Beach School

Dear Families and Caregivers,

It feels like a great time to celebrate even just a few of so many wonderful things happening across our school community, not only for fun, but to share about events or efforts that relate to our priorities and values -- creating connections, building trust, deepening relationships, centering humanity and culture.  Our students, staff and families are so resilient, and we appreciate all the ways our community is working together. 

Something to be truly admired is the positivity that beams from our Beach staff. Every week is an uphill battle to create curriculum and keep students engaged not just in the classroom, but in their everyday lives by giving them hope and optimism for the better days that are coming. 

Our Student Unions are leading children and adults to take a deep breath together. Students are talking together, doing research, and interacting with materials together (for example, in the Latinx Student Union, traditional activities within families such as... pinatas!  The leaders utilized another activity. A student chose a symbol from the New Mexico flag to represent and share about their identities. Then shared personal connections with her group.  

As a staff we are studying ways to create conditions for Native American Tribal History to become shared history. Teachers thought deeply together this week about the Essential Understandings of Native Americans in Oregon (content created by the 9 federally recognized tribes in our area within efforts to build relationships between native people and school systems) in their grade level teams, and are planning ways to bring meaningful learning and understanding to students. I am so inspired and humbled by Beach teachers’ incredible combinations of deep levels of content knowledge, spirit for learning more, and commitment to finding and utilizing engaging instructional practices for our students. I learn so much from our staff, and our students too. A little highlight there- I was amazed listening to 5th graders discuss the news about the coronavirus vaccine with each other and their teacher this week. They were asked, what are you hearing, and how are you feeling about it?  They had heard a lot (lots of it at home!) and their depth of insight and feeling was really touching. 

As a staff we’re striving to listen to and learn from our students.  We are interested in what they are passionate about and what they need. Ms. Ilza, our REAP partner, is on our Equity Team and took these questions to the students in her REAP class (see previous newsletter for more about REAP). It was powerful and inspiring to hear Ilza share about listening to students’ perspectives. We’re so fortunate to have Ilza and Anderson’s partnership in our school community.  And, with that I circle back to all our community and the ways we’re all striving to support, build and deepen relationships across our community. Next week a group will meet to discuss and expand planning a schoolwide “global celebration” encompassing Black History Month, Chinese New Year, Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Hispanic Heritage Month after the new year-- a way to celebrate all we have in common within meaningful, beautiful differences.  We’d love to hear your perspectives about anything!

Warmly, Tina, Esther and Lisa

…

I wanted to share a window into my work as a Reading Specialist. So, here you are.

A snapshot of an independent learner in 1st Grade: Last week when working with a 1st Grader, we wrote syllables on a white board. My student was connecting the first syllable we had written to possible words that started with these syllables and drawing pictures for them. I hadn’t asked him to do this, he was just motivated to do so on his own. When I asked him if he wanted to try writing out the multisyllabic, longer complete words for his drawings, he quickly went from serious and focused to playful and excited. He asked me to wait for him and ran off to find his notebook so he could keep his newly learned words in a permanent place. It is so exciting to see a student motivated by him or herself to learn something new. I am so fortunate to be in the position I am this year that I can more easily adjust to students' interest and respond to their lead. He reminds me that I need to take the time and ask all of my students, what words are important to you to learn? What words are you excited about owning as a reader?

Ms./Maestra Megan

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Free Online Books! 

Perfect and fun activity to do over the holiday break and beyond! All K-2nd grade students and students in Spanish Immersion classes have access to this free and amazing reading program. 

Have your child log into Cleaver and search for the yellow robot icon called Learning A-Z. Here you will find hundreds of free books that can be read to your child and your child can record their voice as they read. Many even have a comprehension quiz after they read and children can earn star points to build their galaxy or robot! Check out below a parent tool kit that gives you and your child tips and tricks to practice reading.

Learning A-Z Parent Tool Kit

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Parent workshop on Early Reading Skills

What: Virtual workshop is designed to help you grow our child into a stron reader. This workshop will have ideas for making reading fun with the ultimate goal of reading by 4th grade. You will receive a parent workbook to use during and after this workshop.

We will be offering a session in Spanish and in English. Both sessions will be recorded. 

Translation will be available in English session for Chinese, Vietnamese, & Somali families

Who: Parents with students en grades K-3

When: Friday. December 11, (English) 4:00 - 6:00 PM

           Saturday, December 12 (Spanish) 10:00 AM - 12 M

How to Register? Go to https://bit.ly/3pcYpYw 

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Nutrition Services

DECEMBER MEAL SERVICES

The Nutrition Services department will be providing extra meals each service day to help keep our students with access to food as we head into the winter break.  Each service day through December 16, we will be providing 3 days worth of meals for each child.  On Friday, December 18, we will provide each child with a food box that will contain enough food for 7 days.  We will not be serving or delivering meals on Monday, Dec 21 through Friday, January 1.  Meal services will resume Monday, January 4. 

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