Sunshine STEM Academy Newsletter

Dear Sunshine Community,

I hope you had a wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving break with your families.

We have received excellent ITBS results! Sunshine STEM Academy ranked in the top 1% in the nation based on ITBS 2015 results. Congratulations to all 3rd and 5th grade students! You will see detailed reports and graphs below.

MAP Winter 2015 Test administration is going to start tomorrow. Testing schedule is available in this newsletter below.

One of our Robotics teams, Ecobots robotics team will be competing this weekend at Gwinnett Open FLL Regional competition. I wish good luck for Ecobots!

I would like to remind that deadline for Apogee Tax Credit application is approaching. I would like all parents to submit application (http://www.apogeebase.com/donate) by December 15.

I wish you a wonderful week!

Sincerely,

Murat Cetin, Head of School

mcetin@SunshineSTEMacademy.org

Sunshine STEM Academy Robotics Team students prepare project about Recycling for the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Robotics competition. As part of the competition rules, our students reach out broader community. Purpose of outreach is to present the project that they develop, receive feedback and give some details about FIRST Robotics Competition and Robotics overall.

In this effort, our FLL Teams visited Senator John Albers and Senator Brandon Beach to present their projects to honorable senators.

We have received excellent ITBS 2015 Results. Sunshine STEM Academy ranked in the top 1% in the nation based on the 2015 ITBS Standardized Test in all subjects in grades 3 and 5.

Students are tested in the following general areas: reading, writing expression, math, computation, science, social studies, and vocabulary. Students in grades 3-8 are also tested in spelling, capitalization and punctuation. The reading, written expression, vocabulary, spelling, capitalization, punctuation, mathematics, and computation tests are aligned to the Common Core State Standards.

Your child’s test results are presented in different ways:

• National Standard Score: This score describes your student’s performance on an achievement continuum from elementary to high school. The continuum gives you a range of “typical” achievement and you can determine how your child has done based on that range.
• National Percentile Ranking: This ranking indicates a comparison of your student’s score with others in the nation who are in the same grade and took the test at the same time of year. An NPR of 80 means your child scored as well or better than 80 percent of the students who took the test.

ITBS Report cards will be sent home this week.

Congratulations Sunshine STEM Academy 3rd and 5th grade students!

We would like to announce that MAP Winter Term will be administered at the first week of December, from December 1st to December 7th. Results will be shared with parents after December 8th.

We are excited to share many wonderful aspects that make Sunshine STEM Academy an exceptional choice. Families will meet our team and learn about the school’s mission and philosophy, as well as our academic and extra-curricular programs. Visitors will also have the opportunity to tour our campus.

Open House Schedule:

Sunday, December 6, 2015 – 2pm-4pm

2:00 PM School Tour
2:30 PM School Presentation by the Administration

For Market Day 2015, students were asked to brainstorm possible lucrative ideas to provide to the 2nd grade. We have been finishing up a unit on Economics and this was a perfect project to include for the students. I asked them to think about what their consumers would enjoy and to create an idea based on those interests. The students decided whether they were going to provide a good or a service.

Market Day 2015 went very well! All the producers were ready at their stands in front of their advertisements that were hung earlier in the week. They patiently waited for the consumers to begin purchasing their goods and services. They were able to describe to them how to use their product/service and the other students thoroughly enjoyed the day. We are extremely proud of the 1st grade class and are amazed with the brilliant ideas they came up with.

Our FLL Robotics teams will compete at regional FLL Robotics competitions on December 5th and December 12th. We have message from our teams for the Sunshine Community.

EcoBots FLL Robotics Team

The FIRST LEGO League or FLL is an international competition that encourages young students to work together in a team effort, find solutions that can help our environment, learn core values and stick with them, and a great opportunity for kids like us to have fun. To make this happen, Sunshine STEM Academy established the EcoBots Robotics Team.

We chose the name EcoBots as our team name over many other creative ideas because it was the most relevant to this year’s theme, Trash Trek. We worked on an outreach plan as a team. We tried to find as many ways as possible to spread our idea. We want to share our idea with the world. Based on our outreach plan, we met with Senator John Albers just as we planned. We received a positive approval and appreciation from him.

For our project, we identified some problems in order to come up with a proper solution. The problems we identified and took as a reference were sorting, the cost of recycling, and accessibility. To solve these problems, we invented the Revolutionized Recycling Bin. It has 3 sections that are for Colored Glass, Plastic, and Paper. We did not want to include other items because they may be food contaminated at the time they are recycled.

Our team, mentors, and parents agreed to attend the competition on December 5th at the Gwinnet Environmental and Heritage Center. We have over 25 teams attending the same competition.

Robotics has one main part. The robot! So, we worked on a robot with some special capabilities. We used an EV3 for our robot. We attached a part we made onto the robot which works to pull a lever to demolish a building. It then has to bring back the valuables into the safe zone. To do that, we made another attachment which plows back the valuables.

GreenBots FLL Robotics Team

FLL or (First Lego League) is the opportunity for kids to have fun with programming and learn Core Values that they will use forever. It’s a fun club where kids like us can work with our creativity. The topic for this year is Trash Trek. In this challenge, you are supposed to be able to represent how to find uses for trash. Our school, Sunshine STEM Academy is one of the schools that have a Robotics club.

We are one of the FLL teams alongside another team in our school. Our team members are Zain Ghazanfar, Viswas Sreenathan, Mohana Malapati, Ansh Shah and Akshaj Shajeev. To select our team name we had many suggestions, such as Botcyclers, Ecotronic, and Green Bots etc. But in the end we voted for the name Green Bots, and we decided our motto is, “Stop pollution with our solution.” We learnt that there are two types of recycling (source separating and single stream recycling).

We also learned an important lesson, “Recycle whatever you can, but recycle what is right”. We went on many field trips, like to the Roswell Recycling Center, and Senator John Albers office. These field trips are a small part of all the fun we have been having in Robotics. Our problems were not that people would not recycle, but it was that many people didn’t separate correctly and put their recyclables in the right bins. And also, people don’t know where the nearest recycling centers are. The last thing that they do wrong is that they recycle food contaminated items such as greasy pizza boxes, those items cannot be recycled.

But in the end, for our solution we made an app called “Where to Recycle”. It helps you find the nearest recycling center to you so that you can recycle some unknown recyclables such as oil. This app will be available in two weeks. Spread the word about us to everybody. And don’t forget, “Stop pollution with our solution!”

The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized mini computer that plugs into a computer monitor or TV, and uses a standard keyboard and mouse. It is a small capable device that enables people of all ages to explore computing, and to learn how to program in languages like Scratch and Python.

As we planned, we will start Programming Lessons in Computer classes at the beginning of 2nd Semester. We are planning to teach Scratch block-programming to our 5th grade students. Our 5th graders will build their own Raspberry Pi computers and they will learn and practice Scratch on their own Raspberry Pi's in our new Raspberry Pi Lab.

Come and visit our new Raspberry Pi Lab!

Sunshine STEM Academy Student Council organizes school-wide Food Drive at our school. Collected items will be donated to Atlanta Community Food Bank. Please encourage your child to give back to their community by donating non-perishable food to our Food Drive.

The food drive is held on between November 17th and December 15th.

Please find list of the most needed items below. We appreciate your donation.

Sunshine STEM Academy offers College Mentorship Program for our 5th grade students.

Administration invites all 5th grade parents to the parent meeting. We will provide information about the College Mentorship Program, structure, and expectations.

5th grade parents, please join us on December 15th to discuss about our College Mentorship Program.

Sunshine STEM Academy will offer middle school grade starting 2016-17 school year. We would like to invite our 5th grade parents to Middle School Presentation which will be held on January 14th, 2016.

APOOGEE is now accepting tax credit applications for 2016. Please take a moment to re-direct your tax dollars in order to provide much-needed scholarship funds to help academically qualified, mission-compatible students afford a Sunshine STEM Academy education.

Please watch the video below to get a quick overview of the Apogee Tax Credit Program.

You are already paying income taxes – why not direct those funds to Sunshine STEM Academy. By contributing to APOGEE for a tax credit, you will provide opportunities for Georgia families desiring to attend Sunshine STEM Academy. Our school is then able to:

• increase the amount of tuition assistance that can be offered to new students
• preserve more of our existing tuition assistance to help families already enrolled
• increase enrollment
• increase tuition income
• increase the funds available to improve educational offerings
• enable the school to further its mission by reaching more families desiring a STEM education

What is the Maximum Amount I Can Contribute?

• Single individual or head of household – up to $1,000
• Married couple filing joint return – up to $2,500
• Married couple filing separate return – up to $1,250
• C Corporation – 75% of Georgia income tax liability
• S Corporation shareholder, LLC member, or partnership partner – up to $10,000

We all have an opportunity to redirect a portion of our Georgia State Tax dollars, (money we are already paying), to Sunshine STEM Academy.

How Do I Participate?

• Go to apogeebase.com/donate
• Please select new donor and provide the information requested after selecting “filing type”
• Hit submit and you will receive an email confirmation Apogee that your request has been received and will be submitted to the DOR on Jan 1, 2016 for approval.
• Click here to complete APOGEE’S Online Paperless Process, or
• Click here for the APOGEE Contribution Form; print the form and mail or bring to Sunshine STEM Academy.

Once you receive notification of your approval, please make a check payable to “Apogee Scholarship Fund” in the amount of your contribution and mail to Apogee Scholarship Fund, 3330 Cumberland Blvd, Suite 400 Atlanta, GA 30339, or simply Click here to pay online.

APOGEE will send you the required paperwork to claim the credit on your tax return.

Please see upcoming important days below. Please mark your calendar for our upcoming events.

• December 1-7: MAP Test Winter Term
  
• December 6: Open House
• December 15: Apogee Tax Credit Application Deadline
• December 15: College Mentorship Program Introduction - Presentation for 5th Grade Parents
• December 18: Last Day of First Semester
• January 5: First Day of Second Semester
• January 14: Middle School Presentation

Robotics FLL Teams Ecobots and GreenBots visited Senator John Albers in effort to present their projects and to receive feedback.

Our staff had dinner together at the traditional Staff Thanksgiving Dinner.

We update our social media channels frequently with the news and happenings at our school. You may follow/like/subscribe us to stay connected. Please share our social media channels with your friends.

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sunshine-STEM-Academy/683495445106457
• Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/sunshinestem
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6upaG6AO7KCueMm_4hfbIw

Sunshine STEM Academy strives for success and continued desire to provide a quality education to all students. With a strong administration, passionate teachers, and enthusiastic support staff, Sunshine STEM Academy as one of the top private schools in Atlanta is pleased to continue offering exciting learning environments to foster the growth and development of young scholars.

Email: info@sunshinestemacademy.org
Website: http://sunshinestemacademy.org/
Location: 1675 Hembree Rd, Alpharetta, GA 30009
Phone: 770-674-0010
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sunshine-STEM-Academy/683495445106457
Twitter: @SunshineSTEM

Our doors are open! Sunshine STEM Academy Open House information.