Fine Artist of the Week

This week's Fine Artist of the Week is Lilliana Coco! Lilliana has been a student at MSA for 7 years, and an enthusiastic part of MSA theater! She has performed in more productions at MSA than you can count, including the spring musical and Junior Theater Festival (JTF) team! This spring, she will play Carol Strong and other hilarious roles in our musical Catch Me If You Can. She always works hard and is ready for rehearsal with a smile. She's always focused on making every performance totally EPIC!! All this, plus her infectiously positive attitude make Lilliana Coco our Fine Artist of the Week!

Congratulations!

Thank You to Vidya Kubde

Kris Hawksworth, PreUpper School Instructor

(Vidya is pictured in red with the students from the seminar)

Feature Teacher

Meet Martha Muir!
Martha is a teacher in our PreUpper School, she teaches physical science, honors physical science, health in our Upper School, and the ACE class. She is beginning her 12th year here. Previously she taught chemistry and botany at another private school, as well as various sciences at a couple of public high schools. She feels that "Science is a way of life." She enjoys helping students become more aware of the world around them. There are many things she likes about being here at MSA. She loves that our students are so bright. She also enjoys the fact that she is allowed and encouraged to challenge them with what they can do while supporting their learning challenges.

In her spare time she is very involved with the amateur radio community (W4MSA). In fact, she is presently serving as the Section Youth Coordinator for the state ham radio community - bet you didn't know that! Her favorite food would be strawberries ... chocolate covered. She received three different books for Christmas, but couldn't decide which to read first so she has been spending her time learning more about one of our HamJam speakers.

Thank you for what you do every day Martha, we are glad you are here. 

The Mustang Awards have been Announced!

• GOLD Mustang - All A's
  
• SILVER Mustang - All A's & B's with at least one A in a core academic class
  

• Middle School
  
• PreUpper School
  
• Communication Arts School
  
• Upper School
  

Algorithms in Coding

In coding class we have just started a new semester, with brand new faces and some returning students. Students covered installation of Microsoft Visual Studio and beginning algorithm designs. We went over the history of symbols in algorithms and good naming conventions for variables. Senior level students are beginning to work on learning the Linux operating system this semester as well as continue with Visual Studios work. Pictured is Junior Michael Healey working on his first class project.

--Jennie Donaldson, Upper School Instructor

Moms in Prayer - Won't you Join Us?

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

We will meet in the conference room in the Administration building at 8:15am every Tuesday for 60 minutes - January 30 is our next gathering. Although I hope we have people show up week after week, I know everyone is busy, so there is no long-term commitment. Come when you can. If you want more information, you can check out the Moms in Prayer website before you come.

God's word says where two or three are gathered together in His name, he will be there also (Matt 18:20. I know our school will benefit from the power of prayer.) I hope you will join me. Contact me if you have any questions.

--Michelle Weyant, Upper Mom, 770-377-4222

Transition Night for Parents

Thursday, February 1

7:00 - 8:30pm

Parents of Rising 5th & PreUpper 7th Grade Students

This will be held in the Great Room of your new school

Current 4th Grade families - Middle School Great Room

Current 6th Grade families - PreUpper School Great Room

Reading, Reading, Reading

Did you know that our LOWER School students have read a combined total of 46,482 minutes just during first semester? WOWSERS! That is over 2,000 minutes per student, on average. You guys should each have a cape that says Super Reader on the back!

Way to go Mustang Readers, we are very proud of YOU!

Conference Time is Coming Up

This is a great opportunity to learn all about the things your student is doing in school. You will be advised of your scheduled Conference soon, if you haven't been already. Your student will NOT have school on the conference days for your School. Buses will run on their normal AM/PM schedule for those students that are here on each of those days.

• Lower/Middle - NO SCHOOL February 8 and 9
• PreUpper/CommArts/Upper - NO SCHOOL February 16 and 23.

Again, your student does NOT have school on their conference days. Students are expected to wear uniforms to their scheduled conference.

Interested in Lacrosse?

Time to Turn in Box Tops!

Turn in Box Tops by Friday, February 16th for our fall submission and drawing. Place in a zipped bag or envelope with your student's name and grade on the bag to be eligible for the drawing. Drop in the collection containers in each school or office. Tyson A+ labels and My Coke Rewards caps/codes should be turned in now too.

Drawing Winners will be announced in March.

Each school will have a winner that can choose a $10 Gift Card from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Dick's or Target.

Manipulating Math

This week in 5th grade math, we have been learning about long division with remainders. To understand how this concept applies concretely, the students played a game that involved splitting blocks into equal groups and seeing how many were leftover. The students then had to work with their team to come up with a long division equation to represent their blocks mathematically. This allowed the students to draw connections between numerical division and math in real life, which was especially fun when they pretended that the blocks were cookies or money. This picture shows students Maggie Erlacher, Claire McAllister, Evan Sycks, and Joey Lenox tackling a division problem with blocks!

Hello? Is it me Your Looking for?

If you are calling the school for something, most things can be solved by speaking with your principal, or another representative within your School. If you have that individual's extension number you can get to them directly without going through another person. You can always use the directory lookup on the phone (by pressing 2), or you can look up anyone's direct dial number or extension on the school's directory (www.millsprings.org/directory). Thank you for your assistance with this, here is a list of certain extensions to help you:

• Lower - Laurie Jones - x1100
  
• Middle - Will Turner - x1200
  
• PreUpper - Susan Sanders - x1301
  
• PreUpper - Nina King - x1302
  
• CommArts - Chelsea Michelson - x1400
  
• CommArts - Taniah Jones - x1523
  
• Upper - Cynthia Traylor - x1530
  
• Upper - Jaime Gutierrez - x1525
  
• Upper - Lisa Imsand - x1550
  
• Counseling - Susan Day - x1730
  
• Bookkeeping - Patsy Beckwith - x1708
  

Golf Interest Meeting

There will be a meeting for anyone interested in playing golf in the spring on Tuesday, January 30th at 12:15pm in my Upper School classroom (room 514 at the end of the hall). Students from grades 6 and up are welcome to join this year's team.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

--Michael Smith - Upper School Instructor & Coach

Technology in History

This week Cindy Thorne (pictured) came from Technology down to Communication Arts to do a fantastic lesson on creating your own outlines with the 7th grade Georgia History Class. We had so much fun and learned some great tricks in Word for typing notes! What a fantastic resource our Tech department is.

--Bonnie Bergstresser, CommArts Instructor

Teacher Receives Award

Congratulations to the amazing Kate McElliott! Kate received the Freddie G. Teacher Spirit Award during the Junior Theater Festival (JTF). This award includes an all-expense paid trip to Broadway for professional development workshops this summer and a $5,000 grant to enhance the arts program here at Mill Springs Academy. Kate is very excited and "so very, very honored, and I am grateful for this opportunity." (Kate is pictured with Freddie Gershon, CEO of Music Theater International-MTI)

Lower School Loves our Dads (and Donuts)!

The Lower School students have been so excited about their dads coming to visit Friday (today) to Donuts for Dads! We've made all sorts of crafts such as cards, hats, goodie bags, and cups for our dads to enjoy. The students really enjoyed meeting everyone and enjoyed a super yummy breakfast! They were incredibly proud to show off the letters and cards they had written too! Pictured: Daniel Moses with his father, Reuven.