Donovan Family Digest
Excellence is our standard....heart is our core.
Friendly Family Reminders and dates
December 7th CELEBRATE WINTER "Wear a winter sweater"
December 7th Open Door Food Pantry Trip (Mrs. Deutsch's classroom)
December 13th PTO Meeting @ 9:30 AM
December 14th CELEBRATE PAW POWER and wear an LDS House shirt
December 21st Wear Holiday Gear
December 21st Early Dismissal-Winter Recess Begins
12:50 Dismissal- No breakfast or lunch served
BAGEL SALE! Be sure to send in your form and payment.
Winter Break December 22nd - January 1st.
January 2nd Welcome Back and Happy New Year!
2nd Grade News!
3rd Grade News!
Health Happenings
Illnesses
- Tis the Season for germs! A few reminders to help keep our students healthy…
- Remind your child(ren) to wash hands, wash hands, ….and when in doubt, wash again!
- If your child has vomited or had a fever, please keep them home until they are fever and vomit free for at least 24hrs. While we realize it is often an inconvenience, we ask that you do not give your child fever reducing medication and send them to school when they have had a fever within the past 24 hrs. This continues the cycle of illness and exposes our students to unnecessary bugs/viruses, etc.
- Please call the school and report your child absent, along with a reason. An absence note should accompany your child when he/she returns to school.
Dismissal
Do you have a dismissal change? Walker to car rider...car rider to carpooler...new permissions for pick up? While a minor change seems simple enough to accommodate, our responsibility is to the safety and security of every student in our care. The management of multiple changes daily is part of our routine that we are more than happy to accommodate. However, a written and signed letter must accompany any changes. Please make note of this as it is an important part of our safety protocol.
Back Car Riders at arrival/dismissal-
Freehold Township Police are working together with our school in an effort to help enforce the safest possible conditions for our students and staff. Please carefully read the following reminders and adhere to them in order to keep the flow of traffic moving smoothly, and keep our students safe and healthy.
- Do not block residential driveways or street entrances. The school and police department have been contacted about numerous cars during dismissal purposefully blocking their driveways. We were informed that this could result in ticketing. Please be courteous and aware of where you are parked and leave all driveway and street entrances clear for homeowners and residential traffic.
- Do not get out of your vehicle. Please have your child practice getting in and out of the car on the curbside in a quick manner. Please do not leave your vehicle.
- Please do not pull around cars or form two lanes. We realize your time is valuable but please wait to pull up. Do not create a second lane for drop off and Please pull ALL THE WAY UP in the line of cars so that more cars may move ahead. Please do not stop.
- If your child is a WALKER they will not be dismissed to anyone in a car. Please do not stop on Derby Drive/Stonehurst Blvd and call children to the street and into a car. If this is the preference of transportation, please change dismissal procedures to a car rider. We appreciate the attention to safety routines.
Morning Arrival- Doors open at 8:40 and close at 8:50
- Early drop off. During winter months especially, do not drop off children early and leave them outside. There is no supervision until 8:40 and the cold temperatures are especially difficult for the little ones.
- Tardy. Doors close at 8:50 prompt. Late arrivals need to come to the front door and be signed in by an adult.
Winter Attire:
- If the ground is dry and it is above 32 degree (wind chill), students will be going out at lunch time. Please be sure children are dressed warmly for outdoor recess. Classroom temperatures vary so you may want to dress your child(ren) in layers.
Snow Days/Delayed Opening
- In the event that there is a delayed opening due to inclement weather , Donovan doors open at 10:40 and no breakfast will be served.
Parent/Teacher Conferences for this school year will be held as follows:
AFTERNOON EVENINGS
January 29 – 1:45 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. January 10 – 5:00 to 7:30 p.m.
January 16 – 5:00 to 7:30 p.m.
Note: Dismissal on conference days will be at 12:50 p.m. No breakfast or lunch will be served.
This school year we will be utilizing our Genesis parent portal to schedule all conferences. The parent portal will open on Wednesday, December 5th and will close on Friday January 4th. Detailed instructions on how to schedule conferences are attached. Third, fourth, and fifth grade conferences should be scheduled under the child’s reading teacher and the math teacher will be present for the conference.
If you are scheduling conferences for more than one child, please make an effort to leave ample time for travel between classrooms. It is best to not schedule them for consecutive time slots. Your assistance with this process and arriving on time will help ensure that conferences run close to the schedule. Thank you in advanced for your cooperation.
"We Rise By Lifting Others"
We are so proud of the dedication and charities supported by our students, staff and families. Just to make mention of a few...
Blessing Bags A year long community focus
Turkey Trot supported Deborah Hospital
Holiday Giving Tree in December
Project Eat--Open Door food collection delivered by our 5th graders
CHOP Pajama Day Dec 7th - Make a donation to CHOP and you can wear pajamas on December 7th!
Adopt A Senior
This year our school is taking on a wonderful cause for people in our local shelters and on the streets of NYC. Last year we donated to this amazing charity via Penny Wars. We have decided to take it further and collect the supplies needed and actually have each child in our school fill a bag for a person in need. Not only is this team building and thought-provoking, but it will also give the children in our LDS community the opportunity to be a part of something bigger. We would like to set the donations up on a monthly basis in order to obtain the supplies needed to make this a successful campaign. Here is the list of items needed. We will use large totes to accommodate all of the items and once we are ready to fill the bags, we will send out a rotating schedule for classes to come to our classroom to fill the bags. *All toiletries should be travel size*
November
Men's Socks
November
Travel Size Shampoo
December
Disposable razors
December
Travel size Body wash/soap
January
Toothbrush
January
Travel sized toothpaste
February
Travel size lotion
February
Deodorant
March
Snack foods: ie. breakfast bars
March
Water bottles
Vincent Traina, Fourth Grader
Donovan's Buddy Bench!
Sorenna Levysmith, Fifth Grader
Choose Kind...Choose Friendship
Tuesday, November 13th was National Kindness Day
Each and every day students and staff perpetually remind each other that in every action, let there be kindness. Staff continue to integrate lessons into their morning meetings and weekly agendas that focus on not only academics, but lessons to help our children develop into respectful, kind and thoughtful citizens. This year Laura Donovan is proud to bring a "Buddy Bench" to our playground, encouraging an opportunity for extended play and a way for students to develop both old and new friendships. When asked thoughts about the friendship benches students shared "It is cool!" " If some of my friends are absent and I am not sure where to go, I know I will always find a friend willing to play." "If I want to play a game and don't have a friend to play with, I know I can always go there to find someone fun." "I love inviting new friends to play so I love it."
It is especially wonderful that many Donovan students exhibit these character traits that make us proud as parents and educators.
On National Kindness Day we highlighted two very kind kids from Donovan who will be spotlighted in our front hallways.
4th Grader Vincent Traina
5th Grader Sorenna Levysmith
Both Vincent and Sorenna were instrumental in promoting the buddy bench and emphasizing the good it would bring to our school community.
Thank you for being such kindness role models!
Kaia Roman wrote...
As parents and teachers, one of our greatest hopes is that our kids will be kind and good people. When they have a choice to help others, we hope they will. We never want them to be cruel, intolerant, or prejudiced.
But let's face it. It's not always easy to be kind, even for us. Even grown-ups don't want to share our toys sometimes. Helping others can seem hard when we feel like we don't have the help we need ourselves.
The good news is that kindness can be learned; just like any other behavior, it can be trained through repetition. The most dominant way children learn new behaviors is by copying those around them. Which means we adults have a powerful opportunity, and responsibility, to teach by example.
Mirror neurons are cells in the brain that wire us for imitation, and they're especially active during childhood. When kids observe an action, their brains respond as if they are performing the action themselves. Their brains form new neural pathways, and these create the basis for behaviors that stick with them throughout their lives. Thanks to neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to adapt and change, we all have the aptitude to learn new behaviors, including becoming kinder. Kids' brains are particularly moldable, as they've had less time to solidify lifelong habits. So if you want to encourage more kindness in your kids, and in the world, here are some fun things you can do:
1. Send kind thoughts
Kindness can sometimes be as simple as a wish for the well-being of others. In mindfulness class, I ask my students to imagine someone (or a whole lot of someones) they want to send kind thoughts to and then to say out loud, "May they be happy. May they be healthy. May they be safe." This practice helps kids get into the habit of thinking kind thoughts more often.
2. Share stories of kindness
Choose books and stories with kindness themes. There are many great stories to choose from! Stories are a powerful and highly influential way for kids to learn without direct teaching. For younger children, read stories out loud that invoke their imaginations. For older children, stock their reading list with plenty of kind role models.
3. Smile more often
In a study conducted in Sweden, when people looked at others who were smiling, their muscles twitched into smiles involuntarily. Play a smiling game with your kids to show them how smiling truly is contagious. The simple act of smiling can spread the warmth of kindness far and wide, as others smile in return and continue to pass the smile on.
4. Play the compliment game
It feels good to receive a compliment. In fact, researchers at the National Institute for Physiological Sciences in Japan found that the same area in the brain, the striatum, is activated when a person receives a compliment as when they are given money. In my mindfulness class, students toss a ball around the classroom, giving a compliment to someone each time they make a throw.
5. Practice random acts of kindness
Random acts of kindness can be anything that will make someone's day a little brighter. They don't even have to know who did it. I challenge my students to perform random acts of kindness for other students and teachers at school. To make sure no one gets left out, we draw names out of a hat.
6. Try empathy charades
Having empathy for others requires putting yourself in someone else's shoes and imagining how they feel. In my class, I draw images of faces on the board and have my students guess the emotion that's being displayed. We also act out different emotions and guess what other people are feeling. Empathy Charades is one of my students' favorite games that we play in mindfulness class.
7. Volunteer for good
Whether you take small or big actions, help other people or help animals, there is always a way to lend a helping hand. Involving kids in volunteer work teaches them that it feels good to be helpful. You might collect garbage from the park, visit a local retirement home, or clean out your closets to make a donation to those in need. Perhaps your kids will be inspired to fund-raise for a good cause. There is no limit to what your kindness can do.
Being kind to others feels good. It helps take our attention off of our own troubles, and also creates a feeling of interconnectedness. Together, we can make the world a better place with acts of kindness both big and small. Let’s make kindness the new cool.
Update Information
Contact Information/Emergency Information. In the event we need to reach you or an emergency contact, it is essential that your information in Genesis is accurate.
· Please check your Genesis Parent Portal account for accuracy of contact phone numbers.
· Please ensure that there are emergency contacts with accurate information included as well.
· Feel free to contact the school with any updates needed.