“The pessimist is half-licked before he starts.”
-Thomas A. Buckner
Dear Grand Oak Families,
Another crazy weather week has come and gone in North Carolina! We continued to fluxuate between unseasonable warm weather and cooler weather. Please continue to make sure you have your child’s name in coats and other items as our lost & found grows and grows. This week we also found out that Mrs. Mari Kirchner was chosen as our Teacher Assistant of the Year. We had some great nominees including Mrs. Cook, Mrs. Bachofner, Mrs. Dill, Mr. Bintz and Mrs. Veneris. We are proud of all of our teacher assistants and what they do for our Grand Oak kids and teachers.
Our quote this week focuses on being positive rather than being a pessimist. Grand Oak Elementary School works very hard to creative a positive environment for our students and families every day and we must continue to work on showing this positivity in all areas of our school and lives. Model a “glass is half full” attitude in all that you do and your children will follow suit. By always viewing things positively we are setting the stage for future successes for ourselves and for our children. As we move in to the Spring months our focus will remain strong in the following areas:
- Teaching students to use new technology as they present materials.
- Working together to collaborate and solve problems.
- Small group/ differentiated instruction to meet student needs (personalized learning)
- Allowing students to take risks, make mistakes and learn from them.
- Having students explain and show “how” they got to their answers and be able to defend them with evidence.
- Respecting all answers as possibilities (open mindedness)
- Building mastery of skills through practice, assessment, re-teaching and re-assessing.
- Building connections through current events and authentic tasks.
- Helping students learn how to research, present and share information.
- Facilitating conversations to build a joy of learning both in and out of school.
- Promoting and supporting independence and ownership over their work.
These things are consistently discussed and worked on each day by our wonderful teachers. Just visit the hallways w/ your phone to see some of the great teaching and excitement our kids are exposed to everyday!
Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy your families.
Respectfully,
Mr. Giovanelli
I will be sharing information and ideas from a book entitled 180 Days of Manners by Forrest and Menger. Our focus will be on good manners and how they should be used in all that we do :
- Terminate the litterbugs with good manners-One of the things that I try to model to our students every day is in regards to cleanliness. We “all” need to take the initiative to set good examples and pick up trash that we see in the building or around the building (even if it isn’t ours). Doing these things help our school stay beautiful and will make litterbugs EXTINCT at Grand Oak.
- Show good manners in the media center-We hope all of our students have the love of reading in their hearts. Make sure your students show this by taking care of the books that they borrow from the school, turn books in on time so others can enjoy them and make sure that we are using quiet voices at all times so we are allowing others to enjoy their books.