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Welcome to the October 18, 2007 issue of Newsbreak.

10/13-21 This is Me Preschool Student Art Exhibit at MECA

10/18 Portland Schoolground Greening Talk, 6 pm

10/19 Pre-school Potluck 6-8pm,  Mandrake Home

10/22 Story Time, 9:45 / Toddler Playgroups, 8:30 & 10:30 am

10/24 Half Day / Community Event Planning Meeting, 10:45 am

10/25 Harvest Supper, 5:30 pm 

10/26 Grades 1 & 2 Potluck, Fratoni Home

10/29 Story Time, 9:45 / Toddler Playgroups, 8:30 & 10:30 am

10/31 Parent Coffee Hosted by Grade 3-4 Parents 8 am / Halloween Parade, 8:45 am

11/4 Admissions Open house, 2-4 pm

11/5 Story Time, 9:45 / Toddler Playgroups, 8:30 & 10:30 am

11/6 BPA Meeting, 8 am

11/7 Half Day

11/8 Coffee with the Head, 8am

11/12 Veterans Day Holiday

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Last Friday, more than 130 grandparents and special friends enjoyed a grand day at Breakwater School, despite the gloomy weather. Grand Friends Day activities included words from Head of School, David Sullivan, and BWS founder El Costa,; a musical performance and slide show; classroom visits; and much more. The day ended with a luncheon where grandparents and special friends, led by Grand Friend Co-chair Peggy Griswold (pictured here with granddaughter Salem), shared their hopes and dreams for their special children:

I dream of a safe, loving place where you can grow and try and fail and try again, and bloom...bloom...BLOOM.

I wish for you the joy and discovery of learning -- for all of your life. Enjoy Breakwater!!

Always follow your heart and never be hesitant to dream BIG.

Never lose your love of learning and always be happy with the "real" you!

To BWS, If your dreams for our grandchildren come true, then I will be happy.

View more photographs.

Welcome to our first electronic Newsbreak. This new format saves resources – paper, money, and time. It also allows us to reach a larger audience and provide direct links to our calendar and other areas of interest. I hope you find it convenient and informative.

Several people have asked me to recount the story  I told at Grand Friends Day about my own grandmother who was truly an amazing woman. At her 100th birthday party she spent much of the evening dancing to music of all kinds. When someone asked her  the secret to living a long life she replied, "You need to always be ready to dance to a song you have never heard."

I told this story because it reminds me of our mission at Breakwater, to engender learning in our young students that is sustainable over a lifetime. We are teaching children to dance to all kinds of music and to navigate unfamiliar waters so they're prepared for whatever life offers, just like my grandmother.

Speaking of stories, October will mark the first of my “Book of the Month” recommendations. The books I recommend we read together as a community will hopefully prompt thoughts, questions, and ideas that will  help us continue to reflect on what Breakwater is all about. My first recommendation is the book A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, by Daniel Pink. The School has a couple of copies that can be checked out from the library.

Daniel Pink suggests that we are leaving the Information Age and entering the Conceptual Age. Linear and logical thinking tasks, highly valued in the past century, are increasingly done by computers or outsourced overseas. He posits that while left-brain thinking is necessary, it is not sufficient for the future. Right-brain thinking, characterized by six dispositions Pink identifies as design, story, symphony, empathy, play, meaning, has often been viewed as frivolous, but will now , he says, take its rightful place in determining who flourishes.

This book is part self-help, part philosophy, part sociology, and part business. I believe it has some very interesting implications for schools and for how we are preparing children for the future. In many ways the book validates Breakwater's long tradition of teaching to the whole brain and the completeness of human experience. I invite everyone to read this book and to engage in conversation about it.

Keep the stories coming about Breakwater, past and present. I enjoy hearing them and I learn from them.

The preschools of Reggio Emilia, Italy, internationally renowned for their vision of the young child, have inspired a transformation in early childhood classrooms around the world. In recent years, the study of these schools and of the practice of documenting children's learning has had a significant influence right here with teachers of Breakwater's youngest students.

This fall, in her dual role as Assistant Professor of Education at Maine College of Art (MECA) and Breakwater's Art Teacher, Kelly McConnell is sharing the influence of Reggio Emilia-inspired educators with her graduate students at MECA. For the first several weeks of our school year, Kelly's graduate students have collaborated with her preschool students in a visual exploration of self-discovery. Preschoolers have created self-portraits using paint, clay, wire, paper and found objects. They have painted, collaged and drawn images of their faces on mirrors, acetate, tracing paper, photographs and easel paper. During an engaging visit from Michael Trautman (professional clown and BWS alumni parent), children learned that our facial expressions are canvases of our emotion s- that how we look shows others how we feel. They gazed deeply in mirrors and noticed things about their faces they'd never seen before (a task not recommended to anyone over 35!).

From October 13 -21, in the Long Hall Gallery in the Porteous Building at MECA, the work of Breakwater's preschool students is being shown. The self-portraits on display are accompanied by documentation created by MECA students of the children's thoughts and the process involved in creating their artwork. Gallery hours are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.. We hope you will stop by to view this special exhibit.

THANK YOU to the amazing 25% of parents who have volunteered for one or more activities using the Volunteer Action Network (VAN) over the past three weeks! We invite everyone to "hop on the VAN" each week to see what is new, and to learn how you can either be involved in and can assist with your child's education. E-mail Camilla (camilla@maine.rr.com) if you need a login and password.

Events and activities on the VAN are posted by, or at the request of, BWS faculty and staff. Some activities require little time, while others may require more. Some activities take place at specific places and times, while others can be completed at your convenience. Hop on the VAN to check out what is happening at Breakwater and/or sign up at any time of the day or night!

Parents and teachers have told us many times what they've enjoyed most about the Breakwater Auction is that it's always a wonderful party, an opportunity for people in our community to get together and have a marvelous time. While we agree auction night has been lots of fun, the planning, publicizing, organizing, and "pulling off" of this event has required literally hundreds of hours of hard work by staff, faculty, and dozens of parent volunteers. This year, we are going to try something... different.

We don't want to lose the "community party" the auction offered, but we'd like to redirect all this energy into helping our other fundraising projects become more successful.  Our Annual Fund is a good example. Shortly, all members of our community will be invited to support the Annual Fund. Our Annual Fund drive is an important opportunity for everyone - parents, grandparents, alumni, friends, faculty, and staff - to join together in making the program at Breakwater the best it can be, by offering their financial support.

As central as fundraising activities are in an independent school, opportunities for community festivities are also very important. On February 9th, we'll have a party for ourselves - just to celebrate Breakwater School and the many strengths and talents in our community. 

If you are interested in helping plan this event or want to be involved in some way, please come to a meeting on Wednesday, October 25 at 10:45 a.m. in the Library or contact Amy Ford (amyford54@maine.rr.com) or Kate Rosenfeld (kerosenfeld@mac.com).  We'll keep you posted as plans develop.

Kathy Damon, Director of Development  

Free and open to the public:

EVENING TALK BY CAM COLLYER
OF THE CANADIAN EVERGREEN FOUNDATION,
A NATIONAL SCHOOLGROUND GREENING ORGANIZATION

OCTOBER 18 6pm
Daniel N. Crewe Gymnasium, Breakwater School

We are VERY excited to have this speaker, and are planning a lively discussion with municipal decision-makers to follow.

Go to www.evergreen.ca to see the AMAZING programs Mr. Collyer and
colleagues have created in Toronto and across Canada.

The Breakwater Community is invited to share a meal  together at the annual Harvest Supper on Thursday, October 25th. Serving will commence at 5:30 p.m. in the Dan.   In an attempt to keep things simple for set-up and clean-up we ask that you please bring table service (plates and cutlery) for your own family, as well as a dish to pass.  Try to think "local" when preparing a dish to share.  Our middle school will provide pies for dessert.

This year the middle school is offering a challege:

First Annual Harvest Supper
Chili & Cornbread Challenge Contest!

Bring your favorite cornbread or chili to the Harvest Supper and a panel of judges will select the Blue Ribbon Winners in several categories:
Tastiest Cornbread, Most Unique Recipe, Hottest Chili, Best Flavor, and Best in Color for both.

See you there!

Beginning on Monday, October 22, the Breakwater School Library will host a weekly Story Time for toddlers and young preschoolers.

Open to parents and children throughout the Greater Portland area, all are welcome to join children's book author and early literacy expert, Connie Smith, and preschool teacher, Molly Thompson, as we share stories, finger plays and songs from 9:45 to 10:30 a.m. each Monday in our school library.

Bring a friend!

During September and October teachers and specialists have experimented with integrating PE-related activities and with integrating movement into their daily programs. For example, Third and Fourth graders are studying Ancient Greece, so their curriculum-related PE activities are centered around the Olympics. Teachers are using milestones of children's physical development to determine the skills that  are focused upon. Rather than just trying each event, students are spending time learning and practicing skills and then competing in Olympic “events”.

Some Grade 1/2 classrooms have been focusing on learning more about recess options, including how to play Four-Square. Students began by dribbling the  Four-Square ball and counting how many bounces one could do alone. Children then worked in pairs to see how many consecutive passes they could complete. Students also played a modified Two-Square game without lines, with all these activities taking place in the Dan. Students and teachers talked about feelings that arose during the practice, and the value of saying "nice try" to someone who got out. Afterward, they went outside and played a quick demonstration game of Four Square to practice their new skills. All other grade levels and specials classes have been integrating a variety of PE-related activities into their programs.

Faculty and staff are preparing proposals for our first session of Friday Workshops, set to begin on November 9th. These workshops, approximately 50 minutes each and organized into 5-6 week sessions, will offer children in Kindergarten-E6 a weekly opportunity to develop movement and sports skills and problem-solving skills, and to explore activities that might become life-long interests. These PE activities are designed to address children’s developmental and skill-level needs and, of course, to give us time to just have fun playing and learning together.

We’ll keep you posted about workshop activities as they are designed. We’ll also be looking for feedback during and after this first session of Friday Workshops (Nov. 9-Dec. 14th) that will help us design our second session, beginning January 11th. Stay tuned to Newsbreak for more information. Please contact Cheryl Hart, Director of Special Projects, at extension 239, chart@breakwaterschool.org, if you have any questions.

Says You!  The NPR show will have two of very own Breakwater Students as scorekeepers.  Tune your radio  to 90.1 FM at 1:00 pm on Saturday, October 20th to hear Bevan and Lionel Whitehead make their national radio debut!

Free Money?  Yes, KeyBank is giving away a $2,500 scholarship each month to one family with a student attending a K-12 private school.  Visit key.com/win for more information

Just a Reminder From BPA
The Kids Kreation packets are due by Friday, October 26th!
Please put them in the box labeled "Kids Kreations" on the desk in the lobby.

Coming Soon! Breakwater Drama Troupe  - check your child's mailbox for more information.

Plastic Bags Needed 
Please recycle those dry cleaning bags by donating them to BWS art classes. We use these clear plastic sheets to wrap pottery.  Bring as many as you can, as soon as you can to the Art Studio. Thank you for your love and support, Kelly McConnell

News from the Board of Trustees - The Board met for two and a half hours on Monday, September 24th and finalized the budget for the school.  Each year in the spring we vote on a preliminary budget, then once enrollment is known in the fall we vote on the final budget.  In addition, we reviewed a case-study from the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) that was educational and sparked a lively debate. We are committed to a continuing program of self-education and working to ensure that as a body we function according to the best practices of NAIS. The  Board received reports to keep us up to date on the progress of the school from David Sullivan) and the Development efforts from Kathy Damon).

Parent Pot-Lucks -  Check with your classroom coordinator:

Pre-School  10/19  6-8pm Mandrake Home                                                 Grades 1 / 2 10/26 Fratoni Home 

Breakwater School
856 Brighton Avenue · Portland, Maine 04102 · tel. 207.772.8689 · fax. 207.772.1327
© Copyright 2007 Breakwater School. All rights reserved.