All-Star Announcements
What's happening at Venable, December 2018
Book Fair and Winter Concert Coming Next week
4th Grade Chorus Sings at JPJ
1st Graders Enjoy Salad from the Garden
Geometry in Kindergarten
PreK Greetings
2nd Grade Maker Space
3rd Grade Wizards
Upcoming Events in December
- Book Fair opens
- Winter Concert (3rd/4th grade chorus), 6pm in the auditorium
Monday, December 17
- Winter Concert make-up date (if needed)
- Last day of EBL (resumes January 28)
- School-Wide Morning Meeting (concert reprise)
- Last day of school before Winter Break
- Winter Break. School building closed.
- School resumes in 2019!
- PTO Meeting, 6pm in the library (presentation and Q&A about gifted education)
iSTEM/Math Night Coming in January
The Venable Kindergarten Squad
Safe Zones and Emotional Regulation at Venable
In each Safe Zone, teachers have placed one or two resources such as deep breathing prompts, mandalas to color, or low-intensity exercises that students can do. We are using a curriculum called Zones of Regulation in the Safe Zones, which helps students identify when they're in the green, yellow, red, or blue zones and gives them strategies for working their way back to green. This curriculum is being explicitly taught in Kindergarten this year, and will grow with the students as they move up. Ms. Redden uses the same system to help students re-regulate in her office, and the administrators use the Zones of Regulation as means of debriefing with students and making a plan to repair big problems that may have arisen as a result of a disciplinary issue.
The Safe Zone is one example of how we are moving toward a more trauma responsive approach to student behaviors at Venable. We are finding that students are becoming more self-aware and better able to self-regulate as we give them language and tools to do so. We are also finding that being more trauma responsive helps to strengthen the relationships and trust between adults and children such that most problems are able to be resolved in the classroom and learning can continue. We are excited about the journey that we're on to learn more about how we can better respond to the needs of our students in a way that promotes the health of our entire community. The PBIS team at Venable--comprised of Ms. Martin, Ms. Jacobs, Ms. Hawkes, Ms. McClellan, Ms. Paige, Ms. Redden, Ms. Kayser, and Ms. Kershner--is leading this important, exciting work for our staff.