Heavilin Elementary
April 2020 Newsletter
For Your Calendar
13 No School/eLearning
17 Half Day eLearning
Our New Normal
Heavilin parents and families, we could not be more proud of you. We appreciate your efforts to support your children and partner with us in their academic growth. We know this is not easy for you. We know this is not easy for our kids. While nothing can beat a traditional school day, teachers are so excited to report they actually do see learning and growth happening for our students. We cannot thank you enough for your full commitment to eLearning!
Heavilin Hub
Viking Family Showing Viking Pride
Kindergarten Round Up on April 10
Zoom
Video conferencing is new to us. We are learning a lot every day about how to perfect it. Here are some tips that we find helpful in order to be ready to learn in a focused virtual environment:
- Sit at a table if possible, avoid beds and couches if you can
- Family members/siblings should stay out of the camera view
- Keep toys and pets out of the camera view
- Have materials ready before conference starts
- Be on time as much as possible
- Send the teacher a message if you are having difficulty connecting
- Headphones are helpful, but not necessary
- Only use the chat feature for discussion and keep side conversations for later
- Wear appropriate attire
Parents have a new role in learning, especially with video conferencing. Here are some tips:
- Help students get signed in if they need help
- Listen along, if you'd like to, in order to reinforce content later
- Allow your child to do all of the talking and participate independently
- Stay out of the view of the screen
Sibray Snippets
Hello Heavilin Families! I have been thinking about you and how to best support you and your students during this distance learning journey. First, I want you to know that I am still here and available to you and your students. I have set office hours Monday – Friday (8-10 & 2-4) and will be responding to messages and emails within 24 hours if I miss you. You can still reach me by phone (219-476-8820 ext. 2257) and email (dsibray@valpo.k12.in.us) during regular school days and I would love to hear from you and your students. Hopefully, you have found your family “groove” and have been able to establish a routine for learning. These can be stressful times for adults and children alike. I have seen, read and heard about so many great ideas to help maintain mindfulness and calm through this uncertainty and I will be sharing those out on Canvas in coming days for you and your student to use if helpful. For today, I want to encourage you to allow yourself and your students to feel the feelings but not get stuck there.
When students come to me, we often talk about what they can control in a situation and focus on what is within their control moving forward. Focusing on what we can control shifts our thinking from a victim mentality to a problem solving mentality. While there are still situations out of our control, focusing on how we respond with the control we do have is empowering. Empowerment sets us up to critically think about what we can do to make a situation better and possibly what we can do in the future to keep us out of rough situations. Let’s empower our students to be problem solvers!
Devices
If you did not get a school-issued device and now need one, you can also call 219-531-3000 to set up a time to pick one up at our administrative offices.