School Update

Dear Barrows Families,
I can’t believe that we're right up on our winter break!  The first part of this school year has just flown by! I am so proud of the work happening within these four walls, I hope you are able to check us out on Twitter @BarrowsSchool to see some great photos of our learners hard at work!

I am so proud of the generosity of our school community—The current collections of items for the Student Council Food Drive, monetary donations for the Mission of Deeds Kindergarten fundraising effort, and the Coats for Kids donations. Recent generous donations from our school community include the collection of slippers for Boston Children’s Hospital, hosted by 1st grader Lani McGrady, Donations towards our REF tree, donation of candy to Operation Gratitude, and more. A strength of our school community is giving outside of ourselves to others—and I celebrate everybody’s participation in these efforts! There is still time to give your change to the Mission of Deeds collection—Kindergarten will be accepting donations up through December 23rd.

We will have our all-school winter assembly next Wednesday (12/23) - it is also an all-school pajama day, so we invite your children to come in their cozy pajamas to enjoy our all-school sing along hosted by our Kindergarten class.

I have had some parents ask how to continue to support learning over the winter break. I have a few suggestions for you;

•  Read together! Read aloud, read quietly near each other, read 2 copies of the book and discuss your thoughts, read a story then watch the movie and compare/contrast… READ!
•  Use your child’s access to MobyMax.com (a school-based program for which they have a log-in and password) to practice math, reading, fluency, writing, and more!
•  Play games together—including games like Battleship (Coordinate grids/visual spatial skills); Card game “War” (number value); Memory (working memory/matching skills); Taboo (describing words)
•  Check out BedTime math—a FUN challenge a day for families to try; http://bedtimemath.org/
•  Try out our all-school writing prompt over vacation! We will be collecting and displaying student responses when we get back in the new year– just turn them in to the office.

In closing I thought it would be worthwhile to share something I wrote last year that is still very applicable now; “This time of year can be busy, exciting, and overwhelming for both adults and children. Consider having some down time with your learner; read a good book together, take a walk, play a board game, etc. In the hustle and bustle of the winter/holiday season we tend to see students with heightened sensitivity, exhaustion, grumpy moods, and tears. When you see your child showing shifts in behavior from their typical self help them to identify how they are feeling (sad, tired, angry, etc.) and work with them to identify how they can help themselves feel better (take a break, dance, go to bed early, play a silly game, etc.)" Enjoy a wonderful holiday break with your families. See you in the new year!

Love, Mrs. Leonard