Dear Parents & Guardians,

Wow, what a crazy, busy, exhausting week. How are you doing? Ready for a relaxing a weekend? Were you able to join our Morning Meeting today and were you able to enjoy our Hat Day? It was terrific fun and I hope we can do this more often. Special thanks to our Arts Team along with Ms. Abby & Nurse Cassani for putting this together! I've included a link to the meeting right below in case you missed it.

Did you know today is National Lunch Heroes Day? This is based on one of our favorite authors, Jarrett Krosoczka's, School Lunch Hero books. It's a great day to celebrate and thank our Nutrition Program for the hundreds of breakfasts and lunches they are putting out each day.

I am sure you are wondering about next year and plans for 2020-21. Please know that both the school and district teams are continually working on them. You can imagine that there are many variables but we will do our best to communicate the next steps as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.

Hat Day is clearly a success, make sure your student or family (dog?) photos are in for next week! Email them to me at mtrifilio@sbschools.net. And stay tuned for more! I wanted to leave some photo space below for the cool work one of our art teachers, Sue Adamson, is putting out on her lawn. There was a nice evening news piece on Sue's neighborhood work. I'm leaving the link to it below.

Parents - our gym is neatly organized with student work and personal property. We can hand it off to you safely when you are ready to stop by. Remember the playground is still closed; be safe, be well, and take some time to read with your child.

Mark Trifilio

Hello Orchard families! Despite the change in venue for the last 3 months of school, we are still collecting photos for the Orchard School Memory Book. We are looking for photos of classroom activities, field trips, special school events, and your valiant efforts at homeschooling. Please send photos in their original or large size for optimal resolution. Photos can be emailed to MemoryBookOrchard@gmail.com. Thank you! Laura Smith and Carrie Lyon

Hope you all are well, look forward to hearing your thoughts on the above!

Be well!

Laura & Carrie

Our friends in Puppets in Education put out a video last month on Education Anxiety & COVID-19. Here is a terrific resource from them along with a link to their video. Check it out as a family, it's terrific!

Dear Orchard Community,

Many of you have kindly reached out to the PTO to ask how you can support our community and families in need during this challenging time.

Orchard has a well established 'Community Helpers Fund'. This fund has traditionally been used to support families in need in a variety of circumstances. A team at school including guidance counselors, our social worker and principal, among others, assesses family need and uses the fund to assist families.

Any contributions to the Community Helpers Fund are gratefully accepted at this time; please trust that our team at school will use these funds to help where it is most needed in our school community.

Check out the new resources (some shown below) on Orchard's Cool Tools for Schools web page. If needed for Scholastic, the username and password are case sensitive - Username- Learning20 and Password- Clifford

Enjoy!

Donna

Donna Sullivan-Macdonald

Library Media & Instructional Technology Specialist