of the Beatles. Jake
Benedict is an expert on the
Beatles. He can name almost
any Beatle song in only a couple to notes. Thanks, Ms. Lisa,
for such are great music class.
In Art we’ve been doing
some Holiday pictures. The
children look forward to Art
every week. Mrs. Michelle
does a fabulous job.
“The road ahead for people with autism depends on the attitudes
o f t h e r e s t o f u s . W e n e e d t o h a ve a w i l l i n g n e s s t o c r e a t e
opportunities for educational support and acceptance.”
VOLUME 10, ISSUE 5
PAGE 5
Academy 4 & 5 news
Academy 4 and 5
Mr. Phil,
Mrs. Claire, and Mrs. Bettye
Language Arts—
Arts—A4
by Kensley Lollis
In Academy 4 language
arts, we are learning about
prepositions.
We are diagramming sentences and labeling sentences. We are still
doing DOL. On Wed., Dec.
3rd, we went to Barnes and
Noble and we selected our
R&R book.
Academy 4 and 5 definitions:
DOL = Daily Oral Language
R & R = Relax and Read
In addition to composing
descriptive and narrative
paragraph, we began a new
novel titled Maniac MaGee,
which tells the story of a
homeless boy who becomes
a hero. We are excited about
becoming “grammar code
talkers” as we learn the art of
diagramming grammatical
elements of subject, verb, direct object, and prepositional
phrases.
expand our reading comprehension we studied pieces of
dramatic literature in the
screen play genre as well as
passages of non-fiction. Expanding our expertise with
essay composition is another
skill that we continue to build.
Science
5th Grade
We have just completed an
awesome unit on agents of
erosion and deposition. With
the study of this section we
examined shoreline erosion
and the creation of sea stacks,
sea arches, sea caves, headlands, and wave-cut terraces.
We also examined the scientific principles behind multicolored beaches. Ask any
one of us how pink beaches
can occur!
“...we are examining shoreline erosion…”
6th Grade
Grade
Language Arts—
Arts—A5
In Academy 5 we have
continued our grammar progression with an examination
of direct objects, indirect objects, predicate nominatives,
predicate adjectives, and
compound complements. To
By Kimberly Sizemore
The 6th Grade science
class has just finished the sect i o n “ F o r e c a s ti ng t h e
Weather”.
We have
learned about all the instruments used to measure air
pressure, temperature, and
wind speed. We made a ba-
rometer
that hasn’t
worked
yet; we are
going to
attempt a
new
design. Now we are on “What
is Climate”. We are eager to
learn the difference between
weather and climate. We are
on our last chapter and about
to start a new book in January, 2009!
7th & 8th Grades
By Vasilee Dimopoulos
In Academy 5 science, we
have been learning about the
earth. We’ve learned about minerals, ores, volcanoes, earthquakes, the rock cycle, and a lot
more. Mr. David has been giving us BP Technology challenges, where we are given a
technical challenge, and a preset
amount of time and resources.
The first challenge was building
a bridge. The bridge had to be
able to hold a book without collapsing. Randy and Alex built
the strongest bridge, so they
won. Then we did another challenge, in which we had to build
a free standing basketball hoop.
The tallest hoop would be the
winner. Randy, Natalie, and Jamie won that challenge. It was
a lot of fun for all of us.
PAGE 6
THE TRAILBLAZER TIMES
Ac ad e my 4 & 5 N ew s
Physical Education
We are involved with a
variety of activities this month
that have helped us continue
to increase our fitness levels.
In addition to the whole class
activity of kickball, we are
learning basketball skills in
small groups as we practice
rebounding, dribbling, set
shots and free throws. Mr.
Phil helps us with our cardio
with lap running and relay
sprint races. Our strength
training continues with pushups and medicine ball tosses.
We are enjoying “pumping
up” our fitness levels and having fun while we do it.
tled they would rampage.
They were like a steamroller.
There was only one way to
stop them.
The cowboys
would sing to them. That
would calm the cattle down.
Another thing is that barbed
wire was invented in the cowboy times. It was invented by
Joseph Glidden. I love social
studies so much! The teachers that I can thank for teaching me so much information
are Mrs. Bettye and Mrs.
Claire.
7th Grade
We began our study of
Europe with a look at a number of fascinating topics
which include: the Renaissance,
Napoleon, Protestant
Reformation,
the Age of Exploration, and
the French revolution. As a literRenaisssance
ary connection
to this unit, we
will be examining the classic
The Scarlet Pimpernel.
6th Grade
By Lauren Avila
8th Grade
In sixth grade social studies
we have finished our unit on
Social Studies
ancient Greece and are moving on to ancient Rome. In
5th Grade
ancient Greece, we had just
By Christian Baliker
finished making mobiles. We
had to have geography, hisIn social studies or S.S. we
tory, government, mythology,
are doing a variety of things.
economics, culture, and picWe are learning about The
tures. We are now learning
Transcontinental Railroad, inabout Rome and are going to
ventors, cowboys, Indians,
learn about the beginning of
and the Homestead Act. I
the republic, the birth of
think my favorite so far is the
C h r i s ti a ni t y ,
cowboys.
It’s
“It’s
cool
to
know
that
the
cowboys
herded
and the decool to know
cattle and followed the railroad tracks to
cline of the
that the cowChicago.”
Roman
emboys
herded
pire. All of us
cattle and folenjoy social studies.
lowed the railroad tracks to
Chicago. If the cattle got star-
We continue our examination of South Carolina history
with a close scrutiny of the reconstruction period. Major
topics include the postwar
tasks of maintaining order, rebuilding the economy, and
sustaining American’s support
for the occupation effort.
Specific topics of research include “1866 Civil Rights Act,”
“forty acres and a mule,” carpetbaggers, Sea Islands,
sharecropping, and the
14th and 15th
amendments.
“forty acres and a mule…”
“T o day, 1 in e very 150 A mer ican childre n is diagno se d with aut is m.
A ut ism IS treatab le! Wit h early inter ve nt io n and inte nsive
therapy, children with autism can lead full and active lives.”
VOLUME 10, ISSUE 5
PAGE 7
Box tops contest
Our next contest deadline
for Box Tops is February 20.
20 It
will be the same as the one
before with a Webkinz drawing and a class popsicle party
winner. We are really trying
to encourage online shopping at the Marketplace at
the Box Tops website. Go to
www.boxtops4education.
com to register or to shop
through the Marketplace.
Every online store donates a
percentage of your sale back
to our school, but you MUST
go through the Box Tops
website. So, in order to enencourage online shopping at
the Marketplace, we are offeroffering one entry for each child
in your family in the Webkinz
drawing just for trying online
shopping through the MarMarket
ketplace. A verification form
and a new collection sheet
was sent home with your
child. If you lost yours or need
more, just contact Elaine Avila
at elaine@ehosted.com and I
will be happy to send you
one.
Thank you all for doing a
great job with Box Tops. Little
things really do add up to big
money for our school!!
As always, please contact
me with any questions/
concerns.
Elaine Avila 963-1848
elaine@ehosted.com
“Contest deadline is February 20th.”
L u m i na ry f u n d r a i s e r
Our Luminary Fundraiser is
now complete. We had 10
neighborhoods participating
this year! Thank you so much,
Academy 4 and 5, for bagging sand and assembling
the kits. Thanks to Joe and
Nikki Vaughn for donating
the sand. Thank you also to
all the volunteers who gave
their time and worked so
hard.
LOVE letters benefit
Mark your calendars! St. Peter’s Episcopal Church will be
putting on a benefit performance for Hope Academy. The
play will be taking place at
Centre Stage in downtown
Greenville. There will be three
performances: Friday, April 3,
2009 at 8:00 pm, Saturday,
April 4, 2009 in which they will
be serving a BBQ dinner at
6:00 pm with the performance
at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, April
5, 2009 at 3:00 pm. There will
be a donation of $30.00 per
person and the BBQ dinner is
$7.50 per person. All proceeds
will be donated to Hope Acad-
Upcoming Events
Hope Stampede has been
can
canceled.
Jan 12—School registration
for next year begins.
Jan 15—Chick
ChickChick-filfil-A biscuit sale
Jan 16 & 19—No
No School
Jan 27 ChickChick-filfil-A Night at
(Woodruff Road 12:008:00pm)
Feb 13th Grandparents ‘
Brunch
emy. More information on
purchasing
tickets will be
available
soon. Contact
Christine
Peebles
for
any questions
at 458-8441.
5
12
19
26
11
18
25
Mon
4
Sun
6
27
20
13
Tue
7
28
21
14
Wed
8
1
29
22
15
Thu
Fri
30
23
16
9
2
Sat
31
24
17
10
3
J a n u a ry 2 0 0 9
HOPE ACADEMY
PMB 358
2131 Wooruff Rd. suite 2100
Greenville, SC 29607-5994
We want to thank you for
Phone:(864) 676-0028
Fax: (864) 987-0764
Email: hopeacademy96@yahoo.com
Loving to learn... learning to live.
the wonderful holiday gifts
and the many symbols of the
generous spirit we have
come to know and love about our Hope
We’re on the web!
Hope-academy.info or
projecthopesc.org
Academy families.
Lisa, Susan, and Sandy
Have a Happy New Year
Get ready for golf!
Happy 2009! We are gearing
up for our best golf tournament ever, and would love
for you to be a part of it! This
year's tournament will be
held on May 6th (the first
Wednesday of the month).
We will soon be accepting
registrations for teams, and
would love to hear from you
now if you are interested in
playing or sponsoring the
Hope Invitational Golf Tour-
nament. Let us know how
you'd like to be involved. This
is our largest fundraiser of the
year, and we need everyone
to pitch in to make it a huge
success.
Please email me at
kjudy@charter.net and indicate your area of interest, or
let me know if you have any
questions. We will be notifying all our previous sponsors
as soon as a venue has been
set. Thanks for marking the
date, and we look forward to
another
great year of
golf and
fundraising
for Hope
Academy.