Sunday, November 25, 2018

Ever Grateful


 The week before Thanksgiving was a wonderful whirlwind at Dryden! 
Our first grade students impressed us with their musical performance, "Food Rocks." They played instruments, sang and danced. It filled my heart with gratitude to be able to see first hand their pride and joy in creative expression through music.  

I also felt so grateful to see our students learning how our words and actions can affect others, and that we must strive to be caring and kind with our words that we use with one another. 


Our morning video announcement production crew makes us so grateful at Dryden! This group brings us a live broadcast every morning, sharing all kinds of important updates and announcements. Students are responsible for all the roles in video production including directing, script-writing, video-recording, and live-reporting. 
 

These representatives from our Student Council's Environmental Commission are giving a public service announcement. They are spearheading a crayon and marker recycling project for our school. I'm grateful for their caring leadership and their efforts to care for our environment!

When things get a little crazy, I'm grateful for the smiles, laughter and not taking ourselves too seriously on days like Crazy Hair Day. 



Gobble! Gobble! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving! Let's continue to focus on gratitude beyond this special holiday! 

Sunday, November 11, 2018

Through a Child's Eyes



This week I participated in the Shadow a Student Challenge. It was very powerful to experience an entire school day through the eyes of a student! I rode the school bus, took a math quiz, made a science video demonstrating the seasons and day and night with the group above, ate the school hot lunch, did cartwheels and rode the tire swing at recess, read and discussed about current moon exploration efforts, played the xylophone in music class, and played Gator Ball in PE class. It was an action-packed day of exciting learning and playing! I can certainly see why our students love coming to Dryden. Learning is hard work, but it's also so fun and exciting with our amazing teachers and caring friends. 



I love how these second-grade students brought their understanding of the fragility of this kelp forest ecosystem to life! There was a lot of meaningful collaboration and discussion as each student contributed to this mural. 

At Dryden, we were happy to honor 45 local Veterans and their families on Friday. The service of the Veterans who came to spend time with us spanned over 70 years and all branches of the military. We appreciate how the community came together to provide a warm breakfast, and how our Scouts led us in a special flag ceremony. We're grateful for the opportunity for our students to learn from the experiences of our Veterans as well. 



Our students were proud to sing  "This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land" for our Veterans. 

Our first snow happened on Friday, too! Even though there was only less than a half an inch, our students figured out how to work together and build this smiling snowman! What a special treat to see this when I looked out my office window! What wonderful persistence, teamwork, problem-solving and creativity they are demonstrating when they play. Kids are awesome!!

Saturday, November 3, 2018

The Best Treats

The beautiful fall weather made our Halloween parade a big treat! We appreciated the families and neighbors who came out to cheer us on as we walked through the neighborhood in our creative costumes. 


It was also a big treat to have so many fun games and activities provided by our parent volunteers at our Halloween parties. I enjoyed getting in on the fun and playing with the students, and I think our teachers did, too! Slime-making and mummy-wrapping were just a couple highlights of the celebrations.


 

 

Perhaps the biggest treat of all is working with this most amazing team of teachers! They truly are superheroes to our students and our school community.