EMES School Newsletter
September 8th, 2023
What's Happening at EMES
So much has happened since last writing you. We had our all-school celebration of Cotton Candy at lunch, a visit from the East Montpelier snow plow, SS Snow Scout, a spectacular day of Gifts for Giving in the gym, and our first-ever Soup for the Soul dinner. November has been filled with so many reasons to be thankful here at EMES!
Speaking of being thankful, I'm so grateful for the time I get to spend with your children. This year, I've added reading aloud to classrooms, engaging in conversations about books, and tying our read-alouds into all-school writing pieces to the mix. Earlier this fall, students used their imaginations to write about a magic pebble, and each day in November they spent time writing about things they are thankful for. The culmination of this was another all-school writing piece about something/someone they are thankful for and how they feel when they think of them. Our teachers are using these writing pieces to calibrate their writing scoring, look at the progression of writing from K- 6, and dive deeper into the aspects of writing conventions that we need to focus on during instruction. Your children will bring home their daily thankful writing prompts this afternoon to share with their families over the Thanksgiving break.
I wish you all a wonderful, long Thanksgiving break with your littles. It's been a whirlwind of a fall with awesome learning, lots of fun together, and beautiful weather. We're looking forward to welcoming them all back in December!
Best,
Alicia
We made some changes to our annual Gifts for Giving and what was previously known as our Harvest Feast this year. After much reflection and conversation using a "Traditions Protocol" that looks at traditions through an equity lens, we consciously made the decision to make a few changes to these long held traditions.
Last winter, I read a variety of stories to students about winter holidays and traditions during our weekly PBIS meetings. It became clear that the practice of making gifts for loved ones just before the December break meant that some families who celebrate holidays in December that often take place earlier in the month were missed. We decided to move our GFG event up to the end of November so that students could take their gifts home in early December to share them with loved ones regardless of the timing of celebrations. Yesterday students from K-6 (Pre-K participated earlier this week) made beautiful gifts for loved ones around the theme of Light and Warmth. These gifts will be wrapped and brought home after next week's break.
In thinking about our Harvest Feast, a long standing EMES tradition, there are so many families who have taken time off from work to join our students for an annual lunch that typically happens in late November/early December. We've observed many beautiful opportunities through this luncheon as well as some barriers that we really felt needed attention. Cost is a factor for many and we were charging for families to participate in this lunch. Getting out of work was another factor that we believe prohibited some folks from being able to join. For these reasons, we decided to move the event to the evening when most families were out of work, and to provide the meal at no cost to families (the proceeds from this year's Monster Mash paid for the food). We were so pleased with the outcome of last night's first ever Soup for the Soul dinner. We served about 200 meals and heard positive feedback from families and children alike. If you'd like to offer any feedback you think may be helpful to us as we think ahead to next year, please do! We always strive to reflect on our practices and improve them in any way we can!
