Pawsome News
Mill Creek Elementary School-May 2022
Empathy
"We can't heal the world today, but we can begin with a voice of compassion, a heart of love, and an act of kindness." Mary Davis
Vision Statement for Mill Creek Elementary School
Our students at Mill Creek will acquire literacies in multiple areas including English Language Arts, math, science, and digital media. They will become creators, problem solvers, and critical consumers of information. They will develop confidence, resilience, persistence, empathy, and compassion. Students will develop a love of learning through fun, challenging, and relevant learning activities. Their academic, physical, and social emotional growth will enable them to lead happy, productive, meaningful lives as contributing members of our democratic society.
Message from the Principal
As the weather continues to improve and daylight lasts longer, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep kids focused on school and homework. There is still a month and a half of this school year remaining and a lot of rich learning that will take place.
Below are some tips for helping your child stay focused.*
First, stick with your routine. Try to keep dinner, homework and study time, and bedtime the same even though daylight stretches into the evening. Second, stay involved in your child's schoolwork. Stay in touch with teachers and ensure that homework is completed. Third, enjoy the countdown to summer along with your child. For younger children, creating a big calendar to mark the countdown can help reinforce both math and calendar skills. Finally, get outside! Take advantage of the warmer weather by getting outside for a bike ride, walk, visit to a local park or playground. Getting your dose of vitamin D helps you to rejuvenate after a day of school and work.
Please reinforce with your child the importance of staying strong through the end of the school year. There will be plenty of time in the summer to chill!
Sincerely,
Dr. Vitella
*Edutopia, April 16, 2021, by Sheik Meah
News From the Office
May 4-Family Brain Night, 7:00 to 7:45 PM, Mill Creek Library
May 16 and 17-Schools closed for teacher professional development
May 30-Schools closed for Memorial Day
Kindergarten registration is on-going. Please let friends and neighbors know.
Game Days (formerly Field Day)
June 6-8, students will be competing against each other in various fun events.
“Game Days” will be held indoors. We will not be able to host family spectators because we need all the available gym space for our student competitors.
We will be filming the events to share with all parents/guardians via a Google Drive link the week of the competitions. In this exciting video showcase, you will get to see your child in action at the Mill Creek “Game Days”.
News from Music
Greetings from Mr. Freeman’s music classroom.
Since early February we have been actively performing and practicing steady beat, rhythmic ostinatos and simple melodies on Orff –Schulwerk instruments as well as remo drums & percussion instruments.
The instruments associated with Orff-Schulwerk instruction are bells, chimes, glockenspiels, metallophones, and xylophones. Carl Orff believed that percussive rhythm instruments like this are the most natural and basic form of human expression. The music played on Orff instruments is often very simple and designed for first-time musicians. The Orff approach also has children sing, clap, dance, and snap their fingers along with the melodies and rhythms.
It has been wonderful to watch the students raise their level of concentration and participation during these lessons. I believe the most enjoyable part is hearing their comments when leaving the music room. “ Wow that was fun,” “ Mr. Freeman how do I do this on the xylophone, ”I can’t wait till next week.”
The children and I are both excited to see what we can create next in our classes.
News from Instrumental Music
The Mill Creek instrumental students are hard at work preparing for their Spring Concert which will be taking place on Tuesday, June 7th at 7pm. It will be held in the Mill Creek Gym and will feature the Army and Cadet Bands as well as some small group performances. You will be treated to the listening pleasure of tunes you already know and some that will be new to you.
If you hear your children making “noise” on their instruments, that’s likely a good thing, so long as that noise eventually turns into music. I am always emphasizing that “PRACTICE” is playing something you CAN’T play until you CAN play it. This means your children should be working on the difficult parts and those passages that they don’t quite know yet. The more they play it, the better they will get. If you hear the same thing over and over and it sounds good, encourage them to work on the more challenging sections. Rewarding your child for practicing is great, but they will surely be rewarded when they feel that sense of accomplishment after learning their music and performing it for friends and family on June 7th. We look forward to seeing you!
Counselors' Corner-Ms. Kradoska
Hello Mill Creek Community!
During the month of May, we are celebrating the theme of EMPATHY. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. Empathy is one of the most important aspects of creating strong relationships, reducing stress, and enhancing emotional awareness!
Teaching and incorporating empathy into instruction can have positive results in the classroom, as well as for the community outside of the school building. Here’s why:
1) Empathy builds positive classroom culture.
With the diversity of students entering classrooms each day, paralleled by an increase in globalization, it's more necessary than ever for teachers to actively construct a positive classroom culture. Through empathy, students learn to understand each other, which helps them to build friendships based on positive relationships of trust. Taking the time to demonstrate empathy can also develop student-teacher relationships and on a more academic note, school programs that intentionally incorporate empathy into curriculum have also seen better test results, as described by John Converse Townsend in Forbes Magazine.
2) Empathy strengthens community.
Given that the definition of empathy involves understanding another's feelings without having experience, empathy sets students up to deepen relationships with their current classmates and people that they know outside of school. In our increasingly globalized world, people may be coming from different cultures and different socioeconomic backgrounds than before, thereby necessitating better developed empathy skills. As children learn empathy skills by communicating cross-culturally with their classmates, those skills will transfer to their lives in their community. The deeper relationships that result from strong empathy skills have the potential to strengthen a community and build trust. The effects of community extend far beyond the four walls of the classroom.
3) Empathy prepares students to be leaders in their community.
Leaders must understand the people that they lead and be able to show that they care. Our students must be able to empathize with those whom they lead in order to make them feel valued. This validation will strengthen trust between the leader and followers. As teachers, we must equip our students to be the future leaders of our communities and beyond.
Click here for a look at empathy at work (clip from the Disney movie, Inside Out):
SWPBIS News
Our focus this month according to our school data is bus behavior and recess/playground behavior. While these are less structured areas, there are expectations that students must be following to maintain a safe environment for themselves and others. In accordance with our Tiger Pride Code of Conduct students need to be respectful, responsible, safe, and prepared in all areas academically and socially. While we are continuously working on conflict resolution strategies, we have noticed that certain areas have increasingly become areas where reteaching needs to occur and reminders need to be reinforced. While we are doing our best here at school to make sure these lessons are being retaught and enforced, it is equally important that reminders are being made at home as well. We ask that you please speak to your child/children about following the Code of Conduct at all times. As a refresher, we have included some expectations that can be reviewed below. We appreciate your continued support at home and ask that you take some time to go over these lessons as part of the Mill Creek family.
Bus Rider Expectations
Respectful - “Students will use appropriate and positive language towards peers and adults while on the bus/in the car/walking home together.”
Why: To ensure that the trip home is safe and comfortable for all passengers.
Responsible - “Students will maintain personal space in their seats, they will use appropriate voice volume and will wait patiently at the bus stop for their bus to arrive.”
Why: To ensure that students are safe and comfortable while waiting for the bus and during their ride to and from school.
Safe - “Students will maintain appropriate personal space and keep their hands and feet to themselves. Students will enter and exit the bus in a safe manner. Students will follow the direction of the bus driver.”
Why: To ensure a safe and comfortable drive to and from school.
Prepared - “Students will be on time for the bus during arrival and dismissal.”
Why: To ensure that students arrive on time to school and that the bus is able to run according to schedule.
Recess/Playground Expectations
Respectful - “Students will use kind words and actions, show good sportsmanship and play fair, and accept consequences without arguing.”
Why: To keep recess safe and fun.
Responsible - “Students will share playground equipment, include others, follow directions and make good choices.”
Why: To keep recess safe and fun.
Safe - “Students will be aware of activities around them, and use the playground equipment properly, following directions and staying within the boundaries of the playground.”
Why: To keep recess safe and fun.
Prepared - “Students will use playground equipment properly and return it after use.”
Why: To keep playground equipment in good condition.