CHARLOTTE LAB SCHOOL CHESS TEAM 

Thirty students from Lab attended this year's CMSCA Grade Championship, held this weekend at Olympic High School. Lab's fourth and second grade teams earned the title of City Champions, while the first, third, and fifth grade teams all placed second. Logan Parsons won the individual title of City Champion for the fifth grade, and Atilla Montesano won the title for first grade. 

Additional individual trophies were awarded to Jake Baugh for second place in fourth grade, Berk Eskinazi for third place in third grade, and Liam Parsons for fifth place in third grade. Lab coaching staff gave sportsmanship awards to Reese Efird and Anne Kinghorn, and mental toughness awards to Phelps Bacon and Lucas Kalons.

Coaches: Cindy Smith, John Teague. 

Grade level coaches: K-1: Erol Eskinazi, second grade: Monica Montesano, third grade: Eric Davis, fourth grade: Angie Kinghorn, fifth grade: Lisa Parsons.

Images From the Week

Volunteers of the Week: Cindy Colin and Magdalena Jocobo came to Charlotte Bilingual Preschool to talk to prospective parents about Lab. Pictured with Mrs. Salas!

Sound Garden 2.0 Drum set being built by 2nd graders. Collaboration was key to getting this project finished.

3rd graders finished up the Perfect Cookie quest by creating stop motion animations of phase changes. This group used some Play-Doh to stabilize their camera.

A 3rd grade logo design for the Perfect Cookie bake sale.

5th grade continued discussions on Urban Heat Islands by measuring the differences in absorption across surfaces.

Images From the Week

Volunteers of the Week: Cindy Colin and Magdalena Jocobo came to Charlotte Bilingual Preschool to talk to prospective parents about Lab today. Pictured with Mrs. Salas!

Birthday Love at Lab. First Grade Celebrates birthdays for Mrs. Dreyer and Sra. Najenson


Some 1st Graders Visit Google Fiber and
Discuss This Month's Character Trait of "Curiosity"

Sound Garden 2.0 Drum set being built by 2nd graders. Collaboration was key to getting this process finished.

3rd graders finished up the Perfect Cookie quest by creating stop motion animations of phase changes. This group used some Play-Doh to stabilize their camera.

A 3rd grade logo design for the Perfect Cookie bake sale.

5th grade continued discussions on Urban Heat Islands by measuring the differences in absorption across surfaces.

First Tournament of the Season

The Charlotte Lab School chess team kicked off its second year of competition with a smashing success this weekend at the CMSCA Team Tournament at Olympic High School.

Lab fielded a team of 38 students. Players were split into teams for the competition, where each individual played three games of chess. 

Lab teams won six out of seven possible first place trophies. The dominance of the Lab teams was such that the tournament staff ran out of trophies!

All our players displayed great sportsmanship and teamwork, and we could not be more proud. This is a stupendous start to the season for these young Lab players, and we look forward to great things from this team. 

Coaching team: Angie Kinghorn, Monica Montesano, Lisa Parsons, Cindy Smith, and John Teague.

Check out these great pictures from the day!

Meet Our New Bus Company--and Drivers!
Charlotte Lab School is very pleased to report that Eagle Bus Service is off to a great start this year providing a wonderful experience for our students who ride the bus. We've had great feedback from parents and students about the friendly, professional, and on-time performance of the buses. 

There are three new buses, bus routes, and fantastic new bus drivers.  So come join Miss Jasmine (Bus 1), Miss Pauletta (Bus 2- pictured below with Mr. Carraway), and Miss Regina (Bus 3).  

There is still room on the buses, and if you would like to try out the service, please contact Eagle Bus. Additional details, a complete list of stops and times, and contact info can be found on the Eagle Bus website.


Festival Latino Americano
We had a great time at the Festival Latino Americano last weekend. Fortunately, the event was rescheduled to Sunday, so we were able to enjoy a beautiful day and connect with prospective parents to let them know about Charlotte Lab School.  Special thanks to our volunteers, including Lab parents: Juliana Anglero & Akua Carraway and Lab Staff: Stefanny Wilches, Mitch Carraway, and Kendra Johnson. But the biggest thanks for the day goes to four of our amazing Lab students (pictured below) who handed out information and shared their enthusiasm for Lab.

Students (l to r): Rosie Anglero, Lian Araiza, and Angie Anglero. Not Pictured: MJ Carraway

Books, Books, Books

Browsing for Books at Donuts for Dads

Another Scholastic Book Fair has ended. And, it was the most successful one, yet! First, a big thanks to our amazing volunteers. Mandy French, Lauren Moore, Kelly Schwartz were key to the successful week-long event. They came every day to help our students select and buy their books, as well as to set up and break down the fair. They were supported by a fabulous group of parents including Monica Montesano, Rachel Efrid, Nola McClure, Mandy May, Anna Odle, Amelia Abbott, Marty Pizzo, Keri Schacht, Sharon Jackson, Carrie Nagle, Holly Wells, Karen Riley, Paige McCloskey, Siddhi Shah, Anne Rogers, Stacey Lanier, Sue Hawes, and Kia Green-Dixie.

Total book sales = $9,869.21, which means that the PTSO will receive $2,300 in proceeds that will go towards buying books for the school. If you still have some books on your wish list, don't worry, it's not too late to shop and support the school. You can access the online book fair through Oct 5.

BOOKS FOR ALL
This year, we launched a new program to help students who would not have otherwise had the chance to buy a book. Thanks to the generosity of many families, we collected $1,176 in donations and approximately 60 students in need were able to shop and bring home a book (or two). We are so thankful to the parents and students who made a donation to help our families. The unused money will go towards our next book fair. 

The Books for All program is a great new tradition for the school; we are excited to share some of the thank you notes we received.

"Thank you to the person that donated money for me to get a book. When I heard my name called, you should have seen my face. I was super excited. If you are curious about what book I got, it was Diary of a Wimpy Kid." 4th Grade Student

“I realized that I was going to the book fair to get a book!! I could not believe this was happening! It took me a while to decide because I wanted to pick books that I would be able to cherish and remember….I am so excited to read them and to remember that I got them because of you!” 5th Grade Student

Thanks to all of our Lab parents who attended Curriculum Night last week. We were excited to see the more than 200 parents who came to learn more about what their child will be learning this year. In addition to grade-level presentations, we rolled out Seesaw, our new student-driven online portfolio platform, which will be used to share student work and other updates with parents. For those of you who were here last year, Seesaw will replace Mastery Connect and our Google Sites.

How to get started:
If you have not already logged on, don't worry, its easy! All you need is the Seesaw for Parents app and your child's QR code, which was sent home your child's green folder on Sept. 26 if you did not pick it up at Curriculum Night. Contact your child's advisor if you have any questions or need another copy of your personal QR code. 

You can find the Grade Level presentations here:

• Kindergarten Curriculum Night Presentation
• First Grade Curriculum Night Presentation
• Second Grade Curriculum Night Presentation
• Third Grade Curriculum Night Presentation
• Fourth Grade Curriculum Night Presentation
• Fifth Grade Curriculum Night Presentation

You can also check out our online Q&A Discussion from the evening.

For those of you who were not able to attend, we got a lot of great feedback from parents. Here are some direct quotes from emails that we received about Curriculum Night:

• “Tonight was so great - really informative and wonderful to meet all of our children's teachers at the beginning of the year… I was impressed by their [the staff’s] enthusiasm and all their hard work over the summer to be ready for an even better second year at Lab.”
• “I was totally blown away by curriculum night! It was awesome! I love all of the changes for this year and it was so great to hear from teachers in all of the areas. All of the teachers were so excited about their subjects, the energy was awesome, it was well organized… I could go on.”
• “We would like to thank you [Mary] and your entire administrative team (as well as the teachers) for last night. It was efficient, organized, and we left with so much great information!”
• “We have been attending curriculum nights for nine years and this one was by far the best use of our time. It is clear that everyone at Lab is on the same page with the same shared vision. That's really exciting (and not always easy to do!) We realize the amount of preparation that goes into creating a night like last night - and we truly appreciate it.”
• “[To staff] Please pass along our thanks and appreciation for all the time and effort taken to prepare for this year and for the explanations last night.  The teachers' enthusiasm is infectious and it's so great to see!”

Last Friday, we hosted a terrific speaker at our advisory assemblies. Mr. Reginald Blackmon, a local therapist who works on identity development in children, gave inspirational and age-appropriate talks on finding your seed of greatness, being your best self, and what to do if your friends try to convince you to do something you know is wrong. Mr. Blackmon shared personal stories of growing up, with an emphasis on how important it is to be kind, work together, and be trustworthy.

Be sure to ask your child what they learned and to share his/her favorite story from the day.

"My goal with children is to tap into and help them unleash their potential for greatness! Children needs someone to believe in them, encourage them and point them in the right direction."  Reginald V Blackmon

Second Graders Practice Teamwork by Passing a Can Using Only Their Feet

Big Day at Lab

What better way to kick off our new blog than with pictures from our new playground, which opened for business today! By all accounts, it is a big success.  All of the classes had a chance to climb, spin, hop, balance, run, tumble, and even relax in the new space. Once again, we want to thank our more than 250 families and friends who made this possible. Thanks to the generosity of so many, we raised just over $130,000, and we were able to afford our complete vision, plus some necessary extras including much-needed drainage improvements, shading, and a new fence. We are moving forward with Phase 2 of the project, which includes the stage and hangout zone. We expect this phase to move fairly quickly once the engineering drawings have been approved by the county. (Fingers crossed that permit will come through soon.)

Here are some pictures from opening day!

The spinner is a big hit! 

Practicing the monkey bars.

Rock hopping and balance beaming

Chillin' on the rock wall

Hanging out with friends

Artist at work