Dear Oak Brook Families,

As we enter the month of November, students, staff and families have the opportunity to participate in multiple activities at Oak Brook that are near and dear to many of our families' hearts.

• On November 11th, we will welcome family and friends of our students and staff who have served, or are currently serving, in our nation's armed forces. During their last family day activity, our students made medals to present to our Veterans on this important day. More information about our medals and Veterans Day may be found below.
• We will also be sending information home for our annual Gift of Giving. Gift of Giving is a project families participate in to help brighten some of our Oak Brook families' holidays. This voluntary project allows us to support some of our own families who may need help at the holidays. More information will be coming home this week.
• We also have our Thankful Parties on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. This fall party allows our students and families the time to come together and enjoy some fun before we have our Thanksgiving break. On this day, our students and staff will take some time to talk about the importance of gratitude and work together to find things they are grateful for.

We hope you will take time this month to talk with your child about the importance of gratitude and giving back during this month. We can all do something to brighten the day of others.

Have a great day!

Sincerely,

Chris Shirley, Principal

Katie Terbrock, Assistant Principal

During our last 1/2 day, our school families made medals to give to the veterans who attend our Veterans Day ceremony. Many of our families report that this tradition has quickly become cherished among the veterans who attend our ceremony. Each veteran who attends will receive a medal. Any surplus medals are then donated to the VA along with socks during our sock drive our first grade students run later in the winter.

To see our students working on the medals, click on the link below.

At Oak Brook, we will be focusing on the following values during the month of October. These values will be used to guide classroom discussions during class meetings and other times throughout the day.

November 4 - Patriotism - Love that people feel for their country

November 11 - Service - Contributing to the welfare of others

November 18 - Empathy - Understanding and connecting to other people's feelings

November 25 - Gratitude - Choosing to appreciate the people and things in our life

While this video is from Memorial Day, the messages about patriotism are very important and can help you and your child talk about why patriotism is so important.

There are many ways we can help our children practice service. Below are some ideas that may help you get started.

• Go through your toys and find items to donate. Then, clean them up with Clorox Wipes, put all the pieces in a bag together and label it so it is ready for someone to enjoy. Ideally, if the kids are really making a sacrifice, it should be something they still like but no longer play with. It is important for them to realize the people they are donating to are just like them and appreciate things that are clean and work well.
• Take care of your mail person or UPS driver. Anytime is a great time to show a little extra love to those who are working especially hard. Take some candy bars to the post office and drop them by, leave a coke and a note for your UPS man, decorate your mailbox and leave a gift or gift card for your mail person.
• Earn money and donate. Find a cause that is important to your family. It is easy for kids to ask their parents to donate money, but it means so much more when the money is their own. Have your kids do small jobs around the house for quarters, your kids could do jobs for grandparents or hold a toy, bake, lemonade or hot chocolate sale. They could then donate for a cause that is important to them.
• Take care of the homeless. You can create blessing bags with essentials a homeless person may need all in a large Ziploc bag (one of our multi-age families did this last year) and take them to a downtown or urban area. You can make simple fleece blankets and deliver them to people who are living on the street or in shelters. You can drop new toys off at a homeless shelter where they can be distributed to those who are staying there.
• Remember those who are often forgotten. Have your child write a heartfelt note or give a gift to someone who may not often be noticed: a librarian, a custodian, a lunch worker, a garbageman, someone who might love to be remembered.
• Say thanks to a serviceman. As a family, bake treats for the police or firemen. Write notes to soldiers serving our country.
• Have a “Polite” day. Together, decide on a day when everyone will be especially polite to each person in their path. Hold doors, help with groceries, clean up, say “Please” and “Thank You,” compliment 10 people, do the right thing without being asked, make a new friend, ask someone to sit with you, smile and say hello to someone who looks sad. Report on how little things can make a big difference

We would love to hear how your family serves! Please share your great ideas with the rest of us!

Taking time to talk about empathy as a family can help our kids understand this trait that isn't always present in our world today. Remember that empathy is understanding and connecting with other people’s feelings. Below are a few ways you and your family can practice talk and learn about empathy together.

• Schedule a family movie night so that you can specifically watch for feelings and emotions. Let everyone know that you’d like them to point out how the characters in the show are feeling and that you will pause periodically to discuss empathy. As emotions are identified, invite one another to empathize by sharing about a time they felt that way or imagining how they might be feeling in that moment.
• Find a time to sit in a circle together and celebrate all the ways you have seen each other practice empathy. Take turns sharing responses to the following prompts or make up your own! Remember to practice empathy as you listen to each other. What is 1 way a family member has shown you empathy lately? Share about a time you stopped to look at a situation from someone else’s point of view.

In this video, an orphan from Sierra Leone shares about gratitude. His message of finding something to be grateful for is a strong message for this week of Thanksgiving. The Hartman family then shares a 10 penny challenge idea. Please consider giving this a try over the Thanksgiving break. At the end of the day, you will definitely have more than just 10 pennies.

We hope you find the following resources useful at home as we work together to continue developing our students into kids with strong character. You will find the following resources below:

• Oak Brook Pledge - We say this daily after the Pledge of Allegiance. This helps us remember to work at all times to demonstrate our school's core values.
• Expectations Matrix - We use these around our school to show what our core values look like in action around our school. You may use this at home to discuss what core values look like in your home.
• Obee's Choices - We began using these a few years ago to help our students solve small problems.

Below is a picture and a file with a blank matrix. We will also be sending a hard copy home for your use. To see examples of how we use this matrix for our expectations, you can click on our Eagle Expectations at the bottom of this newsletter.

One area we are working on with students is how to solve problems when they are small. So many times, children see every problem as a huge issue. We are trying to help our students learn many of the problems they encounter are small and may be solved on their own. To help with this, we outline small problems and big problems. We then use the Obee's choices chart to help students choose a way to solve the problem.

You may try to do the same at home. If you would like to use Obee's choices to help, please see the picture below.

Please feel free to contact us via email. We will get back to you as quickly as possible.

Mrs. Terbrock - kterbrock@parkwayschools.net

Dr. Shirley - cshirley@parkwayschools.net

Email: cshirley@parkwayschools.net
Website: https://www.parkwayschools.net/Domain/19
Location: 510 Big Bend Road, Ballwin, MO, USA
Phone: 314.415.6551
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OakBrookElementary/