Waterville Primary Friday Flyer!
Sharing Great News with our AWesome Families!
Events for the week of September 13th - September 24th
Dates to Remember
Monday, September 13th: WPA Fundraiser orders and money due in office
Monday, September 13th: BOE Meeting @ 6pm in High School Auditorium
Monday, September 20th: WPA Meeting- to be held virtually at 6:30pm
Wednesday, September 22nd: Walk to School Morning
Friday, October 8th: AW Homecoming
The Responsive Classroom Approach to Teaching and Learning
We are so grateful for the $10,000 grant we received from Directions Credit Union to implement the Responsive Classroom Approach in all of our classrooms this school year. I simply cannot say enough positive things about the impact this programming is having upon our educators, students, and overall school climate.
Upon receiving our grant funding, we had representatives from each grade level and department register for the 4-Day Responsive Classroom Institute. We had a total of 11 staff members train over the summer (June and July) and then prepare to come back to school in August to train the rest of our staff. We provided a full day of Responsive Classroom implementation training to our entire teaching staff on August 16, 2021.
Responsive Classroom is a universal approach to teaching and classroom management that is being implemented in our building this year.
This past summer, we used grant funding to train 11 staff members in this evidence-based approach.
Responsive Classroom focuses on creating safe, joyful, and engaging environments for students to grow both academically and socially.
This year, while we are just starting Responsive Classroom, we have chosen to focus on a couple of the teaching practices.
Ask your child each day about:
Morning Meeting
Closing Circle
Beginning the first day of school on August 18th, 2021, our staff immediately implemented the Responsive Classroom strategies of daily Morning Meeting, Quiet Time, and Closing Circle.
Here is an overview of Morning Meeting that occurs daily in each classroom at Waterville Primary:
This is a consistent time each day where students have the opportunity to practice social skills and to blend Social and Emotional Learning with Academic Learning.
Morning Meeting includes 4 components
Greeting (each student and staff member is greeted by name),
Sharing Time (students are able to share information with others and to respond in a supportive way to their classmates),
Group Activity (the class participates in a brief activity together to reinforce their learning and boost their sense of community), and
Morning Message (students are presented with a daily message from their teacher designed to get them ready for a positive day of learning).
Taking the time to participate daily in Morning Meeting allows our students to feel significant, to maintain a sense of belonging, and to have fun together!
Here is an overview of Closing Circle that occurs daily in each classroom at Waterville Primary:
The purpose of this practice is to end the school day peacefully.
This brief amount of time is spent participating in a quick activity that allows students to reflect on their day, to celebrate accomplishments, and/or to set goals for the next day.
Closing Circle, as in all Responsive Classroom practices, is intended to build and reinforce a positive sense of community.
We have sought qualitative feedback from our educators and students over these first few weeks of school about Morning Meeting and Closing Circle. Students are responding that these two activities are among their favorite parts of the day. Our teachers are reporting that they are immediately developing strong rapport and relationships with their students and peer to peer friendships. I have included some pictures of our students and staff participating in Morning Meeting and Closing Circle.
Again, we are very thankful for the support as we teach all of our students a common set of social and emotional competencies as well as academic competencies each day, using the Responsive Classroom approach and teaching practices.
Sharing Time during Morning Meeting!
Greeting our Friends!
Collaborative Portrait made during Morning Meeting
Summer Reading Program!
Reporting Absences, Notification of Appointments, Vacation Notification
Waterville Parents' Association Updates
The WPA Fall Fundraiser Assemblies were held at school a couple of weeks ago to kick off the beginning of this sale that supports the many different WPA organized student/family events and also the purchase of the additional STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, math) resources that we have in our classrooms here at Waterville. The fundraiser order and collected money is due by Monday, September 13th, here at school. Thank you in advance for your future purchases and efforts that continue to advance our student learning opportunities here each day!
Purple Star Generals- Supporting Our Military Connected Families!
As an initial recipient of the 2018 Purple Star Award through the Ohio Department of Education, our primary school has made a promise to support and honor our military-connected students and families throughout the year. A military-connected student may have a parent, sibling, aunt, uncle, or friend that is currently serving (or has previously served) in the United States Military. Waterville Primary is beginning the fourth year of facilitating an age-appropriate peer support group for these students. This group connects our students to other peers who may have similar experiences. It also provides military-connected students with the opportunity to teach other children, and possibly the larger community, about our United States Military. We will continue to focus on service and projects that our students are actively engaged in throughout the school year.
Our first step in building our support group focuses on correctly identify students that have connections to our military branches. Please complete this short survey if your child is military-connected and you feel that he/she would like to be a part of the leadership group here at school.
News from our School Counselor, Mrs. Cowell:
Hello, Waterville Families!
Please see below for the latest School Counseling Program Information!
Classroom Introduction Lessons/Buddy Bench Information
Teila and I have just finished our introduction lessons in each classroom! It has been awesome spending this time with our students and reviewing our roles in the school. During this time in each classroom, we revisited the Buddy Bench, which is located right off of the blacktop on our playground. The Buddy Bench is a special tool that makes it easier to find people to play with at recess. Please see the attached flyer for more specific information about the Buddy Bench!
In addition to reviewing what the Buddy Bench is and how to use it, I also encouraged students to ask others to play on their own, as sometimes recess gets busy and students may forget to watch out for anyone sitting on the bench. It would be such a bummer to spend the whole recess on the Buddy Bench, waiting to be included, so I am really empowering students this year to initiate conversations with their classmates on their own. Since we all want to create a positive school environment, students agreed that, if someone asks to be included, we can always find a way to include that person!
New Student Lunch Groups
I have finished my last new student lunch group, so all of our "new" students are now officially just Waterville students (in my eyes at least :)). Please watch your child's blue folder as I am sending home specific information about these lunch meetings with each participating student this week!
Fall Small Group Topics
I am continuing to organize and plan for the first round of small groups and hoping to get them started in the next couple of weeks! These will take place during your child's lunch time (or center time, for kindergarten students). I will always arrange for small groups to occur in a big enough space to allow for physical distancing. Topics for fall groups are:
- Wiggle Worms (Kindergarten - 1st Grade only)
- focused on helping students build self regulation skills by practicing impulse control
- Calming the Storm (2nd Grade - 4th Grade only)
- focused on helping students to self regulate, practice impulse control, and make great choices overall
- Worry Warriors
- focused on helping students to identify and practice coping skills to allow them to better manage stress and anxiety
- X-Treme Self Esteem
- focused on the importance of maintaining high self esteem and helping to promote a positive self image in participating students
If you are interested in your child participating in one of these small groups, please fill out this form! Please also contact me with any questions about any of these group topics!
I appreciate all you are doing at home to help our students have the best possible school experience! Please can contact me anytime you have a question or a concern at jcowell@anthonywayneschools.org!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Powering Student Progress with STEAM!
Follow Waterville Primary on Twitter!
Waterville Primary will be continuing our presence on Twitter with the handle @AWLSWA. This medium is used for both sharing daily activities and any potential alerts for our building. If you do not have a Twitter account you can still get updates via a Fast Follow feature that sends tweets to phones via SMS text messages. Here is all it takes to sign up to receive SMS text messages from the Waterville Twitter account when a tweet is posted:
On the phone to receive the messages, simply create a new text message to phone number 40404. Next, the message to be sent should read: follow @awlswa
That’s all there is to it! Any student or parent that follows this procedure will receive any Waterville school Twitter messages to their phone as an SMS text message.
To turn off text messages, you would send a message to 40404 that reads: off @awlswa
Flyer Central
The following flyers are available online at www.anthonywayneschools.org on Flyer Central under District Links:
(click on Waterville Current Flyers)
· Fall Theatre
· Roche de Boeuf Festival
· Fall Festival
· Premier Volleyball Fall League
· Premier Volleyball Minis & Peanuts
· RiverFront Studios: Art & Music Lessons
· Toledo Volleyball Club Fall League
· Family Fun & Fishing Derby
· Picnics at Wheeler Farms
· Lucas County Job & Family Services
· Help Me Grow
· Anthony Wayne Community Food Ministry
· First Energy Customer Assistance Program
· I.D. R Kids for Safety