Paul Banks Newsletter
January 2023
A NOTE FROM OUR PRINCIPAL
Dear Paul Banks Families,
Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday break. We are all thrilled to be back at school and diving headlong into learning. Prior to break, December was packed full of exciting activities, none more so than our Winter Musical. After weeks of preparation, our students brought down the house with a resoundingly awesome performance. After two years without a live performance, it was such a treat to return to this essential component of our music program. I want to recognize and appreciate all of our staff for helping to make this happen, but particularly note Mrs. Moore’s dedication. Bravo!
We had many holiday celebrations prior to the break. Our whole kindergarten class built gingerbread houses in our library, and what a celebration it was: gumdrops, candy canes and sprinkles galore. With the support of parent volunteers, our kindergarten teachers created a wonderful treat for their students-what a highlight heading into the winter break!
Our second grade classes worked for many weeks creating holiday crafts. During the week before break, they built their own little shops where they sold their holiday crafts to their classmates, an incredible culmination to a math unit where they studied money. Needless to say, our school was abuzz prior to winter break.
Now that we have returned, we are so excited to build upon all of the growth and learning from the first semester. We have focused on literacy this year, and it will continue to be a focus in the second semester. Every day we work on skills that help students grow as readers; also, remember how valuable it is to immerse your children in books and stories at home. A terrific resource for audio books is the free Libby app (link) from our public library.
One of our points of pride at Paul Banks during the first semester was the tremendous increase in family volunteers. This partnership is one that we appreciate tremendously. We hope to have more family volunteers this semester (volunteer application). We also look forward to building upon some of our family and community events from the first semester-Outdoor Classroom BBQ and Halloween Parade to name two-as we work to have an awesome second semester of this school year. As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
All the best,
Sean Campbell
