Dear students and parents,

My sincerest hope is that you have continued to stay safe and healthy. We finished our first official week of remote learning with a variety of tasks. As mentioned in my email, the sections in OneNote have been streamlined to make it more efficient for both you, your child, and me. It’s a win-win! At any point, should you have any questions, please reach out by email. I will respond as quickly as I can and will call if that is your request.

If you have not responded to the mid-April check-in survey, please fill it out at your earliest convenience. I appreciate your time.

Just last Thursday, we were provided with information for us to use Zoom for classroom purposes. Since this is a new videoconferencing tool to us, it is important to review the expectations with your child and to remind them of what it means to be a good digital citizen. Click here to look at a poster provided by the District. Reviewing the poster will be one of our tasks for tomorrow so please login to O365 OneNote to look at the first task! Why tomorrow? Because on Tuesday, we will have our very first online class meeting on Zoom at 11:00 am! I know many of you have asked when this will happen but I needed to wait for more direction from our District first. Thank you for your patience. I am super excited to see everyone again soon. We will be playing a fun game called Zoom the Room!

We are constantly evolving with our program of learning at home. As such, resources are quickly being created and made available to us. I wanted to highlight a few things here to bring it to your attention:

• Ms. Vivien, our yoga instructor, and a Brentwood parent, has so kindly and generously offered FREE yoga sessions over Zoom every Tuesday at 11 am (ages 8+) and every Thursday at 2 pm (all ages). Yoga sessions will run approximately 30-40 minutes. To signup, families must email her at  vgomes@me.com. Please provide the following details:  parent’s email address, number of children, their ages, and division number.
• Mr. Maroney, our music teacher extraordinaire, has created a blog for students to continue their learning at home. Click here to go to his blog. We appreciate all the work that went into it. I added a link to his blog under School Links.
• Ms. Delvecchio has been busy updating our school website. We now have a section called Continuous Learning. I have added a link under School Links. Click on Student Resources to find links to books online or if you have a question you want to ask Ms. Delvecchio, click here to do so! She is waiting to connect with you!

I am deeply grateful for your continued support at home. I appreciate your time and effort in helping your child. It is my hope that they will become more independent and require less of your support over time. As these are new tools to them (and there will be more!), they may find themselves feeling frustrated at times. Remind them of my first message to them: This is the perfect opportunity to practice our growth mindset with a positive attitude, stop to do some breathing exercises, practice perseverance and say to themselves, “I can do this” or “I can’t do this… YET” and use their critical thinking skills to approach the issue. There is something of value to be learned through the struggle. I know my own kids at home really don’t like it when I don’t come to their rescue right away but I want them to learn how to self-regulate and practice the skills I just mentioned above. I remind them, “The more I help you, the more I’m not helping you.” Of course, it always depends on the situation as I always gauge what they can and cannot handle. We know our own child best… well, on most days, at least!

I hope you can really feel in your heart that I am here to support you and your family during this time and that I am working hard to stay connected with your child especially through OneNote and email. Please reach out if you need anything.

I am so looking forward to seeing you during our car parade tomorrow at 1:45pm! Here is the map of the route. Click here for more details.

Sincerely, Ms. Chan