Miller Elementary Weekly Update

Hello Miller Families!

Happy New Year Miller Families! I hope this week's message is coming to everyone well rested and healthy after our winter break. It was so wonderful to see all your children back in school and ease back into our daily routines. We always expect an adjustment period during these first few days and weeks as children begin to adjust back to their school and home routines. This could include an increase in tears, difficulty leaving the house, sleepiness in the morning, and some adjustments to your schedule. If you find your child escalated, remember to avoid making large demands, get down to their level, try to decrease sensory stimulation, validate their feelings and begin with one simple direction. As they start to calm down, you can walk them through the task that needs to be accomplished. We hope these simple steps can help you during transitions and moments of escalation at home.

As we roll into the new year, we have some fun events coming up at Miller! We will be holding our annual family BINGO night on Thursday, January 19th for all Miller families and we have a Preschool Music & Literacy Night on Wednesday, January 25th! Additional information will be coming home with your child about BINGO night and Preschool Music & Literacy Night in the next week or so. Finally, we are starting to plan for Kindergarten Enrollment for 2023-2024! Save the date for our Kickoff to Kindergarten meeting if you have a child who will be enrolling in kindergarten next year. Our parent meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 21st at 7:00 PM.

Finally, I have included some important details about inclement weather. In the event that the district needs to call for a 2-hour delay in starting school, there are some specific reminders that impact Miller Elementary. Specifically, we do not operate our AM Preschool or AM kindergarten classes on days with a 2-hour delay. Please see the important reminder below.

I hope everyone continues to have a wonderful weekend and we look forward to our first 5-day week of 2023!

Happy New Year!

Maria Goodman

Miller Elementary School - Principal

330-562-6199

Email mgoodman@aurora-schools.org

Friday, 1/6 - Kindergarten Report Cards Sent Home - Please Sign & Return the Envelope

Monday, 1/16 - No School - MLK Day

Thursday, 1/19 - Save the Date! Miller Family BINGO Night

Wednesday, 1/25 - Save the Date! Preschool Music & Literacy Night

Monday, 1/30 - Kids Heart Challenge Week - More Information to Come

Wednesday, 2/01 - Elementary PTO Meeting at 6:30 PM

Tuesday, 2/14 - Valentine's Party 10:30 & 2:30

Friday, 2/17 - No School (PD Day for Staff)

Monday, 2//20 - No School (President's Day)

Tuesday, 2/21 - Kickoff to Kindergarten Parent Meeting at 7:00 PM (C&I Building)

Wednesday, 3/01 - Elementary PTO Meeting at 6:30 PM

Monday, 3/06 - No School (PD Day for Staff) *Recent board-approved change to the district calendar.

Our weather forecast has been relatively mild, but you never know when the snowflakes will start to accumulate! Please remember that our full-day students will continue to go outside if the feels like temperature is between 15 and 20 degrees or higher. We watch the weather closely as it is important for our children to get outside, run around, and enjoy some fresh air. The playground is a great place to practice social skills such as turn-taking, problem-solving as well as how to communicate with their friends. Plus, when the snow comes, it provides some fun experiences to build snowmen!

We recommend a warm coat, hats, gloves, snow pants, and boots (when necessary). We work with all children to help them learn how to dress themselves independently and in the correct order. (Snow pants, boots, jacket zipped, hat, and gloves are last). Please make sure all your child's items are labeled with their name. It is important that you check their book bag for an extra set of clothes and socks. Children would rather wear their change of clothes if an accident occurs. Please have your child practice putting on their snow gear at home too!

As a reminder, 2nd-semester tuition payments for preschool and kindergarten will be due on January 16th, 2023. You will be receiving a letter in the mail with your remaining balance and payment options. If you should have any questions after you get the letter, please contact Vicki Wolf at 330-562-6199.

As you are aware, the current cold, flu, COVID, and RSV season has started out pretty unique in Northeast Ohio. We continue to stress the importance of good hygiene, handwashing, and proper sneeze/cough etiquette. Our youngest children are still developing skills to properly cover their cough and how to use tissues. We want to stress the importance of letting your child rest and recuperate when they are ill or showing symptoms.

Here are some important reminders to ensure the safety of our school community each day:

• Check your child each day for illness symptoms. If they begin to feel ill during the day, please know our school nurse, Jackie Pawlowski, will assess your child and make contact with a family member when necessary.
• Students sent home with a fever, may not return to school until they are fever free without medication for at least 24 hours. This means if your child was sent home on Tuesday at 12:00 p.m. with a fever, he/she may not return to school until Thursday. If your child does return the next day, our school will be calling for you to come and pick him/her up. Please help to support our efforts in this area. This also is the protocol if your child is vomiting. They need to be vomit free for 24 hours to return to school.
• We will send a Final Forms notification if there is a communicable disease reported in your child's classroom. This can help you monitor your own child and make informed decisions about symptoms.
• Please make sure your Final Forms medical information is up to date. We will closely read the health section to address any medical concerns.

Finally, please make sure your child has extra clothes in his/her backpack. Accidents and spills happen all the time and they often prefer to have their own clothes instead of wearing our spare clothes.

Greetings Families! I have enjoyed visiting the Kindergarten classrooms this week to continue to teach the students about the ZONES of Regulation. This session, we focused on the yellow zone and feeling frustrated, nervous, silly or excited. Our read-aloud was Clark the Shark by Bruce Hale. The students were able to identify all the parts in the story where the main character was feeling silly, excited and nervous. They also did a wonderful job pointing out the frustration of Clark’s classmates during his times of silliness! We always end our lessons by reminding ourselves that any feeling is okay, and when we identify our feelings it is helpful to us and others.

On another note, a resource of interest is this awesome site shared with me by our Director of Special Services, Mike Maglionico: On Our Sleeves.

This site is a simple way to gather community resources, contacts, talking points and activities to benefit your family’s well-being and mental health over the holidays. I found the How-To articles super helpful because as a counselor and a parent, I know how I want my students and children to think of themselves, but am often refining the process in which I use to correct their thinking in a more positive way. I hope you find this resource helpful!

Lindsey Ambrosia

lambrosia@aurora-schools.org

(330) 562-6199, ext. 5414

We have finished explicitly teaching all 9 of our school wide PBIS expectations! These skills have been taught and practiced during the first 9 weeks of the school year so that your children can become responsible, respectful, and problem solvers throughout their school day. It's important to remember that many of these skills will need continued practice and repetition so that they become more automatic. We will continue to take notice of areas of strength and areas we need to practice throughout our school day. Here is a reminder of the big ideas that we have been working on.

• I can use walking feet!
• I can have a safe body!
• I am ready to learn!
• I can share, take turns and wait!
• I can stop, think and do the right thing!
• I can listen and follow directions right away!
• I can clean up!
• I can be a good friend and use kind words!
• I can be a good role model and worry about myself!

We will continue to earn Greenmen Proud Poms and celebrate our great choices. As soon as we fill up our classroom buckets and school wide buckets, we will enjoy some fun rewards! Please let us know if you need any support at home reinforcing any of these skills across other settings at home or in other settings.

There will be times when your child is ill or needs to miss school due to appointments.

We ask that you call Miller School at 330-562-6199 to either speak with Vicki Wolf or leave a message. Please share your child's first name, last name, teacher, and the reason for the absence. If they are going to an appointment, please ask for a doctor's note to have on file here at school. Thank you!

If your family will have a planned absence due to an event or vacation, you will need to fill out a planned absence form for our schools. Please send in a note requesting this form as soon as you know your anticipated date.

If your child is experiencing illness symptoms and you have questions for our school nurse, Jackie Pawlowski, you may call 330-954-2286. She can help answer any questions.

Hello Miller Families! Welcome back and I hope everyone had a wonderful winter break! Below are AEPTO updates.

1. Teacher Appreciation Week will be February 6-10! More information is coming soon!

2. Tuesday, February 14 - Valentine's Day classroom parties
Kindergarten AM & Pre-K AM - 10:30am-11:15am
Kindergarten Full Day/PM & Pre-K PM - 2:30pm-3:15pm

3. Save the dates for AEPTO family fun events!!
Thursday, February 16, 2023 - Join us for a family night at Kalahari indoor water park! Please see the attached flyer for more details.

Sunday, May 7, 2023 at 2:00pm - Magic Gives Back

AEPTO and the Harmon High PTO (HHPTO) are partnering with Ganley Chevrolet of Aurora to proudly present "Magic Gives Back!" This is a Vegas style magic show and a unique fundraising platform developed specifically for local schools and communities. Magic Gives back will be held at the Solon High School Auditorium. Registration is live and tickets are available to purchase.

Magic Gives Back allows you to register your student to purchase tickets and send emails for family and friends to purchase tickets. They also provide prizes for students who sell a certain number of tickets. Below is the link you can use to register your student, send emails, and purchase tickets. Please enter only ONE student's name per ticket to gain credit and please make sure to register to keep track of all your sales.

Magic Gives Back Event

Flyers are also attached.

Upcoming Events

1/19 - Miller BINGO Night

2/1 - AEPTO Meeting 6:30pm at C&I Building (119 W. Pioneer Trail)

2/6 - 2/10 - Teacher Appreciation Week

2/14 - Valentine's Day Class Parties

If you have any questions, please let me know!

Jen Borman

AEPTO VP-Miller

auroraptomesvp@gmail.com

Maria Goodman

mgoodman@aurora-schools.org

Principal

Vicki Wolf

vwolf@aurora-schools.org

Secretary

Email: mgoodman@aurora-schools.org
Website: aurora-schools.org
Location: 646 S Chillicothe Rd, Aurora, OH 44202, USA
Phone: 330-562-6199