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May/June 2009
News from the Head of School
Happy Spring everyone! We really have had some wonderful weather this year.
Along with the arrival of spring we also have the annual increase in children and family events that seem to happen when the weather changes. In the end of winter it always seems like a good idea to sign up for soccer and baseball and the school play but in reality things seem to start spinning faster for many of our families this time of year. I think it is the nature of living in the Northeast. When winter ends, we just want to take advantage of every opportunity to be out in the sunshine.
These activities can be wonderfully enriching for our children. They can be exhausting too! I know that I have become caught up in the momentum many times myself. My only advice is to try to live in the moment and enjoy the time you spend with your children. As for school and the effect crazy schedules can have on the children, please try to make sure they still get plenty of sleep and healthy food. We still have so much learning to do before the end of the school year!
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News from the Academic Director
Dear Parents,
I am pleased to announce teacher assignments for the 2009 – 2010 school year. The faculty at the Taylor School is one of our greatest assets – they are a dedicated, hard-working, caring group of professionals. The children benefit daily from the stimulating yet nurturing environment that our teachers seem to effortlessly create.
- Karen Peterson and Annie Cosgrove will share the preschool teaching position.
- Lisa Bromm will be the assistant teacher in the preschool.
- Emily LaLone will be the prekindergarten teacher.
- Kate Gregg will be the assistant teacher in the prekindergarten room.
- Kourtney LaDu will teach the kindergarten class, including kindergarten math.
- Jennifer Philbin will teach the 1/2 class and 1st grade math.
- Lara Hotaling will teach the 3/4 class and 6th grade math.
- Lianne Adams will teach the 5/6 class and 5th grade math.
- Barb McNamee will return as 1/2 literacy support / 2nd grade math teacher.
- Heather Koleszar will work part-time next year, teaching 3rd grade math and providing 3/4 literacy support.
- Kelly Magoolaghan will teach 4th grade math.
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News from Pre-School
Spring certainly is upon us! The gorgeous palate of colors emerging each day have been the focus of our learning this week; trying to concentrate on anything other than the riotous beauty right outside our windows seems fruitless. We will continue to learn about plant parts, needs and growth cycles as we begin a month-long unit on gardening and farming. We expect our budding botanists to beautify the school grounds with many of the seedlings we nurture. It is always rewarding to return to school in the fall and be greeted with cheerful sunflowers that were planted by the children in the spring. Yes, mighty things do grow from small beginnings.
Sprinkled in with our daily plans are special events such as our annual Pre-School Grandparent’s Day, a trip to Albany Symphony’s Peter and the Wolf, and a funtastic Beach Day. Beach Day will be the culmination to our last unit, the sea. (Last unit? Huh? Where did the year go?)
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News from Pre-K
 April was a fun and busy in Pre-K. This month began with a study of Spring and the changes that occur during this season. We had fun noticing the changes as they happened outside our window. We also talked about Easter and Passover, the holidays that are in this month. When we returned from break, we were rested and ready for a space mission. We have been exploring outer space. We have explored the many planets and stars in our galaxy. Our dramatic play center is a space ship complete with telescopes and space suits for the children to investigate. The boys and girls have been having so much fun on their trips to the moon, Saturn and others places they imagine.
We will start May off with a May Day celebration. Our class was invited to join Emma Willard students in their festivities. We have been working hard on our props to wear for the celebration.
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News from Kindergarten
The kindergarten is buzzing with excitement these days! We have begun our Living Things unit and are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our chick eggs. We expect our chicks to hatch mid-May so stayed tuned and please stop in to check them out. We are learning about many life cycles in our new unit and are also enjoying growing our own marigolds. Wow are we going to be busy over the next few weeks! To culminate our Living Things/Life Cycles unit we will take one last field trip to Indian Ladder Farms. We will get to see all the baby animals in the barn and do several activities in the Learning Center. Our favorite part of the trip will be enjoying a picnic lunch together with our friends.
We have been blossoming ourselves and much growth has occurred over the past month. We have finished up our alphabet study and have moved onto learning about word families. We are starting to read with ease and can read and write many new sight words. It’s amazing to think about how much we’ve grown! Our book boxes are filling up and we are so proud that we have authored so many great books that we can read independently. Our journal writing has grown too! We now can write complex stories full of detail. If you think that’s impressive you should see us count by fives and tens! We are writing our own equations and are finding many patterns in numbers. We have even explored multiplication and division. We’re experts on graphing and you should see us estimate! We have such a good sense of numbers and their place in the world.
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News from the 1-2 Class
During the month of April we continued investigating our theme Solids, Liquids and Gases. We worked hard on putting together our class science fair project that was based around our theme. Our science fair project, “What Is a Gas?” demonstrated our observations that air takes up space and can change shape to determine the  characteristics of gases. Using a funnel and a bottle we placed the funnel in the bottle. We then sealed the neck of the bottle to the funnel with clay. When we poured the colored water all at once into the funnel we found that most of the colored water stayed in the funnel and did not go down into the bottle. We thought this was very interesting! We then decided to loosen up the clay seal from around the neck of the bottle and funnel. We made predictions about what we thought would happen. We found that the colored water went through the funnel into the bottle. We learned that air could get out of the bottle around the neck of the funnel, and the water could get in through the funnel.
Before spring break we took our field trip to CMOST to participate in the molecularium program. We found that we knew a lot about solids, liquids and gases and were able to add to our knowledge. The trip was exciting because we also had the opportunity to make “glueck.”
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News from the 3-4 Class
We can’t believe how fast this school year is going by. Over the next few weeks  we’ll be very busy preparing for our play The Universe and Other Stuff. This musical is a hip-hop happenin’, history lesson presenting a fresh perspective as to who, what, when and how this crazy planet and its people came to be. From dinosaur extinction to Columbus, from the wheel to space exploration, they’re all rediscovered in this clever, chaotic, comical cataclysm of creativity. From the rockin’ “Big Bang” opening number all the way to the stirring big finally anthem, you’re bound to be sitting on the edge of your seat.
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News from the 5-6 Class
It is hard to believe that the 2008-2009 school year will soon be coming to a close.  It seems like only yesterday we began this amazing year of fun and learning.
The students have worked very diligently throughout the month of April. They did a wonderful job of publishing their collection of poems in a beautiful accordion book, which they will be sharing with the whole school community. I am very proud of their dedication to this poetry unit.
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Thank you…….Thank you…. Thank you………
A special thanks to Rachael Riemann and Atsushi Akera for all of your hard work this school year as PTO Chairs.
On May 1st the PTO organized a clean up day. Thank you to all of the helping hands to make the school look spiffy!
- Laurie Chamberlain
- Hope and Rob McCaffrey
- Atsushi Akera and Rachel Riemann
- Stacy Smith
- Polly Kimberly
- Lisa, Mike, Tyler and Ryan Trahan
- Beth Walsh, Chris, Eric and Thomas Maier
- Tracey, Catherine and Meredith Gaylord
- Dennis Mahoney
A special thanks to our library helpers…..Stacy Smith, Kyla Collings, Olga Yamaguchi and Lisa Root.
Also, thanks to Cheryl Ackner and Eileen Foley for all of their fundraising efforts!
The Gala Committee has been working hard on our Explore and Soar Gala to be held at RPI on May 9, 2009. Thank you to Jennifer Hallock and Kathy Van De Loo and the committee for all of your hard work!
Our Olympic of the Visual Arts placed third place in their competition at the Saratoga Arts Center! Congratulations!
Transition Camp – June 15-19th. Information will be sent home soon!
Summer Camp June 22 – August 7th. Openings are still available. Ages 4-10
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