EC Staff Bulletins
The Greater Good website has an article on Five Ways for Teachers to Recharge This Summer. I hope you all can recharge or at least have fun wearing yourself out.
I have loved working with all of you this year. I appreciate how dedicated you are to our school and our students and their families and to each other. Thank you!
We will miss our friends who are leaving. We love you and wish you well on your next adventure!
I have loved working with all of you this year. I appreciate how dedicated you are to our school and our students and their families and to each other. Thank you!
We will miss our friends who are leaving. We love you and wish you well on your next adventure!
22-26 June
We are almost there. Thank you all for your cooperation in getting diplomas, placement cards, and report cards ready. The placement cards were more difficult to print than we expected so I will not be able to look at them over the weekend. Instead, we will do our best to have them ready for you to add handwritten comments early Monday morning and we ask you to return them to the office ASAP. I'll have them ready for you before your group making meeting.
Next week will be busy. We'll say good-bye to students, pack, make next years groups, finish any summer work orders, and write summatives. Because we've already spent time in staff development meetings reflecting on our shared section goal of using technology to create and extend learning opportunities for students and enhancing communication among students and families, I have shortened the summative reflection this year. This will be emailed to you today and I'll ask that you have it returned to me by Friday.
If you haven't already, take a look at the last edition of Connexion. Thank you to Jessica and Laura for contributing great articles.
You are all invited to a webinar on oral language at 1:00 p.m. Wednesday, after which we will hold our end of the year get together outside classrooms 1 & 2.
When cleaning up and packing your classrooms, you are invited to send unneeded school supplies to Rosana from Middle School. Rosana is collecting school supplies and she and her middle school students will create gift bags of these supplies for our school support staff. Her classroom is in front of the HS cafeteria.
Next Friday we will hold the annual Garage Sale for support staff. Please consider donating to this and if possible volunteering your time to help set up the donations in the auditorium. Set up will start at 11:00 on Friday. The sale will start at 2:30. Let me know if you can help.
We are almost there. Thank you all for your cooperation in getting diplomas, placement cards, and report cards ready. The placement cards were more difficult to print than we expected so I will not be able to look at them over the weekend. Instead, we will do our best to have them ready for you to add handwritten comments early Monday morning and we ask you to return them to the office ASAP. I'll have them ready for you before your group making meeting.
Next week will be busy. We'll say good-bye to students, pack, make next years groups, finish any summer work orders, and write summatives. Because we've already spent time in staff development meetings reflecting on our shared section goal of using technology to create and extend learning opportunities for students and enhancing communication among students and families, I have shortened the summative reflection this year. This will be emailed to you today and I'll ask that you have it returned to me by Friday.
If you haven't already, take a look at the last edition of Connexion. Thank you to Jessica and Laura for contributing great articles.
You are all invited to a webinar on oral language at 1:00 p.m. Wednesday, after which we will hold our end of the year get together outside classrooms 1 & 2.
When cleaning up and packing your classrooms, you are invited to send unneeded school supplies to Rosana from Middle School. Rosana is collecting school supplies and she and her middle school students will create gift bags of these supplies for our school support staff. Her classroom is in front of the HS cafeteria.
Next Friday we will hold the annual Garage Sale for support staff. Please consider donating to this and if possible volunteering your time to help set up the donations in the auditorium. Set up will start at 11:00 on Friday. The sale will start at 2:30. Let me know if you can help.
15-19 June
Thank you for your work on the end of the year progress reports. I enjoyed reading about our students' growth and the learning that took place in your classrooms this year. You all are amazing teachers. Please have your narratives corrected and uploaded to Powerschool by 2:30 on June 16th. Instructions for how to upload to PS are here. Later in the week you'll be asked to sign two copies of the reports and return them promptly to the office so that they can be collated with the previous reports from this school year.
In Wednesday's staff development meeting we will be discussing the last chapter (chapter 9) in Teaching in the Digital Age. Please have read the chapter and reviewed your notes from the entire book so you can be ready to share ideas about what you've learned through our study of technology this year. Laura will also be sharing the results from the survey that we were given at the end of our staff development day in May.
We are planning to take a group photo of kinder students Thursday morning at 8:15 a.m. on the bleachers in the green area. We will later share this digitally with kinder teachers so you can share on your classroom websites. (It'll be free and sent out only digitally.) Thank you to Adriana, Pamela, and Jessica for helping supervise in the multi-age PK classrooms.
Maria helped EC send out planetary messages which you can see here for a Reggio Children sponsored event at Expo Milan. Thank you Maria.
Below the planetary messages is a sweet video that a mother in N2 sent to Gaby and gave us permission to share. It shows the beautiful and potentially life long influence you have on our students and on the environment.
After voting, we saw more of you preferred to have our our end of the year EC gathering after school on Wednesday, June 24. We'll start at 2:45 and have tacos!!
Thank you for your work on the end of the year progress reports. I enjoyed reading about our students' growth and the learning that took place in your classrooms this year. You all are amazing teachers. Please have your narratives corrected and uploaded to Powerschool by 2:30 on June 16th. Instructions for how to upload to PS are here. Later in the week you'll be asked to sign two copies of the reports and return them promptly to the office so that they can be collated with the previous reports from this school year.
In Wednesday's staff development meeting we will be discussing the last chapter (chapter 9) in Teaching in the Digital Age. Please have read the chapter and reviewed your notes from the entire book so you can be ready to share ideas about what you've learned through our study of technology this year. Laura will also be sharing the results from the survey that we were given at the end of our staff development day in May.
We are planning to take a group photo of kinder students Thursday morning at 8:15 a.m. on the bleachers in the green area. We will later share this digitally with kinder teachers so you can share on your classroom websites. (It'll be free and sent out only digitally.) Thank you to Adriana, Pamela, and Jessica for helping supervise in the multi-age PK classrooms.
Maria helped EC send out planetary messages which you can see here for a Reggio Children sponsored event at Expo Milan. Thank you Maria.
Below the planetary messages is a sweet video that a mother in N2 sent to Gaby and gave us permission to share. It shows the beautiful and potentially life long influence you have on our students and on the environment.
After voting, we saw more of you preferred to have our our end of the year EC gathering after school on Wednesday, June 24. We'll start at 2:45 and have tacos!!
8-12 June
EC is invited to an mini Folklorama show at 9:00 in the auditorium on Monday. Friday morning, classroom has been invited to one of the two all the classrooms have been invited to one of two short ES choir performances in our music room.
Final drafts of the progress reports are due Monday. Erika has shared files with you that have Ernie and Gigi's comments on individual student progress. You may be able to include these in your reports. Please check and double check your narratives for spelling errors, print them in a font size 12 or larger, and number the reports before giving to them to me. I should be reading them for content not as an editor.
Gigi's last day of music class for this school year will be on June 16 because of a singing engagement she has out of town (but she'll be back with us in August). The last day for co-curricular sports classes is June 18, and for Childcare and for Language Institute classes the last day is Monday, June 22.
EC is invited to an mini Folklorama show at 9:00 in the auditorium on Monday. Friday morning, classroom has been invited to one of the two all the classrooms have been invited to one of two short ES choir performances in our music room.
Final drafts of the progress reports are due Monday. Erika has shared files with you that have Ernie and Gigi's comments on individual student progress. You may be able to include these in your reports. Please check and double check your narratives for spelling errors, print them in a font size 12 or larger, and number the reports before giving to them to me. I should be reading them for content not as an editor.
Gigi's last day of music class for this school year will be on June 16 because of a singing engagement she has out of town (but she'll be back with us in August). The last day for co-curricular sports classes is June 18, and for Childcare and for Language Institute classes the last day is Monday, June 22.
1-5 June
Good luck to everyone with this week's Mini-Olympics and Father's Day celebrations. If there are no absences next week, Cristy will be helping Ernie with the Mini-Os.
Wednesday, Miss V and her team will come to assess those kinder students who were recommended in their phonological awareness.
Please start to make written notes (in Spanish) of what summer work orders will be needed to prepare your room for August. I will ask Erika to meet with each classroom teacher individually to go over these requests (as she is the one who provides follow through in the summer) and show me a EC List once it includes all classrooms. Then we'll let you know what we were able to submit.
Links to all five technology presentations that were shared in last Friday's professional development day are now posted in this site's EC Technology page. Please make time to take a look at these again - possibly with your students - and share your feedback with me.
Good luck to everyone with this week's Mini-Olympics and Father's Day celebrations. If there are no absences next week, Cristy will be helping Ernie with the Mini-Os.
Wednesday, Miss V and her team will come to assess those kinder students who were recommended in their phonological awareness.
Please start to make written notes (in Spanish) of what summer work orders will be needed to prepare your room for August. I will ask Erika to meet with each classroom teacher individually to go over these requests (as she is the one who provides follow through in the summer) and show me a EC List once it includes all classrooms. Then we'll let you know what we were able to submit.
Links to all five technology presentations that were shared in last Friday's professional development day are now posted in this site's EC Technology page. Please make time to take a look at these again - possibly with your students - and share your feedback with me.
25-29 May
Alondra will begin working on the Spanish Writing Samples this week.
On Tuesday there is a meeting for kinder parents at 8:00 a.m. in the auditorium to talk about the upcoming transition to prefirst.
Tuesday is also when Pili and Maria will come by your rooms for student art work to be considered for the Art Fest catalog.
Lety Flores is beginning a Parent's School course on "como educar a mis hijos en la sexualidad" on Wednesday. Reach out to parents you have that might benefit from or enjoy this class and ask them to consider attending.
On Friday we will have the prefirst students visiting our kinder classrooms from 8:30-10:30 a.m. Thank you to Cristy, Adriana, and Ernie for working with our PK3/8/9 students in the multi-media room at that time.
Teacher assistant evaluations are due Friday. Please give me three signed copies.
Coursera is offering a free on-line course this summer on fundamental English writing. I'd love to hear if any of you sign up for this class. I've taken a couple Coursera classes and found them to be worthwhile.
I saw that PK/K8 has a page on their classroom website called Lost and Found and wanted to share the idea with all of you.
I sent out an email about recess supervision but also wanted to remind everyone that any outdoor time with students should always have an 11-1 ratio or better. One adult with an entire class outside is unacceptable.
Alondra will begin working on the Spanish Writing Samples this week.
On Tuesday there is a meeting for kinder parents at 8:00 a.m. in the auditorium to talk about the upcoming transition to prefirst.
Tuesday is also when Pili and Maria will come by your rooms for student art work to be considered for the Art Fest catalog.
Lety Flores is beginning a Parent's School course on "como educar a mis hijos en la sexualidad" on Wednesday. Reach out to parents you have that might benefit from or enjoy this class and ask them to consider attending.
On Friday we will have the prefirst students visiting our kinder classrooms from 8:30-10:30 a.m. Thank you to Cristy, Adriana, and Ernie for working with our PK3/8/9 students in the multi-media room at that time.
Teacher assistant evaluations are due Friday. Please give me three signed copies.
Coursera is offering a free on-line course this summer on fundamental English writing. I'd love to hear if any of you sign up for this class. I've taken a couple Coursera classes and found them to be worthwhile.
I saw that PK/K8 has a page on their classroom website called Lost and Found and wanted to share the idea with all of you.
I sent out an email about recess supervision but also wanted to remind everyone that any outdoor time with students should always have an 11-1 ratio or better. One adult with an entire class outside is unacceptable.
18-22 May
We're in the final stretch for getting presentations ready for this Friday's tech presentations. These presentations are to show work in progress and demonstrate how our section has been using technology as a tool to enhance literature, engineering, problem solving, community, and creative thinking over the years. Work shown can be from previous years. We will start with a buffet breakfast from the cafeteria and end with a celebratory afternoon meal at Don Giuseppe's. If you won't be able to join us for the lunch starting at 2:30 p.m., please let me know ASAP so that we don't order food for you. We hope everyone can attend.
Thanks to our Connexion authors for their great articles showing our larger school community the exciting learning taking place in EC. Please take some time to look through the magazine. The next edition of Connexion will be electronic (no printed copy) and will be about how we use technology at the school - come see me if you would like to contribute an article.
Lety Flores will be giving a four week Parent's School workshop "como educar a mis hijos en la sexualidad" every Wednesday from 8-11a.m starting May 27. I'll send out an invitation to parents but you might want to personally invite some of your parents to consider attending.
Maria and Pili are volunteering on the school's Art Fest committee and have asked that each classroom have four excellent pieces of student art ready to share with them on Tuesday, May 26th. Some of these pieces will be sent to be considered for inclusion in the Art Fest catalog. Art can be in many different mediums. Maria and Pili will visit classrooms on the 26th to pick up the student work and ask that you have it labeled with the child's full name, age, and classroom number. This art will be returned to the students.
We're in the final stretch for getting presentations ready for this Friday's tech presentations. These presentations are to show work in progress and demonstrate how our section has been using technology as a tool to enhance literature, engineering, problem solving, community, and creative thinking over the years. Work shown can be from previous years. We will start with a buffet breakfast from the cafeteria and end with a celebratory afternoon meal at Don Giuseppe's. If you won't be able to join us for the lunch starting at 2:30 p.m., please let me know ASAP so that we don't order food for you. We hope everyone can attend.
Thanks to our Connexion authors for their great articles showing our larger school community the exciting learning taking place in EC. Please take some time to look through the magazine. The next edition of Connexion will be electronic (no printed copy) and will be about how we use technology at the school - come see me if you would like to contribute an article.
Lety Flores will be giving a four week Parent's School workshop "como educar a mis hijos en la sexualidad" every Wednesday from 8-11a.m starting May 27. I'll send out an invitation to parents but you might want to personally invite some of your parents to consider attending.
Maria and Pili are volunteering on the school's Art Fest committee and have asked that each classroom have four excellent pieces of student art ready to share with them on Tuesday, May 26th. Some of these pieces will be sent to be considered for inclusion in the Art Fest catalog. Art can be in many different mediums. Maria and Pili will visit classrooms on the 26th to pick up the student work and ask that you have it labeled with the child's full name, age, and classroom number. This art will be returned to the students.
11-15 May
Thank you for making Mother's Day so special for our students and their mothers. A reminder to those of you who still have celebrations this week: ask mothers to arrive early and get seated in the music room, consider making a seating chart that positions mothers with a great view of their child, let Erika know if you have ordered anything from the cafeteria, and bring her receipts for reimbursement as soon as possible. Another reminder is that we discourage hot coffee being served around children so ice coffee has been a very successful substitute.
On Monday teachers will receive stationary for the spring English writing samples. These are due to the office on May 21. Instructions are here.
We will be interviewing candidates for teacher assistants and monitors next week. Thank you for allowing these candidates into your classroom if asked.
I wish you all a very Happy Teacher's Day. I can't imagine a better team of teachers and assistants. You provide students with a joyful, safe, warm, silly, fun, challenging, exciting, caring learning environment everyday. That is truly amazing. I also am touched by the way you love your students and I see this in your smiles and sometimes even tears. I consider myself fortunate to have you teach me how beautiful our profession is and I love working with all of you.
Thank you for making Mother's Day so special for our students and their mothers. A reminder to those of you who still have celebrations this week: ask mothers to arrive early and get seated in the music room, consider making a seating chart that positions mothers with a great view of their child, let Erika know if you have ordered anything from the cafeteria, and bring her receipts for reimbursement as soon as possible. Another reminder is that we discourage hot coffee being served around children so ice coffee has been a very successful substitute.
On Monday teachers will receive stationary for the spring English writing samples. These are due to the office on May 21. Instructions are here.
We will be interviewing candidates for teacher assistants and monitors next week. Thank you for allowing these candidates into your classroom if asked.
I wish you all a very Happy Teacher's Day. I can't imagine a better team of teachers and assistants. You provide students with a joyful, safe, warm, silly, fun, challenging, exciting, caring learning environment everyday. That is truly amazing. I also am touched by the way you love your students and I see this in your smiles and sometimes even tears. I consider myself fortunate to have you teach me how beautiful our profession is and I love working with all of you.
4-8 May
We will be busy these next weeks with Mother's Day celebrations and in working on technology projects. Good luck to everyone!
Please submit requests for reimbursement for Mother's Day expenditures to Erika as soon as you have them ready. We also ask that you let her know if you have ordered food for your Mother's Day celebration from the school's cafeteria so that she can help coordinate an on-time delivery.
I'd like to remind everyone to keep your tech devices such as iPads and cameras locked in desk drawers when you leave your classroom and please lock your classroom doors when you leave each afternoon.
If you have not done so already, I encourage you to be part of our school's on-line community. Please LIKE ASFG on Facebook and if you want to submit photographs to be considered for publication on the school's page you can post them on ASFG's Creative Commons. Another way to share articles and neat ideas with our school 's faculty is to post on the ASFG Educator Community.
You can support RedSOLARE by LIKING our RedSOLARE's Facebook page and our Instragram account. We'll appreciate it if you suggest these links to other educators you know.
We will be busy these next weeks with Mother's Day celebrations and in working on technology projects. Good luck to everyone!
Please submit requests for reimbursement for Mother's Day expenditures to Erika as soon as you have them ready. We also ask that you let her know if you have ordered food for your Mother's Day celebration from the school's cafeteria so that she can help coordinate an on-time delivery.
I'd like to remind everyone to keep your tech devices such as iPads and cameras locked in desk drawers when you leave your classroom and please lock your classroom doors when you leave each afternoon.
If you have not done so already, I encourage you to be part of our school's on-line community. Please LIKE ASFG on Facebook and if you want to submit photographs to be considered for publication on the school's page you can post them on ASFG's Creative Commons. Another way to share articles and neat ideas with our school 's faculty is to post on the ASFG Educator Community.
You can support RedSOLARE by LIKING our RedSOLARE's Facebook page and our Instragram account. We'll appreciate it if you suggest these links to other educators you know.
27-30 April
Thank you for your participation in Earth Week. There were so many exciting initiatives taking place and a beautiful positive energy while helping our community be good stewards of our earth. Habits you teach your students now will influence whole families and have long lasting benefits.
Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. we will have a visit from EarthBoxes to help us renovate our boxes and benches. If you would like to purchase some seedlings for your home you can do so directly with them at that time.
On Wednesday, the whole school will practice a lock-down drill. The exact time will not be announced. Please review these instructions for a lock down drill and prepare students. If you have any questions about how to address this with your group come see Gloria or me.
Children's Day is on Thursday. Make sure you have the materials you need ready and give Erika your facturas for expenditures as soon as possible so we can get everyone reimbursed. In addition, please review the schedule for Children's Day. At recess, it's important that assistants make supervision their priority. (Last year, many assistants felt they needed to take photos of their students in the different activities and this compromised the recess supervision.) Alondra and I will be taking lots of photos which we will be happy to share with everyone. Thursday is a half day with a noon dismissal. Teachers and assistants may go home for the long weekend after your last student has been picked-up.
Thank you for your participation in Earth Week. There were so many exciting initiatives taking place and a beautiful positive energy while helping our community be good stewards of our earth. Habits you teach your students now will influence whole families and have long lasting benefits.
Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. we will have a visit from EarthBoxes to help us renovate our boxes and benches. If you would like to purchase some seedlings for your home you can do so directly with them at that time.
On Wednesday, the whole school will practice a lock-down drill. The exact time will not be announced. Please review these instructions for a lock down drill and prepare students. If you have any questions about how to address this with your group come see Gloria or me.
Children's Day is on Thursday. Make sure you have the materials you need ready and give Erika your facturas for expenditures as soon as possible so we can get everyone reimbursed. In addition, please review the schedule for Children's Day. At recess, it's important that assistants make supervision their priority. (Last year, many assistants felt they needed to take photos of their students in the different activities and this compromised the recess supervision.) Alondra and I will be taking lots of photos which we will be happy to share with everyone. Thursday is a half day with a noon dismissal. Teachers and assistants may go home for the long weekend after your last student has been picked-up.
20-24 April
We're coming up on Earth Week and to get it started you are all invited to ASFG's Green Race this Sunday where in addition to races there will be a green market. Please consider stopping by.
Thank you for everyone's work on the pollinator project. Your art work will be hung on Monday and inspire children to learn more about the pollination process. On Tuesday, April 21, we have also scheduled Miel Oro to give our students a short (20 minute) lesson on pollinators. Ivel Orozco, a biologist, will be bringing an unoccupied as well as a live beehive along will little samples of honey. Her presentations will take place in the childcare room with two groups at a time. Because of this, Tuesday's music classes will be moved to the Atelier.
Stef's tech report has great resources for teaching students about pollination: a cartoon lesson (less than 3 minutes) and The Beauty of Pollination video which is a must see!
You might consider taking your students on a "field trip" to our very own pollination corner of the EC playground and talk about the milkweed cage, flower garden, and plants popular among the bees like the lavender and lemon basil. If you document these visits, I'd love to know what children say for the playground project.
We've set ourselves different challenges for Earth Week: many classrooms are asking families to pack waste-free lunches, as a section we have agreed to eliminate copies for the week, and in addition everyone is invited to bring in newspaper, paper, and cardboard to the basketball court by Thursday for the school's annual Earth Week paper drive.
We're coming up on Earth Week and to get it started you are all invited to ASFG's Green Race this Sunday where in addition to races there will be a green market. Please consider stopping by.
Thank you for everyone's work on the pollinator project. Your art work will be hung on Monday and inspire children to learn more about the pollination process. On Tuesday, April 21, we have also scheduled Miel Oro to give our students a short (20 minute) lesson on pollinators. Ivel Orozco, a biologist, will be bringing an unoccupied as well as a live beehive along will little samples of honey. Her presentations will take place in the childcare room with two groups at a time. Because of this, Tuesday's music classes will be moved to the Atelier.
Stef's tech report has great resources for teaching students about pollination: a cartoon lesson (less than 3 minutes) and The Beauty of Pollination video which is a must see!
You might consider taking your students on a "field trip" to our very own pollination corner of the EC playground and talk about the milkweed cage, flower garden, and plants popular among the bees like the lavender and lemon basil. If you document these visits, I'd love to know what children say for the playground project.
We've set ourselves different challenges for Earth Week: many classrooms are asking families to pack waste-free lunches, as a section we have agreed to eliminate copies for the week, and in addition everyone is invited to bring in newspaper, paper, and cardboard to the basketball court by Thursday for the school's annual Earth Week paper drive.
I mentioned in last Wednesday's staff meeting that Erin Cogan from P1st had made interesting HOW TO videos with her pre-first students. I think our students would enjoy seeing them very much.
We will start working on the technology projects next Tuesday, except for the playground group who'll start on Monday. I'll send out an email to remind everyone what group they are in.
13-17 April
Coming back from vacations we will begin swim classes and in making the recycled pollinator project.
It is important that all classrooms bring students to childcare promptly at 1:00 p.m.(N,PK) or 1:15 (Multi-age/K) because there can be bad feelings among parents and teachers when some children are charged a late fee and others are not.
Please remember that classroom teachers are asked not to recommend a specific tutor for one of your students but rather refer parents to Gloria so she can make this recommendation. (You may suggest a specific tutor to Gloria should you feel this is necessary.) This is to protect the reputation of teachers and the school.
Coming back from vacations we will begin swim classes and in making the recycled pollinator project.
It is important that all classrooms bring students to childcare promptly at 1:00 p.m.(N,PK) or 1:15 (Multi-age/K) because there can be bad feelings among parents and teachers when some children are charged a late fee and others are not.
Please remember that classroom teachers are asked not to recommend a specific tutor for one of your students but rather refer parents to Gloria so she can make this recommendation. (You may suggest a specific tutor to Gloria should you feel this is necessary.) This is to protect the reputation of teachers and the school.
23-27 March
Next week many of our groups are headed out for egg hunts. Please review field trip instructions before your trip and have fun! Upon your return from the trip you can collect the plastic egg shells and bring them to the office so we can reuse them next year.
Next week is BOOK WEEK and the room mothers have organized parent volunteers from each classroom to read during your assigned library time (N1 and PK7 times were moved because your library time conflicted with your field trip). Please let your volunteer reader feel appreciated for her efforts - the mothers who take over the library classes attended a storytelling workshop sponsored by our Parents Association to prepare for this!
Just a heads up that this year when the ASFG Bunny visits classrooms on Friday it will be without candy. Healthier and less trash!
This Friday is BLACK OUT Friday and you are encouraged to turn electricity off if possible! Review the video HS students made to explain what BACK OUT Friday is all about.
Norma has shared some Reggio resources with us that I posted on our Reggio resource page.
For Earth Week in April all sections have been encouraged to come up with a common green challenge that the section faculty is invited to join. This is different than what you will be doing with students and families in your classroom. For EC's shared faculty challenge we'd like you to vote on the following options and consider committing to the green goal that wins the most votes. VOTE CLOSED. Results as follows:
Next week many of our groups are headed out for egg hunts. Please review field trip instructions before your trip and have fun! Upon your return from the trip you can collect the plastic egg shells and bring them to the office so we can reuse them next year.
Next week is BOOK WEEK and the room mothers have organized parent volunteers from each classroom to read during your assigned library time (N1 and PK7 times were moved because your library time conflicted with your field trip). Please let your volunteer reader feel appreciated for her efforts - the mothers who take over the library classes attended a storytelling workshop sponsored by our Parents Association to prepare for this!
Just a heads up that this year when the ASFG Bunny visits classrooms on Friday it will be without candy. Healthier and less trash!
This Friday is BLACK OUT Friday and you are encouraged to turn electricity off if possible! Review the video HS students made to explain what BACK OUT Friday is all about.
Norma has shared some Reggio resources with us that I posted on our Reggio resource page.
For Earth Week in April all sections have been encouraged to come up with a common green challenge that the section faculty is invited to join. This is different than what you will be doing with students and families in your classroom. For EC's shared faculty challenge we'd like you to vote on the following options and consider committing to the green goal that wins the most votes. VOTE CLOSED. Results as follows:
17-20 March
Thank you all for your time in the parent/teacher conferences. Please try to finish up with any remaining conferences and have the two sets of signed progress reports turned into the office by the end of this week in alphabetical order. Thank you.
Egg Hunt field trips begin this week and continue throughout the following week. Instructions for field trip excursions can be found here. The schedule of our field trips is here.
A reminder that audio recordings and lyrics for this year's Mother's Day performances are in Google Docs. Thank you Gigi!
Egg Hunt field trips begin this week and continue throughout the following week. Instructions for field trip excursions can be found here. The schedule of our field trips is here.
A reminder that audio recordings and lyrics for this year's Mother's Day performances are in Google Docs. Thank you Gigi!
9-13 March
Monday we have parent/teacher conferences. Thank you for your work on the mid-year assessments and in preparing to meet and discuss your students' progress with parents. These parent meetings can be a wonderful opportunity for you to learn more about your students and their families so think of questions you have for parents and take this opportunity to listen to their concerns, questions, and compliments. We will have the cookie/coffee service outside the office so there is no need for you to bring snacks but please do set a little table and some chairs outside your classroom with student work for parents to look at if they are waiting for their meeting. Do your best to keep the meetings on time by rescheduling meetings where parents arrive too late to have a productive meeting. Please leave a copy of your Monday schedule with Erika so that she can refer to this should parents call us to ask the time they are scheduled to meet.
Remember that there is homework for this Wednesday's book study on Teaching in the Digital age. Homework instructions can be found here.
Empty Bowl work continues. I'd love for you to email me any beautiful empty bowl photos you have of the students at work. Thank you to those of you who Please review bathroom protocol with students, reminding them that bathrooms are a place where users should have privacy and that only one child should be in the bathroom at a time. Encourage children to close the door when using the bathroom but respect those children who like to have a door open as well. Make sure children are washing their hands after using the bathroom, and whenever possible check the bathroom after boys use it to see that they are leaving it clean for the next user. Thank you!
If a parent lets you know that a child will be out of school for an extended time (over a week) because they are traveling please let me know.
Monday we have parent/teacher conferences. Thank you for your work on the mid-year assessments and in preparing to meet and discuss your students' progress with parents. These parent meetings can be a wonderful opportunity for you to learn more about your students and their families so think of questions you have for parents and take this opportunity to listen to their concerns, questions, and compliments. We will have the cookie/coffee service outside the office so there is no need for you to bring snacks but please do set a little table and some chairs outside your classroom with student work for parents to look at if they are waiting for their meeting. Do your best to keep the meetings on time by rescheduling meetings where parents arrive too late to have a productive meeting. Please leave a copy of your Monday schedule with Erika so that she can refer to this should parents call us to ask the time they are scheduled to meet.
Remember that there is homework for this Wednesday's book study on Teaching in the Digital age. Homework instructions can be found here.
Empty Bowl work continues. I'd love for you to email me any beautiful empty bowl photos you have of the students at work. Thank you to those of you who Please review bathroom protocol with students, reminding them that bathrooms are a place where users should have privacy and that only one child should be in the bathroom at a time. Encourage children to close the door when using the bathroom but respect those children who like to have a door open as well. Make sure children are washing their hands after using the bathroom, and whenever possible check the bathroom after boys use it to see that they are leaving it clean for the next user. Thank you!
If a parent lets you know that a child will be out of school for an extended time (over a week) because they are traveling please let me know.
2-6 March
This week we will be working on progress reports.
Should you learn that one of your students will withdraw before the school year is over, please email me and I will notify admissions and our school’s registrar, Lupita Encinas. Lupita will then send the parents forms that they are asked to fill out and return to her. Lupita’s office is on the first floor of the administration building and parents can also go pick up the forms directly from her if they prefer.
EC’s lost & found procedure is to hold non-valuable items brought to the EC office until the end of each month and then pass them over to the school’s general lost & found collection. If you have an item in your classroom with no owner for more than a few days, please email your parents a photo of the item and bring it to the office if it’s not picked up in a day or two. (There’s always a chance that one of your students picked the item up by mistake and someone else is looking for it.) Lost items of greater value (cameras, cell phones, wallets) should be brought immediately to security.
Next week we’ll have a fire drill at an unannounced time. You’ll notice that our emergency backpacks now have a green and red paleta. The other sections will use these but we don’t see a need for that in EC as of yet. Fire drill procedures can be found here.
Gigi is starting to rehearse songs for our upcoming Mother’s Day performances. Themes she has chosen for the different grade level performances are:
This week we will be working on progress reports.
- Monday, please send parents an appointment for their parent/teacher conference on March 9th.
- Monday morning Gloria will give you back your midyear assessment results. Teachers are asked to upload individual student scores before going home Tuesday.
- I’ll review the reports on Wednesday and consult you if I see a problem with any report.
- In Wednesday’s staff meeting we'll discuss grade level results.
• Final copies of the reports will be printed Friday. - Midyear reports are not sent home prior to the parent/teacher conferences.
Should you learn that one of your students will withdraw before the school year is over, please email me and I will notify admissions and our school’s registrar, Lupita Encinas. Lupita will then send the parents forms that they are asked to fill out and return to her. Lupita’s office is on the first floor of the administration building and parents can also go pick up the forms directly from her if they prefer.
EC’s lost & found procedure is to hold non-valuable items brought to the EC office until the end of each month and then pass them over to the school’s general lost & found collection. If you have an item in your classroom with no owner for more than a few days, please email your parents a photo of the item and bring it to the office if it’s not picked up in a day or two. (There’s always a chance that one of your students picked the item up by mistake and someone else is looking for it.) Lost items of greater value (cameras, cell phones, wallets) should be brought immediately to security.
Next week we’ll have a fire drill at an unannounced time. You’ll notice that our emergency backpacks now have a green and red paleta. The other sections will use these but we don’t see a need for that in EC as of yet. Fire drill procedures can be found here.
Gigi is starting to rehearse songs for our upcoming Mother’s Day performances. Themes she has chosen for the different grade level performances are:
- nursery – animals
- pre-kinder – Desserts (muffin man, cookie jar)
- kinder – instruments.
- multiage –desserts or instruments depending on each group’s interest
23-27 February
We have asked to have our section's dramatic play furniture refurnished (the play kitchen furniture will be sanded, stained, and repaired). The plan is for the carpenter to switch the dramatic play area furniture out of one room and replace it with a spare set while he works on it and then return the repaired and beautified furniture to your classroom and move to the next classroom Hopefully all classrooms will have their furniture repaired before the end of this school year. I mention this because you may notice that your dramatic play furniture has been swapped from one day to the next. Just know that your original furniture will be returned. Let me know if there are any problems with the plan.
Classroom spreadsheets of midyear assessment results are due to Gloria this Wednesday.
For this Wednesday's staff development, we are invited to the high school art room to glaze our EC faculty empty bowls. Student bowls should be delivered to the high school art room by Friday so that they can have their first firing.
This Thursday at 9:00 a.m. we are invited to the auditorium for a short version of HONK!
This Friday is EC's third bake sale and proceeds will go to help sponsor EarthBox visits to other preschools we are supporting in this way.
We are also hosting our third day of admission assessments on Friday. In the morning ,we'll have a nursery session in the childcare room and the prekinder and kinder applicants will be placed in a regular classroom to be assessed by the head teacher. Thank you so much for your help with this.
I recently saw that our school library has several children's ebooks available that can be accessed from either an iPad or desktop.
Swim classes will begin again as of March 9th
We have asked to have our section's dramatic play furniture refurnished (the play kitchen furniture will be sanded, stained, and repaired). The plan is for the carpenter to switch the dramatic play area furniture out of one room and replace it with a spare set while he works on it and then return the repaired and beautified furniture to your classroom and move to the next classroom Hopefully all classrooms will have their furniture repaired before the end of this school year. I mention this because you may notice that your dramatic play furniture has been swapped from one day to the next. Just know that your original furniture will be returned. Let me know if there are any problems with the plan.
Classroom spreadsheets of midyear assessment results are due to Gloria this Wednesday.
For this Wednesday's staff development, we are invited to the high school art room to glaze our EC faculty empty bowls. Student bowls should be delivered to the high school art room by Friday so that they can have their first firing.
This Thursday at 9:00 a.m. we are invited to the auditorium for a short version of HONK!
This Friday is EC's third bake sale and proceeds will go to help sponsor EarthBox visits to other preschools we are supporting in this way.
We are also hosting our third day of admission assessments on Friday. In the morning ,we'll have a nursery session in the childcare room and the prekinder and kinder applicants will be placed in a regular classroom to be assessed by the head teacher. Thank you so much for your help with this.
I recently saw that our school library has several children's ebooks available that can be accessed from either an iPad or desktop.
Swim classes will begin again as of March 9th
16-20 February
Next week, midyear assessments finish up. Thank you for everyone's work, flexibility, and patience during this process. Check out some assessment photos.
Thursday morning at 8:30, Becky's prefirst group will parade over to EC with a Chinese Dragon and help us bring in the year of the sheep. If you can, please come out to welcome the dragon and listen to the pre-first students sing us a short song.
We have two students this year whose medical needs require us to keep things in our EC refrigerator. There is an oral supplement that a N4 student is given every day which is stored in the fridge. There are also special labeled ice packs in our freezer that must be saved for a N1 student who bruises quickly and seriously over minor bumps. We'll always try to have additional ice packs available that you can use (and we ask that you clean and return these to the freezer when you are done with them) but please do not take the special ice packs for our N1 student. They will be labeled. Thank you.
Take a look at your students' lunches and please send me some photos of healthy examples for our collection.
Here are two short and interesting video recommendations you might like to see - one on mindfulness with young children, the other on play. Enjoy!
Next week, midyear assessments finish up. Thank you for everyone's work, flexibility, and patience during this process. Check out some assessment photos.
Thursday morning at 8:30, Becky's prefirst group will parade over to EC with a Chinese Dragon and help us bring in the year of the sheep. If you can, please come out to welcome the dragon and listen to the pre-first students sing us a short song.
We have two students this year whose medical needs require us to keep things in our EC refrigerator. There is an oral supplement that a N4 student is given every day which is stored in the fridge. There are also special labeled ice packs in our freezer that must be saved for a N1 student who bruises quickly and seriously over minor bumps. We'll always try to have additional ice packs available that you can use (and we ask that you clean and return these to the freezer when you are done with them) but please do not take the special ice packs for our N1 student. They will be labeled. Thank you.
Take a look at your students' lunches and please send me some photos of healthy examples for our collection.
Here are two short and interesting video recommendations you might like to see - one on mindfulness with young children, the other on play. Enjoy!
9-13 February
Thank you for your work on the mid-year assessments. It is absolutely a team effort!
If you are asked by a parent to fill out an evaluation, scale, or narrative on their child for an outside therapist the child is seeing, go ahead and fill it out and then please have Gloria take a look at the document before returning it to the parent. In this way, we can better document and share our students progress as well as double check that documents from the school are filled out as professionally as possible. It's always nice to have someone check your work! :-)
Friday we have an elementary choir performance celebrating Valentine's Day on our trike track. It is not obligatory but a nice experience for our students. Please consider bringing your students to this.
8:30-8:45 rooms 3, 4, 5, 8, & 9
8:50- 9:05 rooms 1, 2, 6,7, &10
The Empty Bowl timeline for firing is on Google Docs. Please update your information on this timeline as the work progresses. If your bowls are ready earlier than the deadline, you can still drop them off in the High School Art Room behind the auditorium. EC faculty will get to glaze our bowls on February 25th for our Wednesday staff development.
After our meeting to discuss using audio recordings to capture powerful moments, Cynthia went through some of her old files and found this sweet, sweet, sweet recording of Santiago when he was almost three years old. Enjoy!
Thank you for your work on the mid-year assessments. It is absolutely a team effort!
If you are asked by a parent to fill out an evaluation, scale, or narrative on their child for an outside therapist the child is seeing, go ahead and fill it out and then please have Gloria take a look at the document before returning it to the parent. In this way, we can better document and share our students progress as well as double check that documents from the school are filled out as professionally as possible. It's always nice to have someone check your work! :-)
Friday we have an elementary choir performance celebrating Valentine's Day on our trike track. It is not obligatory but a nice experience for our students. Please consider bringing your students to this.
8:30-8:45 rooms 3, 4, 5, 8, & 9
8:50- 9:05 rooms 1, 2, 6,7, &10
The Empty Bowl timeline for firing is on Google Docs. Please update your information on this timeline as the work progresses. If your bowls are ready earlier than the deadline, you can still drop them off in the High School Art Room behind the auditorium. EC faculty will get to glaze our bowls on February 25th for our Wednesday staff development.
After our meeting to discuss using audio recordings to capture powerful moments, Cynthia went through some of her old files and found this sweet, sweet, sweet recording of Santiago when he was almost three years old. Enjoy!
3-6 February
Welcome back Caro! We are happy to have you back. Thank you to Maria for your work in Caro's absence. N4 is lucky to have a great teaching team.
Reminder: this Wednesday, we'll be discussing Chapter 4 from Teaching in the Digital Age. This chapter is on "Using Audio Recordings to Capture Powerful Moments". Please think about bringing samples of how you have used audio recordings with students to our Wednesday meeting.Reminder: this Wednesday, we'll be discussing Chapter 4 from Teaching in the Digital Age. This chapter is on "Using Audio Recordings to Capture Powerful Moments". Please think about bringing samples of how you have used audio recordings with students to our Wednesday meeThis Wednesday, we'll discuss chapter 4 from Teaching in the Digital Age. This chapter is on "Using Audio Recordings to Capture Powerful Moments." Please bring samples of how you have used audio recordings with students to the meeting.
February will be a busy month with our mid-year assessments. It's a lot of work but also a great opportunity for us to work in different teams and learn from the children and each other. Your flexibility and patience is greatly appreciated.
In our smart board training we decided that we will not allow whiteboard markers to be used on our smart board in the childcare room. Please help us teach students that our smart board will only be used with the special markers, fingers, or hand pointers. We also realized that as we begin to use the smart board more, the computer in childcare may begin to fill up with files from different classrooms. It will be each teacher's responsibility to save her files in a USB, Google Doc, or DropBox file before leaving the room. Any file left on the computer may be deleted.
Thank you to those of you who use sweeteners in your drinks for participating in our Stevia experiment this past January. In terms of expense, Stevia turned out to be less expensive than Splenda: EC used a bag of Splenda every 2 weeks which cost $135 pesos for 360 gr. The $100 peso Stevia bottle (100 gr. ) was opened at the beginning of January and is half gone. In terms of taste, we want your opinions! Help us test out this Weebly survey application at the same time by letting us know what you think.
Welcome back Caro! We are happy to have you back. Thank you to Maria for your work in Caro's absence. N4 is lucky to have a great teaching team.
Reminder: this Wednesday, we'll be discussing Chapter 4 from Teaching in the Digital Age. This chapter is on "Using Audio Recordings to Capture Powerful Moments". Please think about bringing samples of how you have used audio recordings with students to our Wednesday meeting.Reminder: this Wednesday, we'll be discussing Chapter 4 from Teaching in the Digital Age. This chapter is on "Using Audio Recordings to Capture Powerful Moments". Please think about bringing samples of how you have used audio recordings with students to our Wednesday meeThis Wednesday, we'll discuss chapter 4 from Teaching in the Digital Age. This chapter is on "Using Audio Recordings to Capture Powerful Moments." Please bring samples of how you have used audio recordings with students to the meeting.
February will be a busy month with our mid-year assessments. It's a lot of work but also a great opportunity for us to work in different teams and learn from the children and each other. Your flexibility and patience is greatly appreciated.
In our smart board training we decided that we will not allow whiteboard markers to be used on our smart board in the childcare room. Please help us teach students that our smart board will only be used with the special markers, fingers, or hand pointers. We also realized that as we begin to use the smart board more, the computer in childcare may begin to fill up with files from different classrooms. It will be each teacher's responsibility to save her files in a USB, Google Doc, or DropBox file before leaving the room. Any file left on the computer may be deleted.
Thank you to those of you who use sweeteners in your drinks for participating in our Stevia experiment this past January. In terms of expense, Stevia turned out to be less expensive than Splenda: EC used a bag of Splenda every 2 weeks which cost $135 pesos for 360 gr. The $100 peso Stevia bottle (100 gr. ) was opened at the beginning of January and is half gone. In terms of taste, we want your opinions! Help us test out this Weebly survey application at the same time by letting us know what you think.
Stevia vs. Splenda poll: 12 Stevia/ 5 Splenda. Thanks for participating!
26-30 January
It is important that assistants are on the playground promptly at 10:30 for recess duty as some areas are left unsupervised when people arrive late. Please make sure your students are ready to be sent to recess with shoes tied and no lollipops.
This Saturday, the company that sold us the new smartboard in the childcare room will be offering us a four hour training on the smartboard's use and special features. The training will start at 10:00 a.m. and we'll have a nice breakfast of chilaquiles, eggs, hotcakes and OJ set up as of 9:40 so please come early. Thank you to those who are coming in on a Saturday for this special training.
Wednesday, January 28, kinder classes will be celebrating 100 days of school. There's a folder in SharePoint with ideas for this event.
Thursday and Friday we have our admission assessments and classes are cancelled. We'll have a lunch for everyone (enchiladas) on Thursday but Friday we will provide lunch only for the people who are assessing all day. For the assessments, it's important that everyone is in the classrooms early and ready to receive the children and their parents.
Meche's last day substituting in N4 is Friday, January 30th. THANK YOU, Meche! It was great to have you back in EC.
On February 4th's staff development we'll be discussing Chapter 4 from Teaching in the Digital Age. This chapter is on "Using Audio Recordings to Capture Powerful Moments". Please think about bringing samples of how you have used audio recordings with students.
It is important that assistants are on the playground promptly at 10:30 for recess duty as some areas are left unsupervised when people arrive late. Please make sure your students are ready to be sent to recess with shoes tied and no lollipops.
This Saturday, the company that sold us the new smartboard in the childcare room will be offering us a four hour training on the smartboard's use and special features. The training will start at 10:00 a.m. and we'll have a nice breakfast of chilaquiles, eggs, hotcakes and OJ set up as of 9:40 so please come early. Thank you to those who are coming in on a Saturday for this special training.
Wednesday, January 28, kinder classes will be celebrating 100 days of school. There's a folder in SharePoint with ideas for this event.
Thursday and Friday we have our admission assessments and classes are cancelled. We'll have a lunch for everyone (enchiladas) on Thursday but Friday we will provide lunch only for the people who are assessing all day. For the assessments, it's important that everyone is in the classrooms early and ready to receive the children and their parents.
Meche's last day substituting in N4 is Friday, January 30th. THANK YOU, Meche! It was great to have you back in EC.
On February 4th's staff development we'll be discussing Chapter 4 from Teaching in the Digital Age. This chapter is on "Using Audio Recordings to Capture Powerful Moments". Please think about bringing samples of how you have used audio recordings with students.
19-23 January
We have had to have maintenance come over twice in this new year to fix toilets that were broken because of being overloaded with paper and baby wipes. Please have a conversation with your students about how we need to be careful with our toilets and sinks (sinks sometimes get filled with paper and sand.)
Monday seven high school students begin a second semester practicum in an EC classroom. Three of the students are returning to complete the year with us (Ana in N2, Morgan in PK/K3, and Maribel in PK7) and we have four new students coming to our section (Francesca in N1, Marifer in PK5, Maria in PK/K8, and Ana in Pk/K9). Please help us welcome them.
Because of elementary testing in the library, our library classes will be given in the viewing rooms next week.
We will be asking for some volunteers to help set up and clean up after this Wednesday's Empty Bowl activity for faculty. Please see me if you would be willing to help with this. Thank you for your consideration.
It is flu season. Please let me know if you learn of a confirmed case of influenza in your classroom as we like to advise the parents of this with an email. There is a list of 10 tips for staying healthy in the classroom that I encourage you to take a look at. I will be passing out a bottle of Lysol to each classroom but know that it is available in the bookstore for when you need more. I would add to the list of tips one that a doctor in San Javier's emergency room gave me when I asked him how he stayed healthy: a saline nasal spray like Sterimar or Acusine in the morning, evening, and when you get home from work.
We have had to have maintenance come over twice in this new year to fix toilets that were broken because of being overloaded with paper and baby wipes. Please have a conversation with your students about how we need to be careful with our toilets and sinks (sinks sometimes get filled with paper and sand.)
Monday seven high school students begin a second semester practicum in an EC classroom. Three of the students are returning to complete the year with us (Ana in N2, Morgan in PK/K3, and Maribel in PK7) and we have four new students coming to our section (Francesca in N1, Marifer in PK5, Maria in PK/K8, and Ana in Pk/K9). Please help us welcome them.
Because of elementary testing in the library, our library classes will be given in the viewing rooms next week.
We will be asking for some volunteers to help set up and clean up after this Wednesday's Empty Bowl activity for faculty. Please see me if you would be willing to help with this. Thank you for your consideration.
It is flu season. Please let me know if you learn of a confirmed case of influenza in your classroom as we like to advise the parents of this with an email. There is a list of 10 tips for staying healthy in the classroom that I encourage you to take a look at. I will be passing out a bottle of Lysol to each classroom but know that it is available in the bookstore for when you need more. I would add to the list of tips one that a doctor in San Javier's emergency room gave me when I asked him how he stayed healthy: a saline nasal spray like Sterimar or Acusine in the morning, evening, and when you get home from work.
12-16 January
The EarthBox team will come in to EC this Tuesday at 11:00 to help rooms 4, 6 & 7 to plant in the boxes and benches. They've been asked to bring extra seedlings in case any of you would like to buy some for personal projects.
This Wednesday evening, we will have our second parent promotional night with rooms 2, 6, 7, & 8 open. Please help make sure our section is looking spiffy. Teachers opening their rooms that evening should plan to be here by 6:45 p.m. and can use the Filadelfia parking lot. After accompanying parents to the auditorium at 7:30, you are free to go home. Let me know if you have any questions and thank you.
Next Friday there will be no PE classes because of the sport's department conference.
There is a tentative emergency drill scheduled for next week. I'll notify you once this is confirmed but it's always good practice to consider best practice for evacuation in different environments and under different circumstances.
The EarthBox team will come in to EC this Tuesday at 11:00 to help rooms 4, 6 & 7 to plant in the boxes and benches. They've been asked to bring extra seedlings in case any of you would like to buy some for personal projects.
This Wednesday evening, we will have our second parent promotional night with rooms 2, 6, 7, & 8 open. Please help make sure our section is looking spiffy. Teachers opening their rooms that evening should plan to be here by 6:45 p.m. and can use the Filadelfia parking lot. After accompanying parents to the auditorium at 7:30, you are free to go home. Let me know if you have any questions and thank you.
Next Friday there will be no PE classes because of the sport's department conference.
There is a tentative emergency drill scheduled for next week. I'll notify you once this is confirmed but it's always good practice to consider best practice for evacuation in different environments and under different circumstances.
August - December 2014
Thank you all so much for your work to make a strong community for children, parents, and coworkers in 2014. I count all of you when I count my blessings. Best wishes for a beautiful holiday for all!
If over the vacations, you would like to learn about a wonderful EC educator, I think you would all enjoy Tom Drummond's website, which I have only begun to explore myself but which looks very interesting.
You might also like to check out the EC TECH TIPS page for great ideas of how to use technology for both professional and personal use.
If over the vacations, you would like to learn about a wonderful EC educator, I think you would all enjoy Tom Drummond's website, which I have only begun to explore myself but which looks very interesting.
You might also like to check out the EC TECH TIPS page for great ideas of how to use technology for both professional and personal use.
7-9 January 2015
We come back Wednesday, January 7th and parents should have planned to have a rosca and chocolate milk or hot chocolate for individual Three Kings' celebrations in the classrooms. We will want to have assistants at recess supervision so please schedule your rosca accordingly.
Our staff development on Wednesday will be on our admission and mid-year assessments plus a review of our EC sexuality curriculum.
Alex Garza has asked that if any EC staff member is interested in attending the fifth annual Congreso Internacional de Educación Física y Deporte Escolar, that you let him know ASFG so he can get you registered.
We come back Wednesday, January 7th and parents should have planned to have a rosca and chocolate milk or hot chocolate for individual Three Kings' celebrations in the classrooms. We will want to have assistants at recess supervision so please schedule your rosca accordingly.
Our staff development on Wednesday will be on our admission and mid-year assessments plus a review of our EC sexuality curriculum.
Alex Garza has asked that if any EC staff member is interested in attending the fifth annual Congreso Internacional de Educación Física y Deporte Escolar, that you let him know ASFG so he can get you registered.
8-12 December
Middle and high school students were surveyed in November about what they knew, who they were talking to about, and where they were learning news of the missing 43 students of Ayotzinapa. They were also asked to suggest things we could do to help this situation and among their many thoughtful and empathetic ideas were messages to not forget, to stay informed, and to promote peace and non-violence. Inspired by these responses the school is going to have create a space for our community to voice both it's solidarity and hopes for Mexico through posters, messages, and art work. These messages will start off being displayed in the main hall on Monday, December 15, and then move to a specially designed area at the School Holiday Celebration (formerly called la posada) on December 18th. If you would like to have your class participate in this activity you are invited to do so or to do so yourself. Instructions can be found here.
Next Sunday there is a peace event for children that I saw advertised but know very little about. I mention it here because as early childhood educators (or parents) we might learn something by attending but I do not want us to advertise this event to our students' parents because I don't know enough about it. However if anyone decides they'll attend, I'd love to learn more.
Middle and high school students were surveyed in November about what they knew, who they were talking to about, and where they were learning news of the missing 43 students of Ayotzinapa. They were also asked to suggest things we could do to help this situation and among their many thoughtful and empathetic ideas were messages to not forget, to stay informed, and to promote peace and non-violence. Inspired by these responses the school is going to have create a space for our community to voice both it's solidarity and hopes for Mexico through posters, messages, and art work. These messages will start off being displayed in the main hall on Monday, December 15, and then move to a specially designed area at the School Holiday Celebration (formerly called la posada) on December 18th. If you would like to have your class participate in this activity you are invited to do so or to do so yourself. Instructions can be found here.
Next Sunday there is a peace event for children that I saw advertised but know very little about. I mention it here because as early childhood educators (or parents) we might learn something by attending but I do not want us to advertise this event to our students' parents because I don't know enough about it. However if anyone decides they'll attend, I'd love to learn more.
In addition to the the faculty holiday party on December 12the faculty holiday party on December 12faculty holiday party on December 12 and school wide holiday celebration (formerly called la posada) on December 18, EC invites you to our own small get-together and gift exchange on December 17 in lieu of a staff development. We will have some yummy food, play a game or two, and exchange gifts if you wish to participate. Rules as follows: Everyone who wants to play contributes a wrapped gift of no more than $200 pesos. We draw a number out of a hat to see who gets to pick from the pile first. Player No. 1 chooses and unwraps a gift, then shows it to everyone else. Player No. 2 then either “steals” that present or picks and unwraps another one from the pile. Player No. 3 can then steal either gift, or choose and unwrap another, and so on. Any player whose gift is stolen gets to pick again. The game continues until everyone has a gift.
1-5 December
EC has two professional passes to the FIL. We'll send 2 teachers (I'm counting myself as a teacher) next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I am keeping a list of who has gone over the years and trying to make this as fair as possible so if you haven't gone in awhile you may be sent next year. If any of you would like to borrow a pass in the afternoon, please let me know.
For Wednesday's staff development we have the opportunity to hear from Ricardo Rubiales whom Norma and I have come to know through RedSOLARE México. Some of you may heard him speak at past RedSOLARE events. Please take a look at his portfolio before his visit. I'll a leave a small book titled ALMA on Erika's desk that Eton's atelierista made to document how their students used a space Ricardo created at the Eton school last year.
The Appreciation Box collection will start next week and run through December 11th. On Monday an email will go out to the community to explain the collection but your help reminding students and parents is much appreciated. This year nursery and pre-kinder will be asked to bring in chocolate powder and kinder either rice, beans or lentals. Let's wait for Dawn's email to the parents to see what the recommended amount to spend on the items is before publicizing it ourselves among the families.
Once again, we will help our students make blankets for the Appreciation Boxes. We'll use service learning money to purchase the material which we hope to have on campus by Tuesday (Thank you Patty!). Then the blanket work starts. We suggest you consider inviting parents into the classroom to help with tying the knots in the blankets. We'll need to have 70 blankets made by December 11th!
EC has two professional passes to the FIL. We'll send 2 teachers (I'm counting myself as a teacher) next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I am keeping a list of who has gone over the years and trying to make this as fair as possible so if you haven't gone in awhile you may be sent next year. If any of you would like to borrow a pass in the afternoon, please let me know.
For Wednesday's staff development we have the opportunity to hear from Ricardo Rubiales whom Norma and I have come to know through RedSOLARE México. Some of you may heard him speak at past RedSOLARE events. Please take a look at his portfolio before his visit. I'll a leave a small book titled ALMA on Erika's desk that Eton's atelierista made to document how their students used a space Ricardo created at the Eton school last year.
The Appreciation Box collection will start next week and run through December 11th. On Monday an email will go out to the community to explain the collection but your help reminding students and parents is much appreciated. This year nursery and pre-kinder will be asked to bring in chocolate powder and kinder either rice, beans or lentals. Let's wait for Dawn's email to the parents to see what the recommended amount to spend on the items is before publicizing it ourselves among the families.
Once again, we will help our students make blankets for the Appreciation Boxes. We'll use service learning money to purchase the material which we hope to have on campus by Tuesday (Thank you Patty!). Then the blanket work starts. We suggest you consider inviting parents into the classroom to help with tying the knots in the blankets. We'll need to have 70 blankets made by December 11th!
18-21 November 2014 & 24-26 November
Because I will be in Mexico City at RedSOLARE's conference on Lenguajes Narrativos next Thursday through Monday, this post is for two weeks. In my absence please refer any urgent matters to Gloria.
Caro's last day of work is November 21. During Caro's maternity leave Maria will take over all head teacher responsibilities and Meche Hermosillo will be joining us as of Thursday to work as a teacher assistant in N4.
November's technology report has been uploaded. If you haven't already, please take a look. Thank you to everyone who submits information for our report.
We will celebrate Thanksgiving with the traditional parent play in the morning (This year's play has been moved to the auditorium and is scheduled from 8:30 - 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, November 26.) and with classroom meals. You can schedule these meals at the most convenient time for your students but both teachers and assistants will need to plan to supervise recess on this day so that assistants are able to be part of the celebration. Please talk with parents planning the meal to make sure that it includes food typically served at Thanksgiving.
We've moved the conversation on chapter three of Teaching in the Digital Age to a week later (December 10th rather than December 3rd) so that we can take advantage of Ricardo Rubiales's visit to the FIL. He'll be visiting EC on Dec. 3rd for our staff development to talk to us about la gramatica de espacios.
Videos of the storybook plays we performed are now on the school's website. Thank you to Cristy for her work on these and to Erika for having the idea to record!
The thankful video we saw in last week's staff development is now posted on our welcome page.
EC's section goal reports for the 2013-2014 school year are on SharePoint. I hope you have the time to read through them. Thank you Gloria, for your work on t
Because I will be in Mexico City at RedSOLARE's conference on Lenguajes Narrativos next Thursday through Monday, this post is for two weeks. In my absence please refer any urgent matters to Gloria.
Caro's last day of work is November 21. During Caro's maternity leave Maria will take over all head teacher responsibilities and Meche Hermosillo will be joining us as of Thursday to work as a teacher assistant in N4.
November's technology report has been uploaded. If you haven't already, please take a look. Thank you to everyone who submits information for our report.
We will celebrate Thanksgiving with the traditional parent play in the morning (This year's play has been moved to the auditorium and is scheduled from 8:30 - 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, November 26.) and with classroom meals. You can schedule these meals at the most convenient time for your students but both teachers and assistants will need to plan to supervise recess on this day so that assistants are able to be part of the celebration. Please talk with parents planning the meal to make sure that it includes food typically served at Thanksgiving.
We've moved the conversation on chapter three of Teaching in the Digital Age to a week later (December 10th rather than December 3rd) so that we can take advantage of Ricardo Rubiales's visit to the FIL. He'll be visiting EC on Dec. 3rd for our staff development to talk to us about la gramatica de espacios.
Videos of the storybook plays we performed are now on the school's website. Thank you to Cristy for her work on these and to Erika for having the idea to record!
The thankful video we saw in last week's staff development is now posted on our welcome page.
EC's section goal reports for the 2013-2014 school year are on SharePoint. I hope you have the time to read through them. Thank you Gloria, for your work on t
10-14 November 2014
I have updated the UPCOMING DATES page. Please take a look.
Monday we will have our parent/teacher conferences. Thank you for all of your work on the progress reports and in preparing to meet and discuss your students' progress with their parents. . These meetings are a wonderful opportunity for you to learn more about your students and their families. Think of questions you might have for parents and take this opportunity to listen to their concerns, questions and compliments. We will have the cookie/coffee service outside the office so there is no need for you to bring snacks but please do set a little table and some chairs outside your classroom with student work for parents to look at if they are waiting for their meeting. Do your best to keep the meetings on time by rescheduling meetings where parents arrive too late to have a productive meeting. Please leave a copy of your Monday schedule with Erika so that she can refer to this should parents call us.
Our ONI drive begins on Tuesday. Thank you for making this a meaningful experience of service learning for your students.
Tuesday morning (8:15-8:45) we have the performances of: There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, The Gingerbread Man and The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Please make sure your costumes and sets are simple enough that you are able to provide proper supervision to students from 7:45 to 8:15. During the plays when we are not performing, we'll all need to help supervise all students as their teachers will be performing.
Wednesday evening we will have our first parent promotional night with rooms 1, 5, 9, & 10 open. Please help make sure our section is looking spiffy. Teachers opening their rooms that evening should plan to be here by 6:45 p.m. and are welcome to go home after accompanying any parents to the auditorium for the presentation that begins at 7:30. Let me know if you have any questions, and thank you!
Interventions: Thanks to teachers and assistants who've handed in signed intervention letters and intervention logs. Please remember to hand these in to Gloria (presently she does not have letters from all classrooms) along with the before and after sheet describing student's abilities. Thanks for your hard work in planning, executing, and documenting interventions.
We are fortunate to be able to share wonderful news about Julio in K3. He had another body scan and he is completely clean of cancer. He has also been given the green light to stop his treatment which means he only goes back every 3 months for his scans. Julio and his family are an example of courage and amazing love.
I have updated the UPCOMING DATES page. Please take a look.
Monday we will have our parent/teacher conferences. Thank you for all of your work on the progress reports and in preparing to meet and discuss your students' progress with their parents. . These meetings are a wonderful opportunity for you to learn more about your students and their families. Think of questions you might have for parents and take this opportunity to listen to their concerns, questions and compliments. We will have the cookie/coffee service outside the office so there is no need for you to bring snacks but please do set a little table and some chairs outside your classroom with student work for parents to look at if they are waiting for their meeting. Do your best to keep the meetings on time by rescheduling meetings where parents arrive too late to have a productive meeting. Please leave a copy of your Monday schedule with Erika so that she can refer to this should parents call us.
Our ONI drive begins on Tuesday. Thank you for making this a meaningful experience of service learning for your students.
Tuesday morning (8:15-8:45) we have the performances of: There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, The Gingerbread Man and The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Please make sure your costumes and sets are simple enough that you are able to provide proper supervision to students from 7:45 to 8:15. During the plays when we are not performing, we'll all need to help supervise all students as their teachers will be performing.
Wednesday evening we will have our first parent promotional night with rooms 1, 5, 9, & 10 open. Please help make sure our section is looking spiffy. Teachers opening their rooms that evening should plan to be here by 6:45 p.m. and are welcome to go home after accompanying any parents to the auditorium for the presentation that begins at 7:30. Let me know if you have any questions, and thank you!
Interventions: Thanks to teachers and assistants who've handed in signed intervention letters and intervention logs. Please remember to hand these in to Gloria (presently she does not have letters from all classrooms) along with the before and after sheet describing student's abilities. Thanks for your hard work in planning, executing, and documenting interventions.
We are fortunate to be able to share wonderful news about Julio in K3. He had another body scan and he is completely clean of cancer. He has also been given the green light to stop his treatment which means he only goes back every 3 months for his scans. Julio and his family are an example of courage and amazing love.
3-7 November 2014
Thanks to everyone for how you make Halloween fun for our students. Check out our photo page for photos of how you all dress to the occasion.
Thank you all for your work in preparing for the amazing student art exhibit. This is my favorite year of art work ever! Thank you to Pili and Maria for organizing this event.
I will read and return the progress reports to teachers on Monday. Please make any corrections needed and upload the narratives to PS by the end of Wednesday so we can print copies for all of you to send home to parents on Friday. This Monday, give parents the letter with their scheduled time to meet with you on Nov. 10 to discuss the reports.
Art Week Activities: we have activities planned for our students related to both of this year's featured artists. Please add them to your lesson plans.
- Tuesday, the journalist Yolanda Zamora will perform Andrea y las bellas artes on the trike track for our whole group from 10:00-10:30.
- Thursday and Friday, the painter Lorenza Aranguren will paint with small groups of students from each classroom. Schedule here.
- Thursday from 9:00-9:30, EC is invited to short drama performance celebrating the these featured artists.
Have read "Multi-Touch Mobile Devices Bring the World to Our Fingertips" from Teaching in the Digital Age before our Wednesday professional development and come with ideas to share about how the iPads are used in your classrooms.
Upcoming: ONI Sweater and Blanket drive begins next week (November 11) and runs through November 21. We'll ask that you start by collecting items in your classroom so the children see and study the donations. We can celebrate Hand-Me-Down Day on November 14th as the half-way mark of the collection. To get the collection started please watch the video Cristy made last year about the ONI drive. Your help documenting this year's activity (children's thoughts, special lessons, photos) will be appreciated. On Friday, Nov. 21 we can ask students to sort our section donations on the trike track.
Thanks to everyone for how you make Halloween fun for our students. Check out our photo page for photos of how you all dress to the occasion.
Thank you all for your work in preparing for the amazing student art exhibit. This is my favorite year of art work ever! Thank you to Pili and Maria for organizing this event.
I will read and return the progress reports to teachers on Monday. Please make any corrections needed and upload the narratives to PS by the end of Wednesday so we can print copies for all of you to send home to parents on Friday. This Monday, give parents the letter with their scheduled time to meet with you on Nov. 10 to discuss the reports.
Art Week Activities: we have activities planned for our students related to both of this year's featured artists. Please add them to your lesson plans.
- Tuesday, the journalist Yolanda Zamora will perform Andrea y las bellas artes on the trike track for our whole group from 10:00-10:30.
- Thursday and Friday, the painter Lorenza Aranguren will paint with small groups of students from each classroom. Schedule here.
- Thursday from 9:00-9:30, EC is invited to short drama performance celebrating the these featured artists.
Have read "Multi-Touch Mobile Devices Bring the World to Our Fingertips" from Teaching in the Digital Age before our Wednesday professional development and come with ideas to share about how the iPads are used in your classrooms.
Upcoming: ONI Sweater and Blanket drive begins next week (November 11) and runs through November 21. We'll ask that you start by collecting items in your classroom so the children see and study the donations. We can celebrate Hand-Me-Down Day on November 14th as the half-way mark of the collection. To get the collection started please watch the video Cristy made last year about the ONI drive. Your help documenting this year's activity (children's thoughts, special lessons, photos) will be appreciated. On Friday, Nov. 21 we can ask students to sort our section donations on the trike track.
27-31 October 2014
Monday is the deadline for turning in your student art to Pili for our art show. Please have the art work labeled with students' names and make a sign with your classroom number and a short explanation on how the students approached this activity. Once the art is displayed, plan some time to take groups of students out to talk about the different pieces and different art techniques that were used. Please encourage parents to come take a look at the art display as well.
Gigi has organized a choir performance for EC students on Thursday, Oct. 30th from 8:20-8:40 on the trike court. N2, PK7 and PK/K8 will not be able to attend because of pumpkin caving activities but we hope the rest of you can make it. It will be on the trike court. Library for K6 (8:45-9:00) and N1 (9:00-9:15) have been rescheduled.
Report card drafts are due Thursday afternoon but Friday is also fine; I need to have all reports before I leave for the weekend. Ernie and Gigi will email you short observations of each of your students' progress on Monday. (It would be wonderful if these comments could be included in your reports but it is not obligatory.) A few points to remember when writing the reports:
• There is a limit of 2048 characters in the narrative report template.
• If a student entered our program late, please start your report with " So and so entered our program on AND ADD THE EXACT DATE."
For more information on writing progress reports, I've created a resource page for that here.
This website's RESOURCES also has a page dedicated to photos of the children's books Gloria has available for you. These books address social-emotional issues including bullying and it is expected that every teacher reads the books you feel are appropriate for your students each year as part our school's bullying prevention program.
Please read through the HALLOWEEN INSTRUCTIONS and let me know if you have any questions or comments. I will email parents to let them know to arrive early and that there is no childcare that day, but your help notifying them of these points is very important.
Monday is the deadline for turning in your student art to Pili for our art show. Please have the art work labeled with students' names and make a sign with your classroom number and a short explanation on how the students approached this activity. Once the art is displayed, plan some time to take groups of students out to talk about the different pieces and different art techniques that were used. Please encourage parents to come take a look at the art display as well.
Gigi has organized a choir performance for EC students on Thursday, Oct. 30th from 8:20-8:40 on the trike court. N2, PK7 and PK/K8 will not be able to attend because of pumpkin caving activities but we hope the rest of you can make it. It will be on the trike court. Library for K6 (8:45-9:00) and N1 (9:00-9:15) have been rescheduled.
Report card drafts are due Thursday afternoon but Friday is also fine; I need to have all reports before I leave for the weekend. Ernie and Gigi will email you short observations of each of your students' progress on Monday. (It would be wonderful if these comments could be included in your reports but it is not obligatory.) A few points to remember when writing the reports:
• There is a limit of 2048 characters in the narrative report template.
• If a student entered our program late, please start your report with " So and so entered our program on AND ADD THE EXACT DATE."
For more information on writing progress reports, I've created a resource page for that here.
This website's RESOURCES also has a page dedicated to photos of the children's books Gloria has available for you. These books address social-emotional issues including bullying and it is expected that every teacher reads the books you feel are appropriate for your students each year as part our school's bullying prevention program.
Please read through the HALLOWEEN INSTRUCTIONS and let me know if you have any questions or comments. I will email parents to let them know to arrive early and that there is no childcare that day, but your help notifying them of these points is very important.
20-24 October 2014
Thank you for everyone's participation in Friday's professional development. It was so fun playing with all of you. The photos from our fun on Friday have now been updated on our photo page.
The annual RedSOLARE conference is coming up in November. Norma and I will be attending. If any of you would like to attend it would have to be at your own expense but we could give you the time off with pay. Please let me know if you are interested.
Gaby O has some great healthy lunch links for parents on her classroom website. I've copied at the bottom of our school lunch photo page. Take a look!
If you haven’t already, please take a look at the latest Tech Report. It’s got great projects and ideas. Thank you Laura for working on this.
Next Wednesday in our professional development session we will start planning some short plays to perform for our students on November 11th. Start brushing up on your fairy tales.
Halloween is creeping up on us. For the big day please prepare a classroom sign to carry in the parade and talk to your room mother about her plans for the classroom celebration. This year we will head back to our classrooms when the senior’s start to perform their end of parade skit but later they have very kindly offered to come to our playground and give us a special performance of their circus themed dance. Ask your roomothers to have the meal ready by 9:40. More details about the day’s schedule to come….
I've been taking a GREAT free on-line course through the Greater Good organization called "The Science of Happiness" and I highly recommend it for personal and professional development. I just learned that one can sign up for the course at any time and that you can take in at your own pace--the content will remain online through May of 2015. Let me know if you have any questions. Staff development credit could be given if you finish the course.
Thank you for everyone's participation in Friday's professional development. It was so fun playing with all of you. The photos from our fun on Friday have now been updated on our photo page.
The annual RedSOLARE conference is coming up in November. Norma and I will be attending. If any of you would like to attend it would have to be at your own expense but we could give you the time off with pay. Please let me know if you are interested.
Gaby O has some great healthy lunch links for parents on her classroom website. I've copied at the bottom of our school lunch photo page. Take a look!
If you haven’t already, please take a look at the latest Tech Report. It’s got great projects and ideas. Thank you Laura for working on this.
Next Wednesday in our professional development session we will start planning some short plays to perform for our students on November 11th. Start brushing up on your fairy tales.
Halloween is creeping up on us. For the big day please prepare a classroom sign to carry in the parade and talk to your room mother about her plans for the classroom celebration. This year we will head back to our classrooms when the senior’s start to perform their end of parade skit but later they have very kindly offered to come to our playground and give us a special performance of their circus themed dance. Ask your roomothers to have the meal ready by 9:40. More details about the day’s schedule to come….
I've been taking a GREAT free on-line course through the Greater Good organization called "The Science of Happiness" and I highly recommend it for personal and professional development. I just learned that one can sign up for the course at any time and that you can take in at your own pace--the content will remain online through May of 2015. Let me know if you have any questions. Staff development credit could be given if you finish the course.
13-17 October 2014
The cold and flu season has started. The most important things we can do to help everyone stay healthy here at school is to teach our students to wash their hands with soap and water and to cover their mouth and nose when sneezing and coughing (this last part is easier said than done but it's an important skill to teach). We must be strict and consistent in sending sick children home. There are different opinions about when a child needs to be sent home so when in doubt, please refer to our school nurses. This article from Kid's Health states that one can be contagious with a cold for weeks but the most important days to have the sick person isolated is when the cold is at it's peak. Take care of yourselves, wash your hands often, clean your nose with nose spray, eat well and get enough rest. (Again, easier said than done!)
Student photo retakes are scheduled for this Tuesday from 9:00-9:30. Cristy will come to your room to pick up your students who are scheduled for a retake (or first photo). Please help us make sure your students are ready and understand what they will be doing. If you know of additional students who need a retake, let Erika know with an email.
EarthBox is visiting Thursday morning at 9:00 am to help PK/K9 plant in the benches. If you would like seedlings for your class or for your home let me know. Thursday is also World Food Day. Let's teach our students to appreciate the important work of farmers and about nutrition through planting, caring for, and harvesting healthy food!
The cold and flu season has started. The most important things we can do to help everyone stay healthy here at school is to teach our students to wash their hands with soap and water and to cover their mouth and nose when sneezing and coughing (this last part is easier said than done but it's an important skill to teach). We must be strict and consistent in sending sick children home. There are different opinions about when a child needs to be sent home so when in doubt, please refer to our school nurses. This article from Kid's Health states that one can be contagious with a cold for weeks but the most important days to have the sick person isolated is when the cold is at it's peak. Take care of yourselves, wash your hands often, clean your nose with nose spray, eat well and get enough rest. (Again, easier said than done!)
Student photo retakes are scheduled for this Tuesday from 9:00-9:30. Cristy will come to your room to pick up your students who are scheduled for a retake (or first photo). Please help us make sure your students are ready and understand what they will be doing. If you know of additional students who need a retake, let Erika know with an email.
EarthBox is visiting Thursday morning at 9:00 am to help PK/K9 plant in the benches. If you would like seedlings for your class or for your home let me know. Thursday is also World Food Day. Let's teach our students to appreciate the important work of farmers and about nutrition through planting, caring for, and harvesting healthy food!
Progress report narratives are due October 30th. Based on our conversations at the beginning of the year with Norma about the reports, I want to make sure we comment on the many different aspects (campos formativos) of our students' development. In order to touch on the different areas, we will plan to have November's report include a description of a student's development in: social emotional development, their adaptation to an English immersion program, their skills in social studies and science (project work), their learning in health and gross motor as well as the arts. We will not focus as much on the areas of fine motor, handwriting, math, and letter/sound knowledge in November because the mid-year report addresses these. Gigi and Ernie have been asked to write a one to two sentence description of each student's skills in their class and share these with you by October 27 (and again in June). These will be written in Spanish and shared with Norma at the same time. Norma will include Ernie and Gigi's comments in the SEJ reports and you are asked to consider including them in your report if you have space (translating them to English if necessary.)
Please continue to include the statement about your students' usage of car seats in November's report, asking students about their use of car seats privately to get accurate responses.
At the beginning of the year all ASFG faculty attended workshops on bullying prevention by our ASFG counselors. In our EC meeting many of you talked about how important it is that parents are aware of what the school is doing to promote a healthy school climate and combat bullying. Now is your chance to help us get the word out to our kinder parents so they attend a bullying prevention workshop by Gloria and Paty Marti on October 23rd from 8-10 am in our school's auditorium. We will be advertising this workshop but your help promoting it with kinder parents is appreciated.
Friday's professional development will be on psycho-motor development with Isabel Yuziuchuk. We'll end the day with a COLOR FEST! So we ask that you wear an old white shirt that day, bring a towel and a change of clothes, and be prepared to get messy. Messy means you may want to go home (with a plastic bag on your car seat) immediately after work (or take a shower in our pool's changing rooms). We hope that many of you participate! :-)
Please continue to include the statement about your students' usage of car seats in November's report, asking students about their use of car seats privately to get accurate responses.
At the beginning of the year all ASFG faculty attended workshops on bullying prevention by our ASFG counselors. In our EC meeting many of you talked about how important it is that parents are aware of what the school is doing to promote a healthy school climate and combat bullying. Now is your chance to help us get the word out to our kinder parents so they attend a bullying prevention workshop by Gloria and Paty Marti on October 23rd from 8-10 am in our school's auditorium. We will be advertising this workshop but your help promoting it with kinder parents is appreciated.
Friday's professional development will be on psycho-motor development with Isabel Yuziuchuk. We'll end the day with a COLOR FEST! So we ask that you wear an old white shirt that day, bring a towel and a change of clothes, and be prepared to get messy. Messy means you may want to go home (with a plastic bag on your car seat) immediately after work (or take a shower in our pool's changing rooms). We hope that many of you participate! :-)
6-10 October 2014
Thank you all so much for making Open House amazing. Parents leave with such admiration and appreciation for your work with their children and a stronger tie to our school community. I feel fortunate to be able to greet them as they come in for the evening but even more so as they leave with looks of wonder on their faces. You all make our program a magical place!
Stefanie is attending the Tri-Association conference this week and Cristy will be helping Maria Jose in PK/K3 all week. We will have to be creative in how we cover any additional absences. Thank you for your help and flexibility.
PK/K9 students will be pulling out the corn and sunflowers that have passed their prime from the benches outside the office. If you would like to take a corn husk or dead sunflower to your room for your students to investigate, please feel free to before Tuesday morning. The plan is to have EarthBoxes return once we have cleared the benches to plant lettuce and broccoli with PK/K9 students. Let me know if you need seedlings for your classroom.
Karla Solana, our EC roommother coordinator Lizette Barba, and I will be visiting MAMA, A.C. this Tuesday with the folks from EarthBoxes because we will be donating 10 boxes and a training for MAMA's students and mothers. (This is possible through funds raised in last year's bake sales.) Ideally we'd like to set up a shared gardening friendship and communication between their students and ours.
Before this Wednesday's staff development meeting, have read chapter 2 (Using Photographs and Images to Inspire) from Teaching in the Digital Age. I look forward to hearing how you are using photographs in the classroom.
Let's start to share photos of interesting school lunches that you see your students bring in. Thank you to Gaby O and Karla S for sharing some of these photos which I have posted here.
I will send an email to parents about next Friday's professional development but your help in reminding parents that there are no classes in EC on October 17th is appreciated.
Thank you all so much for making Open House amazing. Parents leave with such admiration and appreciation for your work with their children and a stronger tie to our school community. I feel fortunate to be able to greet them as they come in for the evening but even more so as they leave with looks of wonder on their faces. You all make our program a magical place!
Stefanie is attending the Tri-Association conference this week and Cristy will be helping Maria Jose in PK/K3 all week. We will have to be creative in how we cover any additional absences. Thank you for your help and flexibility.
PK/K9 students will be pulling out the corn and sunflowers that have passed their prime from the benches outside the office. If you would like to take a corn husk or dead sunflower to your room for your students to investigate, please feel free to before Tuesday morning. The plan is to have EarthBoxes return once we have cleared the benches to plant lettuce and broccoli with PK/K9 students. Let me know if you need seedlings for your classroom.
Karla Solana, our EC roommother coordinator Lizette Barba, and I will be visiting MAMA, A.C. this Tuesday with the folks from EarthBoxes because we will be donating 10 boxes and a training for MAMA's students and mothers. (This is possible through funds raised in last year's bake sales.) Ideally we'd like to set up a shared gardening friendship and communication between their students and ours.
Before this Wednesday's staff development meeting, have read chapter 2 (Using Photographs and Images to Inspire) from Teaching in the Digital Age. I look forward to hearing how you are using photographs in the classroom.
Let's start to share photos of interesting school lunches that you see your students bring in. Thank you to Gaby O and Karla S for sharing some of these photos which I have posted here.
I will send an email to parents about next Friday's professional development but your help in reminding parents that there are no classes in EC on October 17th is appreciated.
29 September - 3 October 2014
Thanks for supporting ASFG's involvement in the People's Climate Change March last Sunday. There's lots more work to do as we teach students to care for our planet. If you would like to get more involved, join ASFG Green's monthly meetings.
Thanks to Alondra and Gloria for their presentation on Piagetian Principals.
Gloria and I are looking over the English writing samples and may be in contact with you if we have questions about a score. I’d be interested in knowing your thoughts on how our writing rubric could be modified to include information we are learning in our study of balanced literacy. Do you have any suggestions? If so please use our new Writing Rubric Blog to share your ideas!
Earlier this week I sent an email with suggestions for teachers to consider when planning Open House presentations. This has been stored in SharePoint with two additional points I forgot to mention in the email:
• Walk parents through documentation of a project (even if it is a project in process) so they become aware of why and how we use documentation to start conversations with them about their child’s learning.
• Announce and thank the room mother and room mother assistants. Even though most parents know who has been appointed to this role, it is nice to acknowledge them for their work.
I realize it may not be possible to incorporate all of these suggestions in your presentation but we feel these points should be considered.
Cristy is working on a short video (approximately 5 minutes) of our EC specialty teachers and Gloria explaining what children learn in their class and giving some parent tips. Once we confirm the video will be ready for Open House, we’ll ask that you make sure you encourage parents to visit the music room Thursday evening to watch it.
It is common for teachers to invite a former ES students to spend a day in the classroom when ES has a ProD day or parent conferences. I ask that these visits are made with at least a day's anticipation (not the evening before) and that you send me an email letting me know. This is because security sometimes calls to confirm the visit.
There's a new page in resources with a link to EC’s individual classroom's webpages. Please take a look at your colleagues’ pages now & then to see how they document student learning and keep parents informed. Classroom webpages are powerful tools for promoting parent involvement in our students' school experience.
Thanks for supporting ASFG's involvement in the People's Climate Change March last Sunday. There's lots more work to do as we teach students to care for our planet. If you would like to get more involved, join ASFG Green's monthly meetings.
Thanks to Alondra and Gloria for their presentation on Piagetian Principals.
Gloria and I are looking over the English writing samples and may be in contact with you if we have questions about a score. I’d be interested in knowing your thoughts on how our writing rubric could be modified to include information we are learning in our study of balanced literacy. Do you have any suggestions? If so please use our new Writing Rubric Blog to share your ideas!
Earlier this week I sent an email with suggestions for teachers to consider when planning Open House presentations. This has been stored in SharePoint with two additional points I forgot to mention in the email:
• Walk parents through documentation of a project (even if it is a project in process) so they become aware of why and how we use documentation to start conversations with them about their child’s learning.
• Announce and thank the room mother and room mother assistants. Even though most parents know who has been appointed to this role, it is nice to acknowledge them for their work.
I realize it may not be possible to incorporate all of these suggestions in your presentation but we feel these points should be considered.
Cristy is working on a short video (approximately 5 minutes) of our EC specialty teachers and Gloria explaining what children learn in their class and giving some parent tips. Once we confirm the video will be ready for Open House, we’ll ask that you make sure you encourage parents to visit the music room Thursday evening to watch it.
It is common for teachers to invite a former ES students to spend a day in the classroom when ES has a ProD day or parent conferences. I ask that these visits are made with at least a day's anticipation (not the evening before) and that you send me an email letting me know. This is because security sometimes calls to confirm the visit.
There's a new page in resources with a link to EC’s individual classroom's webpages. Please take a look at your colleagues’ pages now & then to see how they document student learning and keep parents informed. Classroom webpages are powerful tools for promoting parent involvement in our students' school experience.
22-26 September 2014
Thank you for celebrating Peace Day with the students. You all make a more peaceful world by modeling patience and love in the classrooms.
Thank you for your work with students on the English fall writing samples. I look forward to looking over our students work in this area.
This Sunday, September 21, we have the beautiful opportunity to march for ourselves and for our planet: it is the People's Climate March. Plans for the march in Guadalajara have changed. ASFG and friends will now be meeting at noon at Avenida Chapultepec and Avenida Vallarta. If you have not already seen the movie Disruption that explains the history and importance of the march you can watch it on line. Please consider coming out on Sunday - we'll even have our ASFG Peace Dove joining us!
Monday morning I will put out the Family Day sign-up sheet so you can sign-up to either help EC sell t-shirts or face paint. Family Day is next Saturday, September 27th.
Monday we will also start a collection of dry goods for the victims of the Hurricane Odile in Baja California. Boxes will be placed outside of the office for donations. Please make time to talk to your students about why it is important that we join together to help those hurt by the hurricane.
We have invited Isabel Yuziuchuck to present to EC on our professional development day in October 17th. I've updated our psicomotricidad page with a new link to a SharePoint folder with resources she has sent us.
The Open House schedule for October 2nd will be:
Rooms 3, 6, 8 and 9 7:00-7:40
Rooms 1, 2 and 4 7:40-8:20
Rooms 5, 7 and 10 8:20-9:00
I will send out an email to parents but a personal invitation from you and their child is always a wonderful way to reinforce how important it for parents to come to school that evening. Let me know if you have any questions about the event. We'll ask faculty to arrive no later than 6:45 pm and to stay until 9:00 pm even if you are one of the early presenters.
Silvia Macias has been the EC representative on the director general's teacher advisory committee for many years. This year she's asked to take a break from this assignment and Alondra Velasco has agreed to represent us. Many thanks go to Silvia for her years of service in this role and the best of luck is offered to Alondra as she accepts this new responsibility. If you have concerns about our school that you would like Dave McGrath to know about through the teacher advisory committee - Alondra and Ernie are two people who can help bring your concerns and ideas to this committee.
I looked through photographs of our school year and am so impressed with how much we've already accomplished. There has been a lot going on these weeks and everyone has been busy. Pat yourselves on the back, take a deep breath, and enjoy the moments we are creating together.
Thank you for celebrating Peace Day with the students. You all make a more peaceful world by modeling patience and love in the classrooms.
Thank you for your work with students on the English fall writing samples. I look forward to looking over our students work in this area.
This Sunday, September 21, we have the beautiful opportunity to march for ourselves and for our planet: it is the People's Climate March. Plans for the march in Guadalajara have changed. ASFG and friends will now be meeting at noon at Avenida Chapultepec and Avenida Vallarta. If you have not already seen the movie Disruption that explains the history and importance of the march you can watch it on line. Please consider coming out on Sunday - we'll even have our ASFG Peace Dove joining us!
Monday morning I will put out the Family Day sign-up sheet so you can sign-up to either help EC sell t-shirts or face paint. Family Day is next Saturday, September 27th.
Monday we will also start a collection of dry goods for the victims of the Hurricane Odile in Baja California. Boxes will be placed outside of the office for donations. Please make time to talk to your students about why it is important that we join together to help those hurt by the hurricane.
We have invited Isabel Yuziuchuck to present to EC on our professional development day in October 17th. I've updated our psicomotricidad page with a new link to a SharePoint folder with resources she has sent us.
The Open House schedule for October 2nd will be:
Rooms 3, 6, 8 and 9 7:00-7:40
Rooms 1, 2 and 4 7:40-8:20
Rooms 5, 7 and 10 8:20-9:00
I will send out an email to parents but a personal invitation from you and their child is always a wonderful way to reinforce how important it for parents to come to school that evening. Let me know if you have any questions about the event. We'll ask faculty to arrive no later than 6:45 pm and to stay until 9:00 pm even if you are one of the early presenters.
Silvia Macias has been the EC representative on the director general's teacher advisory committee for many years. This year she's asked to take a break from this assignment and Alondra Velasco has agreed to represent us. Many thanks go to Silvia for her years of service in this role and the best of luck is offered to Alondra as she accepts this new responsibility. If you have concerns about our school that you would like Dave McGrath to know about through the teacher advisory committee - Alondra and Ernie are two people who can help bring your concerns and ideas to this committee.
I looked through photographs of our school year and am so impressed with how much we've already accomplished. There has been a lot going on these weeks and everyone has been busy. Pat yourselves on the back, take a deep breath, and enjoy the moments we are creating together.
15-19 September 2014
On Monday the 15th we will have classroom parties and dress up either in traditional Mexican costumes or in Mexican colors. We will also have the traditional enactment of el grito at recess! Thank you to everyone who makes this come alive for our students. Viva Mexico!
Thanks for your participation in Isabel Yuziuchuck's presentation on psycho-motor development. I've written her asking that she share her presentation and other interesting resources with us and I will post them on our new page dedicated to la psicomotricidad.
Friday we will celebrate peace. You may wish to have the students dress in either white or in hippie-peace outfits. Check out our collection of classroom ideas for Peace Day in a Sharepoint folder. If you have additional ideas, please send them to me. High School students will accompany our peace dove to recess on Friday (10:40-11:00) so assistants may want to bring the classroom camera to recess that day. Please talk to the student about the significance of the dove before recess, perhaps even showing them photos of the bird (on Sharepoint) so that they understand this is a peaceful bird and are not frightened by it's size.
Next Sunday, September 21, we all have the opportunity to participate in an event planned to help our planet; it is the People's Climate March starting at the Glorieta Minerva at 1:00 pm. If you'd like to join ASFG at the march we are meeting at 12:30 at the El Abajeño Minerva restaurant (Av. Vallarta 2802) wearing green shirts. I encourage you to invite your students' families to meet you there! To help our students understand the significance of this march, take a look at our new webpage for caring for our environment for some ideas from Jennie Kies. You might also like to invite your students' parents to the viewing of Disruption (a movie that explains the reason for the march) on Wednesday, September 17th at 7 pm in our school's auditorium.
On Monday the 15th we will have classroom parties and dress up either in traditional Mexican costumes or in Mexican colors. We will also have the traditional enactment of el grito at recess! Thank you to everyone who makes this come alive for our students. Viva Mexico!
Thanks for your participation in Isabel Yuziuchuck's presentation on psycho-motor development. I've written her asking that she share her presentation and other interesting resources with us and I will post them on our new page dedicated to la psicomotricidad.
Friday we will celebrate peace. You may wish to have the students dress in either white or in hippie-peace outfits. Check out our collection of classroom ideas for Peace Day in a Sharepoint folder. If you have additional ideas, please send them to me. High School students will accompany our peace dove to recess on Friday (10:40-11:00) so assistants may want to bring the classroom camera to recess that day. Please talk to the student about the significance of the dove before recess, perhaps even showing them photos of the bird (on Sharepoint) so that they understand this is a peaceful bird and are not frightened by it's size.
Next Sunday, September 21, we all have the opportunity to participate in an event planned to help our planet; it is the People's Climate March starting at the Glorieta Minerva at 1:00 pm. If you'd like to join ASFG at the march we are meeting at 12:30 at the El Abajeño Minerva restaurant (Av. Vallarta 2802) wearing green shirts. I encourage you to invite your students' families to meet you there! To help our students understand the significance of this march, take a look at our new webpage for caring for our environment for some ideas from Jennie Kies. You might also like to invite your students' parents to the viewing of Disruption (a movie that explains the reason for the march) on Wednesday, September 17th at 7 pm in our school's auditorium.
8-12 September 2014
Thanks for everyone's help with dismissal and getting children to the different activities classes and buses they are assigned to!
I enjoyed reading through the Tell Me About Your Child forms. Gloria will return the forms to you when she is finished with them. I recorded any medical situations mentioned in the forms to PowerSchool. If you should learn of more medical emergency information as the year progresses, please notify me.
Our section will be decorated this week for the upcoming 16 of Septiembre celebrations and ESF will hold a sale of Mexican costumes as a fundraising event. Alondra will talk about this event in her kinder classes but it would be nice if nursery and pre-kinder classes also learned more about why we celebrate this day. On Monday the 15th we will have classroom parties and dress up either in traditional Mexican costumes or in Mexican colors. Hopefully we also have the traditional enactment of el grito at recess!
There is a whole school earthquake drill on September 11 at 10 am. Teach children the procedures for an evacuation drill before the drill. Let me know if you have any questions. You can review the sound of the alarm with your students here.
Thanks for everyone's help with dismissal and getting children to the different activities classes and buses they are assigned to!
I enjoyed reading through the Tell Me About Your Child forms. Gloria will return the forms to you when she is finished with them. I recorded any medical situations mentioned in the forms to PowerSchool. If you should learn of more medical emergency information as the year progresses, please notify me.
Our section will be decorated this week for the upcoming 16 of Septiembre celebrations and ESF will hold a sale of Mexican costumes as a fundraising event. Alondra will talk about this event in her kinder classes but it would be nice if nursery and pre-kinder classes also learned more about why we celebrate this day. On Monday the 15th we will have classroom parties and dress up either in traditional Mexican costumes or in Mexican colors. Hopefully we also have the traditional enactment of el grito at recess!
There is a whole school earthquake drill on September 11 at 10 am. Teach children the procedures for an evacuation drill before the drill. Let me know if you have any questions. You can review the sound of the alarm with your students here.
Please make time to watch the ASFG bus video with your students and teach them about how buses help keep cars off the road thus helping our air be cleaner.
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Professional objectives should be documented in our shared Google Docs by September 26.
The mosquito problem seems to have improved some since last weekend's fumigation. If you notice that mosquitoes return to your classroom you may come see me for laminitas/plaquitas that we will pilot. These plug-in fumigators are not risk free so you'll be asked to use them responsibly.
The mosquito problem seems to have improved some since last weekend's fumigation. If you notice that mosquitoes return to your classroom you may come see me for laminitas/plaquitas that we will pilot. These plug-in fumigators are not risk free so you'll be asked to use them responsibly.
1-5 September 2014
Co-curricular PE classes begin Monday. Parents are being notified which class and on what days their child has been assigned by an email from the PE department. We will have a printed list for you Monday morning of your students' assignments to both the PE and LI classes. Please help us make sure our students get to where they need to go and help us if corrections need to be made to the lists. It's always a work in process.
Our section will be fumigated this weekend. We expect that the mosquitoes will return so we are studying different ways we might combat this problem. More information will be forthcoming. Your ideas are also welcome.
I would like to visit your classrooms and introduce myself to your students by reading Go Away Big Green Monster. If you have a perfect time for me to visit please send me an invitation otherwise I will be getting in contact with you to schedule this visit.
This year's RedSOLARE conference is scheduled for November 21 & 22 with a special workshop (additional price) on Nov. 23.
The cost for the conference and workshop if paid by Oct 15 is $1,950 pesos EACH. EC will likely not be able to sponsor staff to attend the conference this year but if you are interested in attending at your own expense I will not count Friday as a personal day. Let me know if you have any questions.
The psycho-motor presenter has changed her plans again and so we will have to move our Teaching in the Digital Age/Chapter 1 discussion back to this September 3. I apologize for these changes. Please do your best to have read Chapter 1 before Wednesday's meeting. The psycho-motor workshop will be on September 10. Keep your fingers crossed!
Many of you said you wanted to learn more about how to encourage positive mindsets in your students. Tami from ES recently posted this link to a short video that does an excellent job of looking at some of the research related to this topic. Perhaps you’d like to share it with your students’ parents?
Co-curricular PE classes begin Monday. Parents are being notified which class and on what days their child has been assigned by an email from the PE department. We will have a printed list for you Monday morning of your students' assignments to both the PE and LI classes. Please help us make sure our students get to where they need to go and help us if corrections need to be made to the lists. It's always a work in process.
Our section will be fumigated this weekend. We expect that the mosquitoes will return so we are studying different ways we might combat this problem. More information will be forthcoming. Your ideas are also welcome.
I would like to visit your classrooms and introduce myself to your students by reading Go Away Big Green Monster. If you have a perfect time for me to visit please send me an invitation otherwise I will be getting in contact with you to schedule this visit.
This year's RedSOLARE conference is scheduled for November 21 & 22 with a special workshop (additional price) on Nov. 23.
The cost for the conference and workshop if paid by Oct 15 is $1,950 pesos EACH. EC will likely not be able to sponsor staff to attend the conference this year but if you are interested in attending at your own expense I will not count Friday as a personal day. Let me know if you have any questions.
The psycho-motor presenter has changed her plans again and so we will have to move our Teaching in the Digital Age/Chapter 1 discussion back to this September 3. I apologize for these changes. Please do your best to have read Chapter 1 before Wednesday's meeting. The psycho-motor workshop will be on September 10. Keep your fingers crossed!
Many of you said you wanted to learn more about how to encourage positive mindsets in your students. Tami from ES recently posted this link to a short video that does an excellent job of looking at some of the research related to this topic. Perhaps you’d like to share it with your students’ parents?
25-29 August 2014
Thank you for creating welcoming classrooms, holding informative and well organized parent meetings, and for the warm way you received the students. We had a great start to our school year thanks to everyone’s hard work and positive attitude.
Starting Monday we will have 6 high school students volunteering in different classrooms for a short period in the mornings. Please help the HS students feel welcome and support them by guiding their work and interactions with our students.
Cristy was busy last week photographing our new students and security has been using these photos to create new student IDs. We will get these to you as soon as we receive them in the office. Once the majority of your students have an ID, please take new students to door #1 for a lesson on how to enter the school using their ID. Teach ALL of your students that the reason we ask them to enter through the proper gate (and not go under the turnstiles) is so we have a list of who is at school.
Room Mother applications should be turned into me on Monday, August 25th. Room Mother assignments are made by our school’s Parents’ Association not by the teachers or the school administration.
You should have received your students’ placement card when you received your class lists. Please read and return these to the office by the end of the week.
I’d also like to read the Tell Me About Your Child forms once you have a complete set of those.
Please include my email address in messages you send out to your class. I love to see the weekly journals and it’s good for me to get updates on other classroom news.
Teachers should attend special activity classes during the first weeks of school to help students with this transition. As of September, we expect teachers to attend every other specialty class – understood as two Library, Music, and LAND PE classes per month. Swim classes should have both the teacher and assistant unless there are so many non-swimmers that a group will be split.
We will continue to handle the budget for individual classroom materials as we did last year. Each teacher can be reimbursed for as much as $1,100 pesos each school year for classroom materials and classroom celebrations such as Mother’s Day or Parents’ Day when a legitimate receipt is presented. See Erika if you have questions about what kinds of receipts we can reimburse.
Thank you for creating welcoming classrooms, holding informative and well organized parent meetings, and for the warm way you received the students. We had a great start to our school year thanks to everyone’s hard work and positive attitude.
Starting Monday we will have 6 high school students volunteering in different classrooms for a short period in the mornings. Please help the HS students feel welcome and support them by guiding their work and interactions with our students.
Cristy was busy last week photographing our new students and security has been using these photos to create new student IDs. We will get these to you as soon as we receive them in the office. Once the majority of your students have an ID, please take new students to door #1 for a lesson on how to enter the school using their ID. Teach ALL of your students that the reason we ask them to enter through the proper gate (and not go under the turnstiles) is so we have a list of who is at school.
Room Mother applications should be turned into me on Monday, August 25th. Room Mother assignments are made by our school’s Parents’ Association not by the teachers or the school administration.
You should have received your students’ placement card when you received your class lists. Please read and return these to the office by the end of the week.
I’d also like to read the Tell Me About Your Child forms once you have a complete set of those.
Please include my email address in messages you send out to your class. I love to see the weekly journals and it’s good for me to get updates on other classroom news.
Teachers should attend special activity classes during the first weeks of school to help students with this transition. As of September, we expect teachers to attend every other specialty class – understood as two Library, Music, and LAND PE classes per month. Swim classes should have both the teacher and assistant unless there are so many non-swimmers that a group will be split.
We will continue to handle the budget for individual classroom materials as we did last year. Each teacher can be reimbursed for as much as $1,100 pesos each school year for classroom materials and classroom celebrations such as Mother’s Day or Parents’ Day when a legitimate receipt is presented. See Erika if you have questions about what kinds of receipts we can reimburse.
Special Concerns:
I received mothers on our second day of classes questioning why their children had been watching a Disney film at school. Although there seems to have been a misunderstanding about what the children were watching, the incident serves as an opportunity to review our use of technology in the classroom and make sure we use technology in ways that enhance the curriculum and not to pacify our students, which was the mothers’ concern.
This year, EC has several students with medical situations that require special care. One student will have special ice packs stored in our freezer that should not be confused with the ice packs that Erika has made for everyone to use. (We will label them as such.) Another child has a thermos of medicine in our staff refrigerator. We will talk about these and other special cases briefly in an upcoming meeting but I wanted to let you know what was being stored in the refrigerator and ask that you help us keep these important resources available to the children who may need them.
I received mothers on our second day of classes questioning why their children had been watching a Disney film at school. Although there seems to have been a misunderstanding about what the children were watching, the incident serves as an opportunity to review our use of technology in the classroom and make sure we use technology in ways that enhance the curriculum and not to pacify our students, which was the mothers’ concern.
This year, EC has several students with medical situations that require special care. One student will have special ice packs stored in our freezer that should not be confused with the ice packs that Erika has made for everyone to use. (We will label them as such.) Another child has a thermos of medicine in our staff refrigerator. We will talk about these and other special cases briefly in an upcoming meeting but I wanted to let you know what was being stored in the refrigerator and ask that you help us keep these important resources available to the children who may need them.