We are beyond THRILLED to introduce our very own podcast: Eagles Soar!

A completely student-driven initiative, Eagles Soar has been providing students choice for creating content and voice for raising ideas to a larger audience. It offers a platform to dabble in with some creative use of technical tools to make the podcast come alive. More importantly, the creation process offers intentional experience in student collaboration and cooperation.

It's been a messy process as with any creative endeavor is at the start, so we hope you embrace our product for its courage, creativity and compassion.

We meet every week for an hour on Wednesday mornings at 7:30 AM in the Library Learning Commons. We welcome any interested fifth-graders to raise their voice and let us know how they would like to participate in growing our podcast.

As part of our learning experiences in the Library Learning Commons, all grade K through 5 students immerse in our Digital Citizenship lessons starting in September ending around this time of the school year. Our big idea, "Digital Citizenship is the responsible use of technology to learn, create, and participate", drives our instruction as we explore grade-level appropriate digital citizenship lessons paired with literature appreciation lessons. Together, we dive into topics such as media balance & well-being, news & media literacy, and privacy & security.

While explicit instruction in digital citizenship behind us, we always circle back to and build onto the key points we have learned throughout our school year. Being a digital citizen is embedded in our teaching and learning DNA.

So proud that our 5th graders are once again participating in the districtwide Battle of the Books program. The school library reading program is designed to encourage our 5th graders to read quality literature over the summer months and continue reading in their leisure time during the school year. It aims to foster reading for pleasure. This will be our fourth consecutive year participating in the annual BoB competition since its inception in 2019-2020.

To date, all fifth-grades students participated in the first round of classroom-based competition, answering literature-based questions. Based solely on their final scores, the five class representatives along with an alternate in each classroom will now go onto battle to determine the final team that will represent our school at the district level.

Mark your calendars! The district-level Battle of Books will take place at Greenwich Public Library on Wednesday, January 25, 2023 at 6:30 PM with snow date of Wednesday, February 1 at 6:30 PM.

In October, we had two in-person author visits:

1. Early in October, author and fellow GPS colleague, Valerie Bolling visited our PreK-2 students. We loved listening to her brand new book, Ride, Roll, Run!, and also dancing along with her book Just Dance!
2. Later in the month, Sarah Albee spent an entire day at JC. Ms. Albee presented to Grades PreK-4, and then had the opportunity to have lunch with some of our Grade 4 students. We are forever grateful for our PTA's initiative and all the work that went behind in bringing Ms. Albee to JC. Both adults and students in our building LOVED her- her energy, enthusiasm, and knowledge of her audience were apparent. When we meet authors as such, we are always inspired in many ways.

Next week, we're looking forwarding to hosting author Jerry Pallotta of the Who Would Win fame!

In addition to in-person visits, we have been hosting LIVE Virtual Author visits in collaboration with Northshire Bookstore. To-date, we have participated in:

• Newbery Medalist Katherine Applegate launching her book: Odder
• Graphic Novelist Ira Marcks launching his book: Spirit Week
• Award winning author & illustrator Jon Klassen & Mac Barnett launching their book: The Three Billy Goats Gruff

This week, we're also looking forward to hosting Julia Buxbaum who has recently launched her novel: The Area 51 Files. In deep gratitude to our generous PTA, we purchased 25 copies of the book and will raffle it for our Grade 3-5 readers.

We welcomed November: Month of Gratitude with thoughts of kindness, displays of appreciation, and expressions of thankfulness. Every day in our Library Learning Commons, we indulged in a read-aloud of a different picture book around our theme of kindness.

Each day we posted the selection, using Twitter as our tool, expressing our gratitude for the authors and illustrators who brought their words and pictures into our lives .

Once again, JC students are joining millions of students across the globe in celebrating Computer Science Education Week, "an annual call action to inspire K-12 students to learn computer science, advocate for equity, and celebrate the contributions of students, teachers, and partners in the field" by participating in the Hour of Code.

Learn more at Hour of Code, try an hour yourself, it's quite a bit of fun!

'Tis the season! The Julian Curtiss Scholastic Book Fair, sponsored by our dedicated PTA, took place Monday, December 5 through Friday, December 9.

Set up in our Library Learning Commons, each classroom had the opportunity to spend a day for browsing and another day for buying the readers' wishlists.

Thank you for continuing to support our PTA! For every dollar spent at the Book Fair, half of it goes back into the classroom libraries. Our generous PTA also purchased two books for each teacher to include in their classroom libraries.

You can still shop the Book Fair online by visiting our school-specific Book Fair website. It's win-win

Email: esra_murray@greenwich.k12.ct.us
Website: https://www.greenwichschools.org/julian-curtiss-school
Location: 180 East Elm Street, Greenwich, CT, USA
Phone: (203) 869-1896
Twitter: @ezziemur