May 14, 2010
Inside this issue:
Quarry Lane Events
Graduation
Graduation
Our inaugural high school
graduation is quickly approaching!
For this momentous occasion, all
Quarr y Lane
families are invited to join in
the celebration
June 11 at 5 p.m.
in the Villa. A dinner and dancing
reception will follow at 7 p.m. at
the Canyon View Club in San
Ramon. Tickets are $60 for all high
school students and adults and
$20 for middle school students and
children. The deadline to buy
your tickets is May 17.
Eight Grade Promotion
Eighth grade parents: look for an
envelope to come home on May 14
which includes an invitation to the
eighth grade promotion. The ceremony will be held on June 10 at
5:30 p.m. in the Villa with an hors
d’oeuvres reception following. This
event is free and you are not required to R.S.V.P.
Awards Ceremony
Join us in the Villa on June 10
from 8:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. to honor
the outstanding students of the
upper school. Students are allowed to go
home with
parents at
the conclusion of the
awards
Eighth Grade Promotion
Awards Ceremony
Pizza Fridays
PLAN Test
Finals Week
Evening of the Arts
Wine and Dine
Memorial Day
NO SCHOOL
May 31
Memorial Day
Bi-Monthly Newsletter
By Kelley Foulk, Assistant to the Upper School Director
Pizza Fridays
Support our
gradua ting
seniors and
have a delicious pizza lunch! Purchase a slice of Costco pizza and a
bottle of water for just $5! May 28
will be the last pizza day of the
year.
High School PLAN Test
All students in grades 9-11 will be
taking the PLAN exam on Friday,
Ma y
2 1.
Testing will
begin at 8
a.m. and will
last several
hours. Regular classes will resume
after the conclusion of the test.
Students who are participating in
the Freshman/Sophomore rafting
trip or the Junior/Senior San
Francisco trip will be dismissed
after the PLAN exam is finished.
Finals Week
Finals for grades 6, 9, 10, 11 and
12 will be June 3, 4,
7 and 8. Grades 7
and 8 will complete
their finals before
the Washington
D.C. trip. A detailed
finals schedule will
be emailed home soon. June 9 will
be a FULL day of school. Students
will follow a normal Wednesday
schedule and will be expected to
clean out lockers and return locks
and textbooks if applicable. On
June 10, students will be dismissed
after the conclusion of the awards
ceremony.
Evening of the Arts
The Spring Evening of the Arts
will be held Tuesday, June 1 at 7
p.m. in the
Villa. Be delighted by
mus ical
guests, art
displays, yearbook presentations, dance performances and more. Hint: some
of the faculty might be on the list
of performers! If your child is
interested in performing, tryouts
will be held on May 24 and 25 during lunch in the Villa.
Wine and Dine Night
The Wine and Dine
is just around the
corner. Join us in
the Villa on Friday,
May 28 at 7 p.m. for
a night of food and
fun. Admission is $25 dollars,
which includes a delicious Middle
Eastern dinner and entrance into
the auction. Beer and wine are
extra so please bring some cash.
Or, if you have an item you would
like to donate for the auction, email
M i s s
K e l l e y
a t
[email protected].
Memorial Day
All Campuses will be closed on
Monday, May 31 in observance of
Memorial Day.
May 14, 2010
Inside this issue:
Musicals
Ocean Week
Early Dismissal
Abada Collections
Move-Up Days
Book Fair
Ocean Week
May 24 - 28
Bi-Monthly Newsletter
Quarry Lane Events
Musicals
The lower school musical performance for grades 2 through 5 will be
held May 20
at 7 p.m. at
the Amador
Valley High
School
Theater. The
performance for grades Jr. K through 1 will be
June 8, also at the Amador Theater.
Students from all grade levels will
perform songs from around the world.
The children will have a full rehearsal
the day of their performance. All students will be transported by school
van to the Amador Theater for rehearsal and will return to campus
prior to the end of the day. In the
evening, students are expected to
arrive at the Amador Theater at 6 p.m.
Parents are allowed to enter the theater at 6:30 p.m. Please join us for this
very special night!
Ocean week
May 24 to 28 is Ocean Week at
Quarry Lane! All students in grades
Jr. K through
5 will participate in this
fun and educational week
by studying a
variety of habitats and participating in
hands on experiments, dissections,
and habitat visitations. Each grade
level transforms their room into their
designated habitat with three dimensional representations of animals
indigenous to their habitat. Following
the MARE Program (Marine Activities
Resources and Education designed by
the Lawrence Hall of Science) stu-
By Gabrielle Denton, Lower School Director
dents will be studying the following
habitats: Jr. K - Ponds, K and grade 1 Rocky Seashore, grade 2 - Sandy
Seashore, grade 3 - Wetlands, grade 4
- Kelp Forest, grade 5 - Open Ocean.
To kick-off this
week of learning
and fun on May
24, the Jr. K
through second
grade classes
will participating in an assembly called
“The Australia Great Barrier Reef
Expedition.“ Students in third through
fifth grade will participate in “The
Australia Great White Shark Expedition” assembly. These interactive
assemblies will introduce students to
ocean explorers Wayne and Karen
Brown. They will bring their worldwide ocean explorations to life with
their high-energy, fast-paced, multimedia presentations that combine
actual specimens, biological models,
life-sized (or larger-than-life) inflatable animals, unique props, costumes,
creative dramatics, storytelling techniques, high-tech SCUBA diving equipment, audience participation, and
breathtaking underwater photography.
Early Dismissal
May 21 is an early dismissal day.
Students will be released at the following times: Jr. K and K - 11:50 a.m.,
grade 1 and 2 - 12:00 p.m. and grades
3, 4 and 5 - 12:10 p.m.
Abada Collections
May 18 is the last day
of collections for the
imagine1day project.
Please help us support
the Abada community. Your generosity
has been truly remarkable! Thank you
for donating to this very worthy cause.
Move-up days
These special days are held every
year for students making the transition from our
preschool
programs to
our elementary
programs and for the fifth grade
students transitioning into our middle
school programs. On Wednesday, May
12 the first batch of fifth grade students visited upper school homeroom,
history, math, PE and Mandarin to get
a quick snapshot of the day in the life
of a middle school student. On Thursday May 20, Pre-K students from the
Pleasanton East and West campuses
will visit our Kindergarten classrooms
as part of the transition from our
preschool programs to our elementary program. We will welcome our
young friends for a portion of the
morning and let them gather a sense
for what the year ahead will bring.
Book Fair
What a successful book
fair! Thank you
all for making
this the best
book fair ever! Our goal was to sell
300 books and I’m very excited to tell
you that you bought 449 books! That’s
more than one book per student. Since
we sold so many books, the lower
school will have a popsicle party! Keep
reading the Cougar News for more
details. The one-for-books program
provided 108 books for underprivileged children and $108 in books for
the school library. Way to go!
May 14, 2010
Inside this issue:
Be Sugar Smart!
Ocean Week
May 24 - 28
Bi-Monthly Newsletter
Slashing Sugar
Sugar can be a hidden culprit lurking
in our child’s food. From breakfast
cereals to fruit snacks, some of the
items we think are healthy are actually
a sugar overload in disguise. I decided
to start looking for ways to cut down
on my family’s sugar intake and in my
search I came across this article from
DisneyFamily.com I would like to share
with you.
Simple Ways to Slash Sugar
Your five-year-old asks for sugar on
top of her already sweetened cereal.
Then your sleepy 10-year-old wants
free-pouring rights with the maple
syrup. It doesn't take a degree in
nutrition to know this is sweet-stuff
overkill. But
because
sugar isn't
always that
easy
to
spot, your
child can pack away an astonishing
quantity before you can say "want a
juice box with your frosted granola
bar?" after school.
What Is It?
Sugar is a carbohydrate that delivers energy to the body quickly. Trouble
is, it has zero
n u tr i t i o n a l
value. And if
you've hosted
a
birthday
party or witnessed a post-Halloween binge, you
know its energy-boost is short-lived,
resulting in a sugar crash that can
leave your child hungrier than before.
There are two types of sugar:
Natural sugar is found in many foods
including fruit, certain vegetables,
milk, and dairy products.
By Jennifer Silva, Director - Pleasanton East
Added sugar is commonly found in Diet trumps regular soda. If you can't
most packaged products — think
cereals, candy, ketchup, and salad
dressing — to boost flavor. Added
sugar is often called high-fructose
syrup or super-concentrated sugar;
fructose, fruit pectin and cane juice
are other names.
Why Cut It?
While sugar is okay in moderation,
most kids consume it in excess,
heightening the risk for pediatric
obesity and Type 2 diabetes in children.
Major Offenders: It's easy
for kids to
overdo sugar
simply
by
drinking
s w e e te n e d
beverages. OJ at breakfast, a juice box
at snack, a chocolate milk at lunch, a
sports drink after soccer, and wham
— your child has gulped down three
times the daily recommended amount.
Candy and processed, packaged
sweets and snacks are more obvious
culprits, along with syrup found in
canned fruit and the maple variety
that kids love to drown waffles in.
How Much Is Too Much?
It's best to keep your child's (and
your own) sugar intake to less than 50
grams a day, advises Jaimie Davis,
Ph.D. and registered dietician.
Seven ways to keep sugar in check:
Try low-sugar drinks. Choose drinks
with less than 5 grams of sugar per
serving, like water, seltzer and low-fat
milk.
Dilute fruit juices with water or seltzer. Try a one to one ratio; kids often
won't notice a difference.
avoid soda, go with its diet counterpart. In moderation, it's a better alternative to regular soda.
Note serving size. In this super-sized
world, many packaged snacks and
drinks contain
multiple servings in
one container. A
typical beverage
serving is eight
ounces, but some
individual bottles
contain two or
more servings, which means double
the sugar, too.
Choose cereal wisely. Look for cereals
with less than 10 grams of sugar per
serving. Be on the lookout for buzzwords like "brown sugar cinnamon,"
"honey," or
"maple" in the
name. They
often indicate
that even an
otherwise healthy cereal is loaded
with sugar.
Monitor portions on toppings. Given
the choice, kids will smother most any
food in chocolate syrup, maple syrup,
ketchup, and other high-sugar addons. To give your child a sense of
control, provide a tablespoon and let
him measure the right amount.
A Word on Artificial Sweeteners:
Though it's best to choose sugars or
sweeteners derived from natural
sources whenever possible, artificial
sweeteners can help reduce sugar in a
child's diet, says Davis. It's not clear
that artificial sweeteners cause harm
to children, but there is solid evidence
that excess sugar plays a role in pediatric obesity and diabetes.