MSA Weekly News - September 28, 2018

Thanks for the SmileOur last week of September has been fun-filled and educational (for students and parents). The PreUpper 7th graders took a trip to Chattahoochee Nature Center, we had a parent workshop regarding financial aid for college, our fall sport groups had their pictures taken and we had Pizza Friday! There were a lot of other activities as well, and you can read about them all below. On Monday last week I walked to the copy room and noticed this little note (pictured above) stuck to the front of my desk in Admin. I don't know how long it had been there, but it made me smile when I saw it. I left it there and it made several other people smile too. So to the artist that left it behind - THANK YOU! I hope you had a good day as well.Have a great weekend and I will see you in October!

Feature Teacher

Meet Amy Abramson! Amy is new to Mill Springs this year as a language arts and writing teacher, but she has taught at several other schools, both public and private, in all grades (PreK-12) with the exception of third! She feels that, "all students can learn. We are here to help and support each other through compassion, grace, and solid strategies. A firm foundation of learning is key for building skills." She loves the support she receives from others here at MSA, and she loves the beautiful campus. Amy (who is a native Atlantan) has been married for 27 years to Gary, their son Noah is an aspiring chef, and they have three dogs (Scooter, Tybee, and Lena). In her spare time Amy frequents thrift stores, enjoys arts and crafts, photography, music, traveling and cooking. Her favorite foods include sushi, spinach, and vanilla ice cream! Currently she is reading a book titled, "Selling Dead Peoples' Things" by Duane Scott Cerney. Interestingly she used to sing with two local punk bands in the 80's and she was in the film, "The Blind Side."

Welcome to MSA and thank you for what you do!

LMS/Mustang Gets a Rebrand

Sometimes we happen upon some change that will make our school's systems better, easier, or faster. When this happens, we like to make that change so that you can enjoy the benefit. We also want to tell you about it, so that you are not surprised with something like New Coke or Colgate TV Dinners. We want you to be educated and prepared, and we want the change to make sense.

As you may know, we utilize an online system for communicating homework assignments. Up to now we have called this system LMS, or MUSTANG, or LMS/MUSTANG.

What is LMS/MUSTANG? Where is it? Is it a place, a thing, or a show on TV? Hard to tell just from the name. And then there is that fact it is has 3 different names...this is too many names, and can be confusing for parents and students alike. So we have fixed it.

World, meet MyMUSTANG. It's the same great flavor you're used to, just with a single, easy-to-identify name.

Students, need to check your math assignment for tonight? Go to MyMUSTANG. Want to grab that Chemistry study guide from the resources folder? Log into MyMUSTANG. Parents, want to make sure there really isn't a HW assignment posted for tonight? Just run on over to MyMUSTANG and log in to view your student's class calendar.

Just as Datsun evolved into Nissan, as Dunkin' Donuts became simply Dunkin', LMS/MUSTANG became MyMUSTANG. And only MyMUSTANG. We hope you love it as much as we do!

Floating Eggs Challenge

The students in Katie's Middle School Science classes have been learning about density. Density is defined as the amount of mass in a given volume. Objects that feel heavier tend to have a higher density. So far we discovered that the density of water is greater than the density of wood, but less than the density of a rock. If we know an object's density, we can determine whether it will float or sink when it is put in water. If an object's density is greater than the density of water, it will sink. If its density is less than the density of water, it will float. Therefore, a block of wood will float on top of water, while a rock will sink. READ MORE Picture 1) Oliver Healey and Zach Munro. 2) Drew Thacher and Trey Stormont.

Chattahoochee Nature Center

This was a write up from one of my students, John Martin, about our field trip to the Chattahoochee Nature Center (CNC) to learn more about the plants/animals of a wetland ecosystem. Pictured is the entire group at CNC. --Bryan Sellers, PreUpper Instructor

Guest Journalist - John Martin, PreUpper, 7th Grade

On this field trip it started out with us moving to a room where we learned about snakes, what the Chattahoochee nature center was about. Some things that we learned about is how to tell if a wet land is really a wet land. But after that we did a PH test on the pond water. We went by a lot of cool animals like bard owls, ghost owls, and a bald eagle. We were able to go through this little indoor room that had all kinds of animals that lived in water that live near water and far away from water, the one that stuck out to me was the alligator snapping turtle that they had. Then we went on a little walk where we saw some cool wild life, some turtles, and other plant life. Over all I had a lot of fun on this trip and would like to do more stuff like this in the future.

37th Annual Founder's Day

Please mark your calendars and plan on attending our annual Founder's Day event on:

Saturday, October 13, 2018

11:30am - 1:00pm

For those families new to Mill Springs, our Founder's Day event is kind of like a fall, family picnic and is our way of honoring the school's founder, Tweetie L. Moore. The event is FREE OF CHARGE and includes:

Lunch provided by Chick-Fil-A
Rock Climbing Wall with Spider Jumps
Outdoor Laser Tag
Two Giant Hamster Balls
Bounce House

NOTE: The event will take place near our athletic fields on the MSA campus. When entering the campus that day, please follow all traffic signs down into the fields for event parking.

Helping a Child Handle Disappointment

Disappointment comes to everyone. As adults we, hopefully, have learned that when people or activities may sometimes let us down, we can keep such things in perspective and find ways to overcome our dashed hopes.

But for children, disappointment can come in numerous forms. Even a seemingly minor hurt can often seem like such a complete disaster that the child truly has a difficult time accepting and dealing with it. And, in many cases, such as when a beloved pet dies or a close friend moves away, the hurt can be very real and deep and won't disappear easily.

While responding to childhood disappointments can seem difficult, there are solid reasons to do it in a good way. We can make our child feel less sad, avoid more serious emotional issues, and, when we respond well, we help open communication that can strengthen the child - parent relationship. READ MORE (Source: American Counseling Association 2018)

All About Animals

The first and second graders have learned all about animals for the past couple of weeks in science. We have learned about the vertebrate groups—mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish—and their characteristics. The students have participated in many activities and games to learn how to sort animals into groups. We have also learned about insects, and the life cycles of different animals. We are loving the animal activities in class! Pictured: Jansen Jones, Lucas Hennings, and Noah Mawad

--Carissa Nelson, Lower School Instructor

Turn in Free $$ Labels and Caps

Send them with your student, drop them in the office, or bring them on conference day!

Box Tops, Coke caps (PowerAde, Minute Maid, & Dasani), and Tyson A+ labels are due by Friday, October 19th to be eligible for the drawing. Place items in a Ziploc bag or envelope with your student's name & grade on the bag. Drop in the collection containers in each school or office. Fall drawing winners will be announced in November.

EACH School will have a winner who can choose a $10 Gift Card from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Dick's or Target. Contact Lesly Huffman at leslyhuffman@yahoo.com with any questions.

Annual Fund Update

Mill Springs' Annual Fund is off and running! A huge thanks to those who have already participated (CLICK HERE for a list of donors). So far this year we have raised just over $132,000 toward our $300,000 goal and have achieved 24% parent participation.

As a reminder, there are two goals for our Annual Fund:

Raise $300,000
Achieve 100% participation from Parents, Staff/Faculty, Board of Trustees.

If you have not yet made your gift, please help us reach both of our goals by making your gift or pledge today. REMEMBER ... making a gift to the Annual Fund is the MOST IMPORTANT gift you can make to the school each year. NO GIFT Is TOO Small!

How Healthy is our Campus' Stream?

Last week in science support, we completed our first aquatic macro-invertebrate stream survey in the Cooper Sandy Creek. MSA works with the Georgia Adopt-A-Stream program which, through citizen science, collects information about local streams to monitor the health of the many different watersheds in the state. One of the test we conduct is a biological survey. We collect leaf pack samples and look to see what living animals we can find living in the stream. Depending on what animals we find, we can determine the stream's health. In this sample, we found many clams, crayfish, mayfly and stonefly larva and a salamander. Finding these animals indicates a healthy stream. Pictured are Gito Nunez, Ridge George and Lilliana Coco.

Contest Time, Again!

This time I am giving away coupons good for one free game of bowling at any of the above bowling alleys. Winners will be announced in next week's MSA Weekly News. Here are the rules, follow them carefully:

You must use THIS LINK to enter
You must be a student
You must tell me what you enjoyed reading about in this week's MSA Weekly News
You must get your entry in by Wednesday, October 3 at midnight.

PARENTS/TEACHERS don't cheat, students must find this on their own!

The ABC's - Arduinos, Breadboards, and Coding

In Martha's Flex Friday session, Jim Stafford, retired electrical engineer and member of the North Fulton Amateur Radio League's Education Committee, presented an introductory lesson on Arduinos to PreUpper students Andrew Buchberger, Adriano Hagedorn, Michael Mendoza, and Matthew Carlson. An Arduino is a microcomputer, small in size but amazingly powerful. The first task accomplished by all of the students was to control the rate at which a LED flashed. "I did it!" exclaimed several students. "If you can control a LED, you can control a door, a switch, or other things," Jim told the students and made reference to how Martha used an Arduino to make record some measurements of the atmosphere at a model rocketry program this past summer. READ MORE

Pictured: 1) Andrew controls the rate of the flashes of the LED on his Arduino. 2) The code used by the students to control their Arduinos. 3) An Arduino - small in size, but powerful. 4) Jim Stafford working with Andrew, Adriano, and Michael.

Finding Additional Contact Information

Hey Parents! Did you know that you can find more than a home address and phone number in RenWeb? There are email addresses and cell phone numbers as well to help you get in touch with each other. Once you are logged in to ParentsWeb, do the following:

Click on School Information (if you aren't already there)
Click on Directory from the left hand menu (left picture)
Find and click on the student you are looking for from the list
Select one of the family member tabs at the top (see Vernon* has been clicked on in the photo below)
Then the information for that family member will appear in the box below the tabs.

If you ever have any questions about RenWeb's ParentsWeb don't hesitate to ask.