• Thursday, April 26, Beaufort Academy is having a Blood Drive, 12-4 p.m.
• Saturday, April 28 is Beaufort Academy’s Prom, 8 p.m.
• Monday, April 30, Riverview Charter School’s soccer team plays away game versus Hilton Head Prep.
• Wednesday, May 2 is Beaufort Academy’s Parent/Student appreciation lunch, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. (Stay tuned: The PreK and Kindergarten students are expecting their chicks to hatch and their butterflies to emerge any day!)

Having a blast at Barrier Island Eco Camp
Elementary students from E. C. Montessori &amp; Grade School spent three days at Barrier Island Eco Camp this month.  The mud pit was one of the children’s favorite activities, in addition to many other lessons in biology, ecology, conservation, astronomy, and botany.

Congratulations to Judi Babalis, Finalist for Teacher of the Year
Beaufort Academy Pre-K teacher Judi Babalis was one of three Lower School teachers from across the state honored on Tuesday, April 17, 2012, as a Finalist at the Annual Teacher of the Year Awards Banquet in Orangeburg, SC. The awards are presented by the South Carolina Independent School Association (SCISA), whose member schools total more than 100 independent schools in South Carolina.

Computer Programming for 3rd – 6th graders
During the weeks of March 26 and April 2, Beaufort Academy offered an after-school program at no cost for students in grades 3 through 6 on computer programming through a program called Scratch. Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab.  As students create and share projects with Scratch, they learn to think creatively, reason systematically and work collaboratively. Using Scratch, students learned important concepts such as iteration and conditionals in a meaningful context; and also, important mathematical concepts such as coordinates, variables, and random numbers within the personal context of how they applied it to their own program.

Recycled Rookery
Elementary students from E. C. Montessori &amp; Grade School created a project called “Recycled Rookery” where each child’s bird was displayed on old kudzu vines cut down to save trees that were overgrown with the invasive vine.  The work was displayed at Habersham’s Earth Day Celebration where it won “Most Creative” and the “People’s Choice” award in the children’s division.

Healthy hearts at BES
Beaufort Elementary School students did a fantastic job with Jump Rope for Heart this year raising nearly $3,000 — almost double that of the past two years. Several students raised more than $250 individually. Also, 56 students received “The President’s Physical Fitness Award” for their outstanding fitness scores on the five-component assessment.  Each student had to demonstrate muscular strength, flexibility, endurance, speed and agility, and score in the 85th percentile or higher in all five.

Dates for Riverview’s new student lottery
Due to overwhelming interest in every grade level, all openings will be filled via public lottery on two dates:
On Thursday, May 3 at 5 p.m. all open openings for the 2012-2013 school year will be filled.
On Thursday, May 10 at 5 p.m. all remaining openings (including seats declined after the May 3rd lottery) will be filled.  Thereafter, all remaining lottery cards will be pulled to create the wait list for the 2012-2013 school year.

<em>School briefs compiled by Tess Malijenovsky. </em>
<em>Send us your school or classrooms upcoming events to schoolnews@beaufortislandnews.com.</em>