The Bulldog 9.19.24

Note from Mrs. Lockwood

This has been yet another wonderful week of teaching and learning! We are all settled into the school year and that’s great to see. As a reminder, next week is Fall Break. School will be closed Monday, September 23 through Friday, September 27, 2024. School will reopen on Monday, September 30, 2024. It is my hope that everyone has a wonderful fall break. I cannot wait to see everyone back in the building on the 30th, rested and recharged!

Events at a glance:

• Friday, September 20: Walk and Roll

• Friday, September 20: Early Release Day, 12:50 p.m.

• Monday, September 23-Friday, September 27: FALL BREAK

• Monday, September 30: Musical rehearsals start, 2:45-4 p.m.

• Wednesday, October 2: Flu Shot Clinic, 9-11 a.m.

• Thursday, October 3: Title I Parent Meeting, 5:30-6:30 p.m.

Hip Hip Hooray for our first Walk and Roll day! Please plan to ride your bike, scooter, walk or take the bus to school.

Throughout the first seven weeks of school, we have worked hard to understand and show CREW everywhere in the building. Today, we celebrated our students’ efforts with our first PBIS school-wide reward. The kids enjoyed Toy Story and a yummy snack! Families, thank you for your support as we teach our students what it means to be a Clairemont CREW!

Hello Clairemont Families,

We have completed auditions for our annual Clairemont Musical, The Magic Treehouse: Dinosaurs Before Dark KIDS! Well done to our Clairemont Players! We are so excited and want to congratulate your child for being a risk taker. Kindergarten, first, and second grade students stood in front of their peers, teachers and parents to sing all by themselves! If your child auditioned this week, they are invited to join our musical.

If your child has a speaking part in the musical that requires a book, one will be given by Friday, September 20. Group singing parts will not need a book. I will provide the sheet music for these students instead of a book. Our first rehearsals will take place on Monday, September 30, and Tuesday October 1 from 2:45 to 4 p.m.. Please make sure that you adjust your child’s dismissal to “Clairemont Musical” on Pick Up Patrol for Mondays and Tuesdays until November 19th. Rehearsals will be from 2:45 to 4 p.m.

Also we are looking for parent volunteers to join our Musical Committee! If you are interested in helping with rehearsals, tickets, props, costumes, staging, or organizing of any kind please CLICK HERE or reach out to the musical committee at the following email addresses:

Monica Nelson mnelson@csdecatur.net - Music Director

Melissa Lawrence melissa.lawrence10@gmail.com - Director

Whitney DeRosa whitney.derosa@csdecatur.net - Set/Props/Communications

Busola Akinbote oluyemib@gmail.com - Rehearsals/Backstage

Thank you for your support of our Clairemont Elementary Musical!

Cast List in Order of Appearance

Red Pines - Onyema Phillips, Ethan Kirkland, Caroline Woodruff

Hemlocks - Journee Champion, Oliver Bennett, Elena Gill

Saplings - Charley Martin, Chloe Huang, Navy Langley

Otto - Annie Xiang

Stump - Juno Bach O’Connor

Annie - Katherine Lawrence

Jack - Jackson Smith

Henry - Aumari Canady

Terri - Autumn Hall

Larry - Nico Menendez

Gary - Lennox Nelson

Triceratops Group - Anika Mitra, Pranav Shankar, Charlie Woodruff, Mirra Godbee

Natty - Anishka Rayshan

Susan - Lydia Wade

Joan - Ella Kim

Toto - Hadley Myers

Anatosaurus Mothers Group - Lizzie Davidson, Sage Shoemaker, Eleanor Haston, Rita Daugherty

Baby Dinosaurs Group- Tamadia Traore, Nora Bahraini, Ada Moyer, Onyinyechi Brown, Liya Akinbote, Ana Caviciolli, Hannah Terry

Ankylosaurs Group - King Jackson, Leona Wall-Price, Rosalind Slifka, Roscoe Ulrich

Protoceratops Group - Ellyssonn Jones, Annelise Ruth, Summer Gordon

Iguanodon Group - Baker Eady, Maren Averett, London Davis

Panoplosaurus Group - Ashton Jordan, Joey June Brit, Eloise Ennis, Courtlin Moore

Troodon Group - Danilo Headrick Paredes, Wren Rassel Lewis, Lucy Slocum

Tyrannosaurus Rex - Hudson Gordon

Mom - Nora Bahraini

Parents of the cast - please CLICK HERE to fill out the parent info form, or fill out and return the form your student brings home.

The Fall Read-a-Thon and Book Fair are coming up soon! Read-a-Thon kicks off on Friday, October 11 and then it will run along with the Book Fair and lots of great literacy events the whole week of October 14-18. More details coming after fall break.

Each fall semester, the Gifted Review Team looks at existing student data to discuss students’ needs and determine if further evaluation for gifted identification is needed. If you are interested in having the team discuss your child’s needs, you may complete a Recommendation for Review Form (found at the website below) and turn it in to the Gifted & Talented Specialist at your child’s school before Wednesday, October 2. No additional information is needed.

The Gifted & Talented Specialist for Clairemont ES is Tom Seetoo. For more detailed information about the review process and to obtain a copy of the Recommendation for Review Form, please contact the Gifted & Talented Specialist for your school at tseetoo@csdecatur.net or visit the Gifted & Talented Services webpage.

Arriving to school on time every day is extremely important. Our school day starts at 8:20 a.m. Students are engaged in learning from the moment they walk in to their classroom. Students who are chronically tardy and absent tend to struggle academically.

Trying to get kids ready for school can be stressful for children and parents. Here are a few great suggestions from Seemamago.com that could help reduce the stress and struggle of getting your child to school on time. If you would like to read the entire article, please go to https://www.seemamago.com/stress-free-morning-kids/.

Make Sure All Gadgets are Put Away

Tablets, phones, 3DS, Xbox… there are a million distractions surrounding kids these days. You can make it a lot easier for them to resist these distractions by removing them from their sight when they wake up.

Practice Stretching Together or Doing a Small Exercise

A good morning stretch feels good for everybody. Get on the floor with your kids and try some morning stretches. Throw in a few easy yoga poses that you can both do and help get their blood flowing.

Make a Morning Checklist

Most kids are visual learners! Make the morning easier for you both by making a colorful checklist. Have them come up with ideas of what they need to do to get ready in the mornings and write that down. Let them decorate the list, and hang it in their room. Then every morning they get up, they have something fun to look at and know exactly what they need to do. And in turn, fewer things to remind them about!

Our Clairemont Bulldogs are constantly showing us what it means to be a part of a C.R.E.W. and not just passengers. Students work very hard to show they understand how to be Compassionate, Responsible, Engaged and Respectful. During these first couple months of school, we frequently engage in deep conversations about the significance of responsibility. Students understand that they can show responsibility by doing their schoolwork, taking care of their belongings and listening to their teachers. We also have conversations with our students about the importance of coming to school everyday on time. They are starting to understand that coming to school on time is an important part of being a responsible student. Students that are chronically tardy and/or absent tend to struggle with their schoolwork and can fall behind their peers, academically.

September is National Attendance Awareness month. Clairemont has partnered with Communities In Schools to assist us in implementing ways to increase awareness about the importance of school attendance and to motivate our students to come to school on time everyday. At the end of September, we will celebrate the conclusion of National School Attendance Awareness Month. We will have a "Thank you for popping into school on time everyday" celebration. All of the students will have a special surprise during school. We want to show our appreciation for our students that have great school attendance and our students that are working to improve their school attendance.

Camp MAGIK is announcing its fall 2024 camp session. This session will be held at The North Georgia Christian Camp in Clarkesville, Georgia, October 4-6. Applications need to be postmarked or emailed to Camp MAGIK no later than September 20, 2024. Camp MAGIK provides free transportation to camp and back based on need. Camp MAGIK is well suited to all youth ages 6 through 18 who have experienced the death of a parent, sibling or other close loved one, especially youth who have experienced traumatic death, within the last 3-4 years. Professional bereavement counselors, trained in grief and trauma, lead all counseling sessions. There is also a retreat available for adults who want to process their own grief with other adults who are grieving.

Camp sessions are FREE OF CHARGE to all participating children, adolescents and parents/guardians.

Please click the links below for additional information and camp application

Camp MAGIK - Fall Announcement 2024

Camp MAGIK - Fall Announcement 2024 en Español

Stay up-to-date with all the Clairemont PTA news and see pictures of our fun events by following the PTA on Facebook and Instagram. You can find all things Clairemont PTA, as well as the form to join, at the Clairemont PTA website.

Rather than asking parents to send in money throughout the year to cover various classroom costs (e.g., learning celebrations and classroom celebrations), we would like to collect classroom funds at one time. This year, to make the funds equitable, the Clairemont PTA Room Parent Coordinator is collecting one Class Fund Pool that she will divide equally among all classes.

Thank you to the 30 families who have already donated to our Class Fund pool! If you have not yet donated, please consider making a small gift today $10 - 20 is suggested, but whatever you can give makes a difference. Our room parents will use these funds to support our teachers and school staff through birthday acknowledgments, end of semester gifts, and teacher appreciation week. This is not an official request from the school, and contributions are completely optional.

If you would like to contribute, please donate via Venmo to @lrherman (confirmation code 6165) by September 30, 2024. Please put “Clairemont Room Fund” as a note when sending in your donation, so that we will know what it’s for.

Leslie Herman is the PTA Room Parent Coordinator and will confirm receipt of contributions. Please contact her if you have any questions or concerns or if you need another method of payment besides Venmo (such as Zelle, CashApp, PayPal, etc.).

Leslie Herman

lrherman@icloud.com

410-591-6165

As fall break approaches, we're reminded of how DEF's Lighten the Load program began -- with an elementary school teacher who told us that one of her students dreaded school breaks because he and his siblings counted on having two meals a day at school. Our Lighten the Load program has evolved since then, but we're still committed to helping remove obstacles - like food insecurity - for our kids.

The number of weekend food bags we provide has DOUBLED this year, and we need your help to ensure we're able to continue to meet this need. This is our community, and these are OUR kids. Please consider donating to DEF, or purchasing items from Lighten the Load wish list today.

You probably know that September is Suicide Prevention Month -- but do you know that through Joe’s Fund, DEF’s behavioral health fund, we provide ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) workshops multiple times each year? These two-day workshops are open to ANY CSD staff member or Decatur community member. We held a refresher course just this week, and the next trainings will be: October 10-11, February 27-28, and March 13-14. Help us make Decatur a suicide-safe community - sign up using the QR code. Interested in supporting this important work? Donate here: https://decatureducationfoundation.org/donate/.

A Season of Giving is a neighbor-led organization that brings joy to local children and seniors through gift-giving.

For Assistance: To apply for gift assistance, please complete our online application at Apply by October 31st. We are excited to support children through 12th grade again this year.

Sponsor a Gift: Donors can purchase gifts based on individual wish lists for children or seniors. If you would like to be a sponsor, please fill out the form at Sponsor.

Donate Directly: If you prefer, you can make a donation, and we will do the shopping for you. Simply Donate at our website!

Volunteer: We would greatly appreciate your help! If you're interested in volunteering, please go to Volunteer and sign up.

Need Help or Have Questions? If you encounter any issues with the forms or have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at aseasonofgivingdecatur@gmail.com.

Thank you for your support and generosity of the Season of Giving!