It's the start to another fantastic year here at Greenridge Elementary. There are lots of new faces moving about the building, including new staff. In our 4 year old preschool, we have new teacher, Barbara Pilichowski working with Jill Coyne, and Della Schuiling working with teacher Mary Willacker. In the 3 year old preschool, we have new teacher Dana Lozon and new assistant Tracy Slack. In the GSRP program, we have new teacher Heather Burke working along side Colleen Mandrecky. We are all looking forward to a great year
As we near the end of the 2013-14 school year and eagerly await summer, we are keeping busy with doing final assessments to monitor what learning has occurred over the course of the year. Staff have been reporting that they are very pleased with the progress being made by the students and many have exceeded their goals and expectations. Some of the students who have been at Greenridge this year will be moving on to Kindergarten at Stoney Creek. The others will be returning here for more time preparing for the day when they will go to Kindergarten. Whichever scenario your child fits in, we hope that this summer is filled with LOTS of fun, but encourage you to look for, and take advantage of, all kinds of learning opportunities. Continue to look at the websites to get ideas on how to enhance everyday activities with advanced learning. It doesn't have to be anything difficult, just make it part of what you're already doing. You go to the beach, ask them why the sand is hot and the water cold. If you go to the zoo, ask them how animals are alike and different. Challenge them to think about their world, not just
It is definitely a beautiful sight. That big yellow thing in the daytime sky. Hopefully now it will melt the rest of this white stuff away. Unfortunately, I live in the woods, so it takes a long time for it to completely disappear from my lawn. This irritates my oldest daughter so much that she actually went out yesterday and started shoveling snow onto our driveway so that it would melt faster. I am just looking forward to see new flowers, especially tulips, sprouting up through the thawing earth. I planted a whole new area in my yard with a mixture and I am excited to see what I get.
Planting a mixture, is also what our staff here at Greenridge do every year. We get a mix of student abilities and skills. And, if all goes well, our children spring up from where they started and grasp the concepts and vocabulary that we teach them and grow into confident youngsters, prepared for kindergarten and beyond. Our pleasure comes when we test them in the spring and find out just how far they've come during this school year. We're excited to see what we get!! With all of the snow and wind chills I thought it would be a good idea to plan for our "Shelter in Place" drill this month. We know that these drills are necessary to keep our children safe and to help them understand what they need to do in an emergency, and we are also aware that we do not want to unduly frighten them on a normal day at school. It is a fine line! The staff understands this and have done a great job of preparing the children for these drills and giving them an age appropriate explanation of why we have them and what they are designed to do. Ask your child if they are aware of what they do in the variety of situations that we need to have a drill for, Shelter In Place, Tornado, and Fire. We will have three more drills before the end of this school year.
Wow, it's great to be back. I have never felt so cooped up in my entire life. I wanted to get back in school and get back into a routine again. It was great getting in here and seeing the staff and students again. Everyone was so excited and filled with wonderful stories about what they had done for the past two and a half weeks! At my house, we got a new bunny rabbit. She's a cutie, and very friendly. I'm hoping to bring her for a visit sometime as she loves to be pet and held.
For school, the staff and I are working on improving our assessments that we give to our three and four year olds to evaluate their school readiness skills. We continue to review the current program and hope to have a final copy ready to test in May to use as baseline data for the incoming fall class. As we are nearing the half way point of this current school year, we are pleased with the growth being shown in our students, especially in the area of vocabulary, which was our target skill for this year. Hopefully, parents are noticing the new words that their child is learning in each lesson and reinforcing them at home! There are lots of activities coming up in our programs for the next couple of months and several holidays. Fall is full of learning opportunities and things to discuss with your children. Colors, changes in the season, the holidays, they all provide topics that you can talk about. It's also a beautiful and refreshing time of year to get out and do something physical with your child. Raking and jumping in leaf piles, going for walks to pick a fall harvest, putting away things around the yard to prepare for snow. The days are crisp and fresh.
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Mrs. MillerI have been in education for 26 years, 17 as an administrator. Archives
September 2015
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