The Core

Hello Parents and Guardians,

Greetings everyone. We ended our week with an All-School Meeting and welcomed SBHS athlete leaders with Wyn the Wolf mascot. The SB athletes passed out wristbands to support their teams in this weekend's Homecoming Games. Students are welcome to the games and admission is free with the wristband! Information on the game schedule is listed below. Our students did a great job!

We practiced an evacuation drill on Thursday morning. The students did very well following adult directions and using their Core Values. Throughout the school year, we practice evacuation (aka fire drills) and Clear the Halls Drills. Clear the Halls drills are simply an announcement to have students stay in classrooms/offices so our teams can take care of a student (or adult) who may need emotional or medical assistance. We share that everyone may need a private moment and it is our responsibility to provide them with that dignity. We will also practice Secure the Building drills a couple of times throughout the school year. I'll share more information on this next month. Please see the attachment below with information for parents on how you can help in the event of an emergency.

You may not notice this but these two activities have a common thread with last week's Fun Run. We are seeing our students in large social group activities doing a really nice job of cooperating and having fun. This also includes this story: a Costco pharmacy tech came to Orchard and set up a tent on Wednesday to provide our staff with flu shots and booster vaccinations. The technician shared with me that while he was setting up, a wind gust came along and scattered his forms. Students at recess came to the rescue and left their games to help out - without being asked! Way to go Orchard students

Have a terrific weekend; take some time to read with your child.

Go Wolf Pack!

Mark T & Olivia K

October PTO Meeting

Save the date for Wednesday, October 19th at 6:30 PM to join us at our next PTO meeting. We will meet in the art room at Orchard to continue to discuss and plan upcoming activities. Your input is appreciated!

Reach out to orchardschoolvt@gmail.com for more information.

We occasionally get questions this time of year about allowing students to wear costumes to school on Halloween. Though teachers make their own decisions for class festivities, we ask students to keep their costumes at home. Here are some points to consider:

1. Students come to Orchard from many cultures that do not celebrate the day.
2. Students also come to Orchard from different economic means, sometimes creating unhealthy competitions frequently unfair for many children.
   
3. We've had gory costumes coming to school, just not appropriate.
   
4. The costumes would get wet, muddy and/or wrecked for trick-or-treating.
   
5. Finally, the costumes were too much of a distraction for learning—what schools are really about!
   

A few schools may still include costume parades but the vast majority have come to the same conclusion as us, thank you for understanding.

ACADEMIC & SOCIAL SUCCESS

The change of seasons is a good time to go back to basics~

Adequate Sleep - Nutritious Meals - Physical Activity

This week's focus: Nutritious Meals

VEGETABLES AND FRUIT: ½ of your plate

WHOLE GRAINS: ¼ of your plate

PROTEIN POWER: ¼ of your plate

HEALTHY PLANT OILS: In moderation

DRINK WATER

&

STAY ACTIVE!

Consider DIET QUALITY: for example, the type of carbohydrate is more important than the amount of carbohydrate (some carbohydrates—like vegetables [other than potatoes], fruits, whole grains, and beans—are healthier than others.)

Copyright © 2011, Harvard University. For more information about The Healthy Eating Plate, please see The Nutrition Source, Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, www.thenutritionsource.org, and Harvard Health Publications, www.health.harvard.edu.

ILLNESS GUIDANCE~

SBSD school nurses are still managing cases of COVID-19, although state guidelines have changed our approach, compared to the previous two years. We are once again using our clinical judgement and assessment skills, along with communication with families, to determine whether a student needs to be home due to illness or whether the student can remain at school with mild or improving symptoms. Please view our illness guidance HERE.

We also continue to promote the lessons we know so well:

STAY HOME WHEN SICK,

RESPIRATORY HYGIENE/COUGH ETIQUETTE

(covering, turning away from others, using tissues) and

FREQUENT HAND HYGIENE!

Be well,

Kara Cassani &

Sarah Pineda, School Nurses

Hello everyone!

My name is Kayli O’Donnell, I am this year’s Farm to School Director. This week at Orchard we learned about how plants are adapting to the seasonal shift- highlighting a crop that will keep coming off of the Common Roots farm until the very end of the growing season… Beets! We learned that the beetroot stores sweet sun-sugars captured and produced in the leaves, as well as vitamins and minerals drawn up from the soil by the lower roots.

We practiced our safe knife skills while cutting cucumber, parsley, and scallions for our salad. We also made a simple dressing with balsamic vinegar, maple syrup, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and salt, and emuslified it by shaking it up!

Students loved the color and sweetness of this fresh and unique salad.

October: Beets

Beet Cucumber Salad Makes 5 cups or 30+ tastes

Ingredients:

• 3 cups roasted diced beets (1 red, 1 golden, and 1 chioggia variety)
  
• 1 intact whole beet for discussion demo
  
• 2 cups (peeled if waxed) diced cucumber
  
• 1 cup pepitas
  
• ¼ cup chopped scallions
  
• 1/4 balsamic vinegar
  
• 2 tsp minced parsley
  
• 1 T maple syrup
  
• 1 T olive oil
  
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
  
• 1 tsp sea salt
  

If you have any questions about farm-to-school, please send me an email at kayli.odonnell@gmail.com.

Happy October!

Kayli O’Donnell

Hello Parents!

The 4th graders from Orchard School have prepared to present the fun Nourish to Flourish song at the Common Roots Jamboree!!!

Your child may know this song too! We hope you will come to our Common Roots Farmstand at South Village:

Common Roots is excited to present our 2nd Jack-O-Lantern Jamboree

Thursday, October 27th - 3-6 pm

Rain Date Friday, October 28th – 3-6 pm

Farm at South Village – park in the village streets; parking support is available

Walk up the farm road by following the pumpkins

Parking is limited, hence car pooling where possible is appreciated.

Note that the speed limit in the Village is 25.

Need your Pumpkin to Carve your Jack-O-Lantern?

Support Farm to School and stop by our Common Roots Farmstand at South Village (Spear Street and Allen Road East) Open Tuesday thru Sunday 10-6. We have beautiful pumpkins, fall harvest foods & more!

Thanks for joining us at the Jamboree!!! Check out the poster & invite your friends!

Joyfully,

Carol McQuillen

Co-Founder, Director

Common Roots

802-999-4270

carol@commonroots.org

http://www.commonroots.org

Mini Metro is a competitive club basketball program for players in grades 5-8. Games are played indoors every Sunday along with typically 2-3 practices each week. South Burlington is organizing both girls and boys teams at the 5-6th and 7-8th grade levels for the upcoming season, which is expected to start in late-October.

Details are still being developed by those coordinating the league, but we're reaching out to collect contact info for interested players at all levels. The registration form can be found here: Mini Metro Registration Form. Please complete by Friday, 10/7 as we're anticipating a tryout date the weekend of October 15-16.

We are open at our new location on 180 Market Street!

Hours:

Monday – Thursday: 10:00am – 7:00pm

Friday: 10:00am – 5:00pm

Saturday: 10:00am – 2:00pm

The Book Drop is available at our new location. It is to the RIGHT of the City Hall Drop Box, around the corner.