Dear families,

We had another wonderful day together! It may help you to know that Ms. Paulich is in the class on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings as well as Thursday afternoons.

In the morning, students were grouped together for a paper chain STEM challenge! They brainstormed to come up with plans. Core Competencies: I can communicate and collaborate to work together with others! I can think critically! Tomorrow, the team challenge is ON!

In the afternoon, we met in our Community Circle to share our names again and suggest an exercise for us to all do. So, we did jumping jacks, lunges, burpees, and high knees, to name a few. We used a meme check-in just for fun to help us share how we were feeling. They chose an animal to help them express their emotions! Then we ended our circle time with freeze dancing to Can’t Stop This Feeling. So much fun!

We then talked about 5 Questions to Reveal Student’s Strengths & Interests. It was interesting that writing down their personal strengths and what they are passionate about didn’t come easily to them. I am excited to witness their growth over time. I truly believe it is so important they know what their strengths are especially in character so they not only can recognize these in each other but they can come to understand their value and the impact they have as good citizens in their communities.

As for developing passions, we will start to look at the beginning stages of our Passion Projects this Friday! Please feel free to begin to have conversations at home about what your child is passionate about or would most LOVE to learn about during this independent, self-directed learning time. To learn more about Passion Projects, I was a guest blogger for School Rubric. They published my blog post just last week on September 8th! To read my blog post, click here! If you want to take a look at the projects my students did last year, click here.

Students were excited to receive their planners! The cost will be $10. You can make a payment through School Cash Online soon. Please sign their planners each night. It is best if their planners are kept in a large Ziplock bag to limit the possibility of water leakage from bottles in their backpacks. Please feel free to write messages in the planner but the best way to communicate would be via email. Thank you!

I have so loved reading the emails your child sent to me because I am learning more about them! I have thoroughly enjoyed writing my responses to continue to get to know them better. Due to the fact that I am not their teacher in class 100% of the time, this is just another way we can stay connected and build that all important relationship outside the walls of the school. Besides, this is a real reason to read and write! They practice their communication skills too!

Your children make us feel so happy and loved! Thank you for your support by reading our blog posts. We highly recommend you read these together and then have a conversation around what they learned. We appreciate you! As always, please reach out should you have any questions or concerns and feel free to leave a comment on this blog to let us know what resonated with you. Thank you for your time! 🙂

Sincerely, Ms. Chan and Ms. Paulich