January 21, 2021

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Chesapeake Academy's mission: to inspire each student to approach learning with  curiosity and creativity,  pursue excellence in all endeavors,  and act with integrity-- so each can make our community and world a better place.

The Head's Heads UP! When we're preparing for what may amount to a polar vortex of a historic snowstorm, or just a wet and rainy day, picking out a great book with which to snuggle in is a favorite activity of many CA Ospreys! Librarian Susan May and all our faculty make reading a daily part of school life and create students who love to read, talk about books, recommend favorites, and evaluate quality literature. CA celebrates reading! Many grandparents and special friends help us with this each year through our Birthday Book Program, which has provided over 350 books this year for the beautiful James Library. Birthday books are new books given to the library in honor of a special current or alumni Osprey. The books, chosen by Mrs. May with an eye to both the reading preferences of the honoree and the needs of the library, bring delight to the whole community. We are so grateful for the investment in reading that our grandparents and special friends show with their annual gifts of literature. The gifts give many years of pleasure to readers today and in the future.  The conference room looks like Santa's workshop, with stacks and stacks of books ordered this fall. The books have beautiful nameplates in them thanks to our volunteers, and are tied with ribbons to signify the gift that they are. In early February, Mrs. May will check out the new library books to the honorees so they can be the first to enjoy the additions.  In addition, I want to thank an anonymous donor who provided funds to honor each second grade student with a Birthday Book. We are excited to build our reading collection with non-fiction at this level, and our second graders have proven that they are voracious in their desire to gobble up literature. It's a perfect match, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to support the library in this way.  Our James Library, located in the heart of Chesapeake Hall, continues to be a vibrant center of activity for all of our students–a place of learning, reading, laughing, sharing, and enjoying books. Please check our our Mock Ezra Jack Keats Award project that we are doing as a whole school for the next several weeks.  Literature rich homes create a love of exploration, discovery, and reading that translates into a love of learning. Don't forget to model reading with your young people and to read with them–powerful connections are made when we share beautifully written or illustrated stories. Happy snuggling! Julie

Show Your Love for CA! Time to vote your Osprey love! Click the link to cast your vote for Best Independent School, Best Charity Event (Oyster Roast), Best Preschool, and Best Summer Camps! It will only take a minute! Thanks! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BOV2022

Moon Rocks The NASA Astromaterials Curation Office, part of the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Directorate, sponsors programs that make samples available for use by education institutions. Science teacher Robin Blake organized a loan for Chesapeake Academy, and classes throughout the school have loved these out of this world samples! The Lunar and Meteorite Sample Education Disk Program provides K-12 teachers with 6-in diameter clear acrylic disks containing six samples of either Moon rocks or Meteorites. Each disk is accompanied by written and graphic descriptions of each sample in the disk, a Powerpoint presentation on CD, a teacher workbook, and additional printable material. This program is limited to schools located in the United States of America.

Lego Robotics Develops Coding Proficiency! Tackling the most marketable skill of the age with enthusiasm, Chesapeake Academy students are diving into Lego Mindstorms (a hardware and software structure made by Lego) that designs a robot using the Lego computer bricks, motors, and sensors that can be programmed to complete a task. Using EV3 models, eighth grade students will build several different robots and program them to perform a variety of tasks. Mr. Michael Schmid, a digital expert from Amazee Labs, is coaching student designers and coders in these challenging projects along with Chesapeake Academy Arts and Innovation Instructor Sonja Smith.  All indicators point to jobs in the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) fields becoming the fastest growing careers. In fact, jobs in this sector are projected to grow another seventeen percent in the next decade. "Getting Chesapeake Academy students ready to succeed involves acclimating them to critical and collaborative thinking across a vigorous curriculum, making them well-versed in the design loop, and ensuring that each student has experience and fluency in computer coding early in their educations so these skills can grow, develop, and become independent and creative. To this end, Chesapeake Academy developed and augmented ongoing project based learning and STEAM into an Arts & Innovation Initiative across the curriculum," explains Chesapeake Academy Head of School Julianne Duvall. Coding and robotics provide a vehicle for analytical thinking and innovation across the curriculum at Chesapeake Academy. "Each year our students are becoming more proficient. Early childhood students program BeeBots, learning to accurately give very simple, sequential commands; lower school students add coding vocabulary, programming with more involved algorithms, and launching into STEAM projects using what they know. Chesapeake Academy Middle School students are now programming Lego Mindstorms," Kimberly Dynia, Director of Curriculum and Instruction explains.

Martin Luther King Assembly Learning to navigate challenging times with grace and to find ways to impact the world in positive ways takes role models! To celebrate Martin Luther King Day, each homeroom selected a quote from the Reverend to discuss. Students previewed the quote before assembly on January 13 and thought about it before watching a video on MLK in assembly. Then classes prepared for assembly on January 19 by working through a series of activities including: display the quote in classroom spend time discussing the quote and what students think that Dr. King was trying to inspire people to do in what ways can each student set a goal to make our community and world a better place? what will the class present to the whole assembly about their response to Dr. King’s words?

Class Acts... Chesapeake Academy 3.0: Blended Learning Parent Teacher Conferences Are Around the Corner!  It is nearly time to discuss our favorite subject! Parent/Teacher Conferences are coming up February 7 through 12. Grab your calendar and contact your child's teacher to schedule a progress check! A strong partnership between school and home can help you make the most of your child's education. Every family meets a minimum of twice a year with their child's teachers to hear what is working, what strategies will address needed growth, and what to celebrate! (Most teachers will share a GoogleDoc sign-up sheet to make this easy for you.) If you need a hand scheduling convenient conferences with multiple teachers, Ms. Connie is happy to help!  Since Middle School students run their own conferences, please make sure to sign up for a time when your child is available. Pre-Kindergarten Gives Creative Inspiration to Eighth Grade Design Project Giving opinions is a strong suit for CA pre-k students, and they have been flexing this skill in their collaboration with eighth grade algebra students who are designing matching accessories for students and their favorite stuffed animal as an exploration of ratios! Eighth graders interviewed and measured their clients and their favorite stuffed animal for a prototype of matching accessories that will fit them both. Algebra students will use the 3D printer to print out the animal's accessories! Spanish Vocabulary for Community Buildings Inspires Model City First grade Spanish has been learning all about community and the different vocabulary associated with buildings. After learning about the words, students created their own little community. The children loved creating their own community with people, places, and roads while practicing Spanish vocabulary along the way.  Powerful Play! “Scientists have discovered that it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new concept in the brain, unless it is done in play, in which case it takes approximately 10 to 20 repetitions.” -Dr. Karyn Purvis First graders enjoy learning new concepts, especially when it involves playing! Playful learning is achieved in a myriad of ways. First graders can be seen singing, dancing, drawing, recreating and even acting out what they are learning in reading, history, science, and math. In the picture, two first grade students are practicing reading new vocabulary words by playing Connect Four.  Third Grade Enjoys Patricia Polacco! Martha Rogers' third grade has been working on an author study about Patricia Polacco. Students have read many of her books, completed a variety of activities, and have researched the author's life. After reading The Keeping Quilt, students created their own quilt square with a design that represents something about themselves. This unit will conclude with the baking of a Thunder Cake, another one of Patricia's books. Kaboom! Dialog Rocks! Literature and Writers Workshop collided when fifth graders carefully analyzed dialogue in their class novel, Cinder, to see what made it compelling and effective. Students used different colored highlighters to identify dialogue, dialogue tags, internal monologue, character voice, and changes in emotional tension. Students will use what they have noted in this novel’s dialogue to edit a section of dialogue in their own NaNoWriMo novels.  Ospreys About Town! Miriam Sisson and Nathan Rafael earned honorable mentions in the Tidewater Oyster Gardeners Association's "Consider the Oyster" middle school essay contest. Their writers workshop class has been working on research essays; and students focused on how to formulate research questions, find good sources, develop a thesis, and craft a final essay. Looks like the hard work paid off! Congratulations! Writing is a life skill! Chesapeake Academy Will Vote on a Mock Ezra Jack Keats Award The James Library at Chesapeake Academy with Susan May at the head as Librarian is involving the school community in hosting a mock Ezra Jack Keats Award. The real Ezra Jack Keats Award was created to nurture writers and illustrators early in their careers who create extraordinary books that reflect the universal experience of childhood and the strength of family and community in our diverse population.  Chesapeake Academy's Mock Ezra Jack Keats Award will be determined by a schoolwide vote. Eighth grade students, using a rubric developed by the Friends School in Baltimore, chose eight books from a list of seventeen published in 2021 and announced the nominees for the award at a school assembly on January 19 where the gathering watched an animated version of Keats' most famous work, The Snowy Day.  Now that the books nominated for the award have been announced, classes will begin reading, enjoying and evaluating the books over a five week period. Fourth grade students will study the life of the famed author and become the school's resident experts on the author/illustrator, sharing this information with the school. Classes may lobby for a favored tome, using persuasive writing, creating book trailers, posters, etc, and voting will take place in early March and be announced on March 8. A vigorous examination and debate on the nominees will hone thinking and communication skills while building enthusiasm for reading! Coach's Corner! The gym is abuzz with the sounds of basketballs and sneakers, and we are so excited to have our Ospreys back in action on the court for competitive play this winter! Between our JV and Varsity Boys' teams and our Varsity Girls' team, we have 30 student-athletes representing us, and they have been working hard to continue to grow their skills and knowledge about the game. These athletes spent several afternoons in December in the gym preparing for the start of the season, and they have been working hard each afternoon since we returned from Winter break.  After only five official practices, the varsity boys kicked off gameplay on January 12 with their game against Ware; and, while they came up short on the scoreboard, they should be proud of the good things they did on the court. This year, the varsity boys' team is coached by Coach Kerrington Shields. Coach Shields moved to the area recently, and he has been on campus this fall and winter as one of our substitute teachers. If you stop by the gym, you'll find Coach Shields and the varsity team working hard and building on what they learned in their first game to be better prepared for the next game. This season you'll see some familiar faces on the sidelines for both the JV boys' and varsity girls' teams. Coach Scott Keplinger, who coached JV soccer for us in the fall, is coaching the JV boys' team, and I am coaching the varsity girls' team. Our two teams have their first games soon, and we are looking forward to officially kicking off our seasons! We look forward to seeing you all in the bleachers this winter and cheering on our Ospreys in action!  Go Ospreys!  Coach Allen Polish Your Parenting Signs Your Child Might Be Spoiled and What to Do How to Counter Learned Helplessness How Learning an Instrument Benefits Your Brain How to Help your Kids Reframe their Anxiety and Reclaim their Superpowers Attitude of Gratitude Response to the Birthday Book Program has been enthusiastic and will add some wonderful titles to the James Library! Both snow days to play and read and warm sun to take it away are very good things! For the wonderful subs who step into the breach at a moment's notice, you are heroes! Thanks to Robin Blake for bringing the moon rocks to Chesapeake Academy! Thanks to Michael Schmid for sharing his enthusiasm and expertise with lego robotics with students! Thanks to Scott Keplinger and Kerrington Shields for coaching basketball! The consistent support and advice of the Three Rivers Health District and CA's Medical Advisory Board have kept CA students learning in person! For the parents who serve hot lunches we are grateful! Free testing! Hot soup! For all the ways cross-grade collaborations make younger students feel empowered, we are delighted and grateful. For colleagues who always step up to help--you make all the difference! Thanks to Mike Antonio for sharing his wonderful photographs of Osprey Athletics with us!

Save the Date 1/21 V Girls Basketball @ Veritas, 4:00 p.m. 1/24 through 1/28 MS Exams, seventh and eighth grades 1/26 Tag Day 1/26 Birthday Book Assembly 1/28 End of Second Marking Period, Noon release for students 2/2 Groundhog Day, Dress Uniform and Shoes 2/2 V Girls Basketball vs. ACDS, 4:00 p.m.; V Boys Basketball vs. ACDS, 5:00 p.m. 2/4 V Boys Basketball vs. Veritas @ Veritas, 4:00 p.m. 2/7 through 2/11 Parent Partnership Conferences 2/10 JV Boys @ Ware, 4:00 p.m.; V Girls @ Ware, 5:00 p.m.; V Boys @ Ware, 6:00 p.m. 2/15 ISAC Semifinals, TBD 2/17 ISAC Basketball Tournament, Boys, 5:00 p.m.; Girls 6:30 p.m. 2/18-2/21 Winter Break 2/23 Faculty Professional Development, 3:30 p.m. 2/23 Tag Day 3/2 Dress Uniform