Welcome February!
Dear Wonderful Families,

The weather has been causing us sleepless nights as we worry about whether to open, delay or close.  We take each day at a time, but Mother Nature has not been very forthcoming, so our best guesses are not always accurate. We can’t wait until Spring!!

Life has been exciting around our ‘World’ with basketball championships, our Invention Convention, the Rube Goldberg contest and MathCounts win!!! Our students are simply amazing. Kudos to you and your children!!

Please remember that we will be closed this Monday, the 17th, in observance of Presidents’ Day and will have a really special Recognition and Awards Assembly on Wednesday as we recognize our athletes, mathletes, science whizzes and more. Thursday we will have our Future Grades K-4 Step Up Day. Wow, time is just flying!!

Our wonderful Presidents’ Day activities from today will be included in next week’s Coordinates as they were not all in as of press time!!

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all and have a good long weekend. We hope this flu season disappears quickly...and we will be deep sanitizing the school, again, over the weekend. 

Warm regards,
Kathy and Lisa for all of us
President and Head of School  
Upcoming Events and Important Dates
Upcoming Important Date Reminders
  • Friday, February 14th
  • Valentine's Day Friendship Parties 
  • Pre3/Emergent 4s Valentine Teas 9:00-11:00am 
  • Grades 2-4 Lunch Order Form due for March 
  • ECE Mid-Year Parent Meetings End

  • Week of February 16th - No Dance This Week 
  • Sunday, February 16th
  • RECF IQ NH State World Qualifier 7:30-5:30pm @ Manchester Community College - Good luck, NorthStars!
  • Monday, February 17th 
  • World Academy CLOSED In Observance of Presidents’ Day 
  • Wednesday, February 19th 
  • Coffee and Conversations 8:00-8:45am
  • Recognition & Award Assembly 8:45am - Grade 1 Mrs. Tucker – Caring & Compassion
  • Grade 3 - Class Robotics 
  • Thursday, February 20th 
  • Future K-Grade 4 Step Up Day 
  • Friday, February 21st 
  • Maha Shivaratri 
  • RIZE IQ Meet @ WA 6:00-8:00pm - Goooo, NorthStars!!
  • Saturday, February 22nd 
  • RIZE League Meet @ World Academy - Good luck, NorthStars!!

Future Important Activities
  • Week of February 24th-28th
  • K-8 Winter Break - No K-8 Classes***
  • ECE and Vacation Program in-session with “February Fitness Fun” in session - see below for details!
  • Friday, March 6th
  • 2nd Term closes for Grades K-8
  • Friday, March 13th
  • World Academy Alumni Association’s Annual Alumni Basketball Game - Join us for this always memorable and fun activity!!!!
  • K-8 Report Cards and ECE Progress Reports distributed to families.
  • Friday, March 27th 
  • Father/Daughter Dance - theme “Country” Save the date and get your boots out!!
  • Sunday, April 19th
  • WORLD ACADEMY ANNUAL OPEN HOUSE 2-4pm - JOIN US!! This is our flagship Open House that we prepare all year for!!
***K-8 Winter Break - February 24th-28th
Our K-8 classes will not be in session, but our awesome Vacation Program has planned a “Fitness Fun” theme that will include sporty games, mindfulness, yoga, healthy cooking activities, tracking steps across the USA, and more activities to support keeping a healthy mind and body. It will be GREAT fun and is open to all students that age...not just World Academy students... so have your kids tell their friends!!
Save the Date! 
The World Academy Alumni Association would like you to save the date for their annual Alumni Basketball Game on Friday March 13th at 6:30 pm. This annual event bridges the ages of our NorthStar community and brings all together for laughter and fun! Following the game there will be a reception for all World Academy Alumni! Please spread the word to all past World Academy students. 
World Academy Celebrate Random Acts of Kindness Week
World Academy will be growing a kindness tree right in our Entrance Hall from February 17th-21st as part of Random Acts of Kindness Week. This event will be supported by our wonderful School Community and Leadership Club (AKA Kindness Club), who will be working closely with our School Counselor, Mrs. Hulfachor, to ensure that kindness is spread all over our school community. Everyone in our "World" is encouraged to participate. Students, staff and families are encouraged to write acts of kindness on the heart-shaped leaves we will be providing.

Kindness Trees are a beautiful way to focus on and acknowledge the importance of showing kindness within a school. The tree helps foster kind, supportive relationships among students and in our community. Be sure to keep checking this week to see how it has blossomed!
PTO & Community News
If you haven’t already, please take a moment to check out the PTO Book Cart for the adults of our WA Community. This might be the perfect time to grab a great book for your special sweetheart! It is a fabulous way to model literacy for your children and the weather is perfect to get warm and cozy with a book!!
Box Tops for World Academy
Help the PTO raise money for their fun programs and activities for our whole school community by scanning OR clipping those Box Tops! Every Top scanned or clipped is worth $ .10 and that adds up fast. If you need to download the Box Tops app to your phone, you can learn more and do that by clicking here,

Even though the Box Tops program has changed, you can still collect Tops in a clear plastic bag (be sure the Tops are not expired) and write your child’s name, grade, and teacher’s name on the bag. One submission per family is fine—just include all students’ info. Bring the Tops into school and drop them in a Box Tops collection box found near the Front Desk, in the Elementary hallway or in the Middle School entry area. 

For more information, please contact Karen Bradshaw at kebleo@me.com. Thank you, in advance, for your participation! 
On Tuesday, local author and retired New Hampshire educator, Chell Sommese, came to read her book to the Preschool 4s and Elementary Students. Inspired by the true story of her own dog’s journey to her new home in New Hampshire, Chell wrote  The Adventure of Dharma Doxie. We were happy to have her share her story with us! Click here for more details about Chell and her upcoming book signing event.
Thank Yous, Kudos and Reminders
Congratulations to the Arpan Bhaduwala Family on the birth of their baby boy!

 Special thanks to Donna Fusi for all of her support of our program!!!
Eighth Grade Rube Goldberg Machine Challenge
The Young Inventors’ Program is project-based learning that encourages critical thinking, and introduces basic principles of design thinking through out-of-the-box problem solving, leading youth in the creation of their own invention. Since 1986, YIP’s hands-on approach has brought STEM into the K-8th Grade curriculum for more than 6,000 students each year. YIP is unique in that students present and market their idea at the Invention Convention where STEM industry representatives and community members serve as role models, resources, and judges for the school and regional competitions. Our students at World Academy thrive as they collaborate on these projects and utilize all of their skills to create successful Rube Goldberg Machines!
What is the Rube competition you ask? Reuben Lucius Goldberg (Rube Goldberg®) was born in San Francisco in 1883. After graduating from the University of California, Rube did a short stay with the City of San Francisco Water and Sewers Department and eventually got a job as a sports cartoonist for a San Francisco newspaper. An outstanding success, he soon moved to New York, drawing daily cartoons for the Evening Mail. Through his inventions, Rube Goldberg® discovered harder ways to achieve easy results. Rube believed that there are two ways to do things, the simple way and the hard way, and that a surprisingly large number of people preferred doing things the hard way. The Rube Goldberg® Machine Contest brings Goldberg‘s cartoons to life in a way that pulls students away from traditional ways of looking at problems and sends them spinning into the intuitive, chaotic realm of imagination. The resulting inventions are collections of bits and pieces, parts of now useless machines, pieced together to achieve an innovative, imaginative, yet somehow logical contraption to conquer the job at hand. The contest shows us all the need for simplicity and the pitfalls of complexity.

Congratulations to the winners of this year’s Rube Goldberg contest: 
  • First Place - 'Aquanator' - Created by Brandon Billingsley, Justin Dobski, Natalie MacSweeney, and Elaine Zhan  
  • Second Place - 'Great-O-Rade' - Created by Russell Adler, Ekaterina Checkina, Ahmed Hamiroune, and Devon Morrison  

Kudos to all of our students for their hard work and collaboration!

We are extremely grateful for the talented group of World Academy parents who volunteered their time to score all of our Rube Goldberg Machines. Check out their amazing bios below! If you wish to support us in this way in the future, please let Dr. Dias know at ldias@worldacademynh.com. Parent interaction makes our school stronger!

Melissa St. Peter, Parent of a WA Toddler
Melissa is a Senior Principal Systems Engineer and the Department Head for the Nuclear Force Direction and Weapons department at the MITRE Corporation in Burlington, Massachusetts. In this role, Melissa works across DoD acquisition, command and war fighting organizations to think differently about strategic deterrence and the C3 capabilities needed in the future. Melissa holds a M.S. in Modeling and Simulation from Old Dominion University and dual B.A. degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Maine. 

John Hehir, Parent of a WA Toddler   
John is a Civil Engineer and Aviation Project Manager for Jacobs Engineering Group, the top ranked design firm in the United States. He currently designs parts of airports that are in need of development or maintenance. He is also Ms. Angela’s husband and we are grateful for his support, daily!

Jon Seward, Parent of two WA children
Jon has a degree in Computer and Electrical Engineering. He currently works for iRobot as a Senior Software Engineer specializing in custom Automation Solutions. 

Thank you for your time and talents in making our “World” better for all of our students!!!
This year,  the World Academy Alumni Association is celebrating the 40th year anniversary of the founding of World Academy by participating in a donation drive called "40 for 40"! Since 1980, the school has educated and nurtured over 20,000 students, and we would like to honor that accomplishment by paying tribute to the students, teachers, alumni and special memories from our “World!” We are aiming to attain 40 gifts in honor of the 40 years of excellence.  Please consider donating a gift of any amount to the WA Alumni Association . All gifts designated to the  “40 for 40” will go directly to the WA Alumni Association’s Scholarship Fund to support a quality World Academy education to even more deserving students.
Thank you to donor, Todd and Meagan Pollack , who made a donation in honor of current student, Mackenzie !

NorthStars Athletics & Competition Results
NorthStar Mathletes Earn Top Spot at UNH MathCounts Competition!
We are excited to share with you that World Academy's Math Team placed FIRST at the Annual Seacoast MathCounts Regional competition on Saturday, Feb 8th, in Durham, NH.
 
The winning team consists of Hrushikesh Sankar, Ayush Chakraborty, Elaine Zhan, and Emily Breault. They competed against other regional Middle School teams in this prestigious competition with Hrushikesh placing 5th, Ayush placing 8th, and Elaine placing 12th among over 90 participants. Shrey Shah, Dylan Zhang, Micah Allard, and Sanvi Garkipati competed as individuals and performed extremely well. The team is moving on to compete at the State level competition which will be held in March.

Congratulations to the NorthStar Mathletes! Be on the lookout for our newest banner for this accomplishment that will hang in the Entrance Hall soon!
Robotics Update
This week two of our Robotics teams will be competing for a chance to attend the RECF IQ world Championships in Louisville Kentucky. The teams will be at Manchester Community College on Sunday, February 17th from 9am-3pm competing in a series of competition matches, skills challenges, and judging sessions to evaluate their programming, design and engineering skills. We want to wish Cara, Emily, Lucas, and Ronen luck as they compete in the Middle School division, and George, Oliver, Matty, and Alex as they compete in the Elementary Division.
Volleyball Season Is Coming!
Tryouts for volleyball are on Tuesday, February 18th from 2:45 to 3:45pm and will be open to all students in Grades 5 and up. During the season, our intention is to help your daughter/son become a well-rounded Volleyball player and student athlete. All the information you need to sign up your child will be sent out by Coach Congdon this Friday. Please feel free to contact Erik Congdon after Friday with any questions at econgdon@worldacademynh.com
Seen Around Our 'World'
We love to know what our students and families are up to outside of school! If you have something you would like to share, please don't hesitate to share it with us! Click here to email us your photos with details for us to post! We especially love to hear (and brag!) about student accomplishments outside of school! We love sharing ALL about each of our students!
Friendship was in the air this morning in our Preschool! Our wonderful Preschool Threes and Emergent Pre4 classes celebrated love and friendship with performances for their families! They all did a fantastic job!
The Preschool Fours “Funky Monkeys” are learning about friendship this week! The students each made a special friendship bracelet for a friend whose name was drawn from a bowl. The students were so excited to share their gifts with their secret friends.
The Sixth Grade Science classes are working on a Science Unit on Energy. This lab activity was in the Lesson titled Light and Color. Students created a wheel with the colors in the following order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Once they spun the wheels, they saw white! We discovered that white was not its own color but instead consists of all of the colors. When too many different colors of light are mixed, they make the light appear white!
This week the Fifth Graders fed the Hydroponics garden with 24ml of nutrients. This was the first feeding since the initial one when they set up the garden two weeks ago. Students also noticed which plants sprouted most, and measured a growth of 1” for the lettuce. They noted observations and results on their lab sheet.
Both Third Grade classes looked at the mechanics of animals this week. Each class built a robotic fish with a working tail and then used their creativity to modify the fish to create a new species.
Have a great three day Valentine’s weekend!
(603) 888-1982