Cardinal Connections

I wanted to take the time to congratulate a few students that I had the privilege of observing today in class. They all did a great job answering questions centered around "Adding/Subtracting Unlike Denominators" and Multiplication.

Ms. Laichalk's Class

- Kendra Price

- Michael Wilson

- Miley Bullis

- Amelia Stone

- Phoebe Pilarski

Mrs. Roddy's Class

- Jacob Torrez

- Cain Newman

- Burnell Cole

- Shanese Harris (Personal shout out to her for all the one-on-one Shanese has done with the Principal this week)

- Olivia Johnson

- Jianna Leon

I would also like to give a 'shout-out' to Ms. Laichalk & Mrs. Roddy for a job well done! You are working hard, and it shows up in all that you are doing.

Hello Families!

Things that are going on.....

• We will be hiring a new gym teacher by the time we come back from break.
• I will be meeting with different groups of students struggling with some foundational skills in math on Teams. I will be starting with 4th & 5th Grade.
• Student Material pick up went well and still going well. We only have a few that have not picked up their supplies. If you have not picked up supplies on our Material Pickup day, please know you can still come in to grab your items.
• Please know that students have to be in attendance every day. We have already begun to move forward with truancy in some classes.

A great big "Thank you!" to all of our parents who have sacrificed so much, rearranged work schedules, worked with our tech departments, and stayed in contact with teachers during our remote and hybrid learning times. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed by the Clinton Valley Staff. Remember to give yourself some grace and a pat on the back for your involvement in your student's education. It is so important and together we will ensure our students have great potential.

I hope you are all doing well and getting ready for the holidays! I just wanted to give you some ideas on increasing speech and language skills during mealtime.

1. Request Food: For the younger children, you can have them work on requesting objects by having him/her ask for all of the different foods for dinner/lunch/snack. If you want to make sure your child eats a little of everything, start by giving them a small portion of each food, and when they want more, they will have to ask for more.
2. Recall the Day’s Events: Talk about your child’s day during meals. I know that since everyone is remote, the days look the same, but maybe ask what their favorite part of their day was or something cool they learned. For older children, try sequencing events from the day by talking about what happened first, next, and last.
3. Good Speech Sound Time: For children working on specific target sounds, working on them a little at a time can be a great way to improve overall intelligibility. Set a time limit (10-15 min) and during that time, help them remember to use their good speech sounds. Working on speech sounds can decrease frustrations since it is only for a set amount of time.

Hello Staff,

This holiday season we will still be having our annual Giving Tree. For those that have not heard of the Giving Tree, it is an opportunity for us and our school families to help support our less fortunate school families through donated items specific to the children in that family in the form of gifts and clothing. This year, we will not be doing physical items due to the risk of exposure so we will instead be doing gift cards.

If you or someone you know would like to donate a gift card(s) to our students please observe the following polite request:

• Meijer, Kroger, or Target gift cards only.
• Gift cards no larger than $25 each. This will make it easier to split among families.
• The deadline to donate is December 11th. This gives you 2 weeks to shop!
• Leave in my mailbox or office but please label so I know it is for the Giving Tree.

A good majority of our needy families have already been helped through applications to the Good Shepherd coalition or Goodfellows. We will use these donated cards to reach out again to those not already being helped who are also on our Free/Reduced lunch list. If there are any remaining cards I'll keep them to distribute over the course of the year as needs are presented. This occurred with gift cards donated from a Clinton Township group and it turned out to be just what some families needed after losing their jobs to COVID closures after March.

A blurb will be put into the Cardinal Connection for all families so that those that wish to donate can and those that are in need can apply for help. If you have any questions please let me know. This program makes a HUGE difference in the lives of some of our students.

Thank you!