Reflecting on our Festival

As we gathered around coffee, we reflected on our past International Children's  Festival. The Jefferson Elementary School was having a clean up day at the same time so it was great to see the interaction between the two communities that share this beautiful campus together.

Some of you mentioned that you have not received our link to the survey about our festival. Usually we send these through Kinderlime newsletters. Incase you haven't received this here it is below. We are always looking for ways to improve our events, and your feedback is critical to our process. It is a very short survey so please take second. Thank you and we appreciate your time.

Here is the link to the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BCGLZQZ

For those of you who missed today's announcements here are some big dates for the month of May:

-May 6th:Parent Seminar with Duygu Balan Founder of come as you are therapy
-May 13th:Mothers Day Tea/Brunch Martha Ozturk will be sending an invitation, please kindly RSVP

-May 20th: End of the year Community Potluck/ Youth & Sports Day

Thank you, and looking forward to next Sunday!

Thank you for celebrating with us!

On a beautiful Sunday on April 22nd, 2018 the Berkeley Turkish School community organized and hosted their 4th annual International Children’s Day Festival.

We thank our amazing parent community, our sponsors, and our guests for participating and helping put this meaningful event together to celebrate our children, and the value of democracy and the richness diversity brings to our lives.

The founders of our school Başak Çakıcı and Başak Altan opened the ceremony talking about the historic meaning behind this important day, April 23rd National Sovereignty and Children's Day in Turkey, which was later adopted by UNESCO to celebrate as International Children’s Day world wide.

Their mindful message reflected on the mission of our school and how BTS crafts their school programs, through meaningful events they organize and weave Modern Turkey’s founder Atatürk’s principles as well as his legacy to into the tapestry of BTS’s curriculum.

As we watched the Berkeley Turkish School Children sing songs in Turkish, and perform dances along side with the BTS Parent Folklore team to commemorate the meaning behind this important day we were yet reminded of how lucky we are to be a part of this community where we connect our past with our future in meaningful ways.

Thank you from all of us at The Berkeley Turkish School, we couldn’t have done this without the support of our community.

Lovely Photos and  Credits: BTS Teacher Hande Tokgoz Utku

Celebrating the International Children's Day Festival at BTS

We thank all our guests,  teachers, parents, sponsors, and our children for celebrating this day with us and supporting our school's mission. It was a fantastic day full of excitement, delicious food, great dancing, amazing music, and lovely performances by the BTS students, parents and Monterey Folk dance team. Most of all, we thank  all of those who volunteered their time and services  in making this day a memorable one. 

Here are some initial photos of our day. Enjoy!

Berkeley Turkish School Folklore Team is very excited for this Sunday!

With the direction of our Folklore Teacher Mehmet Bey, the Berkeley Turkish School Parent Folklore team has been practicing on Sundays. We are super excited to perform the first time this Sunday at the International Children's Festival: Artvin, Ankara and Damat Halayi dances. Here is a sneak peak of  our practice last night at Basak Altan's house.

We also wanted to  thank Sema Altan for ordering and Elif Kale & Baris Lostuvali for carrying our costumes from Turkey. It takes a village! Hope to see and dance with all of you  on Sunday!

Cinar Classroom at work preparing a peace corner and the legacy of Ataturk

Mese and Cinar classroom students were busy with their teacher Hande Hanim preparing our school's Ataturk corner that will be showcased at our festival.

At the Berkeley Turkish School we  believe that secular and democratic education ensures public sovereignty and rationality. In our curriculum and in our school's diverse activities we celebrate Atatürk, the founder of Modern Turkey, and his legacy in meaningful ways that connect our children to their Turkish history. The international Children's Festival is one of the many occasions where our children learn and reflect through classroom activities to get an understanding of the topics and historical context.  We hope you can all  join us on Sunday in celebrating this special day. 

Collective Art Work

With Gozde Teacher's leadership we worked on a collaborative art project with Elma and Manolya Classrooms. Beautiful sunny day with lots of fun made this great day a truly  a memorable one. Here are some  photos from our day.

We have an exciting program for our upcoming International Children's festival!

Preparing for our festival

The mindset of our weekend was community and communication. 

Here are some photos of our adult folk dance group that Mehmet Bey is training. We are getting ready for the Children's Festival. The only  obstacle standing in this effort's way is that if we can only stop laughing.

 

Multi Cultural Parenting Seminar

We can not believe it is March already! Where did February go?

This past Sunday our school was proud to host Dr. Nes Pinar's Multi Cultural Parenting workshop. As always, it was a fantastic and a thought provoking seminar. Thank you Neslihan!

While the parents enjoyed conversations on the side of "Pismaniye" which was freshly brought from Turkey (thank you Olcay Bey!) we couldn't help but notice the advancement of our casual soccer games that are taking place in parallel to our curriculum :))

We also had a distinguished guest visitor, Mr. Ozcan Cikmaz, who is the CEO of Hospital On  Mobile. Our leading team has been helping the Georgia Tech Educators and their team in their launching of a Turkish Community School in Atlanta Georgia. Our school is evolving, learning, growing, and at the same time we are being recognized as an example to other community schools. We are happy to share our experiences in creating a community school so many can enjoy the benefits of working together as a team.

If you would like to sponsor an activity for our upcoming international children's day festival, please get in contact with our advancement director Ms. Fatosh Arabacioglu. 

Thank you!

 

TALKING ABOUT OUR FAMILY

This week, the theme was learning about Our Families. 

The Elma classroom had Sema Altan as their visiting teacher. Together they learned about different geometric shapes, and forms. They conversed  about different kinds of families, with two moms, two dads, one mom and one dad, single mom, single dad etc. The children enacted stories with puppets, and created their own penguin families from the geometric shapes that form the foundational understanding of geometry. The Magnolia class begin with their Mindfulness session with Irem Radzik, and transitioned to a very focused folklore class after learning about the Alphabet with Gulten Demirbek and Pelin Bektur. 

This Past Sunday was also our first held Adult Folklore Class with Mehmet Unal. We had a great turnout and are looking forward to learning more. We began learning our Artvin and Ankara dance moves. It is so much fun. So here is your chance, please join in as next weekend is the last weekend to join the class. 

Here are some images from this past Sunday. Thank you and see you next Sunday!

NEW SEMESTER, NEW FACES, NEW DANCES

Every semester we learn new things, together as a community.

This semester is the first time our school will be offering a Folk Dance class with our new instructor Mehmet Unal. We are super excited, and looking forward to our new folk dance group which is forming from our parents as well as the little ones in Magnolia class.

In an effort to have well functioning class time, we have implemented a set of new initiatives.  We saw immediate positive results in the classroom so we will continue to follow suit with the implementation the remainder of the semester. We thank all of our parents for participating and supporting us on this. Here are the new initiatives:

• Children line up int he hallway by 10 AM,  and each classroom teacher greets their students as they enter their classroom. 
• Magnolia class begins their session with a mindfulness session by Irem Radzik
• In order to not interrupt the flow of the class we have asked our parents who arrive after 10:15 to wait outside until the next entry time to enter the class.
• In order to better integrate our library to our curriculum, during class time students will share the books they read and they will sign out new ones.

We also welcome our new teacher aid for the Magnolia class  Pelin Bektur. 

Here are some photos from our day.

Cheers!

OPENING OUR DOORS FOR THE SPRING SEMESTER 2018

Today we opened our doors to our Berkeley Turkish School community for a 3rd year..

Our spring semester began with a bunch of excitement and great energy. We held an informative seminar for our parents about our story of where were were and what is new. Together we began a great momentum for a busy semester ahead of us. Fatosh Arabacioglu discussed our Children's Festival, we started our lists for Folklore classes and committees to participate in.
Thank you all for being a part of this fantastic community. Here are some images from our cameras.

ENDING THE YEAR WITH A SWEET NOTE AND LOVELY SONGS

Thank you all for coming to our holiday party today! As the Berkeley Turkish School, we ended our semester with a sweet note and lovely songs by BTS chorus.  Special thanks goes to the Alp Can Utku and Fatosh Arabacioglu for the lovely live music.

We also thank all those who have contributed to our fall fundraiser. As of today we were able to raise $5230 dollars. Special thanks goes to Sema Hanim, who spent many hours preparing the beautiful holiday wreaths, together with gift table combined she raised over $1200 for our school. We also thank BDE Architects via Mark Schirmer for 1000 dollar contribution to our Fundraiser. Thank you all for coming, and being a part of our lovely community. Happy Holidays from all of us at the Berkeley Turkish School!  Emegi gecen herkese tesekkur ederiz! Yeni yiliniz kutlu olsun!

Remember to select Berkeley Turkish School as your charity at Amazon Smiles!

Dear Berkeley Turkish School Supporters!

We all hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving! For your Black Friday Shopping and gifts remember to select Berkeley Turkish School as your charity at Amazon Smiles...

To shop at AmazonSmile simply go to smile.amazon.com from the web browser on your computer or mobile device. You may also want to add a bookmark to smile.amazon.com to make it even easier to return and start your shopping at AmazonSmile.
On your first visit to AmazonSmile smile.amazon.com, you need to select a charitable organization to receive donations from eligible purchases before you begin shopping. Amazon will remember your selection, and then every eligible purchase you make at smile.amazon.com will result in a donation.

Sayın Berkeley Türk Okulu Destekçileri,

Black Friday alışverişlerinizde, Amazon Amazonsmiles’dan Berkeley Turkish School'u seçmeyi unutmayın ... AmazonSmile'de alışveriş yapmak için bilgisayarınızdaki veya mobilinizden smile.amazon.com adresine girebilirsiniz. Ayrıca, AmazonSmile'de alışveriş yapmaya başlamanızın daha kolay olmas için smile.amazon.com'a bu linki işaretleyebilirsiniz. AmazonSmile smile.amazon.com'u ilk ziyaretinizde, alışverişe başlamadan önce uygun satın alımlardan bağış almak için sizden bir hayır kurumunu seçmenizi isteyecektir. Amazon Berkeley Turkish School seçiminizi hatırlayacak ve sonra smile.amazon.com adresinde yaptığınız her uygun satın alma, okulumuza bir bağışla sonuçlanacaktır. Şimdiden teşekkür ederiz.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

We are grateful for your support and our wonderful community. Wishing you and your family peace, love and great joy this thanksgiving.

Best wishes from all of us at the Berkeley Turkish School.

Öğretmenler Gününüz Kutlu Olsun!

Together we celebrated our teachers' day at the Berkeley Turkish School today. Thank you Gülten Hanım, Sema Hanım, Hande Hanım and Fatosh Hanım for being our amazing teachers. Without these incredible, hardworking ladies, we couldn't do it. 

Learning about the Mountains of Turkey

Hakan Bey who is a hiking enthusiast shared slides of his trips to some of most known summits in Turkey with the Cinar and Mese Classrooms. Thank you for taking our students on this journey ! Here are some images from the fantastic presentation.