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CDSG Weekly News
November 21, 2008
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| Director's Corner |
The season of giving is really all year for our students, teachers and parents. We have projects reaching out to the community all year long and it makes me very proud to be a part of it. But this time of year always brings out even more opportunities for us to give back and show how grateful we are for all that we have. In this edition of the newsletter there are articles about three different projects. One that was completed today, and two that are happening now. As you read about these events please give serious consideration to how you can participate either through donations or volunteering your time. The best examples are the examples we set for our own sons and daughters. I hope the teachers know how much we appreciate the opportunities they are giving our children to learn about being good people not only in the classroom, at school and at home, but also within our community. Guanacaste and Costa Rica have given us all so much beauty and warmth and kindness that it is very important that we show the local community how much we respect and appreciate them. These few events we have planned are an easy way to do this.
Also: We have a new addition to our newsletter this week from Tara Zammuto, a Speech-Language Pathologist who has just moved into our area and has expressed interest in providing services to students who may need Speech-Language Therapy. The "SLP Corner" as she calls it will provide weekly tips on speech and langauge development in children as a way for teachers and parents to become aware of what to expect in our children's development. I hope you find it useful.
Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy your holidays!
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Sad News: Ms. Marisol is leaving :(
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Our Pre-k/Kindergarten teacher Marisol Conejo and her husband are moving to San Jose and her last day will be December 12. Her husband has been asked to relocate for business reasons. She is very sad to be leaving but she must go. We will all miss her very much, especially my Ella. Marisol is a terrific teacher and an even better person. We wish her all the best in San Jose and we hope she comes back to visit often. Let's make her last two weeks here extra special!
We have already hired an experienced certified teacher from San Jose that we feel will do an outstanding job as our new teacher. I will have more information about her in our next newsletter.
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Read-A-Thon Coming!
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The Pre-K to Grade 8 students are going to have their first annual Read-A-Thon event on December 5th to raise money for school supplies for 400 local children. This event is also a great way to promote the joy of reading. The way the fundraising part of it works is like this: Kids will all take a sponsor sheet around to their families, teachers, and friends to ask them to pledge money. Sponsors can pledge a certain amount of money per page read, or a sponsor can pledge a set amount. On December 5th the students will then all gather together and sit down together and read a book or books of their choice to themselves or to each other. Parents and friends are invited as well. We plan to also have students from Brasilito and Huacas come to school and read with us. Your child(ren) should have a sponsor sheet sent home with them today. This is also an opportunity for businesses that would like to contribute a one-time amount and also receive a little publicity. I am told that there will be representatives from four different news publications (five, if you include this one) there to photograph and write about the event. All of the businesses that contribute 50,000 Colons or more will be mentioned in the article(s?) Please support a great cause. Our goal is $6000 because we have 400 students we are hoping to supply and Letitia from Cepia is hoping to negotiate a good price with a business in Liberia of about $15 per student for all of the supplies they'll need. Good luck readers and good reading!
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Fundraiser for Escuela de Guardia's Special Education Program
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Below is a letter from the National Honor Society, a group of students that I am so proud of, as I wrote about in last week's newsletter. They are helping gather items to sell at a garage sale in three weeks to raise money for a new classroom to support children with special needs. As you may or may not know, Sarah and I were special education teachers before leaving to work overseas, so this project means a lot to us personally. And who can resist a good garage sale? Not me, so read on and go clean out your closets and garages, if you have one, and bring the items to school so that we can pass them on to the NHS and then on to Escuela de Guardia.
Dear CDSG- Community,
The Department of Special Education of the Escuela de Guardia is organizing a garage sale. The purpose of this fundraiser is to improve the conditions of the space that was given to them in order to give their children better attention and support, as well as to acquire didactive material.
This is why the National Honor Society is asking for your aid with the donation of clothes and any objects to sell at the event on Sunday, December 14th of this year.
Please bring your donations to Mrs. Baldwin's room, Margarita's office or the library.
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Thanksgiving Turkey Feathers Food Drive
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I told you we had a lot to tell about giving. Our Turkey Feathers Food Drive concluded this week and today our Mano A Mano/Hand In Hand group will be delivering the food baskets to the families in Vente Siete de Abril. The families have parents or children that are visually impaired and are very poor and our students have chosen to support them. These families were brought to our attention by Mrs. Nathalie Segonne and her daughter Camille. They accidentally met the father of one of the families while he was selling lottery tickets alongside the road to support his family, even though he is blind. After meeting his family and others with similar circumstances she decided to bring them to our attention, knowing that we have a generous and caring school community that has taken on charitable projects in the past. It was immediately embraced by our elementary teachers, students and families and today is the time to give the fruit of that seed planted by Mrs. Segonne and watered by our kids and you. The picture here says it all. They are beautiful already, but even more so today. Look at those smiles.
 Feather Field Trip
The NEW CDSG club, Mano a Mano, will be going on a field trip to deliver our donations to the three families we have been collecting for in 27 de abril. We will present each family with a large, plastic bin filled with all of the items that were brought in by the elementary school students. Students and families, thank you so much for all of your help and suport! Without your involvemnet this fundraiser would not be as successful.
Today, myself, Nathalie Segonne and five fifth graders, Camille Segoone, Laura Moshammer, Laicia Bouali, Ela Mazon and Dane Torres will be visiting each of the houses. We want the members of Mano a Mano to see who our efforts are going to and how the families react when they receive our donation. Look for a write up by the students in next week's news letter!
Smiles,
Ms. Jamie
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New School Calendars Are Ready!
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In an effort to help you to plan for many of our school's events throughout the year we have put together a school calendar with all of the events planned so far. It is our plan that next year's calendar will have everything on it before thestart of the school year. This year's calendar will have most events, but I'm sure more will be added and we'll inform you as far in advance of those as we can. For now however, take the calendars, (in the office and sent home with you children), hang them up at home, plan your calendar so that you can attend every event, and brag to all of your friends about how much we do here at Country Day.
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Picture of the Week
2nd Graders' Readers' Theatre
Avery special thank you to All of the parents that came out to support Ms. Caroline's 2nd graders today ate the elementary assembly. It was our biggest turnout this year!
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Pirate Baseball News
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Don't forget that baseball continues on Saturday mornings from 9:00 - 11:00 a.m. in Brasilito in the field behind the Happy Snapper. We are getting closer every week to looking like a real baseball team. It's hot and the attention tends to wander but we have the most fun in Brasitlito during those two hours. Everyone is welcome, CDSG student or not. Tell your friends. And apparently my sister wants to donate some Pirate T-shirts and hats for me to bring back with me after visiting during Christmas. Her and her friends are also collecting lots more baseball equipment, everything from gloves to cleats to bats and baseballs for me to bring back for some of the local kids. I may go broke shipping it back here but we'll have some great stuff to play with. Hope to see you out their! Bring cold water if you come.
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Junior Pirate Futbol Next Week
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Plan to celebrate the day before Thanksgiving with us in style. Cheering for you Junior Pirates soccer team! There will be a game with Escuela Llano at 8:30 Wednesday morning in the gymnasium for the younger children and on the big pitch outside for the older students. If you come, remember to bring cold drinks because it get hot out there. Hope to see you there.
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"You Are What You Eat"
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Hi my name is Ariana Anderson and I am a senior at Country Day School. This year Susie Katus, the art teacher, and I aspire to cultivate an on-campus, organic hydroponic vegetable garden. Growing up in a generation dominated by Doritos and Mountain Dew, I have realized that we don't think about what we are putting into our bodies. The creation of a hydroponic organic garden - organic meaning free of artificial fertilizers, pesticides, and human and industrial waste; hydroponic meaning soil-free - will hopefully expand our understanding of where food comes from, better yet, where healthy food comes from. Unlike the production of our beloved Doritos, which, yes, are delicious, the healthy production of vegetables requires a great amount of time, energy, patience, and nourishment. That is why we need your support. Our baby steps begin with the support of Ms. Mayella Vasquez Navarrete, director of Escuela El Llano, and her students. On Wednesday, December 4th at 7.45 a.m., Ms. Navarrete and students will graciously assist in cultivating our roots, using their recent, and successful, experience with creating a hydroponic garden at their own school as a model for our garden. Please join us at this time to learn more about our plans, aspirations, and the process. In order to prepare for their visit, we need to collect materials, including bamboo (very functional as a holding container and aesthetically pleasing too!), gravel, and organic hydroponic mineral nutrient solution (brands include Botanicare, Earth Juice, and FoxFarm). Yet, even more importantly, we need devoted individuals passionate about enhancing the sustainability and overall well-being of our campus. Ultimately, when our seedlings have matured, we can feed our students, faculty, and staff with homegrown goodness. If willing and able, please email Susie Katus at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or even better, join us, Vegg Out, every Tuesday at 2:45 in the art room. And remember to join us and the students of Llano school on Wednesday, December 4th at 7.45 a.m. We promise to do some serious veggin-out! I hope to see you there!
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Bravo Escuala El Llano!
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| I also Had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Mayella Vasquez Navarrete, director of Escuela El Llano on Thursday and I just had to take a minute to tell you how impressed I was by all that she (and her staff of course) are doing at this school. I have included a couple of pictures so that you can see the beautiful mural that adorns the front wall. Apparently our National Honor Society students (of course) raised money last year to help fund a new cafeteria for the school. Well I sat and had a cold glass of pineapple juice there yesterday and was very impressed with the facilities. It is humbling to think that they have the same number of students as we do in a space roughly the size of our cafetorium. If that isn't reason enough to take a little time each day to appreciate how blessed we are to have a campus and facilities like ours, I don't know what is. But the reason I write this is to emphasize that we really want to continue building relationships with schools like this within our community because I believe they are beneficial to all of us. Through combined activities in the arts, sports, teacher exchanges, and other special events we all come out better from the experience. As you already heard from Suzy, they will be instrumental in helping us begin and sustain our new Hydroponic Garden Project. We will also continue to have sports competitons and we plan to have their dance team come to perform at our school next month. So this is my Bravo! To the Llano school for all of the good they are doing in their community and to Ms. Navarrete and the rest of the staff at Escuela El Llano for all of her hard work and dedication. May the relationship between the two schools continue to grow and produce new ideas for collaboration that benefit the entire community. |
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Remember To Wear Your Uniforms....
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This is a reminder that it a school rule that students wear their school uniforms to school everyday,unless they have a parent note signed with the reason for not having a uniform that day. We want to keep up the image of our school and wearing the CDSG uniform is a requirement. When our students come to school wearing other clothing looks sloppy and it undermines our ability to enforce all of our school rules. We are not too rigid but we do expect everyone to adhere to our policies. If they know we are serious about the small things, they will respect our rules about the more important things. If students show up out of uniform they may be asked to remain in the school office until a parent can bring the proper uniform or until a parent can be contacted and excused due to extraordinary circumstances. Thank you for your cooperation.
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| Upcoming Events |
November
Soccer on Wednesday Novemeber 26 at 8:30 a.m.
Baseball tomorrow at Snapper Field from 9-11:00 a.m.
December
Read-A-Thon December 5
Escuela Guardia Garage Sale December 14th
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