Elementary and Middle School Pudong Express: The Week in review, The week ahead in at Pudong ES and MS- December 11, 2006

Happy Holidays Pudong ES and MS community members!

The week ahead looks like a busy one for the middle school and a wrap up week for the elementary.

ES News!
Congratulations to the elementary students for the great winter holiday concert that was put on last Thursday and Friday. Wow! Thank you to Ms. McMullin, Mr. Fallis and Ms. Lee for their leadership and educational vision for this performance. The band of 5th graders were amazing! The strings group brought a smile and tear to all of our eyes, the kindi, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade kids amazed us with their talents and our elementary choir was nothing short of amazing! I have been humming the "cranberry" song all weekend and telling everyone I know about it! I am one proud principal! I am working on a movie for our podcast blog, but you will have to give me a couple of weeks.

Principal Candidates Visit!
On Thursday and Friday we will have principal candidates visiting the Pudong campus. On Thursday at the middle school coffee, Matt Leishman will be visiting (see below) and on Friday Mr. Dennis Bissmeyer will be visiting our school from Colorado, USA. Times for Mr. Bissmeyer's visit and parent Q and A will be announced early in the week.

Important Stuff....
Parent Talk Archives!
http://www.saschina.org/News/pt_archive.asp

It’s a short one this week. The closer we get to winter break, the less
news there is. So where are you going for winter break? Leave us a
comment!
http://pudong.saspodcast.org/?p=36

An all girl crew this week. We had a lot of fun and some great news
too. Leave a comment and tell us where you’ll be headed for winter break.
http://pudong.saspodcast.org/?p=35

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Middle School News!
This is the big music week for the middle school. I look forward to celebrating our music and arts program this week with you. Note the times below!

Tuesday, December 12 Night Performance 7-8:15

· ALL Middle School String ensembles (Mr. Matthews)

· Cello Elective(Mr. Matthews)

· ALL Middle School General Music (Mr. Schenck)

· Choir Elective (Mr. Schenck)

Wednesday, December 13, Night Performance 7-8:15 PM

· ALL Middle School Band classes (Mr. McCuaig)

· Percussion Elective (Mr. McCuaig)

· Rhythm of Life elective (Mr. McCuaig)

Dec. 19, Elective assembly begins at 2 pm. for our student body and interested parents.

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Middle School News on the Front Page!
Nothing makes me more proud than to see our kids on the front page of The ParentTalk! What a great shot with our Eagle Ambassadors with Dr. Larkin!

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December 13, 2006

PTSA/ Principal's Middle School Coffee!
8:30 AM
Library Lecture Hall

Although I have not formalized all the items on the agenda for this coffee, I am happy to have as our guest that day Mr. Jeff Utecht. Jeff is our school technology specialist and he will be presenting a program titled "Growing Up Digital".

Jeff has been doing some compelling presentations for our staff and students as of late and he is very excited about sharing some of the same information with you, our parent community. I STRONGLY urge you to come out and enjoy the information and the learning with us. BTW... Jeff is scheduled to do a presentation for the HS and the ES later in the year. That being said, just because you have only an ES or HS student does not mean you cannot attend this session. Mr. U wrote a nice article to set the stage for his presentation on Thursday for last week's Parent talk. Click here to go to his blog "The Thinking Stick" to read his article.

**At the end of the parent coffee we will introduce one of the Middle School principal candidates for some time with our parent community. Matt Leishman, currently the vice-principal at the middle school on the Puxi campus will be visiting and enjoying our company! I look forward to having Matt around on Thursday!

Now some learning together!
I heard Ian Jukes speak at the EARCOS (East Asian Regional Council for Overseas Schools) administrator's conference in early November. He is one entertaining guy with loads of information to digest in a single sitting. His blog is one of the best in the world. His latest entry title "Children Getting Wired Early for High Tech" really hits home for those of us with young children. In his article Ian notes that:

"Children in the United States are using video games, cellphones and portable music players by age 7 --- about six months earlier than just a year ago, according to a recent online survey of 3,540 parents. That's good news for the electronics industry, but is it healthy for kids? A growing number of experts are beginning to wonder."

Click here to enjoy the Committed Sardine Blo g and Ian's comments.