 |
Monthly Newsletter
|
|
April: Courtesy Our character trait for April is COURTESY, or perhaps more fitting, “common” courtesy, which as they say, is unfortunately not all so common. We’ll be stressing all the basics: holding the door open for others, letting others be “first”, saying please, thank you, good morning, excuse me, etc. To help promote this trait, we will be sponsoring a couple activities in the high school and elementary school. Both schools will be making / signing cards of appreciation, thanking support staff for all they quietly do for us and the school. Materials for these will be made available to the teachers. The high school will additionally be doing an activity based on the concept from the movie “Pay It Forward”. A student will perform an act of courtesy for someone else. Then the student for whom the courtesy was done will be expected to “pay forward” an act of courtesy to someone else; then that person for someone else, and so on. Homeroom teachers will be asked to be good enough to help us kick-off this day’s activity during homeroom on April 12th which will be our “Catch on to Courtesy Day”. More information will be forthcoming as that date draws nearer. Please join us in encouraging our students to practice all those simple, basic traits of common courtesy, and Thank you to everyone in advance for your assistance with our planned activities. Note: The high school will be having an assembly on Tuesday, May 3rd at 1:00. Our committee will be sponsoring a presentation by Olympic speed-skater silver medalist Trevor Marsicano who will be speaking to the students on the topic of bullying. The assembly is planned to last about one hour. March: COOPERATION By definition, COOPERATION is “the act of working with others so as to get something done”. For sure, we would like to see our students exhibiting this trait with everyone: peers, parents, teachers, staff, and administration. To help us stress this trait during March, the elementary and high schools will be doing different activities: Elementary: We will once again be sponsoring a Mix-It-Up Day for students during lunches. Arrangements will be made for students to sit with children with whom they usually do not sit. We will also be doing our “Helping Hands” activity. Construction paper punch-outs of hands will be distributed to teacher classrooms. Each student will be encouraged to take one of these and, depending on age-level abilities, write their name on it along with a COOPERATION statement. More information about this activity will be forthcoming. High school student volunteers will be sought to work with elementary students (see below). If you would like to see if there is a high school student available to come over to assist some of your students, please contact Mike Fritz. High School: We are working to link high school student volunteers with elementary teachers who would like them to come over and assist their students with their schoolwork. Noting the scheduling problem, we will do our best to have the consistency we would all like to see. Responsibility Challenge (Jan-Feb): We will be acknowledging the students who have successfully met this challenge once we have collected all of their names. Please join us in teaching our students the important lessons of COOPERATION. Thank you for your COOPERATION. January-February: RESPONSIBILITY December- CARING: It was a pleasure putting up ornaments in our display acknowledging many of the great “caring” activities/projects we do here in the school. We truly do make a big difference in the lives of so many children. Thank you for all you do! Thank you to Jenny O’Connor and everyone else who contributed to our “caring” chain in the hallway. There’s no such thing as a weak link when we truly care about one another. The elementary Food Drive collected over 1,000 items for our Hoosick area food pantry. Thanks to Lisa Bundrick and everyone who helped to make this worthwhile effort such a success. Mrs. Ferrannini’s and Mrs. Culver’s classes donated the most items and were treated to pizza. We’re happy to see that so many teachers have sent out Good-News Grams to their students. It's so nice when something like that is sent home about a child. January-February- RESPONSIBILITY: The main focus of the RESPONSIBILITY trait will be “The Responsibility Challenge”. The elementary grades will be starting this now while the high school will begin after exam week. For a student to “meet” the challenge, he/she must, for the months of January and February, be on time to school and to ALL classes, and have ALL assignments completed and handed in for EVERY subject. Teachers, especially in the lower grades, may wish to also add that students cannot have any cards “pulled” for the two months. We feel that this is an excellent way to start off 2011, focusing on RESPONSIBILITY and the pursuit of academic excellence. Please join us in this endeavor, and please stress the RESPOSIBILITY theme to your students. Thank you. December: caring Remembering our Veterans: We want to thank everyone who helped in our “Thank You” card project for our veterans: Terri Burdick who does this every year, the high school English teachers, the elementary teachers, and of course the students. Surely the cards brought some smiles and warmth to our veterans. HFCS Cares: During the course of the year our school is involved in an amazing number of projects that epitomize our December theme of CARING. This year, we once again plan to create displays in the high school and elementary lobbies acknowledging these many fine school projects. We’re asking teachers who are involved in any of these “caring” projects to supply us with some basic information so we can properly acknowledge them in the display. We feel that this is an excellent way to show others, and remind ourselves, of the many outstanding things we do here at HFCS.
Elementary Projects: The elementary committee has been busy with these additional activities: - Our food drive for the Hoosick area food pantry is now over. We collected over 1,000 items! Thank you for helping us to help the so many others who depend on these donations to help them get by during these tough times. - Work has begun on the “caring” paper-chain that will grow through the hallways. The chain will be made out of “caring” statements which the students will contribute. We hope that this year’s chain will be even more incredible than last year’s. We kindly ask you for your support AND patience with our projects. Our goal is to instill positive character traits in our students which will influence them throughout their lives. With your help, that will happen. Thank you. November: Citizenship Month October- RESPECT: We hope the RESPECT ice cream coupons have been useful, and have helped to impress the RESPECT message on our students. If you have slips left over, please feel free to make use of them through November. (High school teachers: Don't forget to also complete the forms that get mailed home, and get those in to Mike Fritz.) November- CITIZENSHIP Month: November lends itself to the citizenship theme with its holidays of Veterans Day, Election Day, and Thanksgiving. Along with the themes already associated with those days, we will also be touching on the importance of community service and caring for the environment. We have several planned activities for the month. § Remembering Our Veterans: This year we will be sponsoring a “Thank You” writing project to veterans in the Vermont Veterans Home in Bennington and the Albany Stratton Veterans Hospital by having the high school join with what Terri Burdick does every year in the elementary. We are asking teachers to have their students prepare simple thank you notes/cards for the veterans, which will then be brought over to the facilities for distribution. - Red, White, and Blue Day- Wednesday, November 10th: Everyone will be encouraged to respectfully “show their colors” on this day before Veteran’s Day. Red, white, and blue ribbons will be sold in both the high school and elementary buildings that morning for 50 cents each. The proceeds will be donated to the fund for the veteran’s commemorative wall which is planned for Wood Park.
- “Too Tall, Too Short” assembly- Monday, November 8th: As part of our ongoing efforts to lessen bullying behavior in our school, we are once again sponsoring the Oldcastle Theatre Company from Bennington to come and perform an assembly for grades 4-6 at 9:30 AM. The play “Too Tall, Too Short” deals with the bullying issue as well as other issues common to students of this age range.
- Elementary Food Pantry Drive: We will once again be sponsoring our annual food pantry drive for grades K-6. We will be collecting items by grade level from November 29th through December 8th. Pizza parties await the two classrooms who donate the most.
Lastly, the Hannaford’s Helps Schools program which funds most all of our activities will be continuing through December 5th. Please remember to drop off your dollar-tickets either into our container at the Bennington Hannaford or here at the school with Judy Woodard. Please join us during this month of November to instill in our students the value and importance of citizenship, through community service and remembering those around us who truly should be “remembered”. Thank you.
Character Education Committee
Hoosick Falls CSD
|
