Parkview News
February 2018 Newsletter
Calendar Notes:
February 6 IREAD3 Parent Meeting 5:30 pm
February 7 PTA Meeting 5 pm
February 8 Pick of the Month Shoe's Pizza
February 9-26 Random Acts of Kindness Fundraiser
February 16-19 No School President's Day
February 22 Math Bowl 6pm VHS
February 22 FNL Fundraiser at Five Guys 11am - 10 pm
February 22 Digital Learning Day
February 26 ISTEP+ Session 1 Testing Begins
Join us at Shoe's Pizzeria
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Our February Pick Of The Month Fundraiser is featuring Shoe’s Pizzeria. If you visit Shoe's anytime between 11 am - 9 pm on February 8th, Parkview PTA will get 10% of our total sales for that day. What’s special about this fundraiser is that during the month of February, Shoe's will host a contest among local schools. The school with the greatest number of customers will receive an additional 10%........that’s 20% back to Parkview. Keep an eye out for the flyer in your child’s folder. See you at Shoe’s!
ISTEP+ Testing Begins
Math Bowl Competition
Join us as we cheer on the Parkview Math Bowl team on February 22, 2018 at Valparaiso High School at 6:00 pm. Go Parkview Math Bowl Team & Coaches:
Ben Fouch
Keegan Lewis
Max Swanson
Moya Swanson
Starr Dust
Dominic Gonzalez
Kendra Williams
Christian Daniels
Shawn Aguilera
Charlie Ralston
Rosa Garcia
Lucas Gonzalez
Rick Madrigal
Addison Shultz
Hannah Way
Jarrett Wall
Math Bowl Coaches: Mrs. Tonne & Mrs. Thomas
Parkview "Robo Vikes" Robotics Competition on Saturday, February 3rd at Cooks Corners Elementary School
Begin the Day with Breakfast
Breakfast is served every morning at Parkview, even if there is a late start. Parkview Cafeteria serves breakfast starting at 8:20 am and at 10:20 on days that school is delayed for 2 hours.
Bottle Cap Competition
Hearts of Joy
Meet Erin Sachse
From the Nurse:
Flu season is here and we want to continue to have good attendance. Just a reminder that if your child does develop a fever or vomiting, they must be fever free (without a fever reducer) or not vomiting for 24 hours before returning to school. This will help ensure that your child is not spreading illness throughout the school. Hand washing, covering your mouth, and not touching your eyes nose or mouth are still your best protection. We are currently seeing a variety of illnesses, but we are not seeing one strain or one particular illness currently affecting the school. Hang in there - we will get through this flu season!
Safe Drop-off and Dismissal
Thank you for your help making our drop-off and dismissal time a success. The transition to Wood Street has created a few new challenges. We appreciate your patience and willingness to follow the guidelines. The actions of children are often unpredictable. Accidents can happen in a split second. At Parkview, we have worked with the VCS Safety Specialist and local law enforcement to established good safety guidelines. In order to have continued success, we are requesting the following procedures be followed:
- Please use the car line (as much as possible) if you choose to pick-up or drop-off your child for school. Parking on the south side of Wood Street and crossing the street is dangerous. Local law enforcement considers this a jaywalking violation.
- Do not park on the north side of Wood Street to drop students in the morning.
- Avoid making left turns as it slows the flow of traffic.
- During the upcoming weeks, Door #7 will close and all bus riders will enter and exit the through the main door.
- As always please remember to maintain a safe speed.
- Avoid blocking neighborhood driveways.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation, time and energy to make sure each child gets to school and home safely.
SAVE THE DATE:
Kindergarten Round-up: April 12, 2018
Parkview Music Program: March 15 & May 10, 2018
Securing a location that will accommodate all Parkview families for the spring music program has been a challenge. The 2018 spring music performance will be held at Benjamin Franklin Middle School on two separate dates. March 15, 2018 will feature the 4th & 5th grade students and choir. May 10, 2018 our 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade students will perform.
Daylight Savings Time Begins…. March 11, 2018.... Move Your clocks ahead
Growth Mindset
Here is a great article I found on the internet.
Source: http://gooeybrains.com/2017/06/14/growth-mindset/
Why kids with a growth mindset become high achievers
A growth mindset is a secret weapon that you can use to help kids to achieve more, get smarter and perform better in school! In fact, lots of scientific research has demonstrated that children who have a growth mindset become high achievers! As a parent or teacher you can make a huge impact on your child’s development by learning about a growth mindset is, and then implementing some simple changes in the home and classroom. Growth mindset is a term that was coined by psychologist and researcher Dr. Carol Dweck. She wanted to understand why some people succeed in school and life while other people who are equally talented do not. Her research uncovered that success and achievement are linked to your mindset. Dr Dweck believes that…
“If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning. That way, their children don’t have to be slaves of praise. They will have a lifelong way to build and repair their own confidence.”
Her research shows that teaching children to have a growth mindset by encouraging effort instead of talent or intelligence boosted their achievement. She explains that a growth mindset is a way of thinking about goals, achievement and learning! Dr. Dweck noticed that some kids bounced back easily after a setback or failure, whereas other kids seemed heavily impacted by it and would give up easily. She believed that the children who bounced back had a growth mindset, and those who did not had a fixed mindset. The mindset explains what a child believes about learning and achieving goals.
Click here for more Growth mindset quotes from Dr Carol Dweck
Fixed mindset vs Growth mindset
What is a growth mindset?
A child with a growth mindset believes that they can change their brain! It is important that our kids know that intelligence or talent is not set in stone. They can get smarter and learn more talents by training their brain in that area. This gives children the motivation and belief that putting effort into learning is worthwhile. Kids who have a growth mindset create goals about the learning process. They come to understand that if they stumble, or even fail, this is okay because getting it wrong is sometimes an important part of the learning process. In fact making a mistake usually gets us one step closer to mastering the task. Children who have a growth mindset are not afraid to take on challenges or try new things. They love to explore and learn. Every new challenge is a learning opportunity and they are not too concerned if they have setbacks. Kids with a growth mindset are also more open to feedback, even negative feedback! They take joy and inspiration from others successes (instead of feeling threatened), hoping to learn new skills and ideas from them. Because a child with a growth mindset takes on more challenges and is motivated by learning, they begin to learn more, get smarter, and achieve higher.
What is a fixed mindset?
A child with a fixed mindset believes that intelligence can not be changed. They don’t yet understand that they can train their brain to become smarter at something, or learn new talents. As a result, these kids tend to focus on performance goals (the outcome) rather than learning goals (the process). They want to be ‘the smartest’ or ‘the best’ at things. They become invested in looking smart or being good at things all the time. These kids often don’t like challenges, and they avoid being challenged because failing or stumbling makes them look bad or incompetent. Children with a fixed mindset may give up easily instead of persisting when a task gets hard. They would rather not attempt the task than to be seen struggling with it. Some children believe that they are simply ‘not smart enough or not good enough’ to bother trying something difficult. Children with a fixed mindset might feel threatened by other peoples successes, thinking that this person is better than them. They may be defensive when presented with negative feedback and feel that the feedback is a judgment rather than a learning opportunity. Children with a fixed mindset might not reach their achievement potential.
How to develop a growth mindset?
1. Teach kids about their gooey plastic brain
The good news is that a mindset is changeable and we can help our children to develop a growth mindset. How? By teaching them about their brain! We need to help our kids to understand that their brain is changeable. They can shape their brain and grow their brain. You can teach them that their brain is like a muscle, the more that they use it – the bigger it grows! Kids who believe that they have some power over training their brain become motivated to try new things and enjoy learning. There is lots of great scientific research that shows that this works. Children have been shown to get better exam results, to achieve more goals, and get smarter in school after learning about being able to train their brain.
2. Avoid praise about outcomes
As a parent you can also help your child to develop a growth mindet by changing the way that you encourage and praise your child. If you tell your child things like ‘You’re smart’ or “Wow, you are so clever’ you are actually encouraging a fixed mindset. Although the praise seems to be positive, it carries the message that intelligence is not changeable. The child thinks ‘Okay, people think that I am smart, I better do everything that I can to maintain that idea!’. The child may then shy away from challenges, because they feel that if they find something difficult it means that they are not actually smart.
3. Praise the learning process more often
Instead of praising the outcome, we can praise the process of learning, or the effort put in. For example, ‘you worked hard and I am proud of your effort’ will help to encourage a growth mindset. This is because you are praising the process of learning, rather than the end result. You might also say things like ‘accepting that challenge was brave and look how much you have learned’, or ‘You did a great job training your maths brain today’. This type of praise helps children to enjoy the process of learning new things, and to keep trying when things are difficult or challenging.
4. Encourage children to switch strategies and ask for help
So we know that we need to praise the process (effort) rather than the outcome. But what if the child’s effort is using the same strategy over and over again? What if you know that their strategy will never help them to master the task or learn the information? This is when it is important to teach kids that it is okay to ask for help! As a parent or teacher, you can let a child know when it is a good time to ask for help. You can also help them to develop new strategies to try when they get stuck. So, you need to ensure that you praise the efforts that lead to learning progress or outcomes (not efforts that repeatedly lead to the same mistake). Dr Dweck tells us that “It’s not just effort, but strategy … so support the student in finding another strategy.” What Dr. Dweck means by this is try not to praise effort that is not working or helping the child. You don’t want to encourage them to simply try the same thing over and over knowing that it will never help them to achieve the skill. Instead you want to coach them to try new and different strategies each time. Trying something new will help them to continue learning and get closer and closer to their goal. It’s important that children know that learning is about both effort, and also knowing when to seek help!
How to be a growth mindset coach at home
- Teach your children that challenges are a fun opportunity to learn something new.
- Help your kids to understand that sometimes we need to fail to learn a new skill. Failures can be big steps forward!
- If your child is putting in lots of learning effort but not moving closer to mastering the skill, then prompt them to ask for help or try a new strategy.
- Celebrate the success of others with your children and point out what they can learn and gain from seeing the other person succeed.
- Provide both positive and negative feedback and explain how to use the feedback to help learning processes.
- Praise the learning process instead of just the outcome.
- Foster grit, determination and persistence as good qualities that help learning.
- Provide opportunities for exploration and challenge.