Monday AM Notes, November 8 2021

Greetings!
I hope the weekend was good and that you’re feeling energized as we head into these next two weeks before the Thanksgiving break. It’s a short week this week and we may have a fair amount of students out on Friday with the Thursday holiday.

A good friend of mine was in Glasgow at the Climate Change Summit this past week and sent this picture of Greta Thunberg (that’s her in the middle). It got me thinking about my commitment to living a more environmentally conscious life, and how we as a school could find ways to inspire and empower our students. Just thinking…

A few notes to get you going:
1) No School on Thursday in honor of our veterans.

2) Community Time today at 9:15am. Grade 5 hosts on Friday at 1:30pm.

3) No zones starting today! A few new things in place:
*K-2 (only) Gaga in the AM, everyone at lunch, 3-5 (only) in the PM
*Each group gets a wall ball spot: K-2 on the side closest to Broadway (back of wall), 3-5 on the owl side. Youngers can join Olders if they want to challenge themselves, but let’s keep the Olders out of the Younger’s game. We’ll use cones to split the field in 2 so multiple games can be played.

4) I’ll be out Wednesday. On that note, I am hoping we can trade SIW times–next week is supposed to be teacher directed but I’d like to switch that to this week, and next week we’ll have a formal SIW. Any objections? Please let me know.

5) Quick staff meeting on Tuesday from 3-3:15. With a Lockdown Drill coming up (see next note) I want to be sure we are all using similar language when we talk with students. We’ll meet in the staff room.

6) We need to do our annual Lockdown drill this month so I am scheduling it for Tuesday, November 16 at 9:15am. We’ll follow it with the monthly Fire Drill and be done in time for recess. We will discuss language to be shared with students at our quick staff meeting on Tuesday at 3. Here’s something I’d like you to read prior to our meeting: Talking with Children About Lockdowns

7) Ofrenda: We are setting up the Orfrenda starting this week. If you’d like to honor a loved one please share a photo–you can bring one in or send Patti a digital photo. If you’d like to share some words about the person(s) please do!

8) Camp Amity Sign ups–if you haven’t signed up yet, please do so this week: Camp Amity Sign Up

9) I’m including the following as reminders:
*I’d like to slowly start to bring back Choice Time (currently known as recess). Choice Time allows students to stay inside at break times (AM and PM, not lunch). We’re not ready for students to be able to wander from room to room yet, but you could pick a break time or two each week and stay in your room with students who want to stay in. Frans has already been doing this for a little while now and the students clearly appreciate and enjoy the opportunity. I only ask that you do not choose times when you have playground duty. Thanks for considering this, I think it will be really great to reestablish this, even if in small bits. You’ll still need to meet students at the end of break times so be sure to have students in your classroom clean up early and join you for a stroll to get the rest of the class.

*Keeping Taking Care of Yourself/Others/Place alive! I think that if it is not a regular part of your routine that you take some time to review work you have done with your class around Taking Care of Yourself/Others/Place. Values and agreements work best when we keep them alive and present in our daily lives-revisiting this each and every week will have the greatest, most long term impact. Thanks!

10) I’ll be leaving school around 2:45 today to get to an admin meeting at High Lakes. Call or text if you need anything.

Upcoming
*November 9: Staff meeting, 3-3:15
*November 11: No School
*November 16: Lockdown and Fire Drill, 9:15am
*November 17: Camp Amity! Please sign up for an activity
*November 22-26: Thanksgiving Break!
*December 20-31: Winter Break
*January 13: EBISS

Here’s to a great, short week ahead!
Andy