Grant Families,

Happy Holidays! I hope this newsletter finds you and your family healthy and happy! I also hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving break and found some time to rest and reconnect with family and friends.

This month is typically a busy one at Grant. We have our Holiday Shop open this week, we have a 4th grade musical, band & orchestra concert, and we are getting ready before taking two weeks off for winter break. Please keep in mind that your students will return from winter break on Wednesday, January 5th.

I am thankful for all that you are doing for your student's education. I know times are busy, however, if you are so inclined, we would love to have you join us for our 2nd Cup of Coffee. During our 2nd Cup of Coffee, we invite you to learn about the great things that are happening here at Grant. I always provide coffee and donuts and hope you can join us on Thursday, December 9th at 8:15 in our media center!

Finally, we are excited to share with you our newest ROAR video. Each year, we share this video regarding what ROAR behavior looks like throughout the building to all of our students. Our Lions see this video on the first day of school, and then again when they return from winter break. We also hold monthly new student orientation for students that arrive throughout the year where they are able to see what ROAR behavior looks like. I thought it would be a great idea to share it with you at home, so you can see what some of our ROAR expectations are here at school! Enjoy!

ROAR Behavior Video: https://medial.d11.org/Play/8191

Have a great one,

Ryan Miller

Principal, Grant Elementary

This month, our students and staff will focus on perseverance and grit! As we all know, when things are difficult or challenging, the easy thing to do is give up and quit. However, can you think of a time you challenged yourself with a difficult task and met your goal? How did that make you feel? Our Capturing Kids' Hearts focus is to have students work through those difficult times, whether it be a hard class assignment, learning a new skill, or working through a long-term project. Our students, as you know, can accomplish anything they set their minds to. As parents and teachers, we are their biggest cheerleaders and need to support our Lions through those hard times in order for them to feel the success and sense of accomplishment when they learn to persevere!

What is Perseverance?

Perseverance is the willingness and ability to keep going when things are tough. People who persevere show steadfastness and give the extra effort needed to do something despite how hard it is or how long it takes to reach the goal.

Why focus on Perseverance?

• Perseverance encourages positive self-talk and thinking. When faced with difficult tasks, perseverance helps students reframe with positive thoughts, such as: "I'm not good at this YET!"
• Perseverance develops empathy. Students gain a better understanding of who they are and develop more empathy and compassion for others who may struggle to reach a goal.
• Perseverance sparks personal growth. Pushing through complex tasks builds resilience and helps students discover how capable they are.

Perseverance in Action:

• Share stories and challenging experiences. Be vulnerable and share personal experiences when you have struggled with a task or concept and had to work hard to push through.
• Praise effort and process, not intelligence or performance. Affirm students for the process they used to tackle tasks and point out how their abilities grow through their own hard work.
• Give your students the chance to struggle. Struggle builds self-confidence, independence, and perseverance. Resist the urge to intervene immediately and give students time to figure it out.

What do you love most about Grant? I love that there are a lot of nice people and that I just always feel welcomed here.

What do you love about being a 2nd grader this year? What I love about being a 2nd grader is that we learn different stuff and we get higher and higher and higher. We get to just keep leveling up higher!

What do you think about Capturing Kids’ Hearts: I like that if you're having a bad morning, people will capture your heart to warm it up. The social contract works really well for me and my classmates and we do really well with it.

What do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be a doctor, like my brother is training to do. I want to be a doctor because doctors save peoples lives, which is really important right now with everything that is going on in our world.

What’s your favorite subject: My favorite subject in school is reading because it helps when you read hard words, it makes those harder words better to read.

What does it mean to you to be a Grant Lion? To me, it means when I first saw this school, I really wanted to come. I asked my mom if I could go to Grant and it was a surprise to me that I came here. Our school is so nice and there is a lot of fun stuff to do!