Sparkle & Shine

In the month of December, there seems to be a lot of elementary school projects requiring the use of glitter! All the glitter projects have got me thinking of the special care and attention of many individuals in our school community so that our students can sparkle and shine!

Starting in kindergarten, each of our students has opportunities to sparkle and shine by sharing their favorite books, toys, people and traditions in their lives. Their peers and teachers have an opportunity to ask questions and share compliments to celebrate each child's unique and special qualities and cultures. 

Even our dear crossing guard, Mr. Poteracki, works very hard to make sure our students are able to safely cross the busy intersection to get to and from school. Just a few minutes of everyone's cooperation and patience helps to ensure our students can sparkle and shine at school!

 

We greatly appreciate our Board of Education's recognition and support of our staff's efforts to help our students sparkle and shine in their learning. We are thankful for the holiday treats they provided!

It was impressive to see the students sparkling and shining in their math work this week! The classroom teacher designed special activities for different groups of students based on the students' needs. Some students worked on their accuracy of showing the repetition of patterns of increasing complexity. Some students worked on illustrating what happens when adding or subtracting numbers. Other students worked on designing pictures with shapes and then counting the number of each shape they used. It got tricky when they had to count rectangles and squares because they had to remember that a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not necessarily a square!

We are so grateful for the Arlington Heights Police Department's efforts to go above and beyond to build positive relationships with our students and serve our community. A special surprise from Officer Hamrick made our student sparkle and shine with joy!

As the cold weather settles in, I try to have indoor recess bunches with all of our students. This is a great opportunity for me to get know their interests, personalities and what makes each child at Dryden sparkle and shine!

While it may be cold outside, our second-grade students are keeping it HOT, HOT, HOT inside! Soon they will be sparkling and shining on stage at their winter musical performance. We hope you enjoy the sneak peek!