Aviator Air Newsletter
Maple Dale Elementary's Parent Communication
May 15, 2020
School Happenings
A Fourth Grade Video
Dear Maple Dale Families,
We're pleased to present to you a video to honor the fourth grade students who are "graduating" from Maple Dale today! Please take a look at this wonderful video we made to honor them.
We wish our students all the best as they move on to Edwin H. Greene Intermediate School next year.
Mrs. Reinke and Mrs. Zellner
Order Your Back-to-School Supplies Today!
Dear Parents,
Would you rather spend a summer day driving from store to store to purchase school supplies or get everything you need in one easy box? Great news! We are offering a pre-packaged school supply program this year - shipped directly to your house! Supply orders include the exact colors, quantities, and brands your teachers have approved for class. Get your back-to-school shopping out of the way early and enjoy a summer day!
Simply place your order by June 19, 2020 .
Order online at www.shopttkits.com.
Enter our school’s account number 91023.
Questions? Contact Kim Rospond at 513-418-1519.
PBIS AT HOME
PBIS stands for Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports. PBIS is used
across the US and internationally as a framework to help schools organize
how they want their school community to be.
We can apply something similar at home. PBIS provides structure and
routines, and if your child(ren) is attending a school that uses the PBIS
framework then they may already be familiar with it. It can help us develop
routines for learning from home.
We start with identifying 3-5 positively stated expectations. This guide
includes 3 expectations used in many schools. Feel free to use them or
make up expectations that work better for your family. These expectations
help us set boundaries and routines, and can apply to everything from
doing schoolwork, to being online, at the dinner table, or even getting ready
for bed!
As parents or guardians, you are in a unique position - suddenly you are
teachers, who might also be working from home, trying to manage chaos
during an incredibly stressful situation. Hopefully this guide will offer some
tips to help calm that chaos and keep everyone happy and safe.
Kudos to you, parents and guardians, and all you are managing to do!
PTO Info
4th Grade Update
Dear Fourth Grade Parents,
While the end of the year certainly looks different than we expected, we wanted to let you know we are hopeful that we can still hold a 4th grade celebration at some point this summer! We will continue to keep you posted on those plans as we get word from the district on the possibility of having a fun and memorable gathering for our graduating fourth graders and their families. We also know that this has been a challenging time for many of us, so please do not feel obligated to give to the fourth grade gift collection fund. But for those of you who have reached out to us asking for information about how to still donate, the Maple Dale PTO Transaction Center is open and there is a place to do so online (mdpto.3dcartstores.com).
Thank you for your support and patience as we continue to plan during this time!
Stacy Pohlman and Betsy Schatz
Need a cure for cabin fever? A Star Glazers DIY pottery painting kit is just the thing!
The pieces still get glazed and fired!
Here's how it works
- We coordinate a time I can place the kit on your porch. I can walk you through it in person (from 6 ft) or on the phone.
- I pick everything up later to process.
- Once the pieces are glazed and fired, I return them to you.
Here's what it costs
- Minimum $72. Many people are sharing the kit with a friend/neighbor/relative to share the cost.
- Price is by the piece and they start at $9. You tell me the upper cap (highest price piece is $40).
Here's what is in the kit
- It includes 2 tubs. One tub has the most popular colors, brushes, water bowls, etc.
- The 2nd tub includes 20 or so in-stock pieces to choose from in your specified price range.
- My inventory changes daily so I cannot keep a current catalog. Please tell me if you have any preferences, like functional, animals, banks, etc. I include a nice variety, so it's just like walking into one of the stores and you get to shop! If you don't like what I bring, I'll bring other items!
- You just paint and pay for the pieces you want and return the rest.
Call 513-474-6364 or email ann@starglazers.com to reserve your date for kit delivery.
In Case You Missed It
Please see link below for the Kindergarten Orientation Slideshow
Maple Dale’s Plant for Pollinators Challenge
You can provide beautiful, vital habitat for pollinators by adding pollinator-friendly plants to your yard and landscape. Enjoy colorful blooms all season long that bring many beautiful butterflies and other pollinators to your yard.
It’s easy to do. Whether planting just a few pots or a larger garden, you can do real conservation at home to support our pollinator friends as they do their job to keep our environment healthy.
Take the Plant for Pollinators Challenge
3 Easy Steps...
Step 1
Miss Bates is showing you the plants at Pipkin’s Fruit and Vegetable Market that can be used in your garden! Take a field trip and choose your plants. You might even see Miss Bates there!
Step 2
Step 3
Mrs. Reinke shows you her own pollinator garden and her plaque from the Cincinnati Zoo!
A message from your School Psychologist:
“The reality is, your job right now as a homeschooling parent is less about academics, and more about creating safety, belonging, and acceptance.” -Dr. Rebecca Branstetter, School Psychologist
I wanted to write this week about balance. In the days before the pandemic, we used to talk about work-life balance. It was difficult even then to separate our work lives from our home lives, especially with technology. Notifications of work emails and calendar invites would pop up on our phones while we were at home. Email time signatures let us know which coworkers cured their insomnia by sending emails at 2:30am. Road conditions on the way home or last-minute work emergencies sometimes made us late for our kids’ concerts or games. For all that work encroached on time with our families before, that encroachment has been magnified. Not only are we balancing work and home life, now we’ve added homeschooling and full-time childcare into the mix. You’ve likely seen the memes about how we need to lower our expectations because now we’re doing three jobs at once: working, teaching, and parenting. And we’re not “just” doing three jobs at once, we’re doing this all during a pandemic.
I recently read an article by another school psychologist, Dr. Branstetter, that has good tips for creating a new version of work-life balance during this time. I’ll link the article here and give my three favorite parts below: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_reduce_the_stress_of_homeschooling_on_everyone
“The most important skill you can teach is how to manage big feelings under stress.” You know the saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? (Google tells me that Benjamin Franklin coined the phrase!) That thinking works for preventing emotional meltdowns, too! Learn and practice social emotional skills together as a family. Try different strategies and find what works for you. Dr. Branstetter’s article links to many ways you can incorporate social-emotional learning into your own home.
“It is also important to build in ‘emotional checkpoints’ during the day and involve your child in the schedule.” These emotional checkpoints echo back to my post two weeks ago about communication, especially the listening side of communication. Make time for intentional emotional communication with everyone at your home. Listen to your child. Your children may communicate in different ways. If using words to express their feelings is hard for them, you can listen by following their lead during a favorite activity. Listen to each other as caregivers, as well. It’s OK to schedule time to catch up with each other emotionally!
“You do not have to recreate a full school-day schedule! Your family schedule may look more like what you would create over a summer break, including opportunities for fun, exercise, hands-on learning activities, and family connection.” Sycamore’s guideline for time spent in distance learning is 1-1.5 hours total each day for grades K-4. This is cumulative--that does not mean it all has to happen at the same time! Break up this time throughout the day into smaller chunks if that works better for you and your child. And by all means--if your child is having a hard time one day, it’s OK to take a break! A day off every now and then to maintain social emotional health is good. Let your child’s teacher know, and treat it like taking a sick day from school. If your child breezes through assignments quickly, on the other hand, use that “extra” time to focus on emotional health and enrichment. They can color, read a book, dance, take a rest, call a loved one, play a game...make a “choice board” together with options for what to do when done with school work, and direct them to it each time they say they’re bored or have finished early. Everyone needs to learn how to direct themselves during free time!
All these tips will help with finding a work-life-teaching-childcare-everything-at-home balance, and will help your children to Be Respectful, Be Responsible, Be Safe, and Be a Problem-Solver at home, as well. We are all Aviators!
Wishing you health, happiness, and good communication,
Dr. Kate Lavik
Your Maple Dale School Psychologist
About us
Email: reinkea@sycamoreschools.org
Website: http://www.sycamoreschools.org/Domain/12
Location: 6100 Hagewa Drive, Cincinnati, OH, United States
Phone: (513)686-1720
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mapledaleaviators/
Twitter: @MapleDaleElem