Hello everyone. I hope that this email finds you safe and sound!  I am still in a state of shock at the amount of damage that Sandy has caused to so many people.  I hope all of you are recovering and that you and your loved ones are well. 

We will resume our Week 8 of school this Saturday!  Due to the snow day last Saturday, our schedule has been pushed back another week.  The board members are calling a special meeting to discuss the impact on the remainder of the calendar.  We were originally planning to have week 14 on one Saturday, and our Graduation and New Year celebration on the following Saturday – a response to our recently conducted survey.   Now we are back to the drawing board and need to figure out what adjustments we need to make.  We will keep everyone posted.

This Saturday we will be taking our class pictures.  So dress nice and smile!

An ACS sponsored training session for the teachers will be at our school tomorrow from 11:00am to 1:00pm.  Some elective classes might be canceled to allow the teachers to attend.  Teachers will make arrangements to make up the time in the subsequent weeks.   Thanks to all for your cooperation.  Class pictures for the canceled electives will be scheduled for another day.

Last but not least, a reminder from our board member, Ms. Cherry Kung.  Cherry will be coordinating the senior class scholarship award.   She asked that all senior class students start thinking about their application as the deadline approaches. More information to follow. 

Don’t forget to order your lunches now!  Here is the link: 

http://23.23.192.51/ibm-restaurant/onlineorder.html

See you tomorrow!   Classes start at 9am sharp.  Please be on time.

I hope this email finds you and your loved ones well.  Now that hurricane Sandy has moved on, I hope that everyone is safe and sound.  Let’s hope everything is back to normal as soon as possible.

We were just informed that Briarcliff Middle School will be closed for the remainder of the week due to the loss of power.  We will NOT have Chinese school this Saturday, 11/3.  Stay safe!

Hi Everyone,

Have you noticed the beautiful fall colors all around us?  Especially on the Taconic, the scenery is just out of this world!  I am always temped to take some pictures to capture the beautiful, colorful trees … too bad I am not good at “driving and snapping!” … You’ll just have to take my word for it.   Are you ready for week 6?

This week, the teachers will be reviewing the materials taught thus far and we will have our midterm exam next Saturday!  Relax! The exam is just one of the ways for the teachers to assess the students’ progress and for the teachers to determine if any adjustments are needed.  Just study and do the best you can!

Many of our teachers have attended training seminars over the last few years and we are going to have a few events where we can implement these great ideas we learned.  The goal is to have the students enjoy the activities while learning Chinese.   Our Academic Dean is planning our annual Speech and Writing Contests and they will be held in the Spring semester in 2013.  The lower grades will participate in the Speech Contest, while the higher grades will participate in the Writing Contest.  The contest requirements will be announced at the beginning of the Spring semester.  I can’t wait!   J

I just received an email from my kids’ middle school about College planning and it says “it is not too early to plan” … what timing!   This Saturday, the Ivy Labs Education will be at our school to talk about their “College Planning” program including  their summer program abroad.  Time:  9:30 am – 11;30 am @ the small theater by the cafeteria.  Hope to see you all there.

Also a big BRAVO to those students who participated in the Annual ACS (Association of Chinese School) Calligraphy Contest! Thanks to Ms. Liu, one of our Calligraphy teachers, who helped coordinate and encourage her students to participate.  Congratulations!  NWCS Calligraphy Contest Winners!  (see attachement for NWCS winners, I highlighed their names :-))

Welcome back everyone!  I hope that you and your family had a wonderful Mid-Autumn Holiday.  I know I loved my moon cake!  Get ready to return for week 5 of Chinese School.  The cold weather will definitely keep us awake!

Our Parent Teacher Conference will be on week 6, 10/20/2012, at 11am.  For those teachers who also teach the third hour, they will make other arrangements if needed.  Teachers, you might also want to have a sign in sheet this Saturday for parents to let you know if they will need to meet with you next Saturday and vice versa. If you need to meet with any particular parents, try to let them know this week. Parent-Teacher communication should occur throughout the school year, and this is just a recommended opportunity for those parents and teachers who would like to have a face to face chat!

On week 6, we are also having our Ivy Lab presentation in the school theatre.  More info to follow!  (Sorry, the last weekly indicated the incorrect date for this seminar).

We are working on preparations for the speech and writing contest and will announce the details shortly.

I just wanted to share a story with you  … a 1^st grade student was invited to a birthday party on 9/29 in the morning.  The mom reminded the daughter that she also has Chinese school at the same time.  The daughter thought about it (long and hard) and decided to decline the birthday invite because she did not want to miss the language class because it was fun (yes, she used the word FUN) and that she was going to learn how to make lantern and receive moon cake recipe in school!   She turned down a birthday party for Chinese School!  How cool is that!  With that I wish you a Happy Friday!

See you tomorrow!  Classes start at 9am sharp.  Please be on time.

Hi Everyone,

It is the end of September! Can you believe it?  When someone at work, who was taking the rest of the week off, said to me, “See you next month!”, I was like “Seriously?”  Then she started to talk about how she is planning to do some early holiday shopping, I had to close the door on her …seriously.  I can only plan for the next few days in advance, like week 4 of Chinese School!

I hope everyone is settling into the Saturday morning Chinese School routine.  I am sure it was a little rough after a nice long summer … well, help is on the way.  Next week we have no school so you can use the extra time to catch up on your Chinese homework …

Mid Autumn Holiday, 中秋節, is this Sunday.  We will have delicious moon cake tomorrow at school.  I hope you pre-ordered them last week.  No worries, our board members, Ms. Cindy Huang and Ms. Cherry Kung, have ordered some extras for tomorrow so you can enjoy a taste of the holiday!  I know that several teachers are planning to celebrate the holiday with the students, please be mindful to keep the classroom neat!  Our Chinese Art and Craft class will be making paper lanterns!  Cool, huh?!

There will be a “bake sale” tomorrow hosted by several teachers/parents as a fund raiser for our teacher, Ms. Liu-Weinstein.  Come and show your support!  

We will also be reserving 3 – 4 tables in the cafeteria for the hosting school as they are having some exciting sport events and will be having lunch in the cafeteria afterwards.

Looking forward to the next month:

10/6 – No School

10/13 – Week 05 – Ivy Lab will be on site to talk about their program.  More information to come.

10/20 – TBA

10/27 – Halloween celebration

See you tomorrow! Classes start at 9am.  Please be on time.

Hi Everyone,

I hope that everyone survived the tornado watch! The gusty wind almost blew me away on my way home … one can’t help but respect the power of nature! Well, if we can survive that, we can conquer anything, like learning Chinese! Welcome to Week 3!

We had a productive information exchange for the New Family Orientation meeting last Saturday. Thanks to those attended. We covered many topics from school curriculum, number of weeks for school (just in case you don’t know, 14 weeks in the Fall and 14 weeks in the Spring plus one Saturday for the Chinese New Year Celebration and graduation in January), to absences policy (allowed up to 6 absences in each semester). We stressed the fact that our school is going into our 44th year, is totally run on volunteers’ help and we need everyone to pitch in. Many parents face the same challenges and that is how we continue to motivate our children to want to learn Chinese. Basically it is going to be a long journey and our parent community is our support group for us to share experiences. Tips and ideas are welcome! There are two General Meetings in the Fall and Spring. The meeting in the Spring is for electing the next school year’s administation and board members. We encourage everyone to step up and participate and be part of this wonderful organization.

This Saturday is our first Board meeting which starts at 10:10am in the Admin Office.

Some parents are having their kids try out different classes. We only ask that you notify the Dean in advance so that the teachers can be informed and prepared to minimize disruptions to the classes. If you have not yet registered for the classes, you will need to see the registrar as this is already week 3 and the trial period is over! Thanks for your understanding and cooperation.

As mentioned, the school allows up to 6 absences each semester. For example, one parent notified the school that his child has been accepted to a college program that runs for 8 Saturdays and would like to work something out so that she can achieve and accomplish both the program and complete the Chinese School. We will work with you and the teacher to arrive at a solution that is best for the student. However, you need to contact the school so that the Dean, Teacher, and Vice Principal are aware.

Last but not least, our web master, Dr. Charles Perng, has come through for us once again. You will be able to order lunch tomorrow in the cafeteria and have it delivered!!!

See you tomorrow! Classes start at 9am sharp. Please be on time.

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to week 2!  Can you believe we survived the first week?  Besides a couple of small hipcups, I have to say overall, we had a smooth assembly and a great week 1. Thanks to everyone who came 15 minutes earlier for a successful week 1.

A couple of updates for this Saturday:

1. The SAT Prep sessions start this week; be sure to have your material and be on time.  Any questions, please email Benson Louie @ chairperson@nwcsny.org.

2. The Adult Chinese Converation Class starts this week.  The Adult Chinese Conversation is from 9:05 am to 10:00am for 10 sessions.  The instructor is yours truly :-).  I hope to see many of you registered since I only have 4 students in this class as of today.   It is time to learn to say more than just “Ni Hao”! 

3. The Guitar and Karaoke classes have been canceled. For the students who registered for these classes, please contact the registrar to either withdraw or change the elective.  Thanks for your cooperation.

4. The Chinese Painting class this semester will be Chinese Arts and Crafts.  The students made a clay panda last week which we will showcase on our web site once it is “cooked”.

5. The Introuduction to Chinese 1 has been combined with the 1B class.

We have quite a few new families joining us this year and I ask the teachers to help the new students to get familiar with our school.  For example, after the language classes, please help our new comers to their elective classes.  Same goes for the new students, ask your teachers if you need any assistance.  Together, we will make certain that our new students make lots of new friends and enjoy Chinese School!

On that note, we will have New Family Orientation Meeting in the middle school theatre (located right next to the cafteria) at 10:15am (right after the break).  It is an informal meeting for us to share school information and for our new families to have their questions answered. Basically an Information Q&A session.

Our registrar is working on finalizing the registration data and we wll probably have it completed after week4 once there are no more refunds.

If you would like to help with the breakfast club tasks, please see our purchaser, Min Peryea in the cafeteria or email her at vmperyea@gmail.com.

See you tomorrow!  Classes start at 9am sharp!  Please be on time.

Hello Everyone, 大家好,

I hope that you had a great summer and are all ready for school!  I remember this commericial of parents buying school supplies while singing “It’s the most wonderful time of the year ….” and the kids following behind with their sad faces … Not sure why I thought of it often lately and why it always brings a smile to my face.   :-)  Ahhhh, I don’t know about you, but I am ready to go back to the routine.

We had a productive week 0 Teacher Meeting and Board Meeting over the Labor Day Weekend.  Thanks for all attended!  The teachers reviewed the online registration tool as well as attendance and grade tracking process.  Thanks to Charles Perng and team’s hard work in designing and implementing our on-line registration tool.  As with any new tool, some of you may have experienced some difficulities in using the tool. I hope the issues were resolved and you are ready to start school next Saturday, 9/8.  If not, please contact the Registrar asap!

Our first day of school is Saturday, 9/8.  As we have done in the past few years, we will meet at the middle school gym at 8:45 am for a brief assembly before heading to our classes.  Just follow the sign and please be on time.

Our classes are scheuduled from 9am – 11am for language classes and 11am – 12 noon for electives.   There will be a brief 10 minutes break at 10am.  The Parents-On-Duty will be ringing the bells and walking around the hallways to remind everyone to take a break (usually no reminders needed) and when to get back to the classes (definitely needed!).  No eating and drinking in the classrooms! Please help us to keep the school clean for a pleasant learning environment.

We will be posting our class withdrawal/change information on the website so please read carefully to be informed of the school policy.  For classes with low enrollments, they will be either combined or canceled.  We will notify you as we finalize the changes, if any.

In response to the survey results, the teachers will build in more conversation in the language classes, additionally, we are having two conversation classes.  Conversation I is geared towards students who are in the 1st to 3rd grade and the Conversation II is for students in 4th grade to 6th grade.  We also have an Adult Chinese Conversation class, 10 sessions, from 9:05 to 10:00.  Sign up for the classes and let’s start converse in Chinese!

For those who plan to register on the first day of school, registration starts at 9:30am to avoid disruptions to the first day of school assembly.

Last but not least, we need volunteers to help out with the breakfast club as majority of the volunteered parents have graduated along with their children.  So unless we have people step up and volunteer,we will not have the breakfast club.  If you would like to find out what you can do to help, please contact our Purchaser, Min Peryea at vmperyea@gmail.com.

School Calendar:

09/08/2012 (Week 01) – First day of school, 8:45 in the middle school gym!  (No SAT and Adult Chinese Conversation)

09/15/2012 (Week 02) – Orientation for New Families (10:15 am in the middle school theatre)

09/22/2012 (Week 03) -

09/29/2012 (Week 04) – Mid Autum Holiday Celebration

10/06/2012 – No School

星期六見!  See you on Saturday, 9/8, at 8:45 am!

Hello Everyone,

What a gorgeous week we had! You could see kids playing baseball on the field or practicing with their lacrosse sticks on the street … I just wish my allergies were not so bad. It would have been perfect!

Ms. Cherry Kung, board member, is coordinating our Open House scheduled for May 19th.  Attached is the flyer that she would like your help distributing. Our teachers will also be working on creating and updating the class boards to showcase their work. Please offer your assistance to the teachers so that your class board really POPS, to get attention (not actually blow up)!  If you are able to help with the coordination effort, please see Cherry in the cafeteria.  Let’s have another successful Open House and show how proud we are of our school!

I have received several inquiries on the international or local summer camp Chinese programs.  We will have a Q&A session in our cafeteria next Saturday, 4/28.  Come with your questions on programs in China or to speak to parents who sent their children abroad on their experience.

That’s not all! Our co-Vice Principal is also working on having the NY Life representative come on 4/28 (still need to confirm the date) to talk about career opportunities.

Ms. Annie Bai, a parent, would like to share a Chinese photography exhibit/museum that she found interesting.  Check it out!  Katonah museum of art

Last but not least, please spend a few minutes to fill out the survey sent by Ms. Lynn Winters to share your ideas and feedback with us!   Don’t forget to include your email address to win a prize.

See you tomorrow!  Classes start at 9am sharp.  Please be on time.