Caring & Courageous

What a week of great care and courage by the Dryden Dolphins!

It was impressive to see the courage of our 5th grade band students at their concert performance! They were so in sync! They have come a long way since first beginning in the fall. 

It's always so great to see the care and attention our students put into learning about the things they are so personally interested in. This quiet student taught herself to play the piano. When she performed "Jingle Bells" for her class, her peers were so impressed. One classmate told her, "Your performance took my breath away!" Imagine the impact of this positive feedback on this student!

We thank the PTA for their care and courage to bring our families together by trying something new! There was a nice turnout and the children had fun with their friends at our first PTA family movie night. 

We are SUPER proud of our Environmental Committee for being so caring and courageous. They came up with, planned and campaigned for a Less Trash Bash for Dryden. During the Less Trash Bash, only 4 garbage cans were filled during the lunch hour instead of the typical 12. They surpassed their goal of cutting the amount of trash in half! We are so proud of this committee's leadership, our school community's participation and the positive impact this makes on the environment!

We are seeing the fruits of student writing opportunities that allow for greater student choice in what to write about. The two students below chose to write about how they met and became best friends, each story from their own perspective. Their stories are very heartwarming because they capture the feelings and empathy for being a newcomer to Dryden from another country. I'm so proud of these two students for their caring and courageous acts of friendship, for telling their story and for sharing some important life lessons for us all!

 

A Community That Cares

We had so much fun at our class Valentine parties thanks to the care of our PTA to plan such entertaining games and crafts for the students!

 

 

 

Thanks to the care of PTA Book Club volunteers, many students are enjoying enriching science experiments and related fiction books with a STEM theme. 

  

It's impressive to see the thought and care students put into solving math problems logically and accurately.  Our teachers put great care into posing challenging math problems with just enough scaffolded support and questioning for students to be engaged in "productive struggle" and experience the exhilaration of learning and success!

 

We know that our students are willing to put forth great effort and focus on learning about things they really care about. It was so powerful to see how hard this first grader was working at reading and writing about learning to ride a bike without training wheels. I'm confident she'll be ready for spring! :)

Our assistant principal, Mrs. Beane, cares about our students! She does an amazing job working with our TV production crew every morning as they prepare for live-streamed morning video announcements. 

I care about the kids in our school, too! I care about their learning and their friendships. I care that they are getting to and from school safely! I've been enjoying riding the school buses this month. It's been a wonderful opportunity to get to know more about the community and neighborhoods of our students. It's been wonderful to get to know our students better. It's been wonderful to get to know more about each bus driver. The bus drivers have been showing me that they know and care a lot about the kids, too!

Empowered to Make the World a Better Place

Every time I walk around our school I find so much inspiration. The children's work below was hanging on a wall in our hallway. The messages were so powerful! When I talked to the teacher about this, I learned that this activity was a very meaningful springboard for students to identify areas of personal interest that they could pursue more deeply during their writing and research time. I can't wait to see where they go with their ideas! I love that they are learning to think globally in early elementary school!

Many of you know and adore our wonderful crossing guard, Mr. Poteracki! His positive, caring attitude inspires me every time I see him. This past Friday was National School Crossing Guard Day. It was a great day to thank him for his work and dedication in helping our students safely get to and from school!

 Our students are students are working together to make things better at Dryden, too! 

This awesome Tidy Up Team volunteered their time during lunch recess to organize our Lost and Found. 

Our students are making the world a better place in big ways and small ways. Our Student Environmental Committee collects worn-out and broken markers, crayons and highlighters. They also campaigning for a "Less Trash Bash" that will take place during the lunch hour on February 21. Their goal is to create half the amount of trash than what is normally created (6 garbage cans instead of 12). I'm so proud of their efforts!

Sharing our love of reading with one another is one of the things I find most inspiring about our school. Reading opens up our minds to whole new worlds of adventures, ideas, and possibilities. Listening to these students proudly share their word art about the books they recently read was such an uplifting part of my day. 

As you can see, I'm constantly inspired by how our students and staff are taking the initiative to make the world a better place in so many wonderful ways!!

Short and Sweet

 With only two days of school last week, due to the Polar Vortex, this will be a short and sweet blog post! 

Many thanks to our PTA volunteers and LMC director, Mrs. Kovacic, for a short and sweet book fair! This is a wonderful way to expose our students to new titles, authors and genres as well as spark their interest in reading.

While it's been frigid outside, I have been enjoying indoor recess with our students. I schedule a recess bunch with every student in grades 1-5, aiming for when the weather is not so conducive to going outside. We usually play Uno or Apples to Apples. It's a great opportunity for me to get to know each student a little better as an individual by learning about their interests and personalities as we talk and play. I'm looking forward to more recess bunches in the weeks ahead!