CLASS EMAILS
One of our most beloved traditions is the Carnation Ceremony. Each fall, the seniors welcome the Sunrise (TK and K) students to the school with a flower; in the spring, the Sunrise students wish the seniors well by offering them a flower.
We are excited to announce the date for the fall ceremony, which will take place in a special Quaker Meeting on Monday, Sept. 22 at 1:30 p.m. at New Garden Friends Meeting, located at 801 New Garden Road.
We hope you can be there for this special celebration. If you plan to join us, please RSVP by Thursday, Sept. 18 by sending an email to Head of Middle and Upper School Tanisha Jones at tanisha@ngfs.org. Please include the number in attendance (not including your student) when you send your RSVP.
Note about Dismissal: The Sunrise class will travel by small NGFS bus to the meetinghouse for this event. The ceremony will end by 2:30. Sunrise parents/guardians who attend are welcome to take their Sunriser home from the meetinghouse after the ceremony. Remaining students will be bused back to campus for regular dismissal and Extended Care.
WEEKLY NEWS
9/22/25-9/26/25
We had another wonderful, busy week in Sunrise! On Monday we kicked off our week with our Fall Carnation Ceremony where we welcomed several of our family members to the meetinghouse across the street and met with our senior buddies who welcomed us into the community. Each senior presented a hand-drawn flower picture and personal carnation to their Sunrise buddy. Families of both seniors and Sunrisers stuck around afterward for pictures and conversation – it was a wonderful community event! Check out the highlights video here.
On Wednesday, we welcomed a new kindergarten student into our classroom. Our existing students were quick to welcome him and helped show him the ropes in Sunrise. We are thrilled to have a new addition to our class community!
In between all of these exciting events, we began practicing our letter A /Aa/ sound in literacy. On Thursday, we made apple prints, and on Friday we tried apple cider and made applesauce! In unit study, we continued talking about peace and exploring how each of us can bring peace into our community.
Next week in literacy we are excited to introduce the letter L, try Lemons and Limes, and write Letters to some of our most cherished community members!
9/15/25-9/19/25
We had another wonderful week in Sunrise! We got to go to the meeting house for the first time on Friday. After we were done with meeting for worship, we had the chance to practice for the carnation ceremony and look around the meeting room. With International Peace Day on the 21st, we had a lot of conversations about what peace means to each of us. We read books about peace and generated ideas about what peace feels like.
In literacy, we learned our first letter. We read books and listened for the sound that “m” makes. We learned how to write the letter m and we engaged in some fun learning activities to help us practice. We also generated a class list of all of the things we could think of that began with the sound /m/. We tasted mangos and manzanas (apples in spanish) and painted with marbles.
In Kindergarten math, we sorted a collection of objects and then counted how many in the part and how many in total. We noticed that when we changed the way we sorted a collection, the whole always stayed the same. We also started working on solving math stories with math tools (cubes and tens frames) and representing the story using math drawings.
In TK math, we explored pattern making. We copied patterns using bear counters, extended patterns and created our own patterns. We are working on being a part of a group an d following the group plan.
Reminder: School Photos Retake and Make Up Day - Tuesday, Sept 23
See the email that was sent from news@ngfs.org on Thursday, Sept. 18 (subject: School Photos Ready to View!) for all the details!
9/8/25-9/12/25
We survived our first full week of Sunrise and there was lots of fun and learning to be had by all! The highlight of our week was getting to meet our senior buddies on Friday. We got to pick a book to read with them and then we played on the playground. We are really looking forward to the Carnation Ceremony next Monday, Sept. 22. On Friday, we also had our first lower school meeting for worship in the gym. We sang some songs that we have been learning in music class and learned what it means to be in this space as a group.
This week in math, we continued counting to five the math way. We have also been discussing why it is important to know how to write our numbers so we can communicate with people how much of something we may need. We learned how to write the numerals 1-5 this week and we practiced counting a collection of objects and then writing the corresponding numeral.
In literacy, we finished our unit on lines. We have officially learned all of the lines that we will need to write all of the letters in the English alphabet. We will now start our year long work of learning our letters and their corresponding sounds. The first letter up is Mm. As you go through the week, look for things all around you that start with the letter m. If you would like to send in one item to share with the class, we would love to add the items to our letter museum. We will send the items home with our friends each Friday.
We learned all about our feelings this week and this will be something that we continue to talk about and explore throughout the year. The big three we talked about were happy, sad, and angry. We read a book called “Ruby Finds a Worry,” and discussed how it is important for us to talk about our feelings so they don’t get out of control.
Thank you to everyone who attended Lower School Parent Night on Tuesday. Here are links to the presentations that were shared:
9/2/25-9/5/25
We had a wonderful week in Sunrise! We’ve enjoyed continuing getting to know each other, familiarizing ourselves with the space, and settling into routines. We completed our first week of resources with two days of PE and one day of art and music. In kindergarten and TK math, we worked on counting collections and making pairs through stories and games.
In literacy, we worked on forming horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines in a variety of ways; we practiced on the carpet with our fingers, on paper with crayons, and even drew upright on papers taped to the wall! In addition to academics and play, we spent the week having conversations about what we want our classroom community to be like. We explored what it means to be safe at school, what we want to learn this year, and how we can be good friends to one another in Sunrise.
On Friday we had meeting for worship together in our classroom and went for a walk at Guilford College. Next week, we are looking forward to sharing about life in Sunrise on Tuesday (Sept. 9) at Lower School Parent Night, picture day on Thursday, and whole-school meeting for worship on Friday!
Fall Carnation Ceremony Date Set
On Friday, Sept. 5, this email invitation was sent for our Fall Carnation Ceremony.
One of our most beloved traditions is the Carnation Ceremony. Each fall, the seniors welcome the Sunrise (TK and K) students to the school with a flower; in the spring, the Sunrise students wish the seniors well by offering them a flower.
We are excited to announce the date for the fall ceremony, which will take place in a special Quaker Meeting on Monday, Sept. 22 at 1:30 p.m. at New Garden Friends Meeting, located at 801 New Garden Road.
We hope you can be there for this special celebration. If you plan to join us, please RSVP by Thursday, Sept. 18 by sending an email to Head of Middle and Upper School Tanisha Jones at tanisha@ngfs.org. Please include the number in attendance (not including your student) when you send your RSVP.
Note about Dismissal: The Sunrise class will travel by small NGFS bus to the meetinghouse for this event. The ceremony will end by 2:30. Sunrise parents/guardians who attend are welcome to take their Sunriser home from the meetinghouse after the ceremony. Remaining students will be bused back to campus for regular dismissal and Extended Care.