Miller Elementary Weekly Update

Hello Miller Families!

The excitement this time of year brings makes this such a fun time of year with your amazing children! We have been enjoying some extra projects, crafts, and activities that soon will come home and it has warmed our hearts to help your child be ready for the season of giving. We have enjoyed hearing about how you honor various holidays or traditions with your family over the past few weeks. Our children have explored holidays around the world, heard from their friends, and even some special visitors last week and this upcoming week. Thank you for taking the time to help your child capture what is special for your family. We are looking forward to our final days of 2022 at Miller Elementary with some fun Winter Spirit days! Please see the reminder below about wearing green, PJs, or any holiday outfit or hat!

It's also hard to believe that we have to approach the end of the first half of the school year. Each year I like to reflect on how your children have entered preschool and kindergarten and grown immensely! Having your little ones enter our school doors each day brings us great joy to help them learn and grow alongside their peers. Our classrooms are built upon a collective belief that we learn best in caring, collaborative and social environments. This allows all learners to build their resiliency, empathy and compassion towards others when they get to interact and grow together. We expect the second half of the year to be just as amazing as the first half. We can't wait to welcome them back in the year 2023!

On behalf of the Miller Staff, we hope your winter break is filled with much-needed time spent together as a family and that you enjoy this opportunity to hit the refresh button before we take on 2023! We will see you on Wednesday, January 4th 2023!

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Maria Goodman

Miller Elementary School - Principal

330-562-6199

Email mgoodman@aurora-schools.org

Monday, 12/19 - Aurora BOE Meeting @ 7:00 PM- C&I Building

Monday, 12/19- Wear Green Day

Tuesday, 12/20 - School Wide Pajama Day

Wednesday, 12/21 - Winter Parties for Preschool & Kindergarten

Thursday, 12/22 - Tuesday, 1/3 - Winter Break

Wednesday 1/4 - School Resumes

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

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

Our December 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!

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!

1. A BIG thank you to our Holiday Shop chairs, Samantha Nelson and Kate Nixon, for organizing this event. The kids had a blast shopping and we raised $946!

2. Wednesday, December 21 - Winter Festival classroom parties
Kindergarten AM & Pre-K AM - 10:30am-11:15am
Kindergarten Full Day/PM & Pre-K PM - 2:30pm-3:15pm

Thank you to our Head Room Parents and parent volunteers for planning the parties. There will be a craft, book, and game for the party. The AEPTO is providing all kids a Rice Krispie treat for a snack.

3. Save the dates for AEPTO winter family fun events!!
Saturday, January 28, 2023 - Join us for a family night at the Cleveland Monsters Hockey game! Please see the updated attached flyer for more details, including how to purchase tickets. Order forms must be turned in by December 21st. You can send the form and payment to Miller. Please make sure it is in a sealed envelope with PTO on the front.

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

Upcoming Events

12/21 - Winter Festival Class Parties & Monsters Hockey game form and payment due
12/22-1/3 - No School, Winter Break
1/4 - AEPTO Meeting at 10:00am in the C&I Building

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