Avondale Meadows Academy
“Making MAGIC In the Meadows”
www.avondalemeadowsacademy.org
AMA School Newsletter
A Principal’s Perspective
Safe. Challenged. College Bound. Those are the
goals that we have for every
scholar. Each month, we
ensure that we have different events that will help us
meet each of those goals.
This month we feature our
Quarter 2 progress reports,
Parent University and AntiBullying week.
We are almost half way
finished with 2nd quarter
and that is really hard to
believe! On Friday, November 14th, progress reports
will be sent home with all
scholars. Please set aside
time to review current levels of performance and set
goals with your child for
the second half of the quarter. Reviewing your child’s
progress with them and
setting goals are critical
skills that will help ensure
your child is college bound.
It is also important to
us that all students always
feel safe. When you ask a
child what that means, they
usually think that being safe
means not being hit or hurt.
When we talk about students
being safe, we want them to
be safe physically and emotionally.
During the week of November 17th, AMA will devote a week to bringing
awareness to Bullying. Students will be educated on
what the word “bully”
means, how to stand up to
bullying, what it means to be
a “bystander” and the importance of reporting such
issues to an adult!
On Tuesday, November
18th, Youth Motivational
Speaker—Chris McBrien—
will be here to do an antibullying presentation for our
students. Chris speaks at
over 300 schools around the
country each year. You can
learn more about him and
his
program
at
By Mrs. Herron
www.magicstoryteller.biz.
You are welcome to join us.
The
Kindergarten—2nd
graders will assemble @
1:10 and the 3rd-5th graders will have their presentation @ 2:20.
Lastly, your participation at Parent University on
November 20th will help
ensure that your child is
challenged! This month is
Literacy Night. Every parent in attendance will walk
away with resources to utilize at home to ensure that
you can spend time challenging your child every
night and
improve
his/her
reading
skills.
Please
mark your
calendars
for each of
these
events!
Opportunities for Parent Involvement
PTO
Meeting
Parent
University
Who: ALL AMA parents
Who: ALL AMA parents
What: Meeting
What: Literacy Night
When: Tuesday, November 11
5:30pm—Dinner
6:00—Meeting
When: Thursday, November 20
5:00—Dinner
6:00—Workshops
Where: AMA Media Center
Where: Cafegymatorium
How: Be there!
Earn your parent incentives!
1st PU— t-shirt
2nd PU— $20 gas card
For Daily Updates—
“Like” AMA
on Facebook!
Please go to
www.facebook.com/
CFAavondalemeadows to
“like” our page. You will
receive daily
updates on the
life of AMA
scholars and
critical updates
for families!
(317) 803-3182
Issue 4
November 2014
Dates to Remember:
October 31
Fall Fundraiser Kick Off
November 3
Canned Food Drive
Begins
November 7
Professional Development Day; No School for
Students
November 11
Fall Fundraiser Order
Forms & Money Due
PTO Meeting
November 14
2nd Qtr Progress Reports Go Home
November 17
Monday Club Showcase
Anti-Bullying Week
November 20
Parent University
5:00 Dinner
6:00 Workshops
November 26
Half Day;
Noon Dismissal
November 27-28
Thanksgiving Break
December 5
Morning w/Mom
Coping Strategy #4: Counting or Mental Math
Welcome to the fourth installment of AMA coping strategies.
This month we will be highlighting
the strategy of counting and mental
math. These strategies can be used
anywhere; and are easy to implement at home.
Counting or Mental Math, like
the previous strategies “thinking
happy thoughts” and “Five Senses”
is a simple strategy. Counting can
be done in your head or out loud.
Mental Math is completing math
problems in your head. Despite the
simplicity of this skill, there is science behind the strategy that makes
it work. Our brain is amazing; however it can only focus on one
thought at a time. It seems like we
are thinking many things at one
time, but we are actually thinking
very quickly. If we take the time to
really focus on one thought, our
brain cannot think of anything else.
Therefore, if we choose to count or
do a math problem, the brain will
not be able to think about what is
upsetting.
This month, I’m asking you as a
parent to support this strategy and
encourage your child to use it whenever they are upset. For example, if
you notice your child arguing with
Taking Our Learning Off Campus
We are in the second quarter of the
school year and multiple grade levels
have already taken their first field trip
off campus. Several studies have
shown that students retain more
knowledge through the type of hands
on experiences they receive on a field
trip compared to in-class learning.
The field trips organized at AMA are
relevant to the topics the students are
studying in school. Field trips are all
about connecting real-world applications to their class learning.
Kindergartners took a field trip to
Russell Farms in Noblesville after
their Core Knowledge unit on
“Farms”. While at Russell Farms, students were able to learn all about agriculture and farm life. This experience
provided some students their first
interaction with country living.
At the end of this week, second
graders are visiting Conner Prairie.
On their visit they will take a look at
some of the trades and skills that
would help a prairie town survive.
Students will be able to see a reenactment of the time period they have
been studying within their Core
Knowledge War of 1812 Unit.
After learning about animal classification third graders visited the Indi-
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anapolis Zoo. With their new
knowledge, students were able to visit
the exhibits and determine if an animal would fall into the reptile or
mammal category.
Fourth graders recently went to
the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis to visit the Terra Cotta Warriors
exhibit. Students were able to examine more than 100 ancient artifacts
and enjoy hands-on activities. The
exhibit enriches their Core Knowledge
unit Chinese Dynasties.
Every teacher will tell you that a
successful field trip requires chaperones. With your help students can
walk around in smaller groups and
cover more area than they would in a
large group. If you are interested in
accompanying your child on an upcoming field trip, please ensure you
have a background check on file with
the front office. If you would like a
form please see Ms. Tay.
This year AMA became a member of the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. What does this mean for
our students? Each classroom can
have unlimited visits to the museum!
All students will receive a discounted
museum youth admission coupon to
use with their family. We hope that
By Ms. Sandy
their sibling, encourage them to
count with you or give them a simple math problem to complete in
their head. Remember that your
child can only think of one thing at
a time, so if they are thinking about
numbers and math problems, they
will not be thinking about why they
are upset. In order for these skills
to become a habit in their life they
must be practiced.
Like everything at AMA, the
support of the parents and adults in
our children’s lives are what make
programs like this a success.
Thanks for your support in this initiative.
By Mrs. Kohlmeyer
you can take advantage of this opportunity to take a “family field trip” and
explore the museum and exhibits.
Every teacher will tell you that a
successful field trip requires chaperones. With your help students can
walk around in smaller groups and
cover more area than they would in a
large group. If you are interested in
accompanying your child on an upcoming field trip, please ensure you
have a background check on file with
the front office. If you would like a
form please see Ms. Tay at the front
office.
Avondale Meadows Academy Newsletter
Community Spotlight: Microsoft
The only thing better than a
strong partnership, is a NEW strong
partnership! We are excited about
our newest partnership with Microsoft Corp. Although it is only in
its initial phase, some of our scholars and staff have already benefited
from the partnership.
A select group of third, fourth
and fifth graders recently took a trip
to the Microsoft store to participate
in "Project Spark". Project Spark
unlocks imagination with a powerful
yet simple way to build and play
your own worlds, stories and games
and share them with the world. It's
the ultimate digital sandbox where
you can create the kinds of games
you've always dreamed of, play
games created by a global community, and shape the future of how
games are made. After a brief introduction, they were fully entrenched
in process of actually creating the
gaming experience of their dreams!
But that's not all, UCLA Kindergarteners participated in an in-class,
hands-on demonstration of the
Fresh Paint software on Microsoft
Surface Pro Tablets. Fresh Paint
allows children to have a simulated
painting experience without all the
mess and materials of real paint.
The Fresh Paint software includes
oil, watercolors, pencils, and all the
tools you need to for an authentic
painting experience. Our scholars
Core Virtue: Steadfastness
The month of November is being
dedicated to steadfastness. Steadfastness is “Standing up for a good
cause”. We have scheduled two
events this month that will help
show our steadfastness as a school.
The first event will be our canned
food drive. We believe that no one
should be hungry. Our mission is to
raise 5,000 canned goods and fill
the pantry at Forest Manor MultiService Center so that they can help
feed families in our community. We
need your help in order to do this.
Issue 4
Take a few dollars next time you go
to the store and purchase some
canned goods or other nonperishables in order to help us with
our mission. This campaign will last
the entire month of November.
Let’s put an end to hunger!
The second event that promotes
steadfastness will be our AntiBullying Week. The theme for the
week is “Stand Up to Bullying”.
During the week of Nov. 17-21, we
will be educating our student on
what bullying is, why people do it
and how we can put a stop to it! We
will teach the students that it is never ok to be a bully, or sit back and
watch someone else be a bully. We
even have a guest speaker that is
coming to help us learn how to stop
bullying in its tracks.
We actually have two heroes this
month as well. They are Jackie
Robinson and Wesley Branch Rickey. Most of us know about Jackie
Robinson and his struggles as he
broke the color barrier in Major
By Mr. Drane
and teachers loved the opportunity to
learn and provided valuable feedback
to the Microsoft staff about the benefits of having this and other similar
software in the classroom.
One of beliefs that we at AMA and
Microsoft have in common, is the
belief that brilliant, creative ideas can
come from anyone, at any time. Our
job is to stimulate and encourage that
creativity at an early age by providing
resources that
help to unlock
our scholars'
full potential.
We believe
that this new
partnership,
along with the
many others
that we have
in place are
helping us to
do just that!
By Mr. Herron
League Baseball, but we don’t hear
much about the person who made
that possible. Rickey was a player
who became an owner and eventually signed Robinson as the first colored player in MLB. Robinson
struggled through a lot of criticism
and discrimination from others who
didn’t believe that colored people
should play MLB and Rickey supported through it all. Rickey also
drafted the first Afro-Hispanic allstar, Roberto Clemente, and created
the farm league so that other minorities could eventually play in MLB.
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